Car Wankery

[smack_jackal]

Been a while since I've babbled about cars. Figure it's about time after the week I've just had.

First - The 1987 BMW 325is
The shop this thing in their possession for six weeks which is fine 'cause I told them to take their time but still...I was really starting to get antsy to get this back in my possession and flog it around a little. Let me be completely up front about this...what I'm doing with this car is not entirely logical and that's kind of the point. So with that in mind...

Over the last several weeks the following has been done on that car...

• Ground Control Camber/Caster Plates
  
• Strut tower bar - Needed a little fabrication work to make it fit due to BMW build variances with E30s ( chopped, welded and re-powder coated )
  
• M3 style off-center poly control arm bushings
  
• Ireland Engineering 25mm adjustable front swaybar with adjustable end-links
  
• Weld in front swaybar reinforcement tabs
  
• Poly rear subframe bushings
  
• Poly semi-trailing arm bushings
  
• Poly differential bushing
  
• Ireland Engineering 22mm adjustable rear swaybar with adjustable end-links
  
• Weld in rear swaybar reinforcement tabs
  
• Weight Reduction - Removed 55lbs of sound deadening
  
• CV Boot replacement
  
• Diff inspection and gear oil refresh ('cause the axels had to be pulled out anyway)
  
• Replacement brake master cylinder (25mm upgraded unit from a 750i) and full brake bleed
  
• Replacement clutch master cylinder ( stock unit ) and full clutch bleed
  
• Drive belt replacement (again)
  
• Power steering repair ( some bolts had rattled out at the last track day )
  
• 4-wheel custom alignment
  It's quite the laundry list. The car feels a lot tighter now and is certainly a bit more physically taxing to drive on the street. Just louder and stiffer and thus a bit more uncomfortable as an every-day bomber. BUt with that said, it feels a bit quicker and handles a bit more sharply. Haven't had much of a chance to throw it around hard but it seems to want to oversteer a bit more than I'm used to but not in a bad way, it's about as ass-happy as the 370 was and I like that a whole lot! Basically, I made it a better, more rewarding track car and a worse street car. I'm alright with that.
  
  In a fit of insanity I bid on an S52B32US ( '99 US M3 motor ) for the thing. If I win it will be a fun winter project to refresh and prep that motor for insertion into the E30 in the spring though in all honesty the next item on the upgrade list is a new seat, rollbar and harness set.
  
  Second - The 2006 Passat
  I've been somewhat tired of this car for a bit, mostly because it rides to so damn low that it's impossible to drive in a parking lot with aggressive speed bumps. (I'm looking at you, Pruneyard!) I'd thought the last own had just thrown some cheap spring on it and called it a day. I'd sourced a set of stock springs off of eBay a while go but decided that when I picked up my E30 I should just drop the VW off to have the springs swapped out. The shop called me to report that my the springs I'd bought wouldn't fit because the car is actually riding on a set of Bilstein PSS9 coilovers that had been used to slam the thing as low as it would go. Well what do you know about that. So I had the shop bump the ride eight back up to the max for the PSS9s (this is my daily driver, after all) which is still about 30mm lower than stock. The shop reports they were able to tackle the speed bumps in the Pruneyard with zero issues at all. Bliss!
  
  And since I'm going to be keeping it a couple of more years I had the ECU flashed with a Revo Stage1 upgrade. +60hp/+80trq. Puts the car on-par (power:weight-wise) with a Mazdaspeed 3 which I think is an insanely fun giggle machine. The suspension adjustments and power bump should make it an acceptably entertaining daily driver for a while. :D