Last night, Tyler and Rafi came over and we dropped the front suspension and engine. Thanks guys, I couldn’t have done it without you two and Ricky’s help the night before.

The engine is out, after two real days of work. It isn’t very far removed from the car, but disconnected, sitting, er… sideways under it on a wooden dolly.

I know the new engine is coming soon, but not immediately, I need to take a number of parts that I will be reusing from this engine to my machine shop. I can’t wait for the new motor, it should be something special.

This is something I actually planned and to everyone’s surprise it went relatively flawlessly. I broke one stud on the exhaust manifold. This is normal, turbo manifold see very high temperature spikes. It wont be tough to fix. In contrast to most of the work done in the glorious garage of nonM, Tyler has a damaged right wrist, so he can only do light help and take pics. So this was documented more thoroughly than nearly anything else ever done with this car.

After the engine was safely on the wooden dolly, we called it a night.

General 330, e46, engine, m54, turbo

So you’re a nonM, you know chillin’ hard. Trying to do some time travel. And then, out of the nowhere, buddy Jesus and Ms are trying to hydrolock your motor with their water. Defeat buddy Jesus and Ms with boost!
Click on the screen to start the game, space shoots, arrow keys maneuver.

e46nonM flash Game

So this game isn’t the most complete project I’ve ever undertaken. It’s a rudimentary game I made in flash class, and I don’t like to go too far above and beyond with such these exercises. Do not request further development of the game as I will not do it.

General 330, 330ci, boost, buddy jesus, e46, M, nonm, PSI, turbo

From a tire segment having only a few offerings two years ago, we have a nearly overwhelmed market. I love the competition…. errr… choice availability.

There was the Azenis 615, I’ve gone through two pairs of these, still the best offering from Falken. These have very short life and a very round tire design. The grip is good, I was surprised by how much grip was available in the wet when full thread depth was available. But life is very short and it felt like it started to become a rock as it very quickly approached the wear bars…. not a very good experience…

There’s the aging Kumho MX.
I’ve had a pair of these. And I’ve driven a few other cars with them too. This is a classic, and it outlasts the Azenis with nearly all of the grip it offers, and in my experience better overall handling. Infinitely better manners than the Azenis. Still a good choice at a very reasonable price.

Kumho has recently released the XS in the past year.
I haven’t tried this tire, but I hear nothing but good things, it is visually very similar to the Azenis. I can’t speak for performance but typically, I don’t favor the round tire tread designs. However, with the availability of very wide sizes, and from my visit to Gainesville earlier this week, I observed these tires looking completely different in its wider profiles, looking much more square-shouldered.

The Re01R came out around 5 years ago, and it is now gone, replaced by the re11r. When it first came out, I immediately fell in love with the idea of it. But I had no expectations to ever be able to afford them. That is, until they were pulled from production to open way for the new re11r. Tire rack clearanced them out right after I flat-spotted my starspec/KD setup from my lack of ABS and a stupid sudden ledge locked up my brakes as i was on them to avoid a bus. Fuckin’ construction. Anyway, re01r’s were had for 96-120$ for my staggered setup, dirt cheap. I am disappointed. I expected much better grip and surface contact than my BFG KD on the exact same size, 245/40r17. The RE01R offers more grip than my worn KDs, but it is still mostly overwhelmed by all of my second gear. No other complaints really, other than that it looks really skinny and stupid in comparison. Cornering grip is great. I really shouldn’t be complaining at all, road manners are also exemplary. But it’s my torque, it overwhelms nearly everything that will fit under my narrow quarters.

The KD is older by comparison. But the KD’s very square shulder made for a much wider surface patch. At the time I got boost, they were too worn down. It could not contend with boost in second gear at all, while the RE01R chirps, and makes tire noise while mostly holding, the KD made no effort. When I first had these, they were on the front, they made for great front tires. This is another tire that I originaly had no hopes of affording, till I found a guy selling a bunch of pairs of these in my size on eBay for ~$200 a pair/shipped. This tire broke records for street tire lateral holding strength… like 8+ years ago. This tire was originally made when performance tires didn’t know how to perform in the wet.

Dunlop Direzza Z1 StarSpec….
This is one of my favorite all time tires. I cried tears of blood for destroying a pair of these with at least half of their lives left. These require no heat to grip, there is a tremendous amount of grip all the time, combined with relatively fair wear. Cornering is awesome. I never had a set of rears of these, but I think it would go very well. Though slightly round, this is mostly a square tire.

NT-05, Nitto’s release from earlier this year is on David’s car. I think these are epic. It’s a shame it couldn’t be used by One Lappers this year. For more on this tire, David made a thorough review a few weeks ago a couple of posts down.

The new offerings:
Hankook RS3 and Yokohama AD08

Like all yokos, the AD08 is probably awesome, and will get the such feedback for its flexibility and amazing grip. But I have never owned “extreme performance” yokos, because I can’t afford them.

Just a hair cheaper than the StarSpec, but a bit more expensive than the new Nitto NT-05 is the new RS3. I have had some experience with RS2, based on discussion with the owners of these, and I had some of these on my car briefly as loaners, I didn’t get onto them very hard though. But I’ve been in cars with them and it breaks loose way too easily. The RS3, on the other hand has a much more sporting 140 treadwear rating. While these ratings often mean nothing, they are an indicator at what the company was trying to develop. And 140 is a commitment to grip. The pattern is also much more aggressive, it looks to have more square shoulders, bigger tread blocks, I’m optimistic. I just wish that they would be cheaper than NT05, otherwise it doesn’t really seem worth it, I’m not sure I believe that it will outperform the Nitto. It may last longer, but who really cares about that?

General azenis 615, direzza, e46, hankook rs3, KD, Kumho, MX, nitto, nt-05, nt05, re01r, re11r, review, starspec, tire reviews, tires, XS, z1

So yesterday David and I went to the one lap. Only we were both at very different locations. While David was enjoying the beginning of his summer vacation enjoying the awesomeness of Bimmerfest via flight from Miami, I stayed here in Orlando and visited the Boca BMW Mega Meet. The Boca meet was a failure. It was a fun outing though. PICS:










Some buddies of mine helped with polishing duties. I might have some mechanical prowess, however, I have no senses of any skills necessary for winning car shows. Lucky for me, I have some friends that understand paint. They handled the detailing duties beautifully. I’ll do my best to honor their efforts and keep it blingin’ the way it is.
Some highway pulls were had, results: 80 roll vs e46 ASA TM20 AA M3 vert= me win in high boost! hardly, but i think I pulled him a few feet, if not, we were dead even. I also took on a fully stock 335i coupe auto. He ran me in low boost, i told him to just go and reeled him in with no issues, immediately @8.5psi. I did also run him high boost to pull buslengths.

I digress, heavily.
So David was coming up from Miami, he also had a good kill.
He stopped by Sebring on his way back to Orlando. I was going to Gainesville to pick up my OE, numbers matching engine…. it is undergoing some teardown later today and prep for build.

It’s weird how well that worked out, Gainesville and Sebring were the two tracks scheduled for Tuesday for the One Lap.

I met some really cool people and visited some old friends from Gainesville.

Catesby Jones, the e46 HKS AA M3 driver is currently ranked 4th. I got to speak with him and he’s optimistic for Daytona and his currently third-ranking competition. The current third place team drives a GD WRX that apparently has a top speed issue with heat. At Daytona the handicapped WRX should open third place for Catesby due to the high-speed nature of that huge oval track.
this is the home team, we share sponsors and chassis, apply support here

I also got to observe the GT2 be super fast, supposedly ran a mind-blowing 2:18 around Sebring. Good for low 12s with the few runs allotted to the One Lap, I’m sure much better is possible.

There was a Rice Motoring club with an Alfa, and a far more interesting e36 M3, ‘95. It was very nearly stock with some Koni/TC kline bits. It was good for a 15.6@95. I’m sure a low 14 is possible with that trap speed.

Jon Czarny was also there, once again, campaigning his e60 M5. He did surprisingly well in bracket racing for someone going around asking what he should dial in. The One Lap isn’t about drag racing, no one preps their car for drag, no one enters for the drag racing… I think Brock Yates just likes the idea of making the One Lap a very well rounded event. But Czarny ran a 12.77, dialed in a 12.7 and ran consistent 12.7-12.9 until he was knocked out at the very end.

Other noteworthy entries included the orange GTR, the bone stock 328i (e46nonM!!!!!!), the e9x M3s, Including the BMW performance e90 M3. David reports that the BMW performance driver to be magician from his observations at Sebring.

This was so exciting, I sooooo want to do this at some point.

General aa, active, brock yates, catesby jones, e46, e46 turbo, hpf, one lap, one lap of america, s, supercharger