I’ve had a couple of performance cars over the years with the first one being an S14 that started stock and ended up a drift car with lots of money in between because the car slowly changed roles over the years and upgraded parts got replaced with further upgraded parts which got replaced with further upgraded parts. I think it had around 5 or 6 different exhaust setups, 2 different suspension setups, 3 sets of cams, 2 turbine housings and the list goes on. I ended up selling it within the family so got to see and use it for a further year or so before it was sold off. Heaps of fun, heaps of memories and heaps of friends made through motorsports. I did about 4 years of fairly regular drift events or practice days, including once interstate as a competitor and several as part of the support crew with my brother. NO regrets but had to start thinking about all the boring stuff like buying a house and all that!
I thought I could live without high performance for a while so bought a 2007 Subaru Liberty 3.0R Spec B and did some suspension work and an exhaust on that. It was spacious and comfy and handled OK.
After about a year, I was pretty keen to get my hands on another fast RWD so the wife and I replaced her Corolla Sportivo with a 2002 Nissan 200SX S15 Spec S GT with dealership-optioned Spec R sideskirts. This gave me effectively a Spec R without a sunroof. The non-sunroof models have way more headroom, which I needed. I bought it in 2011 off the first owner with 38,000km on it 100% stock and genuinely never modified! This allowed me to do the whole thing exactly as I wanted. The goal with this one was to be as perfect as possible of a fast street car that’s capable of doing quick hillclimbs and track days and do everything once and ONCE ONLY. This car was probably better in every way than the S14 and was cheaper to build because I did more custom fabrication, rather than off-the-shelf Jap brand stuff as well as way better parts availability from Australian and USA based companies than there were years earlier with the S14. I’ll post a bit of a summary of this car on subsequent post for those interested and it’ll be out of the way for those that aren’t. I do miss this car regularly!
Sold the Liberty somewhere in between and bought a little VW Polo. Somehow, as the mods begun, the S15 became more mine and the other car more hers! Nothing to see here!
By that stage, we had a child and the Polo was feeling pretty cramped. I was tossing up for ages whether to buy a 320d and keep the S15 or sell both and get a 335i. I couldn’t afford to keep the S15 and get the 335i too! In the end, I knew that if I got the 320d, with me being a rev head, I’d be wanting to replace it with something faster in no time. 335i it is and the S15 had to go :-(
Anyway… The E90. This is my family’s practical do-everything (except off-road) car. It meets my needs for high performance plus all the stuff the wife wants for daily family use!
Found this E90 LCI and flew to Sydney and picked it up shortly after. It had BMR angel eyes and a JB4 at the time. I toyed around with the JB4 and did up my own back end flash, but ended up selling the JB4 as I get what I need from flash only and don’t intend to run meth or PI.
These are the initial set of mods I did over the first 6 months of ownership:
- Custom BBFlash tune
- AMS FMIC
- Wagner Tuning downpipes
- M3 front lower control arms
- M3 front tension arms/rods
- M3 rear subframe bushes
- E93 M-Sport 15mm rear swaybar
- MFactory LSD
- Apex EC-7 18x9 +31 / 18x10 +43 with 5mm spacers on the rear
- Michelin Pilot Super Sport 235/40R18 / 265/35R18
- Alpina transmission flash
I had two issues in the fairly early stages of owning the car:
Cylinder 2 misfire. Switched coils, still cylinder 2. Replaced all spark plugs, still cylinder 2. I ordered 3 new injectors. I went to remove the first injector and it came out a lot easier than I thought. I took a look at the injector and there was no decoupling ring. I had a look down in the hole and it wasn’t there either! I proceeded to remove the other two injectors and none of them had decoupling rings! I didn’t want to spend any more time stuffing around and just put all 3 new injectors with decoupling rings in. The misfire may have gone away just with the decoupling rings added, holding the injectors more securely and at the correct height, but I had the new ones there and didn’t want to stuff around. Misfire gone AND a light tapping noise that I noticed, brought up with an N54 specialist that I took the car to to look at in Sydney said was fine, before I bought the car, was also gone. The tapping noise was an injector jumping up and down on its seat!
Issue 2 - Water pump failure very close to my house. I parked it and the wife picked me up and I went back in 2 hours after it was cooled right down to drive it the 90 second drive home, if that. No tow required! I bought the pump, bolts, thermostat and coolant from the US and replaced the parts in a few hours at home. The job wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.
I spent a decent amount of time just enjoying/driving the car, then MHD Flasher came out, so I thought what better time to finesse the tune a bit more. I spent weeks winding up the power a bit and working on the cruise areas of the tune to get the very best economy, smoothness and driveability possible. I did lots of testing with VANOS/EGR stuff and found what seemed to work best there then had to go back to fuel and timing to make tweaks to suit etc. It paid off big-time. The car is just so nice to drive and gets 7-7.5L/100km on long trips and 9L/100km with mixed suburban driving with plenty of short trips.
We next got set on getting out camping more and took interest in Jayco camper trailers. Put a deposit down on one of them, which lead to the next accessory for the BMW:
- Westfalia tow bar
- RedArc Tow-Pro electric brake controller
Every bit of research I did pointed to 335i needing different muffler brackets on the tow bar but the Australian distributor continued to assure me that I didn’t. I ordered the tow bar, pretty much knowing that it won’t work. I confirmed my suspicion as soon as it arrived and they then said that I’m right and it does need other parts, which are still in production in New Zealand but they’ll express post me some from there. I received them. They were junk. Bad alignment and huge sloppy mounting holes. I ordered the Westfalia UK muffler brackets direct from the UK and modded them to weld on to the Westfalia AU/NZ tow bar. Problem solved! The trailer electrics socket is hidden away up under the rear bumper on a 45 degree angle and the towball unit retracts vertically, leaving no visible sign that the car has a tow bar. I think that’s pretty cool! I thought starting to tow is a good time to change the transmission fluid so did that too.
The Jayco Swift camper trailer turned up and I got straight on to getting 5x120 drums, 16x7 E60 5 series wheels, longer axle to suit the different wheel offset, retrofitted shock absorbers and put softer springs in. It tows SO much nicer with the basic, cheap changes and most important of all, if I get a flat tyre on the BMW, I can use the spare off the back of the camper trailer (because who likes run-flats?). I keep one of my factory 18” rims on the camper trailer as a spare so that fits over the brakes on the car. Next I swapped the 3-way fridge for a compressor fridge, installing a lithium battery, plenty of solar and battery monitor etc. I’ve had lightest possible weight in mind with everything to do with this and it’s around 980kg, fully loaded for a trip away. It’s just barely half of the E90’s 1800kg tow rating, however, it is right on the 75kg towball down-load rating of the E90. I feel that this limit could be much higher now that the car has Bilstein shocks as it never hits bump stops any more and the only reason that the limit is that low, is due to shock travel.
Heaps more memories made with the new toy!
Just recently I’ve brought my focus back to the BMW and spoilt it with a set of Bilstein B8 shocks. What a difference in EVERY situation! Better for this, better for that, better for everything!
I’ve wanted a turbo upgrade in the long term ever since buying the BMW, and thanks to the recent Hexon special, plus further bundling discounts from Chris at BoostConcepts, I now either have here and ready or have paid for and waiting for:
- BoostConcepts LPFP
- Hexon RR600s
- Hexon inlets
- Turbo install parts
- The parts to build a secondary intake pipe to the factory airbox
My dealings with Chris at BoostConcepts have been the best sales dealings I’ve had in the automotive industry, bar none. If you need a fuel pump or Hexons, hit him up!
Watch this space for turbo upgrade and tuning updates!
Me and my Jack-of-all-Trades 335i Sedan Intro
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