MWerks' Project 135i
03-17-2008, 07:55 AM
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My Ride: 2008 535i w/ Sports & Permium Pkg. Silv/Blk
2008 VW R32 w/Nav.
1992 VW Corrado Silv/Blk-retired
2001 530i Sports/Premium-retired
Thought I would share this with the group.......it might be useful to those planing mods on their 535s.
Project 135i: Part 1
Let the fun begin
Mar 14, 2008
Bryan Joslin, Mwerks
There is perhaps no better way to get familiar with a car than to take a cross-country road trip. So that?s how we got acquainted with BMW?s newest coupe, the 135i, picking it up in Monterey, California, and driving it back to our base in Chicago. Over the course of four days, we covered more than 2800 miles, and in the process fell in love with our new project vehicle.
The 135i coupe is essentially a 7/8th-scale 3 Series, and was in fact developed in conjunction with its bigger sibling. It shares its 3.0-liter twin-turbo N54 six-cylinder with the 335i, making the same 300 horsepower and 300 lb-ft of torque. What it lacks is the four inches of extra wheelbase and seven additional inches of overall length that give the 3 Series a slightly bloated feeling by comparison to the lean, compact 1er.
We chose a fairly lightly equipped version in the interest of keeping things light and simple. Our Alpine White coupe is fitted only with the sport package (sport seats, essentially, since the sport suspension and sport steering wheel is already standard), a leather interior, the cold weather package and BMW?s iPod/USB integration. We skipped navigation, power seats, and other luxuries to help us focus on the performance aspect of the 135i.
Over the next several months, we?ll be exploring options to increase that performance. We?ll not only be adding power, but also improving its agility and, hopefully, reducing some of its weight. But before we get started with all of that, we needed to establish the current state of the car. We lined up an appointment with Genesis Racing & Development to use their Dynapack dyno to get some base power figures, and while we were out we stopped in on Midwest Eurosport to record the weight at each corner. When the Chicago winter eventually breaks, we?ll get it out to the strip for some offical ?-mile times, but for now we strapped on our Vbox to get some impromptu 0-60 numbers.
We know BMW has a habit of underrating its cars? power figures, so when the dyno showed us 279.4 horsepower at the rear wheel hubs, we weren?t really surprised. Assuming 15% of the engine?s horsepower is absorbed through the driveline, that figure represents about 329 horses at the crank, or roughly ten percent more than the factory quotes. Torque output was even stronger, with a peak of 295 lb-ft twisting the dyno. (http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=yTy06py7inY&fmt=6)
More impressive than the outright numbers is the manner in which the torque is laid down. Maximum twist comes on around 1900 rpm and holds strong to around 5000 rpm before trailing off. We felt this plateau from the seat of the pants on our drive back, easily passing traffic in sixth gear at any speed. In fact, with that much torque available from such a low engine speed, we?ve taken to skipping third and fifth gear around town to keep fuel economy up.
Weight has been a sensitive issue for a car that?s perceived as small by so many critics. The official factory weight is listed at 3373 lbs empty, and ours weighed in at 3413 lbs with a full tank of gas. Since we also corner-weighed the car, we were able to see just how balanced the chassis really is. Empty, the left half of the car is slightly lighter, allowing for the driver?s weight to balance everything just about right. We hope to save a hundred pounds or so by switching to lighter wheels and tires, and we?ll be looking for other opportunities to save weight as well. We?d really be happy (and somewhat surprised) if we could hit 3200 pounds without sacrificing modern conveniences and comfort.
There is no doubt the 135i is a fast little car. BMW claims a 0-60 time of 5.1 seconds, but we were able to click off a 5.2 on a damp, 34-degree day. Cracking below five seconds should be no problem at all once the weather improves and we can actually get some traction. We?ll run a full battery of tests in its stock configuration so we can track real improvements.
For now, we?re just riding out the last few weeks of this winter and making plans for a busy spring and summer with our 135i.
Project 135i: Part 1
Let the fun begin
Mar 14, 2008
Bryan Joslin, Mwerks
There is perhaps no better way to get familiar with a car than to take a cross-country road trip. So that?s how we got acquainted with BMW?s newest coupe, the 135i, picking it up in Monterey, California, and driving it back to our base in Chicago. Over the course of four days, we covered more than 2800 miles, and in the process fell in love with our new project vehicle.
The 135i coupe is essentially a 7/8th-scale 3 Series, and was in fact developed in conjunction with its bigger sibling. It shares its 3.0-liter twin-turbo N54 six-cylinder with the 335i, making the same 300 horsepower and 300 lb-ft of torque. What it lacks is the four inches of extra wheelbase and seven additional inches of overall length that give the 3 Series a slightly bloated feeling by comparison to the lean, compact 1er.
We chose a fairly lightly equipped version in the interest of keeping things light and simple. Our Alpine White coupe is fitted only with the sport package (sport seats, essentially, since the sport suspension and sport steering wheel is already standard), a leather interior, the cold weather package and BMW?s iPod/USB integration. We skipped navigation, power seats, and other luxuries to help us focus on the performance aspect of the 135i.
Over the next several months, we?ll be exploring options to increase that performance. We?ll not only be adding power, but also improving its agility and, hopefully, reducing some of its weight. But before we get started with all of that, we needed to establish the current state of the car. We lined up an appointment with Genesis Racing & Development to use their Dynapack dyno to get some base power figures, and while we were out we stopped in on Midwest Eurosport to record the weight at each corner. When the Chicago winter eventually breaks, we?ll get it out to the strip for some offical ?-mile times, but for now we strapped on our Vbox to get some impromptu 0-60 numbers.
We know BMW has a habit of underrating its cars? power figures, so when the dyno showed us 279.4 horsepower at the rear wheel hubs, we weren?t really surprised. Assuming 15% of the engine?s horsepower is absorbed through the driveline, that figure represents about 329 horses at the crank, or roughly ten percent more than the factory quotes. Torque output was even stronger, with a peak of 295 lb-ft twisting the dyno. (http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=yTy06py7inY&fmt=6)
More impressive than the outright numbers is the manner in which the torque is laid down. Maximum twist comes on around 1900 rpm and holds strong to around 5000 rpm before trailing off. We felt this plateau from the seat of the pants on our drive back, easily passing traffic in sixth gear at any speed. In fact, with that much torque available from such a low engine speed, we?ve taken to skipping third and fifth gear around town to keep fuel economy up.
Weight has been a sensitive issue for a car that?s perceived as small by so many critics. The official factory weight is listed at 3373 lbs empty, and ours weighed in at 3413 lbs with a full tank of gas. Since we also corner-weighed the car, we were able to see just how balanced the chassis really is. Empty, the left half of the car is slightly lighter, allowing for the driver?s weight to balance everything just about right. We hope to save a hundred pounds or so by switching to lighter wheels and tires, and we?ll be looking for other opportunities to save weight as well. We?d really be happy (and somewhat surprised) if we could hit 3200 pounds without sacrificing modern conveniences and comfort.
There is no doubt the 135i is a fast little car. BMW claims a 0-60 time of 5.1 seconds, but we were able to click off a 5.2 on a damp, 34-degree day. Cracking below five seconds should be no problem at all once the weather improves and we can actually get some traction. We?ll run a full battery of tests in its stock configuration so we can track real improvements.
For now, we?re just riding out the last few weeks of this winter and making plans for a busy spring and summer with our 135i.
03-17-2008, 04:39 PM
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My Ride: 2008 535xi-
Alpine White, Natural Brown Interior, Sport Pack, Premium Pack, Comfort Access, 20 way Multi-contor seats, Navigation, 18" rims, Cold Weather Pack
why wont they offer it in a three door! that would look better!
08-08-2008, 09:51 AM
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My Ride: 2008 535i w/ Sports & Permium Pkg. Silv/Blk
2008 VW R32 w/Nav.
1992 VW Corrado Silv/Blk-retired
2001 530i Sports/Premium-retired
Project 135i: Part 2
In search of chassis performance
It's been several months since we returned to Chicago with our new 135i coupe. In that time we've come to really enjoy the incredible supply of power, handling and braking that the car delivers right out of the box. Still, we can't help wondering how much better it could be.
Remembering our first encounter with the 135i at the Gotland Ring in Sweden last fall, we figured our first change had to focus on dialing out some of the at-the-limits understeer we experienced on the track. The plan was to add rear roll stiffness, which would come by way of a stronger rear sway bar. Since the 1 Series has been available in Europe since 2004, H&R had parts on the shelf already. The German suspension tuner offers a 20mm bar, a hefty 8mm increase over the stock bar.
We were curious what effect the beefier bar alone would have on the chassis dynamics, so we arranged some before-and-after testing sessions at the Tire Rack's testing facility in South Bend, Indiana. Our test would be a six-cone slalom from a standing start, and times would be logged with a GPS-based vBox data recorder. Testing would be done on the same day, on the same track, by the same driver to eliminate any external factors that might skew the data.
As technically ambitious as that all sounds, the gods of reality had different ideas. Our plan was somewhat optimistic in that we had briefly scanned the rear axle assembly and determined that the original bar could be swapped out easily with an hour and a half. Unfortunately, we hadn't estimated that the job actually requires dropping the entire sub-frame, which requires some special tools (an E24 Torx socket, for instance) and some extra support. In other words, we weren't able to finish the job that day at the Tire Rack. Instead, we finished our initial testing and packed up for home. We later completed the job in the sanctity of our own garage and returned to the Rack on a day with virtually identical conditions-upper 70s and dry. The course was reset and the testing completed just a few days later.
The subjective results were immediate; the Tire Rack's test track allows for numerous configurations, and one of our favorite maneuvers is jogging from the outer loop to the inner skidpad. It's a tight right-left chicane the way we run it, and the first time around in the135i was met with much complaining from the front tires. After the not-so-quick switch of the rear swaybar, the front end now takes a bite and lets the rear end follow behind. The change was exactly what we were hoping for, altering ever so slightly the car's attitude without upsetting its day-to-day livability. But we weren't just interested in how it feels-we wanted to know objectively that we had made a change for the better. Looking at the performance data, we increased our average speed on this short slalom course from 29.6 mph to 30.2 mph. It's a slight advantage, admittedly, but the important thing is that we didn't diminish the performance with this simple mod.
For owners looking to merely tune up the 135i's suspension without changing it outright, the H&R rear swaybar is an inexpensive and effective way to achieve sharper, more precise handling when it's needed. It's ideal for a daily driver car that might also see occasional autocross or track day duty. Of course, we weren't content to leave the rest of the suspension stock, so once our little swaybar experiment was complete we fitted a full H&R coilover suspension.
We'd be lying if we said we weren't more than a little concerned that we might ruin the fine balance of our BMW's suspension, but we still wanted to pull just a bit of gap out of the fender wells. We chose the coilovers (more acurately, a height-adjustable suspension) so that we could play God with the ride height. H&R makes several coilover options, but we chose the aluminum-bodied Premium Performance version, which weighs in about six pounds lighter than either the stock suspension or the conventional, steel-bodied H&R Street Performance coilovers. Six pounds may not sound like a lot, but every bit helps. Of course, those six pounds are essentially offset by that stout swaybar.
Installing the coilovers was a fairly straightforward, and thankfully did not require dropping any subframes or purchasing any special tools. A competent wrench-turner should be able to do this job in three to four hours. Of course, you'll probably need to budget another hour or two afterward to get the height sorted out just right; if there is any downside to having coilovers, it's the tedious, laborious task of adjusting the damn things. We've often suspected that while most people buy coilovers for the ability to raise and lower the car at will, most owners probably go through the process exactly once, cursing the wrenches and bloodied knuckles when they're finally done.
BMW is probably the best carmaker when comes to centering its wheels properly in the fenders, so we tried not to bastardize the look of the car too much by simply slamming it. Despite our best efforts to keep the drop modest, the end result was roughly an inch and a half of drop both front and rear. The front tires now rest just slightly inside the fender lip, while the rear sits up a bit higher, giving the car a more aggressive squat. The new attitude is perfect for the 135i; in fact, we haven't heard the term "cute car" once since we've lowered it.
The ride is surprisingly supple, almost stock-like. For as long as I've been reading tuner mags, I've always seen sport suspensions referred to as "firm, but not harsh." It's an old cliché, and one that's often not entirely accurate. In the case of the H&R coilovers, the ride is almost a carbon copy of the factory's sport suspension setup, which is to say decidedly firm yet still refined enough for everyday living. H&R's springs are noticeably firmer than stock, but the shocks are so well tuned for the street that you don't feel punished. The shorter suspension travel is noticeable, especially over abrupt changes in the pavement surface, but it has yet to exhibit the kind of nervous porpoising over low-frequency imperfections, such as the warped and wavy toll road my personal commute entails. In short, it's a damn impressive combination for the street.
The last bit of chassis help our 135i was going to need was a different set of rolling stock. For one thing, the rear tires were down to maybe 25% tread life by 10,000 miles. Remember, we picked this car up from a press event, where it was driven both on the roads of Monterey County and on the track at Laguna Seca by a handful of journalists. We've also kept our right foot fairly planted under most conditions; it's hard not to. Tire wear aside, we couldn't resist the urge to ditch the extra weight and harshness of the standard runflats. At the same time, we wanted to dial up the visual intensity of the car a bit with a new set of wheels.
Before we fell in love with a new set of tires, we needed to pick wheels. We chose to stay with the factory's 18-inch staggered setup for both practical (19s on Chicago are roads would be suicide) and aesthetic (staggered wheels look so damn good) reasons. There were surprisingly few fitments available within these parameters at the time we were shopping, but one option stood out right away. Breyton was developing a 1 Series-specific fitment of their GTS wheel and offering in a matte anthracite finish with a red accent stripe on the inner lip of the wheel. We know not everyone is a fan of the dark-wheel look, but considering the way our 135i pumps out brake dust, there's not much advantage to owning silver wheels. The GTS-R, as it's officially known, is considered a lightweight wheel, which was also a consideration as we planned to shed any weight possible (especially unsprung weight) for better performance.
With the wheels selected, tires were the last decision. We opted out of the runflat category and went with Yokohama's new S.drive summer performance tires. Since we kept the standard wheel sizes, we also elected to stick with the original tire sizes-215/40-18 in front and 245/35-18 in back.
When the mounted and balanced packages showed up from Tire Rack, we quickly pulled the car in the garage and busted out the scales. We were impressed that we shaved 8.5 pounds out of each rear fender and an even more impressive 10 pounds off each front corner. Thirty-seven pounds less rotational mass would certainly lead to better acceleration, braking and chassis response.
What we hadn't figured in is just how good the factory Bridgestones are as performance tires. The truth is, traction is the 135i's Achilles Heel, and the Yokohamas just doesn't lay the power to the ground as well as the Potenza runflats. Even with less mass and a lower center of gravity, we've been unable to record a better 0-to-60 time than the 5.0 seconds we managed with the car completely stock. Of course, standing-start times aren't everything, and there is a noticeable increase in the coupe's desire to accelerate on the fly. Then again, the lateral handling limits of the S.drives seems to be somewhat lower than the Potenzas, delivering something of a greasy feeling.
Where the Yokos easily beat out the Bridgestones is in ride quality. The softer sidewalls of the non-runflat tires acts as an additional damper, pre-softening the load that the suspension has to deal with. The combination works especially well with the H&R suspension, too. Another bonus of the Yokohamas is reduced road noise, at least on asphalt. Maybe because the Bridgestones were getting so thin, but the road noise had become intrusive, and the Yokos made an immediate improvement. However, on grooved concrete surfaces, the S.drives seem to be at least as noisy as the Potenzas.
So far we're happy with the changes we've selected for our 135i. At this point we don't feel like we've compromised the integrity of the car for the sake of performance gains, which is always nice. With the chassis now pretty well sorted, we'll start looking at power improvements and maybe some cosmetic enhancements. We promise there won't be another five-month gap until the next installment.
In search of chassis performance
It's been several months since we returned to Chicago with our new 135i coupe. In that time we've come to really enjoy the incredible supply of power, handling and braking that the car delivers right out of the box. Still, we can't help wondering how much better it could be.
Remembering our first encounter with the 135i at the Gotland Ring in Sweden last fall, we figured our first change had to focus on dialing out some of the at-the-limits understeer we experienced on the track. The plan was to add rear roll stiffness, which would come by way of a stronger rear sway bar. Since the 1 Series has been available in Europe since 2004, H&R had parts on the shelf already. The German suspension tuner offers a 20mm bar, a hefty 8mm increase over the stock bar.
We were curious what effect the beefier bar alone would have on the chassis dynamics, so we arranged some before-and-after testing sessions at the Tire Rack's testing facility in South Bend, Indiana. Our test would be a six-cone slalom from a standing start, and times would be logged with a GPS-based vBox data recorder. Testing would be done on the same day, on the same track, by the same driver to eliminate any external factors that might skew the data.
As technically ambitious as that all sounds, the gods of reality had different ideas. Our plan was somewhat optimistic in that we had briefly scanned the rear axle assembly and determined that the original bar could be swapped out easily with an hour and a half. Unfortunately, we hadn't estimated that the job actually requires dropping the entire sub-frame, which requires some special tools (an E24 Torx socket, for instance) and some extra support. In other words, we weren't able to finish the job that day at the Tire Rack. Instead, we finished our initial testing and packed up for home. We later completed the job in the sanctity of our own garage and returned to the Rack on a day with virtually identical conditions-upper 70s and dry. The course was reset and the testing completed just a few days later.
The subjective results were immediate; the Tire Rack's test track allows for numerous configurations, and one of our favorite maneuvers is jogging from the outer loop to the inner skidpad. It's a tight right-left chicane the way we run it, and the first time around in the135i was met with much complaining from the front tires. After the not-so-quick switch of the rear swaybar, the front end now takes a bite and lets the rear end follow behind. The change was exactly what we were hoping for, altering ever so slightly the car's attitude without upsetting its day-to-day livability. But we weren't just interested in how it feels-we wanted to know objectively that we had made a change for the better. Looking at the performance data, we increased our average speed on this short slalom course from 29.6 mph to 30.2 mph. It's a slight advantage, admittedly, but the important thing is that we didn't diminish the performance with this simple mod.
For owners looking to merely tune up the 135i's suspension without changing it outright, the H&R rear swaybar is an inexpensive and effective way to achieve sharper, more precise handling when it's needed. It's ideal for a daily driver car that might also see occasional autocross or track day duty. Of course, we weren't content to leave the rest of the suspension stock, so once our little swaybar experiment was complete we fitted a full H&R coilover suspension.
We'd be lying if we said we weren't more than a little concerned that we might ruin the fine balance of our BMW's suspension, but we still wanted to pull just a bit of gap out of the fender wells. We chose the coilovers (more acurately, a height-adjustable suspension) so that we could play God with the ride height. H&R makes several coilover options, but we chose the aluminum-bodied Premium Performance version, which weighs in about six pounds lighter than either the stock suspension or the conventional, steel-bodied H&R Street Performance coilovers. Six pounds may not sound like a lot, but every bit helps. Of course, those six pounds are essentially offset by that stout swaybar.
Installing the coilovers was a fairly straightforward, and thankfully did not require dropping any subframes or purchasing any special tools. A competent wrench-turner should be able to do this job in three to four hours. Of course, you'll probably need to budget another hour or two afterward to get the height sorted out just right; if there is any downside to having coilovers, it's the tedious, laborious task of adjusting the damn things. We've often suspected that while most people buy coilovers for the ability to raise and lower the car at will, most owners probably go through the process exactly once, cursing the wrenches and bloodied knuckles when they're finally done.
BMW is probably the best carmaker when comes to centering its wheels properly in the fenders, so we tried not to bastardize the look of the car too much by simply slamming it. Despite our best efforts to keep the drop modest, the end result was roughly an inch and a half of drop both front and rear. The front tires now rest just slightly inside the fender lip, while the rear sits up a bit higher, giving the car a more aggressive squat. The new attitude is perfect for the 135i; in fact, we haven't heard the term "cute car" once since we've lowered it.
The ride is surprisingly supple, almost stock-like. For as long as I've been reading tuner mags, I've always seen sport suspensions referred to as "firm, but not harsh." It's an old cliché, and one that's often not entirely accurate. In the case of the H&R coilovers, the ride is almost a carbon copy of the factory's sport suspension setup, which is to say decidedly firm yet still refined enough for everyday living. H&R's springs are noticeably firmer than stock, but the shocks are so well tuned for the street that you don't feel punished. The shorter suspension travel is noticeable, especially over abrupt changes in the pavement surface, but it has yet to exhibit the kind of nervous porpoising over low-frequency imperfections, such as the warped and wavy toll road my personal commute entails. In short, it's a damn impressive combination for the street.
The last bit of chassis help our 135i was going to need was a different set of rolling stock. For one thing, the rear tires were down to maybe 25% tread life by 10,000 miles. Remember, we picked this car up from a press event, where it was driven both on the roads of Monterey County and on the track at Laguna Seca by a handful of journalists. We've also kept our right foot fairly planted under most conditions; it's hard not to. Tire wear aside, we couldn't resist the urge to ditch the extra weight and harshness of the standard runflats. At the same time, we wanted to dial up the visual intensity of the car a bit with a new set of wheels.
Before we fell in love with a new set of tires, we needed to pick wheels. We chose to stay with the factory's 18-inch staggered setup for both practical (19s on Chicago are roads would be suicide) and aesthetic (staggered wheels look so damn good) reasons. There were surprisingly few fitments available within these parameters at the time we were shopping, but one option stood out right away. Breyton was developing a 1 Series-specific fitment of their GTS wheel and offering in a matte anthracite finish with a red accent stripe on the inner lip of the wheel. We know not everyone is a fan of the dark-wheel look, but considering the way our 135i pumps out brake dust, there's not much advantage to owning silver wheels. The GTS-R, as it's officially known, is considered a lightweight wheel, which was also a consideration as we planned to shed any weight possible (especially unsprung weight) for better performance.
With the wheels selected, tires were the last decision. We opted out of the runflat category and went with Yokohama's new S.drive summer performance tires. Since we kept the standard wheel sizes, we also elected to stick with the original tire sizes-215/40-18 in front and 245/35-18 in back.
When the mounted and balanced packages showed up from Tire Rack, we quickly pulled the car in the garage and busted out the scales. We were impressed that we shaved 8.5 pounds out of each rear fender and an even more impressive 10 pounds off each front corner. Thirty-seven pounds less rotational mass would certainly lead to better acceleration, braking and chassis response.
What we hadn't figured in is just how good the factory Bridgestones are as performance tires. The truth is, traction is the 135i's Achilles Heel, and the Yokohamas just doesn't lay the power to the ground as well as the Potenza runflats. Even with less mass and a lower center of gravity, we've been unable to record a better 0-to-60 time than the 5.0 seconds we managed with the car completely stock. Of course, standing-start times aren't everything, and there is a noticeable increase in the coupe's desire to accelerate on the fly. Then again, the lateral handling limits of the S.drives seems to be somewhat lower than the Potenzas, delivering something of a greasy feeling.
Where the Yokos easily beat out the Bridgestones is in ride quality. The softer sidewalls of the non-runflat tires acts as an additional damper, pre-softening the load that the suspension has to deal with. The combination works especially well with the H&R suspension, too. Another bonus of the Yokohamas is reduced road noise, at least on asphalt. Maybe because the Bridgestones were getting so thin, but the road noise had become intrusive, and the Yokos made an immediate improvement. However, on grooved concrete surfaces, the S.drives seem to be at least as noisy as the Potenzas.
So far we're happy with the changes we've selected for our 135i. At this point we don't feel like we've compromised the integrity of the car for the sake of performance gains, which is always nice. With the chassis now pretty well sorted, we'll start looking at power improvements and maybe some cosmetic enhancements. We promise there won't be another five-month gap until the next installment.
08-08-2008, 10:25 AM
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My Ride: 2008 535i, Carbon Black, Black Dakota, Black Diamond Trim, 6sp Sport Automatic with Paddles, M-Sport Package, Premium Package
Interesting. Thanks for the post.
01-04-2009, 08:41 AM
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My Ride: 2008 535i w/ Sports & Permium Pkg. Silv/Blk
2008 VW R32 w/Nav.
1992 VW Corrado Silv/Blk-retired
2001 530i Sports/Premium-retired
Project 135i, Part 3
Dressing up for the SEMA 2008.
Every year the world's automotive aftermarket companies descend upon Las Vegas for the annual Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) convention. The show fills the entirety of the Las Vegas Convention Center?even spilling out into the parking lot?to show off the latest in performance parts, wheels and tires, lighting and electronics, car care and styling products, and virtually any other item that might appeal to our car-crazy culture. While the show has long been a playground for companies that specialize in trucks, street rods and muscle cars, the last decade has shown promise for the Euro scene as well, particularly with BMWs, which manage to find themselves in virtually every wheel booth.
With this in mind, we decided we'd like to put our Project 135i on display in front of one of the world's largest aftermarket crowds at this year's show. The SEMA Show is an industry-only show (in theory, at least), open not to the public but instead only to those who manufacture, sell or service the products on display. And of course, to media like us who cover the business. A quick call to our friends at H&R Springs turned up an unused reservation for their "Feature Vehicle" spot, which would allow us to display the car outside the hall among the throngs of visitors perusing the grounds throughout the four-day event. With a spot reserved, all we had to do was finish building a SEMA-worthy car and get it there.
Finding the right theme for our show car was no easy task. After all, anyone who has ever attended a SEMA show knows that there's no such thing as "too much" in the city of bright lights. Nevertheless, our little coupe has to go back to BMW next year looking more or less like it did when it showed up. That meant no wide-body kits, no roll cages, no crazy paint jobs. Instead, we chose to enhance the Alpine White 135i with subtlety?hey, among the sea of purple trucks on 28-inch chrome wheels, our subdued compact would stick out like a sore thumb. So with less than a month to prepare, we got to work on our concept.
In the spirit of BMW's current design language, which juxtaposes concave and convex surfaces to capture the play of light and shadow, we chose to simplify the appearance of the exterior. Leaving the painted bodywork alone entirely, we concentrated on the trimmings?the grilles, the window trim and the bumper trim. Rather than a blend of chrome (grilles), gloss black (window shadowline), matte black (front bumper inserts) and satin grey (rear bumper diffuser), we decided a single color would be less distracting to the eye and allow the natural character and shape of the body to be shown. The one color we couldn't change was the dark grey inside the headlight housings, so we picked that as our color for the remaining trim.
We took the 135i with us to the local paint supply shop and brought color chips out to the parking lot to find the right shade of grey. After 10 minutes of deliberation, we settled on a color that looked just right. A pint of DuPont ChromaBase two-stage acrylic urethane would be plenty to cover the trim parts. Prior to painting, all of the trim was removed (including the shadowline pieces), cleaned and lightly scuffed in preparation for priming. A professional-quality flexible primer from SEM was used on the plastic parts, while a self-etching primer was used on the metal shadowline trim. Because our final goal was to recreate a metal-like finish, very little sanding was done to the primed pieces; just enough to even out any imperfections.
Using the DeVilbiss Starting Line HVLP spray guns that Eastwood Company provided us for repainting our Project 318is, the metallic grey color coat was laid down on all the parts. Once they cured at room temperature, they were shot with two coats of clear from the same DuPont system.
At this point, the trim was all one color, but it looked very obviously like silver paint. What we wanted to replicate was the look of brushed metal. In a bold move, we took to the shiny clearcoat with a fine-grade ScotchBrite pad, lightly scuffing off the sheen and introducing ever-so-subtle grain lines to the surface. We first experimented with this technique on the refinished wheels of our 318is, and while it sounds pretty crude, the results are actually pretty convincing.
Continuing the theme of light and shadow, we had the taillights tinted by Jon DeSalvatore of Jon's Tinted Tails. Jon took our original lamps and sprayed them with a professional, high-gloss tint on the outside of the lenses. We chose his medium option in the hopes of keeping the appearance subtle, though admittedly the lights came back just a bit darker than we were hoping. Nevertheless, the quality of the work is unbelievable, looking for all the world like the lights came from the factory in that shade.
With the outside re-dressed, the interior was ready for its minor makeover. BMW provided us with the sexy black-leather-and-alcantara steering wheel from its Performance Catalog. In addition to the fine materials, it is also even shapelier than the 135i's already stout M steering wheel, and includes a digital performance display at the top position, flanked by a pair of LED shift lights. The performance gauge features a stopwatch, lap timer, quarter-mile timer, G-meter, and oil and water temp readouts. Owners who take their BMWs to the track will find it useful for tracking personal performance, otherwise it's a beautiful gadget.
After a thorough reading of the installation instructions, we decided the job was well within our skill set. We got to work by first disconnecting the battery and then removing the lower dash trim in order to access the electrical connections necessary for the install. The job is more straightforward than it might seem, though the thought of working with live airbags can be a bit overwhelming for the unfamiliar. A little less than three hours after we started, the wheel was in place and all the dash trim was reinstalled. After that we took turns sitting in the driver's seat just fondling the new wheel; that's when it dawned on us that we had just introduced another material (alcantara) to the interior palette. Suddenly the glacier aluminum trim looked out of place.
In truth, we were never really fans of the glacier trim anyway; we were really just waiting for a reason to change it, and the alcantara steering wheel was the perfect impetus. So we set off in search of black alcantara with which to re-trim the aluminum. A local upholstery shop dug up a remnant from a recent project and charged us a mere $20. Armed with scissors and glue, we pulled off the dash, door and center console trim and got busy covering it in soft black cloth.
The results are subtle, but lend a touch of sophistication to the now all-black cabin. The steering wheel now looks like a cohesive element of the interior, and the material is so seductive that it has us contemplating a complete re-trim of the headliner as well.
With the cosmetics handled, we made a couple performance upgrades as well. Pulling again from BMW's Performance Catalog, we chose to replace the solid-faced front rotors with the cross-drilled units. Installation is predictably straightforward; really nothing more than a basic brake job. While they don't produce any performance gains in day-to-day driving, they'll certainly make a difference the next time we take the car to the track for some hot laps.
The BMW Performance exhaust system was our final modification before heading west. The system consists of a new rear section, which eliminates the middle muffler and the vacuum-actuated "flapper" valve that closes one of the exhaust tips at low engine speeds. It's a relatively simple bolt-on modification, requiring only that the original mid section be cut behind the catalytic converters. Included is a pair of sleeves that form a solid joint between the original mid section and the new rear section.
The result is a modest gain in power (5 hp at 6000 rpm) but a radical change in attitude. The new pipes now growl at idle, but the sound from the polished stainless tips changes to a sharp growl under full load. The melody sounds more Italian than German, recalling the wail of an Alfa Romeo V-6. The concert is best enjoyed from outside the car; the change is barely perceptible from the driver's seat as long as the windows are up.
With all the mods buttoned up, the only thing left to do was pack up and hit the road for the 28-hour drive from Chicago to Las Vegas. It's hard to imagine a car that is both more comfortable on the long stretches of open Interstate and still more entertaining and confidence-inspiring through the climbing, falling and winding roads of the Rocky Mountains. It even managed a very respectable 26.6 mpg round-trip, with the average on-the-move speed hovering around 80 mph.
Thanks to heavy rains in southwest Utah, we rolled into the Las Vegas Convention Center with perhaps the dirtiest display car of the show. A couple hours of "quick" detailing rendered a perfectly prepared specimen, however. Over the course of the week in Las Vegas (we had to arrive Sunday morning for setup and stay through Friday, even though the show runs from Tuesday to Friday), the 135i drew a steady stream of onlookers and questions. The wheels garnered a fair bit of attention, as did the Performance steering wheel and alcantara trim.
With the show-and-go season essentially coming to an end and winter setting in, we'll probably take it easy on this project for a while, but that's not to say we're done...
Dressing up for the SEMA 2008.
Every year the world's automotive aftermarket companies descend upon Las Vegas for the annual Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) convention. The show fills the entirety of the Las Vegas Convention Center?even spilling out into the parking lot?to show off the latest in performance parts, wheels and tires, lighting and electronics, car care and styling products, and virtually any other item that might appeal to our car-crazy culture. While the show has long been a playground for companies that specialize in trucks, street rods and muscle cars, the last decade has shown promise for the Euro scene as well, particularly with BMWs, which manage to find themselves in virtually every wheel booth.
With this in mind, we decided we'd like to put our Project 135i on display in front of one of the world's largest aftermarket crowds at this year's show. The SEMA Show is an industry-only show (in theory, at least), open not to the public but instead only to those who manufacture, sell or service the products on display. And of course, to media like us who cover the business. A quick call to our friends at H&R Springs turned up an unused reservation for their "Feature Vehicle" spot, which would allow us to display the car outside the hall among the throngs of visitors perusing the grounds throughout the four-day event. With a spot reserved, all we had to do was finish building a SEMA-worthy car and get it there.
Finding the right theme for our show car was no easy task. After all, anyone who has ever attended a SEMA show knows that there's no such thing as "too much" in the city of bright lights. Nevertheless, our little coupe has to go back to BMW next year looking more or less like it did when it showed up. That meant no wide-body kits, no roll cages, no crazy paint jobs. Instead, we chose to enhance the Alpine White 135i with subtlety?hey, among the sea of purple trucks on 28-inch chrome wheels, our subdued compact would stick out like a sore thumb. So with less than a month to prepare, we got to work on our concept.
In the spirit of BMW's current design language, which juxtaposes concave and convex surfaces to capture the play of light and shadow, we chose to simplify the appearance of the exterior. Leaving the painted bodywork alone entirely, we concentrated on the trimmings?the grilles, the window trim and the bumper trim. Rather than a blend of chrome (grilles), gloss black (window shadowline), matte black (front bumper inserts) and satin grey (rear bumper diffuser), we decided a single color would be less distracting to the eye and allow the natural character and shape of the body to be shown. The one color we couldn't change was the dark grey inside the headlight housings, so we picked that as our color for the remaining trim.
We took the 135i with us to the local paint supply shop and brought color chips out to the parking lot to find the right shade of grey. After 10 minutes of deliberation, we settled on a color that looked just right. A pint of DuPont ChromaBase two-stage acrylic urethane would be plenty to cover the trim parts. Prior to painting, all of the trim was removed (including the shadowline pieces), cleaned and lightly scuffed in preparation for priming. A professional-quality flexible primer from SEM was used on the plastic parts, while a self-etching primer was used on the metal shadowline trim. Because our final goal was to recreate a metal-like finish, very little sanding was done to the primed pieces; just enough to even out any imperfections.
Using the DeVilbiss Starting Line HVLP spray guns that Eastwood Company provided us for repainting our Project 318is, the metallic grey color coat was laid down on all the parts. Once they cured at room temperature, they were shot with two coats of clear from the same DuPont system.
At this point, the trim was all one color, but it looked very obviously like silver paint. What we wanted to replicate was the look of brushed metal. In a bold move, we took to the shiny clearcoat with a fine-grade ScotchBrite pad, lightly scuffing off the sheen and introducing ever-so-subtle grain lines to the surface. We first experimented with this technique on the refinished wheels of our 318is, and while it sounds pretty crude, the results are actually pretty convincing.
Continuing the theme of light and shadow, we had the taillights tinted by Jon DeSalvatore of Jon's Tinted Tails. Jon took our original lamps and sprayed them with a professional, high-gloss tint on the outside of the lenses. We chose his medium option in the hopes of keeping the appearance subtle, though admittedly the lights came back just a bit darker than we were hoping. Nevertheless, the quality of the work is unbelievable, looking for all the world like the lights came from the factory in that shade.
With the outside re-dressed, the interior was ready for its minor makeover. BMW provided us with the sexy black-leather-and-alcantara steering wheel from its Performance Catalog. In addition to the fine materials, it is also even shapelier than the 135i's already stout M steering wheel, and includes a digital performance display at the top position, flanked by a pair of LED shift lights. The performance gauge features a stopwatch, lap timer, quarter-mile timer, G-meter, and oil and water temp readouts. Owners who take their BMWs to the track will find it useful for tracking personal performance, otherwise it's a beautiful gadget.
After a thorough reading of the installation instructions, we decided the job was well within our skill set. We got to work by first disconnecting the battery and then removing the lower dash trim in order to access the electrical connections necessary for the install. The job is more straightforward than it might seem, though the thought of working with live airbags can be a bit overwhelming for the unfamiliar. A little less than three hours after we started, the wheel was in place and all the dash trim was reinstalled. After that we took turns sitting in the driver's seat just fondling the new wheel; that's when it dawned on us that we had just introduced another material (alcantara) to the interior palette. Suddenly the glacier aluminum trim looked out of place.
In truth, we were never really fans of the glacier trim anyway; we were really just waiting for a reason to change it, and the alcantara steering wheel was the perfect impetus. So we set off in search of black alcantara with which to re-trim the aluminum. A local upholstery shop dug up a remnant from a recent project and charged us a mere $20. Armed with scissors and glue, we pulled off the dash, door and center console trim and got busy covering it in soft black cloth.
The results are subtle, but lend a touch of sophistication to the now all-black cabin. The steering wheel now looks like a cohesive element of the interior, and the material is so seductive that it has us contemplating a complete re-trim of the headliner as well.
With the cosmetics handled, we made a couple performance upgrades as well. Pulling again from BMW's Performance Catalog, we chose to replace the solid-faced front rotors with the cross-drilled units. Installation is predictably straightforward; really nothing more than a basic brake job. While they don't produce any performance gains in day-to-day driving, they'll certainly make a difference the next time we take the car to the track for some hot laps.
The BMW Performance exhaust system was our final modification before heading west. The system consists of a new rear section, which eliminates the middle muffler and the vacuum-actuated "flapper" valve that closes one of the exhaust tips at low engine speeds. It's a relatively simple bolt-on modification, requiring only that the original mid section be cut behind the catalytic converters. Included is a pair of sleeves that form a solid joint between the original mid section and the new rear section.
The result is a modest gain in power (5 hp at 6000 rpm) but a radical change in attitude. The new pipes now growl at idle, but the sound from the polished stainless tips changes to a sharp growl under full load. The melody sounds more Italian than German, recalling the wail of an Alfa Romeo V-6. The concert is best enjoyed from outside the car; the change is barely perceptible from the driver's seat as long as the windows are up.
With all the mods buttoned up, the only thing left to do was pack up and hit the road for the 28-hour drive from Chicago to Las Vegas. It's hard to imagine a car that is both more comfortable on the long stretches of open Interstate and still more entertaining and confidence-inspiring through the climbing, falling and winding roads of the Rocky Mountains. It even managed a very respectable 26.6 mpg round-trip, with the average on-the-move speed hovering around 80 mph.
Thanks to heavy rains in southwest Utah, we rolled into the Las Vegas Convention Center with perhaps the dirtiest display car of the show. A couple hours of "quick" detailing rendered a perfectly prepared specimen, however. Over the course of the week in Las Vegas (we had to arrive Sunday morning for setup and stay through Friday, even though the show runs from Tuesday to Friday), the 135i drew a steady stream of onlookers and questions. The wheels garnered a fair bit of attention, as did the Performance steering wheel and alcantara trim.
With the show-and-go season essentially coming to an end and winter setting in, we'll probably take it easy on this project for a while, but that's not to say we're done...
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