99 BMW 323is Track/Autox/Project/Fun car

Dang, did the PO spill coffee down both sides or is that just dirt?

Ya it must be coffee or soda, something like that, very sticky...

So I was looking around the under side of the car while I had it on jack stands to change the oil and noticed that I need new front control arm bushings. Also noticed the rear camber arm was bent on the passenger side so thats next on the list to replace.

Bent: Supposed to look like this:

Also found my extension I dropped in the engine bay a month or so ago, been riding around like this for a while!

If the car is ever flatbeded, be sure they don't wrap a strap aroundthe rear control arm. That's just one way they get bent. Mine was bent on my E36 (328is).

So I have been fixing some small things here and there and I got to autox it yesterday and it was a ton of fun. Not super fast but thats more me then the car. It developed a valve tick after my first run but another driver that worked at a BMW performance shop said they tend to do that and its just a valve getting slightly stuck. He said it was no big deal and that it would go away after it ran for a bit and it did. He also told me to use some thicker oil next time so I added some lucas oil in for now and will hunt for some thicker stuff when I change the oil next. I will try to add some pictures soon.

Got the short shift and new bushings installed, so much better. Went ahead and dropped the exhaust and drive shaft to make room and it made things a lot easier. Nice crisp, short shifts now very similar to the WRX with the factory short shift option. I used the understeer short shift kit with the 40% throw reduction and delrin carrier bushings. From what I have read the shift coupling is one of the most important pieces for keeping everything tight, replaced that as well with an oem piece. Now I need to get rid of the clutch delay valve and throw a stainless braided clutch line in to round out my shifting/clutch upgrades.

The last photo is the old shift coupler and the new one, the foam inside keeps things tight and as you can see there is no foam what so ever left in the old piece.

Nice work. How obnoxious was it with no exhaust?

Yes it was! So decided to cut the muffler open, gut it, put in some perforated pipe and weld it back up. I saw this on several BMW forums and heard some videos and it sounded good so what the heck. Cost $60 for the pipe.

Stock M3 muffler:

The inside:

The pipe (forgot to get a shot of it welded in place but I think you can figure that bit out)

Welded back together:

Pretty decent for a new welder if I do say so (not all of the welds look like this)

And my new Eastwood 135 that has done everything I have asked it to. Using 75% argon and 25% co2.

Welding it back up gave me a lot of practice that I really needed. Luckily its under the car and cant be seen... also I painted the welds to protect from the dreaded rot.

Here is a little video from my autocross:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-NC52ulp3g

nice! I miss my 98 325is!

Love the stance of the car! looks freaking sweet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJCCmJ6_KFk&feature=youtu.be

Here is a video of how the exhaust sounds. Not too bad, a little rasp and a lot of straight six goodness.

Went and picked up a 99 M3 rear sway bar this weekend and a 3.23 limited slip diff from the same car. I still have the 3.15 lsd that I will sell. I wanted to 3.23 gears to begin with but bought the 3.15 but oh, well worked out in the end.

I also ordered new camber arms, pretty much every bushing for the rear end, and subframe reinforcements that I will weld in. Going to be a big undertaking but pretty much everything is coming out of the back of the car. Anything else I should do while I'm back there?

I made a front bracket for my new 3.23 lsd dif since the bolt is known to break. The 3.15 lsd I have already had one installed. I also started to weld the reinforcements on the camber arms. Just waiting for one more shipment to arrive before I start to tear into the rear end.

Here is the diff with the support:

Here is the 3.23 without the support:

Here is my "custom" support:

One of my bushings was back ordered so my large parts order hadn't even shipped yet. I called and got it sorted out so I should be able to start in on the rear end in the next week or two. Shout out to ECS Tuning for helping me out and giving me free shipping for my wait.

Muffler sounds good. Your welding looks decent, even up close.

How dense was that foam in the shift coupler? Naturally, it was long gone on my E30. I just stacked 3 little cutouts I made from some foam weather stripping. Seemed to take the slop out.

The foam was very dense, not very spongy at all.

Gotcha, I bet my weather stripping won't last too long then.

New camber arms (with reinforcements), all new bushings, poly trailing arm bushings, sub frame reinforcements, and sway bar mount reinforcements. Not pictured: M3 3.23 lsd, M3 sway bar, and new fluid for the dif. Its going to be a multi day project that I will be starting later today.

I'm a little bit over half way done with the rear suspension over haul. 6 bushing done (thanks to my buddys press) 4 to go. Sub frame and sway bar reinforcements welded in, camber arms still need to be welded. Then i just need to put it all back together.

Sway bar reinforcements:

Before:

After:

Here is a shot of the stock sway bar vs the M3 bar, should be able to feel a difference.

Nice looking welds!

Those look good, I didn't show the ones under the car

Here is a shot of the reinforced camber arm:

and here are three diffs I was swapping parts around on

I'm about to go out and finish buttoning everything up since I finally got the correct bushings in the mail yesterday. Pretty excited to see what kind of difference I can feel.

Tried to install the last two bushings and cant get them to go in. With only 4 hours of sleep last night I got pissed off real fast and stopped. Also all three batteries for my drill ran out. Not fun. Try again tomorrow.