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24 June 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
I was quite satisfied with the additional power from the upgrade from a 2.0-liter
to 2.5-liter engine. However, one can never have enough power. After a few months
adjusting to the increased power, the car felt sluggish again. So I was back
online to research ways to get more power. I was quite interested in Forced
Induction since it can potentially provide a significant increase. However, the
problem is that it costs quite a lot and can lead to problems if not done
properly. If I decide to go down the Forced Induction route, I will probably look
for a used supercharger kit made by established tuners like Dinan. I think I
should do a little more research before committing to this.
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1 June 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
The combination of Eibach Pro-Kit springs and Bilstein Touring suspension did not
work well for me. It gave the car a good-looking sporty stance but that was all it
did. The ride quality was poor and the combination made the car felt bouncy. It
seemed like the absorbers were not doing a proper job and the car was riding
primarily on springs. Maybe because of that, it affected the springs and the ride
height went gradually lower. I certainly did not expect it to be related to the
quality of Eibach springs. Anyway, I got tired of the uncomfortable ride and
swapped the Bilstein Touring absorbers out for Koni Sport Adjustables absorbers
after reading positive reviews about them on forums. I will post an update on the
Koni set later - once I get a good enough feel of it.
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21 April 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
I have been driving my car on stock suspension for about 3 years and have now
decided that it is time to lower the car. Since one of the front absorbers has a
slight leak, I have decided that it was best to replace both springs and absorbers
at the same time. The choice for lowered springs was easy because of the
popularity of Eibach – mainly due to marketing and the easy of Eibach springs.
For absorbers, there was no doubt that it is going to be Bilstein as they have
been widely and favourably reviewed in magazines and forums on the Internet. The
only decision to be made was whether it is going to be Bilstein Touring (black
coloured) or Bilstein Sports (yellow coloured). I decided on the Bilstein Touring
mainly because most of the comments indicate that Bilstein Sports absorbers are
really stiff and the ride quality would be quite harsh. This combination will
need to last me at least one year. Now, the car has a nice lowered stance but the
ride quality is too bouncy. In hindsight, I should have bought the Bilstein Sport
as they were designed for lowered springs and would have been a better match with
the Eibach Pro Kit.
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5 April 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
I have now upgraded the engine of my BMW. My preferred engine upgrade was a 2.5
liter Vanos engine transplant. I believe 2.5 liters is the minimum needed to
provide the e34 the drive it requires given the weight of the car. However, in
order to upgrade the engine from the 2.0 liter non-Vanos to the 2.5 liter Vanos
engine, more parts would be required and the labour needed would be more
extensive.
With the amount spent on the car stereo, I didn’t have sufficient budget left for
a 2.5 liter Vanos engine transplant. The alternate route to 2.5 liter power would
be replacing the engine with the 2.5 liter non-Vanos engine. It is a more
straight-forward swap and also, used non-Vanos long blocks are cheaper due to the
lower demand compared to used Vanos engines. In addition, the non-Vanos m50
engines are said to be quite robust. I guess without Vanos, there’s one less thing
that can go wrong. Once that was decided, the mechanic at my regular workshop
helped to source for the engine and did the swap. I am satisfied with the
increased power although more would definitely be better. That will have to wait
until my budget recovers.
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30 March 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
After the car audio system was completed, the car felt more sluggish. I guess that
was to be expected with the additional sound-proofing material and car audio gear.
The sub-woofer, its custom enclosure and the MDF amplifier rack in the boot would
have added quite a fair bit of extra weight.
Anyway, I had planned for some time to get work done on the engine to increase
power. Simple bolt-on modifications like cold air intake and exhaust system would
definitely not be enough. The 2-liter non-Vanos engine is nice at cruising speed
on the highway but I always felt like it was struggling, particularly in stop/go
traffic and when over-taking. Nevertheless, the engine was still smooth running
after 295,000Km. I have put approximately 100,000Km since owning the car and the
engine has never given any problems. It gets serviced regularly with Castrol
Magnatec semi-synthetic oil; and oil filter change every 5,000Km. I am sure it can
run for another 100,000Km.
If not for the lack of power, I would have left the engine as is. Anyway, I am
more eager than ever to upgrade the engine for more power after the car audio work.
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3 March 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
Before the system was installed, I had the floor, boot and all four doors lined
with Dynamat Extreme since the entire car interior had to come out anyways. Not
sure whether it made any difference but since it's always done on the cars they
do up on Overhauling (the Chip Foose show on Discovery channel), I figured it had
to be good for my car. It took 3 boxes of Dynamat Extremet bulk pack.
Whilst the sound dampening was being done, I discussed with the owner of the shop
the best way to mount the front speakers and the sub-woofers. The original speaker
mount for the e34 could only take 5.25-inch mids and the Dynaudio mid-bass
definitely could not fit. And there was the additional dome mid-range to consider.
In the end, we decided to build custom kick-panels housing the mid-bass, mid-range
and tweeter. The existing steel panel behind the stock speakers had to be cut to
make space for the speakers. Once that was sorted, we had to figure out how I
wanted the 12-inch sub-woofer installed. I wanted the boot to look neat and to
keep as much space possible so that two golf sets would still fit. We decided to
remove the spare tyre and build a custom sub-enclosure fit in the spare tyre
compartment.
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17 February 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
Since I'm rather free today, I'll start with the stereo work that was done back in
2006. If you recall, I used to run a Nakamichi receiver and changer together with
Xtant 3300c amplifier and CDT HD speakers. Anyway, I decided that it was time to
introduce higher quality audio in the car since I tend to compare the sound with my
home stereo whenever I'm playing audiophile CDs. I'm into home audio and run an old
Meridian 506, Audiolab 8000S and Sonus Faber Concertino system. They're old but
still sound quite good.
The first order was deciding the gear to replace the old setup. Since I'm a big fan
of Dynaudio home speakers (but I can't afford them), I decided on Dynaudio speakers.
I managed to find a nice set of used System 340 component speakers. It is a
three-way system that includes the MW160 woofer, MD140 dome mid-range and MD100
tweeter. Deciding on the sub-woofer was easy because I have an Image Dynamics
IDMAX that was lying idle. Deciding on the amplifiers was a bit more difficult.
I have an Xtant 2200ix that I could combine with the 3300c or use the Precision
Audio Art series amplifiers I've been collecting. I finally decided to keep those
for an old school install and chose the Genesis Profile series amplifiers. It was
mainly for their looks although I knew they sounded good too as their higher-end
series III amplifiers were popular amongst the car audio community; and the Profile
series did quite well in a review by a car audio magazine when compared against
higher-end models from the likes of Tru and Zapco. Since I wanted to run active
(I really like the Naim and Linn active systems but I can't afford them), the
installer recommended the Alpine 701 processor which was again the choice-processor
for many car audio enthusiasts. The good thing was that it does not look out of
place next to the Genesis amplifiers. For cables, I went with Audison for
inter-connects and Monster 12awg XLN for speaker cables. I would have preferred
Audison throughout but their silver cables were quite expensive compared to Monster.
The Nakamichi player and changer were retained as I liked its simplicity and
amber-coloured display that matches well with the BMW interior.
Here is the list of equipment that finally went into the car:
1. Genesis Profile 2 for Dynaudio MD100 tweeter
2. Genesis Profile 2 Ultra for Dynaudio MD140 mid-range
3. Genesis Profile 2 Ultra for Dynaudio MW160 mid-bass
4. Genesis Profile 2 Ultra for CDT Audio HD-52 components
5. Genesis Profile Sub for 12" Image Dynamics IDMax
6. Alpine PXA H701 processor
7. Alpine RUX C701 controller
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11 February 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.
It's been a long time since my last update on this blog. During that time, a lot
work have gone into my e34 to keep it in good running condition besides having nice
extras to keep the car interesting. I'll write about each of these individually in
the very near future but for now, just do a quick run through on the work that has
been done; in no particular sequence, chronological or preference.
For suspension and tyres, I swapped Bilstein touring absorbers for Koni sport
adjustables and switched to AC Type 1 17-inch wheels with Dunlop Direzza DZ101. On
the engine, the car went through a couple of engine transplants from the original
2.0 24v non-vanos engine to its current 3.0 stroker Vanos engine. There was also a
painful gearbox overhaul experience after the stroker engine upgrade. And lastly,
major audio work involving Alpine head-unit and processor, 5 Genesis amplifiers,
Dynaudio 3-way speakers and Audison cables. The Dynaudio speakers have now been
replaced by Boston Acoustics reference series 2-way speakers. That's an episode by
itself... stay tuned.
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