Project: 2003 BMW M3

[ScottyB]

sounds like a classic high strung 6, put a fork in it, you're good!

[*insertusernamehere*]

Delicious.

[Senor_Taylor]

Did we mention that Stephen was dumb enough to let me drive this thing the other day? Coolest car I've ever driven! Religious experience. I still need to buy him some carpet cleaner to get all of that splooge out.

[RawrImAMonster]

Looks like my car caught pink eye the other day. New replacement bulb is on the way. Phillips sells them for about 45 bucks so it wasn't too big of an issue.

Other than that I don't have any real updates at the moment. The car has continued to be perfectly reliable. I'm still waiting on the 5k mark on this oil change to send in a sample to see how my rod bearings are doing. Hopefully I can put those off until much later next year.

My rear tires are just about shot so I'm going to be looking at picking up a set of 18 inch wheels and tires soon. At this point I'm thinking arc 8's with 265 Michelin PSS's all around.

The plan for this winter is:
Wheels and tires
Eibach Pro-Street S coilovers (these are still getting really good reviews)
New rotors/pads and brake fluid
New headlight lenses and angel eyes

I'm going to be closing on a house with a garage in the next couple of weeks so the M3 will have a new home. Definitely planning on putting one of those mobile lifts in the garage at some point as long as I have enough height.

Hopefully I can still get all of these items taken care of before next summer with the house expenses. If I do, it should finally be ready to take out for a few track sessions.

Pink eye:

[SlimKlim]

Did you swap the ballast over to make sure it's actually the bulb?

[RawrImAMonster]

Nah, I'm pretty sure HID's turning weird colors like that is almost always the bulb. I'll find out tonight if I have time to change it before it gets dark. It's been getting slowly more and more discolored over the last month.

[SlimKlim]

Gotcha, luckily they're pretty easy to replace on those.

[Jake]

My dad's Infiniti turned pink before the bulb died, I think ballast problems are more apparent if you are dealing with flickering or not illuminating at all. Could be wrong though.

[RawrImAMonster]

Looks like the new bulb fixed it. The new one is slightly yellower than the one in the passenger side. I'm not sure if it's just a difference in brands or if the passenger side has a different temp bulb and I just never noticed that they were slightly off until now. Maybe HID bulbs have to burn in before they get to their final color. Either way, it's close enough that you wouldn't notice unless you're looking for it so I'll probably leave it alone.

[WRXtranceformed]

Yeah bulbs do change and dim over time, it could be a combination of that and the different brand.

[davej]

The s4 got pink eye also, wasn't bad swapping the bulb out but the warnings of 'don't touch the bulb' had me sweating like I was playing Operation as I was trying to snake my arm in there

[RawrImAMonster]

Replaced my headlight lenses over the weekend. I had tried to clean them up before by sanding/polishing, but they were just too far gone. New lenses made a huge difference.

Otherwise, I haven't changed or had to fix anything recently. I'm thinking wheels/tires/coilovers are in the near future though

New on the right, old on the left


Both new and freshly washed

[D_Eclipse9916]

Replaced my headlight lenses over the weekend. I had tried to clean them up before by sanding/polishing, but they were just too far gone. New lenses made a huge difference.

Otherwise, I haven't changed or had to fix anything recently. I'm thinking wheels/tires/coilovers are in the near future though

New on the right, old on the left


Both new and freshly washed

Truly is amazing how simple lenses change the "new"ness look of the car.

[RawrImAMonster]

So, I'm getting very close to ordering suspension and wheels/tires for this thing. I'm still planning on going with the Eibach Pro-street S coilovers as they continue to get great reviews from everyone running them on the forums. For wheels/tires I'm going with Michelin PSS and Apex ARC-8's.

The thing I'm undecided on is whether or not I want to go with a square setup or staggered. Considering I'm not really planning on ever getting into tracking or autocrossing competitively, I don't know that a squared setup is worth it.

The stock setup is:
225/40/19, circumference: 82.0"
255/35/19, circumference: 81.8"

Ideally, you want to stay close to the same tire circumferences so that DSC is happy and your odometer is accurate, but I don't put enough miles on the car to really worry about the second point.

The options I have looked at are:
Staggered
18x9et30 and 245/40/18, circumference: 80.4"
18x9.5et22 and 275/35/18, circumference: 80.8"

Squared (~12mm spacer in the back):
18x9.5et35 and 265/35/18, circumference 79.5"
and
18x9.5et35 and 255/40/18, circumference: 81.8"

For the square setup, the 255's would be ideal for a completely street driven car. They circumference is as close as you're going to get and 255's upfront shouldn't tramline too bad. 265's would make the speedometer read fast and make the odometer rack up miles faster than it should. 265's upfront may also require more camber than my stock setup will allow to not rub depending on how much I lower the car.

For the staggered setup, 245's definitely wouldn't tramline much and would have no fitment issues. 275's out back shouldn't be a problem either. The speedometer/odometer would be a little faster than normal, but not as much as the 265 square setup.

Overall, I'm just not 100% sure which direction I want to go in yet. Staggered is the easy button. That setup will work for sure with few issues. Square might cause a good bit of tramlining, which I would like to avoid.


As far as suspension goes, are there any stock parts I need to replace while I have everything torn apart? I know ideally I should do fcab's and rtab's, but the car feels pretty solid right now and I'm spending a lot of other money with all the house stuff at the moment so I think they can wait.

[Beej]

18x19.5 et35 (12.5mm spacers in rear) with 275/35's here.

I hadn't run them in awhile when I put them on for the last autocross - the car did tramline quite a bit (on parts of 64, IIRC, it was actually annoying), way different than the 245/275's on my 19's. Funny thing is I don't remember it being too bad when I ran them for a year or so straight. Car feels way more athletic with the 18's/R-S3's, though, so it sort of makes up for it.

Plus, same concavity front/rear looks cool. 8)

As for while-you're-in-there stuff, I'd only replace stuff if it looked/felt bad. The bushings you mentioned, check the ball joints, sway bar links, upper strut bearings (those Eibach's come will camber plates?). Maybe rear shock mounts, but if they're installed correctly I don't think the OE ones are all that bad.

[RawrImAMonster]

18x19.5 et35 (12.5mm spacers in rear) with 275/35's here.

I hadn't run them in awhile when I put them on for the last autocross - the car did tramline quite a bit (on parts of 64, IIRC, it was actually annoying), way different than the 245/275's on my 19's. Funny thing is I don't remember it being too bad when I ran them for a year or so straight. Car feels way more athletic with the 18's/R-S3's, though, so it sort of makes up for it.

Plus, same concavity front/rear looks cool. 8)

As for while-you're-in-there stuff, I'd only replace stuff if it looked/felt bad. The bushings you mentioned, check the ball joints, sway bar links, upper strut bearings (those Eibach's come will camber plates?). Maybe rear shock mounts, but if they're installed correctly I don't think the OE ones are all that bad.

Can you post some pictures of your front wheels from the front and back? Just trying to see how much the tire is going to stick out. Do you know how much camber you're running up front? I'm definitely not going bigger than 265 for the front.

18x9 and 18x9.5 have the same concavity according to Apex's website so it won't really look like a staggered setup if I got that route.

The Eibach's don't come with camber plates. They use the stock hardware as far as I know.

[Beej]

no doubt no doubt

Front camber is -3 on the nose, no fender rolling at either end. I haven't a clue how people fit et22 9.5's up there with a reasonable alignment.

I guess I don't have any straight-on front/rear shots:

Above picture may not be -3, I forget where the camber plates were set at back then.



What color you gonna go with?

[RawrImAMonster]

That looks like they stick out pretty far. Do you have any issues with the tires throwing rocks up along the side of the car?

I'm going with hyper black, 2nd from the left. Hyper silver is a little too bright for my tastes.

[Beej]

That looks like they stick out pretty far. Do you have any issues with the tires throwing rocks up along the side of the car?

Just went out and had a look. Car is dirty and silver hides imperfections, but the paint still looks good; doesn't look like it's beat up or anything. Other than the R-S3's throwing a lot more debris around in the wheel well than 'normal' street tires, I don't really notice a difference when driving either, though I'm not sure I would.

[SlimKlim]

Lol I should take a photo of the leading edge of my side skirts for you guys. They look like the nose of a space shuttle after reentry, no paint left whatsoever.