My E39 so far......

I was sitting on the site looking around and thought it really was about time I wrote another blog for a few reasons. Firstly, I had decided to start writing these as a diary of my time with my car..... Secondly, I wanted to show how much effort goes into making a car look and go properly.... Thirdly and most definately most importantly, so I don't forget what I've done to my car!!!

The thing that prompted my little trip on changing my car was purely mechanical. When I bought the car back in late 2007 it had a couple of faults which I thought were worth taking a chance with as the car was lovely. Little did I know at the time that the couple of little faults would be so frustrating to fix, take so long and be so costly. I had a car with constantly lit ABS and DSC warning lamps and a cutting out problem. Hoping that they were going to be an easy fix was probably a bit naive, but I thought it was worth taking the car to the self proclaimed BMW "specialists" in Swindon, hoping that this might save me some money. Little did I know how wrong I was! Without going into too much detail, it ended up costing me a small fortune, several weeks in wasted time, several breakdowns and the car having to go to the main dealer who were able to diagnose and fix the faults in 1 day! This led to me having several months of joy using my car as a daily driver until I decided to park it up and use it at week ends only. One weekend I went to the car and it was dead. To my horror it wouldn't start! The car was taken to the garage that had looked after my Porsche for me and they diagnosed faulty injectors and a siezed fuel pump. There was water in the tank which had rusted up the injectors and fuel pump. So... a new set of injectors, fuel pump, fuel filter and a full service whilst the car was in pieces saw it back on the road, much better than ever before!

When I embarked on what has turned out to be more than just a little project, I thought it would just be a few bits and pieces that I would be doing to my car, just to smarten it up a bit... I already liked the look of the car and thought it could do with a touch of fettling to make it perfect. Anyone who read the 2 blogs I have already written will see that it soon became a bit more than "just a few bits and pieces" and became a bit more like an obsession! This would be the perfect time to convey a HUGE thank you to my lovely partner Niki who has been very understanding of this little trip I've been on.... and I am very appreciative of her support throughout all of it!

This is how the car looked before I started changing things.... pretty much standard apart from the headlamp eyebrows and matt black grills....

The front after the bumper was painted, along with the body mouldings....

The front view of the car at the Members Workshop meet in December.... almost complete but without the carbon grills or M5 mirrors fitted.... the grills did get a fresh coat of shiny laquer to smarten them up though....

As can be seen by the pictures, you can tell the amount of work that has gone into the front of the car..... and this work has extended all around the car, under the bonnet and inside it too.

I started off wanting the front bumper painted due to stone chips and a couple of scuffs and ended up having paint "fixed" all over the car and colour coding the bodymouldings, basically to tidy the car up for the Santa Pod meet. I ended up doing a lot more to the car as detailed in my previous blog including 3 days of machine polishing the car.... that really is HARD work!

If only I realised when I decided to start on this project how much time and effort it would take! That said, I did enjoy working on the car and it did make a huge difference to it!

In preparaton for the show in London that MyMotiv was due to attend and with RK, Richard, Steve Wright and Andrew Wagner attending, I really didn't want to let the side down and thought that the only way I'd be able to fit in with the visual impact of the other superb cars was to tastefully tweak the look of my car so it made its own impact.

I started off with the important bits, suspension and brakes. I decided to source some uprated parts from my suppliers.... a full set of coil overs, front and rear cross drilled and grooved discs, new calipers, Goodridge stainless braided hoses and some OMP road sport pads.

The fully adjustable coil overs......

Rear coil over, cross drilled & grooved disc and Goodridge hoses fitted.....

Front new calipers and hoses before the coil overs were fitted.....

Once all the parts were fitted and the height of the car was set, it was in for a full wheel alignment and the new 18" staggered offset ACS Type 4s were fitted to the car.....

It was amazing how much it transformed the handling and braking of the car, not to mention the difference it made to how the car looked. The suspension being lower gave it a much more agressive look and the discs certainly hinted at the car's performance abilities.

It was now back to the bodyshop to have the Dinan style cold air intake system fitted along with Hamman front fog ducts, Hamman carbon splitter, carbon headlamp eyebrows, M5 front grill with alloy brake cooling ducts, ACS side skirts, pedal set and handbrake handle. As well as these there was also the ACS boot spoiler, rear window spoiler and if time allowed it, M5 electric folding mirrors, bonnet respray and a small engine detailing mod.

I started by removing the front bumper so I could strip out the original air intake....

Then off came the headlamp and original air box and ducting....

This was all the stuff that came off the car.... I was surprised how restrictive the original air intake system is!!

And finally, the C.A.I fitted to the car and looking really nice. It was actually quite simple to fit once everything was off the car.

When I fired the car up it did sound nice. I was certain that the intake would compliment the better flowing Hartge exhaust but as the car was incomplete I really couldn't test it out until the car was back in 1 piece! I then moved on to the rest of the parts for the front of the car. This pic shows the carbon splitter, ACS rear spoiler and M5 grill with the alloy ducts fitted.

It was an all out assult on the front bumper next to fit the Hamman ducts. These took a lot more work than anticipated in order to get them to fit correctly.... thankfully with sanding and filling here and there they looked great when they finally fitted.

It was then the turn of the side skirts to get the fitting experience. I really wanted these to have a factory finished look along with the rest of the car..... most people just don't realise how much work goes into doing this! As my car is an Individual in a fairly uncommon Barbados Green I really wanted it to stand out once it was finished.

Once all the fit work was done it was time to prime and paint the lower part of the skirts..... these can't be seen, but I like to make sure that if the car was on its roof at least the skirts would look correct hehe!!

I thought I'd add a little touch under the bonnet to go with the air intake..... and I'm thinking of all the possibilities that are there for more parts to come..... I'm looking forward to it too :-) This is how it looked before......

And how it looks now..... thanks to Mike Kettleson for the picture :-)

It was now time to paint all the parts and fit them onto the car. While this was being done I got on with fitting the ACS pedal covers and alloy handbrake handle.... and it was finally finished off with the ACS graphite side stripes. These are so subtle that you almost can't see them.... but they are definately there! I may eventually change them for some black ones, if I can find a set of original ones!

Here is the finished car... well, as far as it goes for the minute anyway..... I still have mirrors to fit, along with the rear window spoiler.... oh... did I mention the M5 Black and Grey interior, LSD, Sat Nav and steering box? No... I didn't think I did.... I won't even mention the quad exhaust system ;-)

And from behind.... just to show the rear spoiler too....

The last before and after pics.....

Hope you have enjoyed reading my blog, please feel free to leave a comment.... it has taken me soooo long to write it that I need another shave and hair cut now! I'm sure that I have forgotten so many other details, but hopefully those of you who have read this will get to see the car if you make it to the meets this year..... and I hope no one fell asleep reading this!!!

Thanks again to Niki my lovely partner, for being so understanding of my obsession and also thanks to RK and Richard for their advice and inspiration :-)