[toxik]

Having a very unfortunate week with the car, seems like it's one of those when it rains it pours situations.

On Monday I went to my annual oil change appointment, as soon as I showed up in morning and showed my tech all the boxes I have in the trunk with parts, he tried to press my trunk close button of the power trunk and nothing happened. I thought, hmm that's odd, well it was the start of the end of my bimmertech power trunk. The button stopped working completely and while diagnosing it, the trunk no longer operates at all. It only latches but motor no longer makes it go up or down. Bimmertech haven't been able to help me via support, and their current power trunk kit has been completely revised with all parts being completely new to the version I got. I'm planning on removing it completely today and reverting back to the factory spring system and manual close. It's a bittersweet moment for me, always thought it was a neat party trick and a rare mod to show off irl... but I'm not going to spend another $700 for a product that may only last a couple of years.

For my maintenance call, I decided to do my oil change, spark plugs and first coil pack swap. I also got a new Eventuri filter, instead of cleaning mine I figured I'd take advantage of the ECS/FCP Euro lifetime warranty system and just buy a new filter and send in the old one for a warranty swap every couple of years.



While doing the intake we noticed the Dinan Turbo Inlet in CF that I have installed had a loose air hose, upon closer inspection and removal of it, the plastic fittings completely came out of the CF. My assumption is the epoxy/glue that they used has failed under heat. Means I had a small air leak this whole time without knowing it. Really dissapointed in Dinan quality honestly. We were able to re-epoxy the fittings and hopefully theyll last now:



Had the Ross Racing PCV billet cap kit in my trunk for a couple of years and at 62k miles I decided to just install it as a preventative maintains item. When we removed my factory diaphragm we did confirm it had a ton of tears and rips, so was close to giving way if I did not do this:



New Diaphragm and Cap installed:



To clean up my engine bay a bit, I decided to continue to remove some of the orange bits. I was watching some Bimmer Invasion videos and I gotta say everyone seems to run the accent-color-color-matched Gearwrench caps with a matching turbo or charge pipe, with matching downstar hardware. Felt like I was part of that same cookie-cutter mod trend. Decided to change it up a bit out of boredom and just the want to not have a cliche BMW engine bay.

I changed my Downstar washers from Orange to Raw Aluminum. Changed my CF Strut Brace to a Bilet Brushed Aluminum bar, very happy with how it looks, it's a lot sturdier and it's a lot easier to remove if I need to work on the engine... night and day difference really.

Some pics of the new engine bay and the new strut brace:




Engine bay:

[disintegrator66]

Bummer on the Bimmertech power trunk. Its a shame they couldn't help resolve the issue and you had to flush $700 down the drain..... FWIW... I liked the orange HW and carbon strut bar.....

[toxik]

Originally Posted by disintegrator66

Bummer on the Bimmertech power trunk. Its a shame they couldn't help resolve the issue and you had to flush $700 down the drain..... FWIW... I liked the orange HW and carbon strut bar.....

yeah i don’t think it looked bad, mainly a boredom move but I do think the new strut brace is a better product imo, and the machined caps are more visually interesting than goldenwrench caps.

you’re the one that planted the seed in my brain a long time ago when you called out my oil cap being silver while the others are all orange lol

[Cpark14]

Engine bay looks great! Even though I’m a slut for CF that new bar is pretty damn cool too.

Any interest on adding M bits? I’ve always thought the swap for the M3 CF engine brace was the ultimate option

I also saw someone put Supra seats in their F30 and I can’t decide if it’s a good idea, pricing is a bit better when compared to F80 seats but I still think F80 seats are the best.

[toxik]

Originally Posted by Cpark14

Engine bay looks great! Even though I’m a slut for CF that new bar is pretty damn cool too.

Any interest on adding M bits? I’ve always thought the swap for the M3 CF engine brace was the ultimate option

I also saw someone put Supra seats in their F30 and I can’t decide if it’s a good idea, pricing is a bit better when compared to F80 seats but I still think F80 seats are the best.

I have a U Brace coming in aluminum as well that’ll serve same purpose as the f80 one, never really thought the f80 brace was a good option since it’s so restricting to get to stuff in engine bay. Even this new strut brace won me over due to how much easier it is to remove compared to my ECS carbon one which was an extremely tight fit.

I had a plan to get cheap Sonoma Brown seats from F80 since no one wants that color and it’s for sale often, and then doing a Saddle Brown leather dye on them. Honestly once I stopped DDing my car, that plan kinda died. Kinda lost motivation to spend thousands of dollars on interior when I’m not in it for hours daily, mine is in great shape too which doesn’t help.

[intricate1]

Looking through all of the images, it looked good at the start and it's only getting better. Very nice build so far.

[toxik]

Bavsound Ghost v3 subwoofers

Bavsound recently held a clearance sale for some B-Stock items they had, I've been eyeing their subwoofer upgrade in the past few months and saw that it was one of the offered items at a decent discount. Decided to take the opportunity and purchase them. The subs came in pretty good shape, can't tell if they were used or not, or simply had scratches from factory that Bavsound didn't want to sell as A-Stock. Either way, they live under a seat with a cover over them, no one will ever see them. Luckily, they still offer a 4-year limited warranty, so my main concern was them being operational not pretty.

I used the "lean-back method" to get under the seat, tilting them back after removing the seat rail bolts and having them sell fall back to the back giving me room to remove the stock HK subs. The job was easy but a lot more annoying that I thought, should've maybe removed the whole sub box to give myself more access. But got it done.

Overall, I'm happy with the results, with windows closed you can really tell the added clarity and power of these new subs. HK bass always sounded muddy to me, so this was a nice upgrade to clean up the sound profile imo. Would I love to upgrade the amp and speakers? I'd love to, but for HK the amp is $2,000 alone which to me isn't worth it. For now, this will be my sole audio upgrade.

Accessing the subwoofers:



HK vs Bavsound Ghost v3 comparison:







CPM Front Brace

This upgrade was inspired by disintegrator66 after I saw this installed on his car. I thought it complimented my new strut brace well, so I decided to order one. I feel with this brace all the benefits of the OEM F80 carbon strut brace are achieved, the struts and the front end of the car are now connected. Very impressed with Japanese quality, the milling is amazing and it feels like a high-end product. A breath of fresh air after a few misses from Ali/Chineseum products I've had to deal with lately.



Installed:








Still trying to figure out if I want to keep the Orange charge pipe or go with something raw/industrial, options are limited for that. For now, I think it looks impressive even as is:

[lllRazorlll]

Clean as always. The orange charge pipe is a nice touch that complements the brake calipers