Jacob's other Wagon

[Laecaon]

Deed is done. Made the shittiest looking electrical circuit, consisting of a relay, voltage regulator, and 3 resistors. I didnt have any perfboard laying around, so its all free hanging, and made even shittier with electrical tape.

This one is temporary, its ugly, but if it gets the job done, the car will go through DEQ, Ill rip it out, and then figure out how to make a better option.

The car did start fine afterwords, and ran just fine, so its reading the 02s correctly. Now to see in the morning with a cold start.

[Laecaon]

Boom. $10 at radio shack and second air passes.

[Laecaon]

And the car Passed DEQ today.

Here is a picture of the ugliness.

[Taterhead]

It did what it needed to. Now you can make it pretty.

[Laecaon]

I have this thing, every car I own I have driven to at least 100mph. The BMW is no exception.

Also, I accidentally put a tank of regular in. Oops. It runs fine, no knocking or anything, but its definitely a bit more sluggish. Back to 92 octane soon. Gotta be able to take advantage of the VANOS.

The car has been given approval by all of my friends, because disappointing friends is no fun. Tonight the heated seats were the favorite feature.

And I decided, Im putting the Subwoofer in the car. Its gonna go in the spare tire well. Im going to try and see if I can place it inside of a wheel (I dont have a spare tire currently).

I opened up my Amp to see if anything was broken since it was tossed in the Saturn in the crash and the wires were violently ripped out. All is well. Go Alpine.

Further down the road Im going to completely redo the stereo in the car. Its clear, there is just no power, its not loud enough.

[flatcat19]

Is it ever loud enough?

[Laecaon]

Argh! Made a Subwoofer box today, but it doesn't fit... I thought I double checked, but its just too thick. And bummer because I made it as thin as I could (the woofer itself is very long at nearly 6 inches for a 8 inch woofer). I think I have an idea though, so all may not be lost.

But I also found the spare tire in the car. It was way down there, under the under cargo floor storage. I also found where the factory amp is, behind a cover, behind another cover.

And I discovered my Alpine amp is capable of accepting High level, balanced/differential inputs, which is exactly what the BMW headunit outputs. Way awesome, as that is not a common feature. And this is why I like buy decent components when I can, as this was like $40 on ebay last year, and is appearantly a decent unit.

As for down the road, re doing the stereo is not easy. Easy would be installing a different deck, but that is not what I am going to do as that looks tacky. So the factory deck doesn't output speaker level audio, but instead sends high power line audio to an amplifier which then has direct wires for each speaker individually. So you have to replace the factory amp with a aftermarket one, which because of the above stated outputs from the deck, means it has to be of a decent brand (like JL). Then on top of that, all the speakers in the car have to replaced since they all are of odd resistances. One day. For now a subwoofer will help.

[DRIVEN]

My Lincoln JBL system was like that. Couldn't replace just one component. All or nothing. Factory amps failed frequently in those.

[flatcat19]

If I ever move back to Portland I am going to do so much to make Jacob my new best friend.
Jack of all trades.


Sorry, Ed.

[Laecaon]

That was some work. Installed the Bluetooth adapter for the stock radio. Well ripping out the stereo was actually cake, and so was mounting the box, what wasnt cake was figuring out how to run the microphone up to the factory location, under the sunroof motor/next to the dome lights. And then of course running the wire across the headliner, down the A-Pillar, and across the dash. Also has a USB cord for charging, just gotta figure out where I want to install that...

Havent tried calling anyone, its 4am... But the music sounds nearly as good as the CD player, way better than the radio. Also it totally outputs what is playing on the screen. And supposedly it will show the name of the person Im on the phone with. And of course my steering wheel controls work!

[Laecaon]

I know what I am doing tomorrow. Just got this. Front LCA bushings, rear position. I went with Poly, because they are the only ones that actually last supposedly. And everyone swears by this brand. Well judging by the packaging alone, This brand is Top Notch. I would say this takes the cake for packaging of any generic car product I have bought.

This is also one of those companies that has standard prices, so anywhere you go its the same price. But then I found a site that had a 15% off sale on all PowerFlex bushings, perfect timing!

[Laecaon]

I kinda dont like buying parts for the BMW... I want to spend money on the Datsun! But alas, I need a noble steed to take me to the place that I earn my moneys.

Looked over the engine bay a bit, noticed the belt was a little weathered. So new Continental Contitech belts (OEM supplier and model), and everyone says to replace the pulleys while you are in there, so INA brand (Again, OEM supplier) Idler pulley and Tensioner Pulley. Probably will buy the tensioner puller for the AC belt later... Most people complain about squeals and squeaks, which I dont have. Also, while I am in there, the Water Pump pulley is plastic, known to be a problem, like a ticking time bomb, when it cracks it explodes taking both belts and other pulleys with it, So ordered an Aluminum pulley for that.

This order is through a company, FCP Euro, which seems pretty legit, offering a good selection of brands including Genuine BMW, offers a lifetime warranty on all (And they mean all) parts, and the forums seem to like them decently. Definitely had the best price for everything I was buying with the exception of 1 part (which Amazon had for 1 dollar less...).

The bushing order was through ECSTuning, which has a super fancy website, and also seem like a very reputable shop.

Other than that, I think my new game plan to is to order the rest of the cooling system in stages (I quickly can go past $400 if I buy everything I want to), as nothing is leaking, and more research has shown that everything fails in the normal ways, so Im not scared to wait a bit. Also considering the car shows records of being serviced at Kuni and Rasmussen BMW, Im sure a few things have been replaced (like my belt tensioner is hydraulic, but most seem to be mechanical, but BMW did upgrade cars as they saw fit/deemed necessary).


Read up on suggested Oil changes. The motor holds 7 quarts! Has a super fancy exposed filter (type where you remove a lid, and the filter media is visible). Synthetic oil only, conforming to a very specific API (like the only Mobil 1 oil I can run is the 0w40...). BMW says you can do 15k mile oil changes. Consensus on the forums is 7k-12k oil changes. Cool, 1-2 times yearly for me!

[draker]

might be worth doing an oil analysis to determine actual acceptable oil change intervals. A lot of forum post don't have actual data to backup their claims. VW forums are littered with people skeptical of the 10k oil changes.. I tested the oil several times.. currently testing 12k oil changes.

[Laecaon]

Yep, I have done my fair share of reading on Bob is the Oil Guy.

Got the bushings installed. Wasnt too bad, and considering I dont have a press, I still managed to install them in the suggested DIY time of 2 hours, I feel good, and wet. Installed basically like how you install LCA bushings on a 510, where the hard part is removing the metal sleeve of the old bushing. But now my jeans are soaked, and my jacket. Favorite tool to use on this job, the Air Hammer!

[Laecaon]

So the bushings definitely solved the clunking issue on the front end. The ride isnt terrible, actually I dont mind it at all. Super rough pavement is felt a little, but nothing rattling, and mostly barely noticeable, bumps like twigs and whatnot are actually pretty nice, there but not harsh. I think the only complaint, and Im not sure if its due to the bushings, but now large smooth bumps, like dips in the road make the front end fly. The front end goes up and down a lot more drastically. Its not terrible, but its weird. Maybe its now showing the shocks to be bad...

Onto the Subwoofer. I was looking at how I could modify the box I made. Stupid. It will just look bad (even though it wont be visible). So new game plan is to make it look as factory as possible. Maybe Ill have some pictures later tonight of the new plan.

Here is the box I made and the issue.

[Laecaon]

No other pictures tonight (well I guess its now morning for the rest of you), but I did manage to at least get the profile of the 2 more intricate pieces cut out in cardboard.

Also, drove a 2012 BMW 535Xi. MMM Turbo noise. The car was pretty quick, super plush. Way too big for me though, Just doesnt feel right. I like my 3 series very much.

[Laecaon]

So my stock headlights are HIDs, fairly blue looking from the front of the car (light is very much white). Fog lights are halogen, and well I hate the look of halogen and HIDs together. So I switched out the stock halogen fogs for some yellow halogens. Not HID because that is silly.

The difference in color:


Parts came in a day early:


And I grabbed a new wrench (32mm), the biggest wrench I own, with the second biggest being a 19mm...

[Laecaon]

Then later that evening I changed out everything. Ran into problem 1, that 32mm wrench was really fat, so I had to slip it down a bit. Probably took off about 1/8" on the open end side.

Then I couldnt get the fan clutch nut off. Oh that is why, it has left hand threads. Once I figured that out it was all a go.

[flatcat19]

I made my BMW fan clutch wrench out of a long piece of 1/4" steel and a cut-off wheel.

[Laecaon]

Ok, some progress on the Sub box. Borrowed a router from a coworker. I think the hard to cut parts are done. Now onto the annoying to cut, compound angles!