Hi,
This is my Z4. Its a pre facelift 3.0i, so with the m54b30 engine.
I'm obviously a dutchman and mostly active on the dutch z3/z4 forum, but I thought it would be nice to show my car here.
I have it for quite some time now; since apr. 2010, so 7 years now.
I've done quite a lot to the car over the years to modify it to my taste. Its somewhat a continously work in progress.
I've bought it in Germany and imported it myself. It spent its previous life in the southern heart of Germany close to the Swiss border.
Here with german export plates:
It has most factory options fitted: satnav professional, extended leather, hifi professional, M sportseats, mulitfunction steering wheel, xenon lights, autodip mirrors etc (lr90594 for the people who want to do a vin check)
Soon after I bought it the modding virus got hold of me. First some small jobs: removing the cdv, fitting a rear aero diffuser, painting brake calipers.
I do all the work myself on the car; for me thats half the fun (maybe even all the fun
)
After driving it for little over half a year I decided I wanted a limited slip differential. I chose a Quaife ATB LSD
This was februari 2011
This is the inner Quaife diff next to the original open diff:
Fitting the diff is pretty special work. You need a very big bearing puller to get the bearings off:
To get those bearings off you first need to wack a chisel inbetween the bearing race and diff to get it started (a bit like breaking a taper).
Also with the Quaife diff you have to completely disassemble it and reassemble it in the outer diff casing; otherwise you cant get it in
When its all togheter, you measure the backlash with a micrometer to check for the right tolerance:
The LSD makes a huge difference in driving, and it works extremely well with the traction control and esp mode. Because the diff locks both wheels when loosing tracktion, it also takes much longer before the traction control/ESP ecu decides its time to intervene. This was my initial problem/annoyance: when the ESP/TC intervenes, its pretty abrupt and strong. Back when the z4 was develloped these systems were still pretty new so not much perfection.
After this I decided to do something about the power output from the engine and I bought this in august 2011:
An ESS TS2 supercharger.
Its a twin screw supercharger based on a Lysholm unit with Laminova heat exchangers in the manifold through which runs cooling liquid to a small radiator in the front by use of an extra electric waterpump.
Its a pretty complex kit to fit with all the piping, brackets, adaptation of original parts etc etc.
But here a few pictures:
Removal of the original inlet manifold, original wire loom is adapted:
Supercharger fitted (still parts missing):
At the same time I fitted Powerflex front control arm bushings:
And it was the first time I cleaned/renovated my starter motor:
Loads of carbon dust from the brushes (more on that later....these starters dont have the eternal life!)
startermotorparts cleaned:
After all this I decided to do something to my brakes (september 2012)
I wanted to have BMW performance brakes. They are based on 6 piston brembo calipers (front) and 2 piston brembo's rear.
The front brakes were easy; this is basically a ready to fit kit from ECS tuning:
The rear brakes proved to be more difficult. When I bought the front brake kit in the US ECS tuning had the matching rear calipers on sale (about 50quid/piece with the dollar exchange rate back then...
) so obviously I bought them.
But its not a direct fit; far from it.
First of all I had to decide on a brake disc. When measuring up, the calipers had the same lug hole spacing as the stock calipers, but were clearly for a bigger disc.
I chose a X3 disc (which is about 25mm larger than oem), which as about the same disc hat offset as the z4 oem disc.
First of all I had to make some spacers to properly align the calipers to the disc:
Also the disc had an inner lip I had to remove on the lathe:
View: https://youtu.be/g2Rs5WfM2OI
Most work was done on making the parking brake work. All bmw discs larger than 300mm have a bigger inner parking brake (parking brake is a little drum brake that is situated in the hat of the brake disc.
So first make a bigger rear brake plate to accomodate the larger disc (I used an e46 330i plate which I adapted:
I also had to put a little riser plate on that to better align the new brake shoes. I modified a riser plate from an 130i (which has such a system, also like the e60 5 series):
I welded some custom brake shoes: e46 330i brake shoes, but with a part of the oem brake shoes welded into them to make sure they were hold in by the protrusions on the trailing arm:
Finally fitted:
Took about 2 weeks of my spare time (evenings, weekends) to re-invent this wheel (or brake...).... I guess thats why they call it a hobby
Next on the list was perfecting the exhaust system, and mainly the exhaust manifold; this was in may 2013. The m54 exhaust manifold with build in catalytic converter is a known restrictive part, especially with the added horsepower of the supercharger. So I decided to install stainless headers and high flow catalytic converters.
Here you can see the restrictive part of the oem headers at the top of the catalytic converters (the inner diameter is maybe only 30mm for 3 cylinders), compared with the high flow headers from Schmiedmann.
The schmiedmann kit I used is originally ment for an e46 with 5 speed, so it had to be adapted to fit the Z4:
Making little V cuts and tackwelding them to realign the piping under the car
Finishing the joints with backing shieldgas:
All fitted:
You see the high flow 200cel cats are now relocated under the car (where the original mid muffler was).
Eventually I had the stainless steel headers also ceramic coated to give it more heat shielding.
Although the rear muffler is still original, this exhaust setup is pretty loud. High flow headers make sure that exhaust sound also flows less restricted to the exhaust tips.
This is my Z4. Its a pre facelift 3.0i, so with the m54b30 engine.
I'm obviously a dutchman and mostly active on the dutch z3/z4 forum, but I thought it would be nice to show my car here.
I have it for quite some time now; since apr. 2010, so 7 years now.
I've done quite a lot to the car over the years to modify it to my taste. Its somewhat a continously work in progress.
I've bought it in Germany and imported it myself. It spent its previous life in the southern heart of Germany close to the Swiss border.
Here with german export plates:
It has most factory options fitted: satnav professional, extended leather, hifi professional, M sportseats, mulitfunction steering wheel, xenon lights, autodip mirrors etc (lr90594 for the people who want to do a vin check)
Soon after I bought it the modding virus got hold of me. First some small jobs: removing the cdv, fitting a rear aero diffuser, painting brake calipers.
I do all the work myself on the car; for me thats half the fun (maybe even all the fun
)After driving it for little over half a year I decided I wanted a limited slip differential. I chose a Quaife ATB LSD
This was februari 2011
This is the inner Quaife diff next to the original open diff:
Fitting the diff is pretty special work. You need a very big bearing puller to get the bearings off:
To get those bearings off you first need to wack a chisel inbetween the bearing race and diff to get it started (a bit like breaking a taper).
Also with the Quaife diff you have to completely disassemble it and reassemble it in the outer diff casing; otherwise you cant get it in
When its all togheter, you measure the backlash with a micrometer to check for the right tolerance:
The LSD makes a huge difference in driving, and it works extremely well with the traction control and esp mode. Because the diff locks both wheels when loosing tracktion, it also takes much longer before the traction control/ESP ecu decides its time to intervene. This was my initial problem/annoyance: when the ESP/TC intervenes, its pretty abrupt and strong. Back when the z4 was develloped these systems were still pretty new so not much perfection.
After this I decided to do something about the power output from the engine and I bought this in august 2011:
An ESS TS2 supercharger.
Its a twin screw supercharger based on a Lysholm unit with Laminova heat exchangers in the manifold through which runs cooling liquid to a small radiator in the front by use of an extra electric waterpump.
Its a pretty complex kit to fit with all the piping, brackets, adaptation of original parts etc etc.
But here a few pictures:
Removal of the original inlet manifold, original wire loom is adapted:
Supercharger fitted (still parts missing):
At the same time I fitted Powerflex front control arm bushings:
And it was the first time I cleaned/renovated my starter motor:
Loads of carbon dust from the brushes (more on that later....these starters dont have the eternal life!)
startermotorparts cleaned:
After all this I decided to do something to my brakes (september 2012)
I wanted to have BMW performance brakes. They are based on 6 piston brembo calipers (front) and 2 piston brembo's rear.
The front brakes were easy; this is basically a ready to fit kit from ECS tuning:
The rear brakes proved to be more difficult. When I bought the front brake kit in the US ECS tuning had the matching rear calipers on sale (about 50quid/piece with the dollar exchange rate back then...
) so obviously I bought them.But its not a direct fit; far from it.
First of all I had to decide on a brake disc. When measuring up, the calipers had the same lug hole spacing as the stock calipers, but were clearly for a bigger disc.
I chose a X3 disc (which is about 25mm larger than oem), which as about the same disc hat offset as the z4 oem disc.
First of all I had to make some spacers to properly align the calipers to the disc:
Also the disc had an inner lip I had to remove on the lathe:
Most work was done on making the parking brake work. All bmw discs larger than 300mm have a bigger inner parking brake (parking brake is a little drum brake that is situated in the hat of the brake disc.
So first make a bigger rear brake plate to accomodate the larger disc (I used an e46 330i plate which I adapted:
I also had to put a little riser plate on that to better align the new brake shoes. I modified a riser plate from an 130i (which has such a system, also like the e60 5 series):
I welded some custom brake shoes: e46 330i brake shoes, but with a part of the oem brake shoes welded into them to make sure they were hold in by the protrusions on the trailing arm:
Finally fitted:
Took about 2 weeks of my spare time (evenings, weekends) to re-invent this wheel (or brake...).... I guess thats why they call it a hobby
Next on the list was perfecting the exhaust system, and mainly the exhaust manifold; this was in may 2013. The m54 exhaust manifold with build in catalytic converter is a known restrictive part, especially with the added horsepower of the supercharger. So I decided to install stainless headers and high flow catalytic converters.
Here you can see the restrictive part of the oem headers at the top of the catalytic converters (the inner diameter is maybe only 30mm for 3 cylinders), compared with the high flow headers from Schmiedmann.
The schmiedmann kit I used is originally ment for an e46 with 5 speed, so it had to be adapted to fit the Z4:
Making little V cuts and tackwelding them to realign the piping under the car
Finishing the joints with backing shieldgas:
All fitted:
You see the high flow 200cel cats are now relocated under the car (where the original mid muffler was).
Eventually I had the stainless steel headers also ceramic coated to give it more heat shielding.
Although the rear muffler is still original, this exhaust setup is pretty loud. High flow headers make sure that exhaust sound also flows less restricted to the exhaust tips.
Last edited:
Too 
