Rat3dm - The Resurrection Build

[RAT3DM]

Hey Bimmerpost FAM!,

Let me start off by saying thanks for taking the time to check out my build and hear my story that's taken place over these last 4 years. So where did it all begin? Well I'm glad you asked, I'm a previous bimmerforums member and long time E36 M3 owner! (It's got a big single turbo BTW and many other goodies)



As you can imagine I'm a car enthusiast and find this hobby to be both rewarding and heart breaking. A quote I like is "The pursuit of Power leads to Sadness." It's the life we all live as when our cars are running they are the some of the best times, and alas when they are not it brings on a severe depression. The second part of that statement is what lead me to the purchase of my beautiful AY M4. You see I started a huge project to do a full car build on my E36 M3 which has been on-going over the last 6+ years, and well after about 3 or so years I hit a wall mentally and just lost the passion to work on the car.

Needing something so get excited about and re-ignite my love for cars and I decided why not pickup a new weekend car and enjoy driving again. Enter Camille the 2015 AY M4.



So as you probably could assume I like to highly modify my cars, but I told myself I'm going to keep this one simple and just do FBO. The car was tuned with a BM3 OTS stage 2 tune within the first 18 hours of ownership and FBO within 2 weeks (this included BMC drop-in air filters, VSRF downpipe & J Pipe, & Active Autowerkes Single Midpipe, I also added some lightweight APEX SM10 wheels. The car performed flawlessly and made decent power 510whp/540TQ measure on a hub-dyno.

I could not have been happier, infact I drove this car from Tampa, FL to the Mpact show in the Poconos and raced all weekend then drove back home. Nothing like getting 390 miles to a tank in ECO mode and then hanging with C7 ZO6's and beating R8's from a roll in Sport-plus on 93 pump.

The Dreaded Crank-hub!?!?!

As you guessed I played the gamble game as most of do and decided that the crankhub was a MYTH and happens to less than 1% of these cars. Well, I didn't win that bet and joined the illustrious 1% Club, and no not the one I want to be part of, but the SPUN crankhub club.

After further inspection a few valves made contact with the pistons and you know what that means no compression. At this point I had to make a decision, do I keep this car and fix it, or suck up the loss and sell it? Well I'm posting here so I kept the car and sent the head out of state for head work and after a long 6 month wait during COVID I got the car back with new Supertech valves and installed a SSR 4 Pin crankhub.

Oh wait there's more; you know since I was in there I decided to pull the trigger on a few other mods those being Pure HF turbos, but of course we need fueling to support this addition so we opted to keep the car DI and went the route of Dorch HPFP lift kit and Eu5 injectors to go full E85. I also decided to address the rear diff and subframe bushings at this time and updated the car with the ECS poly kit, lastly the cooling system was updated with a Mishimoto Intercooler and Heat exchanger combo as well as replacing the inline water pump oh and a nice bill for about $16K









The car was then retuned with a custom PJT Stage 3 tune. I asked for a tune that made power and was safe. (To me this meant that my car would still utilize the knock sensors and system faults.)




After a few revisions 685/671 and was an absoulte animal. I drove the car for about 2 months and then disaster hit. With about only 1800 miles on the car injector number 6 decided to fail and got stuck open driving home from a car meet I heard a loud mechanical explosion sound and then my car began to sound like a choppy V8 on some nasty sauce. I was literally at the light looking for the camaro or vette.

The fail safes I thought built into the tune with keeping it DI would of surely notice this and stop the injector from pouring in fuel and put the car in limp mode. Negative...in fact I think the injector must have been stuck open for a bit of time as it ended up washing out the ring in the cylinder. You can guess what happened next, it leaked into the engine causing catastrophic damage.
Infact at one point my car was running and idling with not codes and one of my camshafts was snapped in half, but not one fault code on the car.



Once again here I am without a running car and looking at a costly repair. So between my busy schedule and the shop's busy schedule about 2 months go by and we've finally diagnosed the issue it then took me about 3 additional months of think tank time to decided if the love for my car still out-weighed the financial impact it was going to have on me. So I decided to move forward.

Full retard-mode was enabled we decide to build the motor and added Carrillo Rods/Pistons, Upgraded Wrist Pins, Supertech Valves/Spring Kit and Retainers, ARP Headstuds, Upgraded main bearings and Schrick Cams 238/272. We replaced the head, crankshaft, and oil pumps as well.



The shop I use here in FL is owned and operated by a long time friend, but they didn't have the staff for a full on engine build, so the engine was removed from the car and sent out of state to the engine builder completely intact from valve cover to oil pan as requested.

This is where things get downright disheartening, from the time the motor shipped it took about 5 months before the motor was torn down and I was updated by the engine builder about the damage, to which I immediately addressed and asked what replacement parts needed to be ordered/sourced and provided payment same day to all parties involved.

It took an additional 6 months later and several follow ups for me to finally get my motor shipped back to FL. This caused me to miss a 2nd year in a row of MPACT, more lost memories/monies since I paid to roll race, but that is just a spit in the bucket compared to what I've spent overall. I just found it funny that several well known media shops and others locals to the area got their motors before me after sending them in after me? I guess its not a FIFO system (accounting humor, I also never got back my damaged parts shipped back either ex: head or cams sad face) You know I may have wanted to make a cool coffee table out of them lol

Since cash was flying out of my pocket already and it was taking forever to get back a built motor I also decided to address some other areas of the car so fueling wise we also added the Bend Calibration Fuel Filter Kit, a Precision Raceworks Stage 3 Brushless LPFP, Nostrum Stage 3 injectors. Let's not forget the driveline as I was previously over heating my DCT clutches so in addition I added SSP Spec R DCT clutches. The car looked like a SUV so we added the KW HAS KIT, and of course we might want to launch the car so we added Driveshaft shop 1000hp axles and a Turner Motorsport Skidplate you know to protect stuff.












So now you thinking finally this poor guy has been through so much and around $45K +/- invested and 2.5 years time into this build and he must be thrilled right? Yes, an no. Unfortunately due to several other projects like a Ferrari that the local shop had ongoing so my car sat for another 2 months before work started.

Ok so finally built motor is reinstalled, but wait there's more!

The car was showing a vanos fault code on (you could assume that this is related to the new cams and you'd partly right, but more it was actually due to the valvetronic actuator. This part was reused as well as the the gear that it directly makes contact with (pretty mangled,) causing it to jump out of timing often and frequently. This lead us to also checking other work performed by the engine builder to ensure that all parts being used were new and not reused so we also replaced the exhaust cam tray as it had some slight scarring.







So after replacing those parts (which why wasn't this addressed previously a rant for another time) my motor was put back together and once again brought back to life. Or atleast somewhat.



I know this community doesn't seem to have many cars out there running upgraded camshafts, and that's partly due to the fact that the tuning community indicates that they don't make enough impact to warrant the change.

I'll give you my OPINION and that is because our S55 powered cars specifically utilize the Valvetronic and associated gear system to adjust for incoming air and not rely on the MAF as much and it makes a huge difference and requires alot of additional tuning tables etc outside the standard mod list than most tuners normally perform. The time to have it mapped/figured out if I'm being quite honest, probably doesn't make financial sense to them. I was strongly urged by both the engine builder and several well know tuners to not utilize aftermarket cams in the car.

I was told the car won't run right and that it won't be a daily drivable car and well I can tell you that isn't true at all the car drives and idles like stock and can be driven around in DRIVE like a normal stock car. I have the idle video in another thread. The upside, is the cams seem to carry the power up top and help the turbos breath more and there is less loss of power at higher rpms.

So I put 600 break-in miles on the motor and new clutches with all types of light driving below 3k rpms (hardest thing I ever had to do driving this car.) Also took the car to it's first car meet in 2.5 years!



So finally the dyno day comes and we strap the car down. I mentioned an issue with throttle sensitivity in 1st to 2nd gear and they start to try to replicate it on the dyno and well you guessed it an issue came up and the car jerks on dyno under load and my return DCT line decides to end it's life and all I see if fluid spewing from my car. At this point I'm trying not to lose it, but inside I'm like did I do something in a past life and if there is such a thing as luck is mine only bad?

So of course, this leads to ordering new parts and I replaced both lines just in case as the car is starting to age and the ends of the lines are plastic (go figure BMW!) So after this occurred it takes another month or so, to coordinate and setup dates with the tuner to get it done, but were finally here.

The car was placed on the dyno and of course the 93 fuel I put in the car isn't showing good results, so we have to basically call off the dyno testing for that day as the car really isn't happy. Fast forward new 93 in the car and things are going better and the tuner is finally starting to be able to work his magic.

The car is on a flex tune and we stop the 93 tune making around 570/570 on pump gas at 22psi of boost. Now it's the time we've all been waiting for the introduction of E85 and the FLEX pun intended part of the tune. Well I expected the car to make good power and I really liked the power/tq band of the Pure HF so I decided to see what they are capable of and I'm pretty happy with the results.



If you made it this far I appreciate you! If you skipped down to this part shame on you and your ADHD!

Ok here are the results of my long awaited journey; the car picked up a good bit of power on the flex tune. The results below are on E67 and these results were 20+ runs into the day 96 degree weather with 70% humidty. The tuner indicated with better fuel and some more time for the engine to break-in I should see some slightly better results in the future. I do plan on attending MPACT this year so I will go for a retune in the next few weeks before making the 1100 mile drive. If you plan on being there come find me and say Hi!



Overall I'm pretty happy with where the car sits around 725 WHP and near matching TQ. I just got back from the Tail of the Dragon a few weeks ago and enjoyed some of best roads America has to offer.







MOD LIST: (probably left some stuff out and will edit later)

Custom coated Carillo Pistons 10:5:1 @cp_carrillo
Carillo Rods @cp_carrillo
Carillo upgraded Wrist Pins @cp_carrillo
Upgraded main bearings @kingsbearings
ARP Headstuds @arpbolts
Supertech Valves @supertechperformance
Supertech Valve Spring Kit @supertechperformance
Schrick camshafts 238/272 @vacmotorsports
SSR 4 PIN Crankhub @ssrperformance
Dorch HPFP Lift Kit @dorch_engineering
Precision Raceworks LPFP Brushless Stg3 @precisionraceworks
Nostrum Stage 3 injectors @nostrumhp
Bend Calibration Ultimate Flex Fuel/filter KIT @bendcalibration
MHD tuned - David ShoupTuning @mhd.tuning @tunedbyshoup
BMC drop-ins Air filters @bmcairfilters
Mishimoto intercooler @mishimoto
Mishimoto heat exchanger @mishimoto
Pure Stage 2 HF turbos @pureturbos
SSP SPEC R Clutches @sspperformance
VRSF downpipies @vrsf
Active Autowerkes Single midpipe @activeautowerke
ECS Rear subrame & Diff & subframe poly bushings @ecstuning
KW HAS KIT @KW_Suspension
Driveshaft Shop rear axles @driveshaftshop
Vossen S21-01s @vossen
Apex SM-10 @apexwheels
Turner Skidplate @turnermotorsport
Uniden R7 Detector @unidenamerica

All Shop Work and Dyno performed @ Tuning Dynamics

[greysea]

This was really awesome. It also makes me feel I am way outta my league with what you have done to your car haha. Stock4Life.

Question though… after all you have spent on your motor and upgrades, I am so surprised you didn’t have a 4-9k suspension to really set the car off. You just went HAS kit. Interesting… just wondering why…. You should partner with M3SQRD on finding suspension especially if you are doing events and tail of the dragon.

[M3SQRD]

Originally Posted by greysea

This was really awesome. It also makes me feel I am way outta my league with what you have done to your car haha. Stock4Life.

Question though… after all you have spent on your motor and upgrades, I am so surprised you didn’t have a 4-9k suspension to really set the car off. You just went HAS kit. Interesting… just wondering why…. You should partner with M3SQRD on finding suspension especially if you are doing events and tail of the dragon.

Thanks for the mention, greysea!

OP - Feel free to PM if you’d like to discuss suspension options based on goals.

[wheela]

Dang, talk about paying your dues - quite the journey you've been on! Glad to see it's finally come together (knock on wood...) well for you!

Thanks for sharing your story, you've got a beautiful build for sure!!

[RAT3DM]

Originally Posted by greysea

This was really awesome. It also makes me feel I am way outta my league with what you have done to your car haha. Stock4Life.

Question though… after all you have spent on your motor and upgrades, I am so surprised you didn’t have a 4-9k suspension to really set the car off. You just went HAS kit. Interesting… just wondering why…. You should partner with M3SQRD on finding suspension especially if you are doing events and tail of the dragon.

Thank you for the kind words, I appreciate them.

As for the suspension I was actually waiting for someone to mention it and here it is in the first reply! I went with the KW HAS to start with specifically as offers you great ride quality on the street (slightly firmer than stock, can be lowered within reason, and maintains EDC. Which once again is a good starting point. One of the many things I've learned with cars is to get used to how it handles from the factory and once you reach those limits, start upgrading. I have coilovers on my E36 M3 and can tell you it is a far superior approach than just the lower springs. I'm sure once the shocks wear out on this kit I will be looking to move to coilovers.

Originally Posted by M3SQRD

Thanks for the mention, greysea!

OP - Feel free to PM if you’d like to discuss suspension options based on goals.

I appreciate it and now knowing that you are a suspension SME I will most definitely be reaching out in the future!

[RAT3DM]

Originally Posted by wheela

Dang, talk about paying your dues - quite the journey you've been on! Glad to see it's finally come together (knock on wood...) well for you!

Thanks for sharing your story, you've got a beautiful build for sure!!

Thank you very much and me too! I'm hoping it stays together for a long while and hope to drive the wheels off it!