Baby BMW

[Nugs]

Thought I would do a showcase on the daily.
After having engine failure in my E90 M3 I was looking for a new daily, prerequisites were practical (4 or 5 door for child seat), RWD, manual, bit of poke.
Basically left three options for reasonable money Falcon, Commodore, BMW, and after ruling out the Aussie options I ended up with another BMW.

M140i Performance edition, which basically got the full M performance catalogue bolted on (exhaust, wheels, Alcantara and CF interior, CF mirrors, spoiler, black grilles etc) but most importantly a LSD.







Of course I can’t leave things alone so immediately threw on the TE37s I still had lying around from my old 135i.





Then took it to Collie

















and vids




I was pretty impressed with how it performed bone stock (apart from wheels with stretched stock tyres on them).
I managed a 54.70 with a passenger on board after less than a dozen laps.

Then I took it Barbagallo














And managed a 68.9, not in this video.


Car felt like it had much more potential, just needed more camber, better tyres, better dampers, pads and fluid.

So of course nek minnit
-Ohlins Road and Track coilovers with Swift springs and Vorschlag camber plates
-Endless MX72 pads and RF650 fluid.
-Schroth quik fit pro harness

And yesterdays addition



Advans GTs and AD08Rs
Front: 18x8.5et35 with 225/40/18
Rear: 18x9 et52 with 255/35/18

So far I don’t feel like I’ve ruined it as a daily, I do get a bit more road noise from the camber plates but other than that it drives like stock but with more grip and better damping.

Will hopefull get back on track in Feb and see what it can do.



And because I have some kind of sickness I bought another old BMW as well

[180SXTCY]

what was the cause of the engine failure in the E90 M3?

[Nugs]

Main bearing failure.

[Byah!]

that's a common one right? some people replace these @100km?

[Nugs]

that's a common one right? some people replace these @100km?

Main bearing failure is not really common except on supercharged cars.

Rod bearings are quite common, I had already changed those 6 months earlier.
This is what they looked like after ~88,000kms

[HotAe92]

That's a quick little daily! Good amount of torque to be able to sit in 3rd for the most part of Collie (short).

Have always liked what you have chose to occupy space in the garage - I think we share a fairly similar taste in vehicle!

[Nugs]

Yeah it's peppy, advertised as 250kw and 500nm but think that might be on a bad day.
It's enough for the chassis anyway, and after my previous frustrating experience getting more power out of a turbo BMW I am going to leave the drive train alone.

[Damo 69]

will this be cheating at cheatwars?

[Lonewolf]

It's enough for the chassis anyway, and after my previous frustrating experience getting more power out of a turbo BMW I am going to leave the drive train alone.

quoted for reference

Allllll the beemers!

[Nugs]

will this be cheating at cheatwars?

Nah just going to chop you in the drop top again.
Like this

[Nugs]

Go back out on track last Thursday.
All went well but was really hoping for a 67.
Managed a few 68.4s instead.

[Rajvosa]

weapon! love it mate

[Sampy36]

Very clean looking car mate!

[1aaron]

Some nice driving there mate.

What software do you use for the video, data overlays, etc?

[Nugs]

I'm running Harry's lap timer on my phone with an external GPS, it's usually accurate down to a hundredth.
The video is straight from a Garmin Virb which has built in GPS (not as accurate) and software that let's you choose and set out the overlays.

Also got a pic from the night courtesy of Loke Chia Photography, it really captures my extended eye brow ridge.

[karnage]

That's an awesome video! Car sounded good coming down the straight too

[Nugs]

Couple of updates,
Despite having the M Performance Exhaust I still thought it was a bit quiet.
These have a muffler and a resonator in the mid pipe so I had one cut one out.




Adds a little more noise without being obnoxious, he also managed to get the stupid tips straight which I couldn't do.

Went to Infinte Time Attack last night, was a nice cool night and track felt grippy despite the afternoon rain.

Managed a new PB of 67.6 which is much better than I was expecting.



This session doesn't have the fastest lap (still did 67.8) but was the most fun trying to keep up with a R35.

[S13]

still surprised how good this thing goes

proper tyres on there and its a low 66 easy, looking at those speeds really only thing holding it back is top end for a 65!

who needs a proper track car ...

[Nugs]

R comps, pull out some weight (it's 1550kgs!) and a tune (not currently available) and I wouldn't be suprised if it was knocking on 65s.
Not going further down that rabbit hole though, happy with the current set up.

It suprised me as well, that is the same time I ran in the E36 on A050s.
It does feel heavy and not as natural to drive as the e36 and throttle respones is doughy compared to a NA engine with individual throttle bodies.
Power helps, on the respective fastest laps I hit 211kmh in the M140i and 193kmh in the E36.

[karnage]

Was this at the WASCC tuning day on Friday 13th during the day?

[Nugs]

Infinite Time Attack on the Thursday night.

[[FFOUR]]

Very impressive times, especially on road tyres!

Good looking car too, well done.

[Nugs]

Took this down to Whoop Ass Wednesday just out of curiosity.
I am not much of a drag racer and I struggled to get off the line with out bogging down or axle tramping. I felt like I really only got one half decent launch which got me 1.8 second 60' and my quickest run of 12.7@105mph.

I also encountered some kind of shift bog. After a quick gear change it sometimes felt like the car held back for half a second before actually going full throttle.
I'm guessing it's some kind of ECU torque limiter to protect the drivetrain but it was very noticeable and bad enough that my MPH varied from 105mph to 111mph, which is a bit slower than I expected.
I haven't encountered this on the street, or even on a proper bendy track, as I don't try to shift as quickly.

It was interesting to get some numbers but probably not going to bother taking it to the strip again.



I put the quickest run up on Youtube.

[Nugs]

Not much action with this.
I changed the rear springs for some softer ones, and did figure out my 17" e36 wheels with A050s will fit with just a spacer up front and some modification of the rear brake pads.







Just need to figure out when I am going to get out on track to test.

Also the ECU for these has finally been cracked.
Finding it very tempting to order a downpipe and a tune.

[Nugs]

So I pretty much ordered a tune as soon as they were available.

I have been running the Mission Performance tune for the last two weeks.
I’ve been happy with the drivability, drives like stock but just with more everywhere and much more up top when I’ve had the chance to wind it out.

Finally got a chance to get the car on the dyno this morning and the results were better than I expected.
The car has the stock intake with a K&N filter and stock downpipe, running 98.

We did three power runs with tune loaded and all were very consistent around 390whp, best was 391.8whp.
Flashed it back to stock while still strapped down and did three runs, once again all very consistent with the best being 307.4whp.

So 84 wheel horsepower gain from just a tune on all stock hardware.
Can't complain about that.

The tune also runs safer AFRs than the stock tune which stay around 14-15:1 the whole way.
We couldn’t find somewhere to tap into to get a boost reading, but going off my P3 ODB gauge it looks like peak boost went from 12 to 18psi.

I’ve ordered a high flow catted downpipe to help it breathe a bit better. So will go back once that is on.