FxSlin - 97 Z3M & 97 1.9 Z3

[fxslin]

At end of the summer 2016 I was almost weekly doing some minor mods/fixes on the car.
This time a long awaited order arrived, the new K&N Air filter arrived.

This mod was just for pure sound and fun, a spoiling the Z3 a bit


Taking the OEM air filter box went really fast.


2 Minutes later I had this situation:


Final result:


Sound got better and performance stayed the same Maybe a little faster in Revs however I believe this is the placebo effect!

I'm planning to add a elbow bent and create some heat sheild as well (I'm guding fresh air via a tube from the front bumper).

 

[fxslin]

But a car not just sit home and rest. It needs to be used and enjoyed as well, so I decided to take the Z3 to it first NSK event. NSK is a Norwegian Sportcar club, all different sportscar is welcome. The club arranges trips, trackdays, workshop, courses etc.

I had a friend who already was a member ( he also has a Super 7 and Lotus Elise in addition to a Z3) and I decided to sign up for a membership.

We were five cars going to the vent together all from the same neighborhood and we had one of those insane nice and warm summer day and night.

On our way to the event:


Some pics from the event:


Overview picture from the event, my Z3 is all the way to right on the picture:

On our way home we to the "old main" road going along the Oslo fjord, just 5 sports car with nice sound cruising. Was a kodak moment

 

[Grumps]

Blimey what a write up! Good work so far. Looks like your here to stay then. Welcome aboard.

 

[hard top]

What the hell is that?

​

 

[fxslin]

What the hell is that?

I not sure, but I believe it was Ariel Atom with some kind of street body kit. Never got the change to talk that guy and havn't meet him yet since.

 

[hard top]

not sure,

What ever it is, I like it.....

 

[fxslin]

Time continue to get this thread in sync with work till todays date Warning a lot of pics.

At this time the summer season was over and I had been saving up on the Z fund. So was time to deliver the car my INDY (where the owner is BMW enthusiast, he is worth a own post) and get the small rust issues sorted out, new front window, change of liquids and replace the clutch. This would be a long term project, so I got a good price for the whole project (fix price).

Those where a few long months for me, I could not really drive the car anyway since it was winter. But I had lots of minor things that I would like to fix and tinker with in my garage.

But I did go down once in a while to check out the progress and look at the work being done. Turned out that the car was not bad at all and they only found minor stuff (to be Norwegian driven car), but still it needed to be done properly.
They basically ended up respraying the whole car (still to the fix price), since they wanted to give this car a proper job. (The Z3 preface 2.8l is not very common in Norway).

Some example for surface issues with car (a few tricky spots):


So pics during the removal of panels and what was found underneath:








Some pics from when the job finally started to get closer at the end:





Sorry if it is to many pics!

 

[Antm72]

Some great work and never too many pics posted here.....we like pics

 

[fxslin]

Anyway at the end of the Z's stay in the "hospital" things got a bit dramatic. In norway (and probably in UK and rest of Europe as well) the authorities does random controls of workshops to make sure they follow rules/regulations etc. However my car was picked out to an extra in-depth control to see that they did not do illegal work on it (like peformance stuff or taking quick solutions on the mechanics) and the rules says it is somehow my responsibility take time drive the car down to control location (long story and lots of stupid rules with a due date.Think of this a in-depth MOT that takes whole day).
But my Indy toke charge redirected his work staff to finish my car, repaired my stock exhaust (Since my supersprint exhaust hadn't arrived yet) and drove it down to them on his trailer since it was winter with lots of salts on the roads.
The Indy basically told me to trust him, "Me and my team has done proper work in this one" he said and of course it passed with out any issue. I had during the project asked them to do some mechanic maintenance as well, since the car was in pieces anyway.

I was happy with this solution and had planned to show car the to them anyway to get earlier suspension swap into the car papers when the this years season started.

However during this time my new exhaust arrived as well, so I rushed down to the Indy with it (the day before delivery date) and yes. He would install it as a bonus for me (Some time during this project we kinda became friends and chatting for hours about my car and his perosnal project cars).

The exhaust that arrived:


Since it was still winter and salt on the roads, I was not allowed pick up the car by the indy, so he delivered it me.


I love the sound of the Supersprint and the looks


After a quick hose down with fresh water the Z was finally inside the garage and ready to get dried up. At this time it was still a few more months before I could take it for a drive, but was good anyway. So the paint could settle a bit. Now the car was in good shape body and mechanical wise. However still a lot of minor things that needed be done.

 

[fxslin]

After all this work and the car was finally home again.

I decided to start work on my old wheels to use them one more season. However I always loved the Alpina Dynamics rims on the Z8 and I had been looking for quite some time (months) on the second handmarket for a set in decent condition and correct ET. And suddenly one day a decent set in correct size and ET appeared on the market, managed to talk the price down a bit and get them shipped to a decent price.

Held my breath until they arrived, where they in described condition? any cracks or being bent??? Luckily they were as described, just needed a bit of TLC and new Alpina caps!





The observant reader will notics that the passenger window mount was broken, turned out that one previous owner had this one broken and repaired with some glue. This was discovered during the stay at the Indy, but I said I sorted that out my self. So this task was my next task!

 

[fxslin]

Then in March 2017 I could finally spend some time on the car, I was doing some house projects at this time and had finish that.

Was time to tackle the broken mirror base, I got one from UK (cheaper than buying a new complete set on ebay and my mirror housing just painted). I also bought new mirror glasses with wide angle, as I got a bit scared by narrow view by stock ones.

Normally one would disconnect the mirror electrics from the inside of the door, however I did find a guide doing this by disconnecting it at the mirror housing. Since I was gonna service things there anyway I figured I could tried this method first.

My starting point:


The housing came of easily:


Then disconnecting the wires and expose the base:


Getting the base of, some cleaning needed be done here. One minus point to my Indy, he should have cleaned this before the reassembly at the workshop.


The old base was badly corroded and full of old glue/fixating product:



Old versus New part:


Then poper wash, servicing and organizing the new and old parts to be used:


Test reassembling everything to car and test that everything worked as it should.


Finally mirror house back one:


And the new glass:


At this I planned to take it down again to deliver the base to paint. However I kinda liked the black detail on the mirror base and a new direction for the look of the car developed.
And I also noticed that new base had different angle than OEM one (looked more the M mirrors angle) and after some careful deliberation for 5 seconds I decided that I order a new base for drivers side as well and let my new direction for the look mature as well.

A comparison pic of driver vs passenger side:

 

[fxslin]

This was just a lazy sunday with a BMW mate on visit for some coffee and as normal we quickly tracked into the Z.

I had the hood insulation and a new hood emblem ready and waiting to get installed, so we did this quickly.

The old hood insulation had been used by mice during winter storage at one of the previous owners. (Rest of car was checked for this upon purchase)

New hood insulation on place:


And finally this one got installed:


Then we started discuss my new rims about sizes,'driveability' and what kind of look I should go for (don't like tire stretch, but love a good wide stance ).
So we decided lets test fit them, measure things and drive them (the rubber was finish, but just test current size). They had 225 in front and 265 in back, this setup still had lots of room and did not hit any fenders etc..

A little work and it looked like this:


We didn't quite land the discussion and the I still had some questions about the rear sizes, so this would have to be sorted out...

A bonus pic for any readers, this is with worn out 265.

 

[oldcarman]

Great read and welcome from the middle of Canada !! JIM

 

[fxslin]

Great read and welcome from the middle of Canada !! JIM

Thx a lot Canada

 

[DavidM]

The wide rear rubbers look great on the Zed!

 

[Mint]

What a great write up. You have certainly spent a lot of time and money on your car. Brilliant

 

[fxslin]

Still some minor things to posts here to get the thread updated till todays date.

So in early march 2017, was time to start to get the car ready for season. I've manage to locate proper radio caps and decent priced for for CD43 radio during the winter, so those where quickly popped in.


The fitted nicely a slight color difference hopefully a sunny season will fade to match perfectly. (and my upper trim has losen a bit again :-(, need to sort that out once for all).


I've also sorted out the driver side mirror base, now I had matching bases and mirror angles on both side. I've already covered the method in an earlier post. So just some pics of this here:



However my passenger door window have started to act up a bit strangely with jerking up and down movements. So I suspected the window clips to be worn out, so these were ordered. But I after some googling I found some more info about things to check in addition.

So the door panels had to come of for an inspection and yes the whole window lift mechanism was loose and causing it to move a bit during window operations.



The main reason was that this bolt was loose and there didn't hold the lifter arm in position. This is after what I understand a common issue with the Z3 doors (and others) and might be a good thing have on a check list when working on doors. In worst case they widen the hole and then one will need to weld in reinforcement to sort this out.



After tightening the bolts and some lubricate everything worked smooth again. The window clips that arrived later now sits in my spare parts shelf.

The spare tire removal, this was something I had postponed for some time. And as feared the state of the wheel was chocking and not a wheel I would put on in case of flat tire. The entire rim was rusted and the more I scratched the worse it got. So I decided to remove it entirely and clean the parts for storage.



The spare tire holder was in good condition tough, just needed a proper clean.

 

[fxslin]

The wide rear rubbers look great on the Zed!

Thx, there is post coming with the new rubber and more details about sizes.

What a great write up. You have certainly spent a lot of time and money on your car. Brilliant

Thx!! Yes it has been a few costs on it. However by going for an older car (and not M version) when I bought it, I had some "car funds" left to sort the car out with. However I do scope ebay and others sites to find the cheapest variants of parts (as long I don't feel I give in on the quality). And for time use, this is my therapy

 

[fxslin]

Then it was time for what was a milestone in my project, after this I would consider the car ready to be used and enjoyed.

After a lot thinking, googling, discussion with car friends and my Indy regarding the tires sizes for the new rims. I really like wide tires and good stance (not to exaggerated and not a big stretch ), however I didn't want to sacrifice to much driving comfort and feeling. The size of the rims is 18" so I could easily go wrong on the sizes.

So a order for a new set of Vredestein Ultrac Vorti was placed with 235/40/18 and 275/40/18 at my Indy. Yes, I know its larger than normal and was a lot of calculation behind this. ( I wanted 235/265 combo, but the Indy said "I know 275 will fit" and you be more happy with that).

So the wheels where handed in:


And picked up the day after fitted, balanced and ready:


However upon installation on the car the a weird issue was discovered. The rear wheel with 275 on fitted perfectly no rubbing and plenty of space inside and outside.
The passenger side front wheel fitted nicely no rubbing and enough space around it, however the driver side front wheel didn't fit and was rubbing. And after some closer inspection the reason was discovered, seems that the my driver sides supersport "spring holder" is welded with approx 10mm error compare to the passenger side. Called my Indy and he told me to come down to shop further inspection to check close if anything could be done and to check if there where any other damages/errors.



My Indy check things closely and reached the same conclusion as me, the spring holder is indeed 10mm wrong on driver side, but everything else was fine and the suspension works as it should. So we decided to go down to 225/40/18 in the front and indeed that was enough downsize to work around the problem. I was indeed a bit worry about under steering and other things with the 225 front vs 275 back, however the combo works fine and the 225 still fills the front rims nicely. If I go tracking I might pick up some cheep rims for a squared setup.



Difference between 225 and 235 on the rims:



Back home and problem solved, where still missing the correct center caps at this time.


Rear fitment, can still space out a bit if I want:


So the tech details (for your reference: I have the pre-facelift 2.8)
Front 18x8.5 ET37 225/40/18
Back 18x9.5 ET43 275/35/18

Drives good no trammeling and feels direct, without being to harsh on poor roads. However my old tires where really bad, so I basically came from cheap brand, rock hard and worn out rubber to fresh rubber from a reputable vendor.

A bonus picture:

 

[Antm72]

Looks great a nice stance without being extreme at all ....very nice