Hello Bimmerpost

[nics1152]

Just as the title says, Hello Bimmerpost/M4Post, I'm posting my first thread on here after many views and research on these amazing cars.
Happy to say last year around March I purchased an '18 M4 with only 23K, manual and have been loving it since. Certainly not a daily, more of a fun car and can't wait to see how much money I can throw at it.

I wanted to create this thread as kind of a build/project documentation, I've done these before on other cars and it makes for an easy way to share with friends/family and to get advice or even questions answered I never even knew to be asking.

The car was completely stock when I bought it, and I couldn't believe the low miles. Of course, I'm going to have to change a bunch of stuff that already works great because...well because race car!

My first hump with the car was after I brought it home and really starting to put the microscope on it. I found the speedo and tach were different gauge face colors than the fuel and temp. Upon more inspection I realized I had no amber/red shift lights on the tach. The car also had all the security labels anywhere the VIN was, and I realized this is a Canadian Car!
I went back to the dealer to explain how I was missing the shift lights and wanted to know what we could do to make it right. I couldn't believe the number of mechanics/dealerships that wanted nothing to do with this problem. Too much coding/unsure on if a new cluster from another car would work or how to even get it to work.
Even had some guy from a coding company start wasting my time and swearing at me through e-mail over how frustrating this problem was. It's like these Beemer coders just want to get in dck measuring contests.

I took a gamble and bought another cluster from a wrecked M3 in the country, the dealer did help cover half the cost of that. After swapping that out I realized that wasn't the answer...the cluster had a ton of codes from the wrecked car it came out of, and this didn't seem to be the correct avenue.

Recently I broke down the 2 clusters and replaced the black gauge faces from Canada (must've swapped out to convert from kph to mph) with the grey ones from the wrecked M3.
I haven't been able to test this, but I did notice the black faces had NO windows for the LED's so I'm hoping they are working correctly and the new gauge faces will allow them to be seen. Only other fear is I've heard these shift lights can be coded out.

With the snow flying here the car is up on jacks and I have some time to really start going after some changes.
I did purchase an M Performance steering, my justification to spending that money was I need shift lights, so I figured this would for sure get me those if my cluster fix doesn't work.

I have crank hub bolt capture I want to put on for peace of mind, only real power mods will be exhaust, down pipes.
I added some BMC air filters as well for the intake side.

Wanted to have the first modification be suspension but I plan to get that completed over this off season with some KW V3 coils.

I did some research on short shifters as well and last December put in an order with AutoSolutions for one of Ronald's designs which should be shipping out any day now.

I will keep adding photos and commentary and appreciate anyone's comments, and most likely concerns too.
I am wondering what everyone is using currently for CEL's on catless downpipes. Seems to be a ton of options.


Glad to join the community and look forward to how far I can take this next project.

[mike@x-ph.com]

Awesome first thread, welcome!

[NickyC]

Congrats, love YMB! Here is my prior YMB F82 on V3, great suspension choice. You can get her low without any/much rubbing. Keep us posted!

[Slow M3]

Congrats on the pickup, I love following builds for inspiration so I’ll definitely keep an eye on this one.

I saw a post a few months back of someone who bought a Canadian car and had the same issue with the tach. I don’t remember the outcome but I’ll see if I can find and link it here.

[nics1152]

Thanks for the welcome, really happy to see the hit on the cluster problem.
Only thing I could ever find was a Reddit post rabbit hole.

Speaking of which some better pics of the cluster breakdown

Most difficult was a dial on a wire ribbon which chased the speedo needle, maybe cruise control. The ribbon and red plug at the top of the back side of the speedometer can easily be missed on the reassemble. Can show pics of exactly that if there’s interest on the old spare cluster i still have

[M3SQRD]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the new f82!

What’s your goal with the f82 suspension or KW V3s?

[nics1152]

Went back to it last night, after being out of town this past weekend, felt great to come home to packages.

After a couple months of waiting my Auto Solutions shifter arrived. Very pleased with the overall result of the process, spoke with Ronald early on about what I was looking for, how I drive the car, what my expectations are with the end result, all the way down to the ambient sound in the car after the install. Auto Solutions made it clear to me they were building something not off the shelf for me and to make sure I would be happy in the end.
Haven’t started to mount the new VT exh. because I’ve been waiting for this to show.

I also recieved the accent M1/2 buttons so now I can start the steering wheel transfer process so last night I wanted to focus on the FEM wiring. This wasn’t too bad, the hardest part honestly was pulling the carpet away from the firewall….OMG…that was awful, so rigid and very little clearance to get past the under dash vents. The rest was fairly simple with re-pinning some harnesses, T-tapping a single wire (with OEM T-taps!) and adding a ground to the ground bus (reason for pulling the carpet) I have a collage of photos so if there’s interest in a particular step let me know I can show more detailed photos.

[nics1152]

Originally Posted by M3SQRD

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the new f82!

What’s your goal with the f82 suspension or KW V3s?

Thanks

I would have to say stance and handling performance

[nics1152]

Some progress of swapping over the steering wheel components.

Interesting, the carbon fiber trim is heavier than the original trim by a dozen grams.

[nics1152]

Some more progress

Getting ready for the short shifter next, luckily I didn’t hang the new exhaust yet so that’s one thing out of the way. Lots of heatshielding underneath which looks like is in the way.
Coilovers and some spark plugs after that and it’ll be ready to come down.
Snow is melted so just in time.

[nics1152]

Some more progress, the autosolutions shifter well worth the money and install!!
Wish I could post a video of the shifts. The M4 has never sounded more like a weapon