News
March 9th, 2005 - OMG He
actually updated it!!!
I'm back and better
than ever folks. I hope to keep this site regularly updated with
information about my car and about me. Kind of a blog about a man
and his machine.
Lots and lots new with the car. Last you heard from me I was
getting an M-Tech II Steering Wheel. Let me tell you that was one
of the best and worst decisions I've made on the car. It wound up
costing much more than I expected (nearly $450). Then all was fine
and dandy until my horn started randomly going off so I yanked the horn
relay and went without one for a year. Then the summer that nearly
made me sell my car...
It started in the beginning of summer when I was working overnights (and
days too somehow...) at Staples. It was a windy night with summer
lightening and the sign on the furniture store next door exploded from
the electrical storm and sent shrapnel everywhere. One of those
pieces pierced one of my SO3s. Even though only one was broken, I
need my tires to match. So I got a set of 4 and kept the best two
for spares. So that was 650 bucks I didn't plan on spending.
With my impending move to Philadelphia coming (see personal information
in the last paragraph) I was not happy. Then the big one happened.
Flash back to Summer 2000. It was as my friend Jon and I often say,
the best summer of our lives. I was young, in my prime and about
to embark on a journey that would alter my life forever. I bought
my first BMW (as did Jon). I bought it without having it inspected
and when I got around to having a shop look at it I got some bad news.
The headgasket was oozing pretty bad. How long would it last?
Who knows. I went right on motoring with the dark cloud of
outrageously expensive automotive repair hanging over my head.
Fast forward to Summer 2004. Coolant starts to mysteriously
disappear. Bimmerworks sees nothing leaking. I add a pint or
coolant every couple weeks and pray its just the hot weather.
School starts, leaves turn brown, Bimmerworks closes, my car is
consuming coolant at a rate of a pint a week - and I'm only driving it
on weekends. I take it to Mike Tilson's Motorcar Service.
They find some loose hose clamps and such. They say she's ready.
It was at this time that I sorted out the horn issue. There was
excess casting metal on the back of the horn that was grounding it out.
Its not there anymore. I'm happy. For a week. Then I
add more coolant.
I drop the car off
back at Tilson's the first week of December. Before I leave for
Singapore I get the call. The headgasket is shot. I dream
that night of stacks of hundred dollar bills growing wings and flying
out of my Polo wallet. I wake up in cold sweats.
They start work on the car. I leave for Singapore. I get back
and its not ready yet. It is possible that the head is cracked.
I have the same dream again. We finally determine that the head
was not cracked. So begins the rebuild. While we're at it,
lets do it right. The camshaft gets a performance regrind.
Ed's father builds the head by hand with all new valves, seals, guides,
rocker arms. He does a hi flow valve job. The car should run
like a champ. I also took the opportunity to get a Racing Dynamics
Exhaust put on the car. So I go and pick up the car and pay $3500.
I'm happy. And poor.
Here are some pics of
the head before and after...
The car runs great.
Smooth, definitely has more power. It idles a little bit like an
old muscle car because of the sport cam. I love it. Once its
broken in, we'll go to the dyno and see how much power that old M20 is
actually making. Oh I also added rear headrests at some point this
fall.
OK, if you have no
interest in my personal life you can stop reading here. Otherwise:
I'm in law school
now! I will join the ranks of the most joked about profession in
the world (except maybe prostitution). I am at Temple Law in
Philadelphia PA. I moved from my comfy townhouse in the suburbs to
a nice apartment near the Art Museum. It has garage parking.
But I have to park next to people. My therapist says I can work
through this (JK). I am enjoying school and meeting all sorts of
great people.
Alright, that's it
for now. I will be making a lot of changes to the site over the
next few days so keep an eye out.
November 16th, 2003
Hehe, a little
late with the updates yet again. OK, lots of stuff going on.
Since the last update I got my Rieger spoiler and splitter on. I
also went up to Lime Rock Park in CT for Bimmerfest East. Once
again, this show was amazing. Definitely the biggest BMW show on the
east coast. A week after that was the BMWCCA BBQ down on the Schuylkill
in Gladwynne. Pictures of both of these events are available in the Events
section.
Summer is over now so with no meets to go to, the only thing to do
is maintain and mod the car for next summer! New belts and hoses,
coolant sensor were all done at the end of summer and beginning of
winter. New wheel bearings and rear sway bar links are up for
replacement around Turkey Day. State inspection is done too and I
finally have a normal set of stickers again.
The cool stuff going in includes a polished E-brake from UUC, maybe
their new RK4 shift knob, and on its way from Germany is a MTech II
steering wheel. I thought about going the Ebay route, but a nice one
with shipping is usually over 250 bucks. For 350 I get a brand new
one from BMW. It should be here in a week.
For those of you that know me, if you want a link/banner/plug for
your site on mine, let me know and we'll swap links.
July 22nd, 2003
Got my M5 mirrors on
the car finally. You can read about the procedure and what sucked
about it here: M5 Mirror Install.
I'm still waiting for my Reiger front spoiler and splitter...
July 3rd, 2003
Well as you can see I
got lazy again. Its been 3 months since the last update but some
nice changes have occurred since then. The homemade all-red tails
were swapped out for euro red-clears and Phillips Silvervision
bulbs. I also managed to snag a set of real M5 sport mirrors which
should be on the car sometime next week after they are painted.
Finally, my Reiger front spoiler and splitter are on their way from
Germany. Pics of all these mods will go up at once sometime late
this month.
The summer so far has seen just a few small gatherings organized by
Milla Racing. Pics can be
seen on their website. The "Big One" is coming up August
31st. Bimmerfest East
2003 is being held in conjunction with the Lime Rock Vintage Festival at
Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. It will be an excellent weekend for
all car lovers and I encourage you all to attend.
Ok well that's it for today. I'm gonna try to be better about
updating especially with pics. Also, if anyone has some hosting
space available please contact me.
Lastly, a quick plug for my mechanic's shop, Bimmerworks in West
Chester PA (610-701-9172). JW, Bill and Josh do an awesome job and
are great guys to deal with. Go down and see them for top quality
work at excellent prices.
March 27th, 2003
OK so I'm lazy when it
comes to updating. Deal. Anyway, pretty uneventful the past
couple months with all the snow keeping the 5 in the garage. But
Spring is finally here and that means its time for meets.
First up is a little mini-meet put
together by John and Ryan Miller. Only 5 people showed and King of
Prussia Mall security kicked us out pretty quick so we ended up driving
into the park and enjoying the first warm weekend of 2003.
The following weekend E46Fanatics
put together a little meet in Piscataway.
It was a nice gathering that taught me all you E46 guys have way too much
money to spend on your cars (JK).
Hopefully we'll have more meets this spring and summer.
OK here is where I ask for something. I need server
space. Comcast caps me at 25MB which I'm just about up to at this
point. If anyone knows of cheap web hosting I'd be grateful.
If anyone wants to DONATE web space I'll change your rear sub-frame
bushings (not really).
Now, who here reads
Roadflea? Well if you do I feel sorry for you. Those two narcissistic
admins (one of whom shares my name) really need to loosen up. We
can't post events except in an event section that rarely gets looked at;
we can't post ads, half the people on the boards contribute nothing of
value and off-topic discussions are quite common. See this link
for an example of how it is. How I yearn for the early days of
Roadfly before C & A got greedy with the sponsorship and it was a
place for BMW (and Porsche) lovers to share REAL info. Now I get my
tech info here at Bimmer.info (at
least has a booming E34 board).
January 30th, 2003
Well, after having the
car towed on the 28th (Monday was too busy) I
picked up the car today. It turned out to be the seal on the oil
pressure sender. Easy (read: cheap) fix so I'm happy.
Possibly THIS is my next
mod. (Its the lip extension btw. I would leave it unpainted
ABS plastic so it'd match my current lower grill.) Let me know what you think.
January 25th, 2003
Happy New Year's
folks. Sorry I haven't updated in forever. Today was supposed to be
a really nice day off. I was gonna go wash my car and then get ready
for the annual Delaware Valley BMWCCA banquet. But instead this
happened. I will have the car flatbedded to my shop on Monday.
BTW, I had the
thermostat replaced on the 23rd because the car was not heating up all the
way (T-Stat was sticking open).
December 13th, 2002
Pics are up from Don
Rosen Mini Night. Due to limited space, pics have been taken
down. Please email me if you want them.
December 10th, 2002
State inspection
time. I was afraid the small (maybe) hole in my exhaust was going to
fail me. I was wrong. But I still failed. Lower control
arms were really loose. I knew they weren't perfect by that horrible
shimmy I used to get at 45-55mph. Well they were replaced and all is
well. The new PA State Inspection sticker
is REALLY ugly.
Thursday is Mini night at Don Rosen with the BMWCCA folks.
Afterwards I should have the first pics up in the Events section.
Saturday is the DTM holiday dinner at Chris's. So there should be
another event to put up.
December 6th, 2002
Happy Chanukah!!! Well I got a cable modem
and with that comes 25MB of free web space from the good people at Comcast!
What's new...hmmm. The car is back! I picked her up on
October 30th. 34 days allowed her to get new paint everywhere from
the A-pillar forward as well as a new lower bumper (it's all black and
shiny). I also took the opportunity to add a Euro M5 Lip
spoiler. See pics of the repaired car.
I just wanted to get the site actually up and
posted so there is still a lot to fix, I will get pics up in the events
section.
September 29th, 2002
Well, due to the lack of a host...the site is going
down. Back when I have some place to put this...
September 28th, 2002.
My
sadness.
September 26th, 2002.
UGH. Worst Day
Ever. Car got backed into by a moron in a delivery truck. The
driver was Mexican and barely spoke English. The investigating
officer cited him for limitations on backing. Hopefully this means
it will cost me nothing.
Pics tomorrow.
September 14th, 2002.
The tires are still
impressing me. Very happy with the money spent. But, something
about me is really bothering me. There are no wheel weights visible
anywhere on the wheel! There is no significant shimmy so I think
they are close to balanced, but I'd sure like to know how. A call to
the shop is in order on Monday to find out.
Might go to NIM tomorrow. Not sure yet. Would love to
support Eddie and the charitable cause he has chosen, but I'm still sick a
bit and it is Yom Kippur tomorrow evening.
September 13th, 2002.
Went down to shop today to get the new shoes on and fix the rear shock.
SO3s went on pretty well. New Bilstein is on too. The old one
was so blown that you can compress it with your bare hands. They
better warranty it for me.
Initial impressions on the drive home were good. The car
responds well even at 32psi, as the shop set it. I will probably
wind up higher (~36) since I can feel the tires are a bit spongy.
This may be due to the tread also. It seems as if there is a TON of
tread on these tires. More than I remember on the AVS Sports.
The new tires are much quieter than the previously mentioned Yokos.
The new Bilstein has gotten rid of the rear clunk (which means it
was not the subframe bushing!!!) and firmed up the rear, which had been
feeling kind of loose around turns.
More driving impressions when I have more time to push the tires.
September 12th, 2002.
New site design
started. Content will be added as it is prepared.
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