Real Fiero Tech

Unfortunately not on the road yet. I just haven't had time to post updates. On Friday I did the valve adjustment and replaced the spark plugs. I think the plugs were original... Here is new vs old!



I spent all day at my sister's on Saturday and then got back to work on the car on Sunday with the help of The Poi. We spent 5 hours on rear suspension and trailing link bushings.. Couldn't find the RTAB extractor (shop was on vacation) so we had to improvise.. Then found out they sent two different bushings. They were mispackaged. Managed to find another and press it in.

We got the rear end back together and moved the car onto the scales. This is the weight without me in the car:



With me in the driver's seat:



Fuel level:



Since the crossweight is perfect with me in the car we made no adjustments.

Then we moved the car on to the alignment rack. This Hunter laser system is awesome. You can see the effects of your adjustments as you make them. The system works by imaging these space age looking targets that clamp onto the rims.


Front end alignment was easy.. Moved on to the rear... Fuck! We missed a bent control arm in the inspection.


If you've ever replaced a lower left rear control arm on an E46 M3 you know what this means. The diff has to be dropped partway out to remove the inner bolt. 5 hours later we had a spare arm installed, maxed out the camber, set the toe, and.. Wtf? Only -0.5 deg camber per side. Can't get more. Something funky going on in the rear of this car. Here are the final alignment settings; ignore the front toe, the steering wheel got turned. It's set to zero up front. We finished at 3 AM...


(Note that positive toe is toe "in")


No more time to work on mechanicals now. At least the rear end is stable now that I have fresh RTABs and limiters. It also drives straight with the steering wheel straight. Maybe I'll find out something about the rear camber while on the trip.

Today I added the car to my insurance and took care of the title and registration at AAA then picked up all my tools and spare parts in Irvine and got a few more spares ordered (coils, oil, coolant hose, etc).
Porterfield still doesn't have anything for the M3 except PFC 11s so I ordered HT-10s from Tire Rack and they will be here tomorrow. I thought they didnt have them when I checked before, but they were in stock and about the same price as Porterfield would have been with the NASA member discount.

In other news, my UPS package that seemed to have been lost since last Tuesday showed up today with my Schroth Quick Fit Pro harness. It's a 4-point harness with Shcroth's anti-submarining (ASM) technology that uses a stretchier shoulder belt on one side to cause your body to twist in a crash like a 3-point belt does. This reduces the probability that you slide under the lap belts. The harness is designed to bolt directly into the OE attachment points on the E46 and works with the stock seat and even takes advantage of the stock pre-tensioners. It's even been sled-tested with a HANS device (video). Sounds good to me!

Starting the vinyl wrap tomorrow to so I don't ruin my paint on this trip.

Aaron wrote:If you want to rebuild the VANOS while you're at my place we can!

That just might work. I'll bring all the parts.

Series8217 wrote: We got the rear end back together and moved the car onto the scales. This is the weight without me in the car:



With me in the driver's seat:

I am literally two of you.

I've wondered for a while what E46 M3's actually weighed.

Is the E46 tank under the back seat or behind the axle?

The plastic fuel tank is in front of the rear axle / under the back seat.

What about the non-plastic one?

My g/f's Audi has a plastic tank that sits right on top of the rear suspension. We had to remove it to repair a PCV system connection integral to the tank. Feh.

Wrap completed! (well, except for the mirrors)

Fender trimmed and stretched:


Almost done with the fender:


Fender wrapped and trim reinstalled:


Door trimmed and stretched:


Hood wrapped (no in progress pics; it was pretty straightforward):


Hood wrapped:


Wrapping the passenger front fender:


Wrapping the passenger door:


Passenger door done:


Starting the front bumper.. this one sucked to do, and I had to make some relief cuts where I didn't want to:


My friend Dan helping with the decklid:


Wrap completed!


GRM sticker hanging out in the Hofmeister kink:

Looking good.

What do you mean by "relief cut"?

Not my thing, but at least the paint's protected.

Awesome.

How many failing marks did it get for NC inspection?

Figured out the rear camber problem... we accidentally flipped the RTAB brackets from side to side. They'll fit on opposite sides flipped over. This moves the pickup point down and changes the geometry and the maximum possible camber curve a bit. Whoops! All fixed now.

You need to work on getting the pics that you took up, I'm looking forward to seeing them!

I'm moving to a new house right now; it's going to be a little while.

Your company got their grant straightened out, right?

Yup, I'm working again.

Oh hey, look what I found on the front page of grassrootsmotorsports.com!

Those of you that I saw in the past couple months know what's up, and I dropped some hints in this thread but I know I haven't really talked about my trip on this forum. My landlord called me while I was on my trip to tell me he was selling the house, so I've been busy moving instead of going through pictures and doing the trip writeups. I'll be working on that in the coming weeks.

where was the pic taken? And congrats on yet another car of yours getting mention by GRM

Congrats man, the traveling across the country racing makes for a great story.

Don't remember if this came up when you were going through P'cola or not... but you've heard of CSL rear lower arms, right?

BMW PN 33322283074

#5:

Can't get those anymore, even from BMW. I think they were discontinued a couple years ago. There are plenty of similar aftermarket ones though.

Hmm... interesting. I guess that's not surprising considering the CSL's limited production numbers.

I know there are aftermarket pieces... do any of them use BMW's sealed ball joints or are they all rod ends?

I've been wondering about finding some raw fittings like the housings into which the ball joints are pressed... You don't have any leads right off do you?