[Quahman]

Beautiful build! Can't wait to see what else you do to her!

[toxik]

Originally Posted by Quahman

Beautiful build! Can't wait to see what else you do to her!

thanks man, a part of your build now lives on in mine!

[F30_320D_UK]

Nice touches there. Interior looks dope. Gotta get some Dodo juice to freshen up that driver's seat. Mine came up fresh, bright and matt after i cleaned it with Dodo juice.

[toxik]

Originally Posted by F30_320D_UK

Nice touches there. Interior looks dope. Gotta get some Dodo juice to freshen up that driver's seat. Mine came up fresh, bright and matt after i cleaned it with Dodo juice.

haha thanks, I didn't realize but I think there's some weird photo effect/reflection going on there that makes the leather seem discolored. I recently did a full colourlock strong leather treatment on the whole interior, and the driver seat leather looks as good as new! would highly recommend colourlock products for BMW leather.

[F30_320D_UK]

My bad, I take it back then mate! Love a brown interior!

Where'd you get the gear lever?

[toxik]

Originally Posted by F30_320D_UK

My bad, I take it back then mate! Love a brown interior!

Where'd you get the gear lever?

it's the F80 M Performance Pro shift knob, I got it from someone on the F80 bimmerpost classified section for a decent price. i have no complaints about it, I think it feels great but it's very expensive though, not even sure why it's so expensive from BMW.

[CajunBMW]

Originally Posted by toxik

M Performance Big Brake Kit Upgrade:

Was able to get an amazing deal due to BMW's sell-off of a discontinued product number, for the first run of orange m performance brakes. After another member of bimmerpost, posted about it, I was able to contact my BMW parts guy who told me there were only 5 left in the country, and I was able to purchase one of them for a great discount.

After the installation, my impressions are these: The car is significantly more balanced under heavy braking, before it used to nose dive quite a lot. Brake dust is multiplied by at least 2-3 times now (OEM BMW pads). There is a "cricket" like noise when driving next to a wall or median, or in a garage. This is normal and due to the air that gets trapped between the slots/dimples of the rotors and the pad. Doesnt bother me, but has bothered others. Performance increase of these brakes isn't very significant over the OEM brake set-up. Look upgrade is very significant and makes a huge difference. Especially with rotors, the way my 513m wheels look now, due to lack of rotor hat rust (thanks to aluminum hats on these rotors), and the increased size of rotors to fill the empty space just looks sporty and premium.

Was able to save some money with OE rear rotors from Brembo (same as BMW M Perf rotors just without the BMW stamp). There are also even cheaper options from Zimmerman, but those are 1 piece steel rotors, that can rust, versus the OEM/OE 2 piece rotor that has an aluminum rotor hat.

Parts Installed:

Calipers: Front 4 Piston Brembo Calipers, Rear 2 Piston Calipers
Pads: OEM BMW Brake Pads
Rotors: Front OEM BMW Rotors Drilled Slotted / Rear Brembo OE Rotors Drilled Slotted (Product #: 09.C395.13)
Brake Lines: Bimmerworld F3X V3 SS Brake Lines

How do you like the BBK? I guess do you still like it and have you noticed any issues? It looks great on your car. I have looked at that mod and thought the orange would look good on my car (glacial metallic silver). So I was curious about your thoughts.

I am still happy with my mppsk 3 years after purchasing. Looks like you liked that mod too. I have a 2018 340. Other than adding a rear spoiler like you did, I have not done too much, although I recently purchased a strut tower brace and hope to put that on over the holidays.

[toxik]

Originally Posted by CajunBMW

How do you like the BBK? I guess do you still like it and have you noticed any issues? It looks great on your car. I have looked at that mod and thought the orange would look good on my car (glacial metallic silver). So I was curious about your thoughts.

I am still happy with my mppsk 3 years after purchasing. Looks like you liked that mod too. I have a 2018 340. Other than adding a rear spoiler like you did, I have not done too much, although I recently purchased a strut tower brace and hope to put that on over the holidays.

Thanks man! I have a few issues with the MPBBK, the rotors are quite noisy and the pads create an insane amount of dust, so my wheels are always dirty and dark. The thing for me I paid 1k or so for them, so even with noise and pads it's still worth it to me and I don't regret it one bit. If I were to pay retail price for them or what they usually go for, closer to $2000, I'd probably go a different route and buy just the calipers from a M3 powder coat them gold (my favorite caliper color) and buy aftermarket rotors and pads. Probably do a low dust ceramic pad, like akebono, and some slotted only rotors. I always make sure to note that even though these brakes are great at making the car stop nosediving every time you brake hard, I virtually see no other performance difference since I don't do any hard or track driving with this car.

Yeah MPPSK is awesome and I'm glad you love it haha. Not sure if I'll go for it or not, I'm really loving the sound combo of the eventuri intake induction noises and the subtle loudness of the MPE axle back exhaust. I worry if I make my exhaust any louder, that's all I'll hear haha. I also feel like the 6MT guys get kinda ripped off since part of the cost is the tune and we get barely any hp bump from it compared the 8AT guys. I'd probably consider getting just the exhaust used second hand for a more fair price lol

[toxik]

few gloomy pictures from taking her out on some mountain roads for a cabin trip:

[toxik]

Installed a mod this past weekend to complete the M Performance body kit lines. As many other F30 owners notice, an obvious gap left by the M performance side skirts and diffuser, is the lack of a rear bumper extension to tie both OEM pieces together cohesively. I was never a fan of the offerings I found online in the aftermarket, seemed like most of them were CF, which doesn't match my matte black additions. Secondly, I always found them to be on the not so subtle side, and stick out way too much.

Recently I was made aware of the GaZP style rear bumper extensions, I loved the look and the idea of running them all the way down the OEM diffuser. They looked subtle and very OEM in my opinion. I wasn't able to acquire them from the UK, the shipping charges were quite high. Luckily I did see Chinese replicas of these in CF, and when i found the listing again on Ali, they were also offered in FRP. After inquiring with the vendor, I found out that it's unfinished matte black gel, so they wouldnt look perfect. But given their location and knowing how well Ultimat Black plastic restorer works on making plastic look perfect in texture, I gave it a shot. Ultimately they came out really well I think:

Receiving the product:



They replicated the drill holes but I think they didn't realize that the holes align with pre-existing OEM mounting screws for the rear bumper and rear diffuser, the kit came with a bunch of self-tapping screws and really cheap double sided tape for no reason. I took the OEM screws that go into c-nut clips from car and tried to see if I can get a few threads with them, but these extensions are fairly thick and the OEM screws were a no-go. I found their thread/pitch and looked for OEM-like replacement. 3 of the screws were TS5 and 1 was a M4.8x1.61. I found OEM X5 bmw TS5 screws that are 30mm in length. and found a Mopar screw for the m4.8 that was 32mm in length. Both were 8mm hex head, so from below they would look just like OEM.

Size comparison, OEM right and replacement screws on the left:




Finally here are the products installed:

[F30_320D_UK]

New additions look great man. Car looking good as always.

[toxik]

Originally Posted by F30_320D_UK

New additions look great man. Car looking good as always.

thanks man, and thanks for all the support on the thread. i added a ton of stuff in last couple of weeks need to make a post with all the updates.

[toxik]

Well I think I officially have an addiction to modding this car, but I won't lie, a major purchasing decision was the large aftermarket and a million things the F3X allows you to tinker with. I notice how much excitement it creates in owning my F30, researching and adding modifications to make the car driving experience more enjoyable for myself. Last week was officially 2 years of ownership for me, and I can safely say this is my favorite car out of the many that I've owned.

Here's a bunch of mods I added in last couple of months:

Euro Sun Visors:
Found a used set of these on classifieds, it's a very subtle but cool touch. No more giant airbag stickers:



M Performance Carbon Fiber Gas Cap Cover:




M Performance Stainless Steel Pedals:

Had the aftermarket, no-drill, chinese replica pedals for better part of the 2 years with the F30. Initially I was happy with them, they matched my OEM dead pedal, and felt good to operate. But as with all cheap reproductions, eventually you will start seeing their downsides. One embarrassing moment happened for me when a mechanic working on my car, ripped the slip-on covers off with his work boots, he then turned to me and asked "Oh, you have those cheap slip-on covers?"... I had to reply, unfortunately yes I do. One day I spotted one of the fake torx screws that's on the pedals for show only, rolling around in my floor mat. It undid itself from the fake cover and fell off. Anyways, I'm glad I got these guys. The job was fairly annoying, but I've read about it on forum DIY threads. Luckily for me I was able to prevent a lot of the frustrations of others by investing in the right tools. I bought cobalt milwaukee drill bits, which made smoking the mounting holes a complete piece of cake. Putting the lock nuts on the back of the pedals was insanely difficult for me, there's really very little room behind the pedal to fit your fingers. Glad it's over now haha, theyre not going anywhere:

Prepping to collect the metal dust:

The tools used, Ryobi Brushless Drill and Milwaukee Cobalt Drill bits:

Pilot holes drilled:

Pedals installed:

[toxik]

Carbonex Aluminum Hood latch release:

This was a small dress-up mod for the hood latch release, I liked the offered metal version, and I couldn't decide on which color to get it in, the standard black would've looked too much like OEM plastic to me. I decided to go with a Titanium Silver to give it that raw aluminum anodized look.




Installed:



Kith Floor Mats:

I got tired of my rubber all-season mats that came with the car. As much as I love their utility, I keep my car very clean so I didn't mind reverting to a less utilitarian carpet mat. I really hated the amount of squeaking my shoes made in rainy weather, in traffic, with a lot of heel movement it would drive me insane. Plus I just simply dont think it matched my interior, rubber mats simply look like a pickup truck accessory to me. Did a bunch of research on the pros and cons of various available carpet mats. Was going to do the G80 M Performance Carpet Mats, but then ultimately I fell in love with the heel box design of the Kith M4 mats. They're on the expensive side of things due to the fashion brand, but I'm not regretting my decision one bit. They look and feel great, hoping they also brought my car's value up a bit haha.

[toxik]

Goldenwrench Blackline Coolant Beauty Covers:

Slowly dressing up my engine bay with more carbon fiber and orange bits to add to my already orange charge pipe and CF Eventuri intake. First up were these aluminum beauty covers that I sent off to my powdercoater to coat them same orange as the charge pipe:



Downstar F3X Engine Bay Dress Up Bolts

Got these during a black friday sale, not much to say about them, but I think they are really nice eye candy. Their orange beauty washers are a little more on the yellow/gold side than the rest of my orange parts (BBK/Charge Pipe) but I honestly don't think the colors clash at all:



ECS Carbon Fiber Strut Bar:

Another item I got for a great deal on Black Friday, just had it sitting around until I had some time to install it. First order of business was to apply my own custom ECS logo to the bar. I found the emptiness of just a carbon fiber bar a little lacking, I thought a logo would give it more legitimacy and make it look like an official performance part. I bought 3 window decals that ECS sell, to recreate their multi-color logo on the bar itself:

Finding the perfect center and aligning blue tape for application:




On to the install. I found it difficult to install and align the bar while fully assembled. I ended up taking the bar off the mounts and mounting them on the strut mounts first, hand tightening the M8 bolts, then bringing the bar over to set perfect angle. I tried my best to set preload as well, but with the tight clearance on B58 cars, I'm not sure how well I set it. Feels super sturdy and I'm happy with end result:




Here are some pics I took outside with better lighting than my garage of my final engine bay completed:

[toxik]

Random post-wash photoshoot:

[oem.plus_440gc]

That engine bay is looking wild! I love it!

Keep up the sick build!

[PeteyF36]

love the build man i have a 440xi grancoupe in mineral grey wish it had that interior though. #savethemanuals

[toxik]

Originally Posted by PeteyF36

love the build man i have a 440xi grancoupe in mineral grey wish it had that interior though. #savethemanuals

appreciate it man, ironically enough what made me fall in love with the color combo was a 430i gran coupe i found, it was fully loaded with adaptive cruise control, the icon headlights, and the mineral grey/saddle brown combo… but i was determined to get a manual b58, and was on the look out for this color combo for months, i actually called the dealership and bought the car about 1 hour after it was listed.

[MrLV83]

Love the build and the progress updates! I have been on the fence about adding Bilstein suspension to my ride but after seeing yours, it doesn't appear it's a "must have". Keep up the great work!

[toxik]

Originally Posted by MrLV83

Love the build and the progress updates! I have been on the fence about adding Bilstein suspension to my ride but after seeing yours, it doesn't appear it's a "must have". Keep up the great work!

appreciate it man, I won't lie, suspension is definitely in the future plans for me but I have read how Bilstein will ride harsher... I've really gotten used to the comfort of OEM suspension. I'm in my mid-30's now, back in my 20's dropping a car was always the first mod haha.

[MrLV83]

Originally Posted by toxik

appreciate it man, I won't lie, suspension is definitely in the future plans for me but I have read how Bilstein will ride harsher... I've really gotten used to the comfort of OEM suspension. I'm in my mid-30's now, back in my 20's dropping a car was always the first mod haha.

I am soon to turn 40 so I completely understand! I was big into the car scene in my 20s and lowering the car was the first mod we all made. At my older age i am not sure I want to "deal" with a lowered car, especially living in CT. This is my daily driver so it could become annoying. My wife drives my car sometimes, so maybe not lowering is a wise option for me haha.

I really need to post some pictures of my ride in the forums to I could get some feedback from members.