Project Holly - a live tale of my 1996 E36 M3 Evo

[stupidcar]

I've tried my fair share of oils over the years with different cars and can safely say that just because it is expensive or "famous" it doesn't mean its good. Some of the cheaper oils, at least in the Malaysian market, work pretty good. Bardahl fully synthetic is one of them that looks good in a UOA, and at RM90 for a 4l bottle isn't expensive either. Some of the other oils which people tout have not been so good on my cars - Q8 etc. Besides how the UOA look theres also the problem of oil temperature. Castrol TWS seems to run a bit hot in my car, RS doesn't seem to hold oil pressure well. All sorts of stories.

Which car u used the Bardhal in? I know its used in Mercs by C&C but just curious how well Bardhal Fully Synthetic can go.
I have used the 5W-40 for 2 round in my 1.6 Campro. It seems to get dark a lot.
Still debating with my sifu whether it is cleaning my internals or just breaking down.
:(
I could get RM85 though hehe. Cheappp.

 

[enthused]

I am surprised to see you guys are running 0-30 or 0-40. Most of the guys here runs 0 weight if it is required from manufacturer or living up north where sometimes it is freezing.

enthused: Your car is coming along and will look and drives like or even better than when it was new :)

Please excuse the yelllow wheels, it is black now :)

The zero weight doesn't seem to affect the UOA...
Car looks great, though as you have guessed I am not a fan of the yellow :D

Which car u used the Bardhal in? I know its used in Mercs by C&C but just curious how well Bardhal Fully Synthetic can go.
I have used the 5W-40 for 2 round in my 1.6 Campro. It seems to get dark a lot.
Still debating with my sifu whether it is cleaning my internals or just breaking down.
:(
I could get RM85 though hehe. Cheappp.

I use it in my 1998 SAAB. It runs quite rich (high 10s afr) and as a result the oils dilute quite easily on this car but still no substantial wear on the UOA. I run 5k-km OCIs.

Thanks for the replies guys! Gong Xi Fa Chai!

 

[Izso]

Royal purple! Best detergents in the market! Highly recommended since your OCI is so short. A little overkill if you ask me though (the 5k OCI with fully syns).

And BMW liners are the best there is for that sorta money. Any more than that and it's overkill.

Why are you guys so obsessed with the 0 weight or 5 weight? It doesn't bloody matter in Malaysian weather, but the only real difference is engine startup on cold. 0, 5 or 10 would definitely do better than 20 or single weight oils.

 

[leonl]

Royal purple! Best detergents in the market! Highly recommended since your OCI is so short. A little overkill if you ask me though (the 5k OCI with fully syns).

And BMW liners are the best there is for that sorta money. Any more than that and it's overkill.

Why are you guys so obsessed with the 0 weight or 5 weight? It doesn't bloody matter in Malaysian weather, but the only real difference is engine startup on cold. 0, 5 or 10 would definitely do better than 20 or single weight oils.

It does make a different with what weigth of oil you are running for performance & logevity of engine.
Thinner oil does gain a little of performance. Thicker oil will get a little more wear protection. Just like anything else, there are limitations. Too thin or too thick are not good. Imagine swimming in a pool of mud vs water. Many race motor uses thinner oil to gain performance but the engine will be rebuild after every race. As for most of us, we choose longevity.

 

[enthused]

Royal purple! Best detergents in the market! Highly recommended since your OCI is so short. A little overkill if you ask me though (the 5k OCI with fully syns).

And BMW liners are the best there is for that sorta money. Any more than that and it's overkill.

Why are you guys so obsessed with the 0 weight or 5 weight? It doesn't bloody matter in Malaysian weather, but the only real difference is engine startup on cold. 0, 5 or 10 would definitely do better than 20 or single weight oils.

I dunno. I've only tried two oil changes with Royal Purple but the UOA was better with German Castrol! This was on the SAAB.

It does make a different with what weigth of oil you are running for performance & logevity of engine.
Thinner oil does gain a little of performance. Thicker oil will get a little more wear protection. Just like anything else, there are limitations. Too thin or too thick are not good. Imagine swimming in a pool of mud vs water. Many race motor uses thinner oil to gain performance but the engine will be rebuild after every race. As for most of us, we choose longevity.

The one thing is that thicker oil also increases drag and engine wear sometimes particularly on a city car used over short distances where the oil doesnt get up to temperature... I'm a fan of using the thinnest oil possible which doesn't wear the engine (seen through UOA) and doesn't drop off oil pressure as it gets hot.
===
So where were we... Ah yes, the paint job!
After what was really months of sanding, primering, sanding, filling, primering, sanding, filling (you get the idea) we finally sprayed some colour on it!

At this stage I was over the moon! Considering it was off the gun and unpolished it was both pretty flat and shiny. Truth be told, I needed the encouragement as after 3 months month of seeing your car in a million pieces, you start to wonder if it will ever go back together again properly, and wonder if you have the persistence to pull through with the project.

While I was clear in my mind that I wanted the car in Estoril Blue as it came off the factory, one of those things we don't get the luxury of here in Malaysia is the same paint brand that the car was sprayed with. For this car I specified HBBody high solid clear for the bulk of the car, and the famed Glasurit 447 for the front bonnet, quarters and front and rear bumpers.

I have been using Glasurit products for a long time, but honestly the 447 while having good durability against stone chips etc doesn't shine as well as a good clear, so I wanted the sides of the car to show off all the prep work which went into it...

So then after the base colour and clearcoat had hardened for 8 hours we hit it with sandpaper again!

This is done so that the paint is absolutely flat before the final coat of clearcoat went on...

Its pretty depressing seeing the car go from red to primer to colour to shiny and then to matt all over again.... but you gotta do what you gotta do to get the result you want...

Thanks for reading! Keep the feedback coming.

 

[enthused]

Quick clarification (pun not intended!) about sanding down the first layer of the clearcoat.
What was done was:
1) primer, sand, putty, sand, primer,sand, primer
2) Estoril Blue was painted on
3) Estoril Blue left to cure for 4 hours
4) HBBody HS clear sprayed on
5) HBBody clear left to cure for 8 hours
6) Sand flat with 1500 grit
7) Sand flatter with 2000 grit
8) Prepsol
9) Spray on Glasurit 447 clear
10) Glasurit clear left to cure for 8 hours

Thanks for reading.

 

[leonl]

Beautiful color. Estoril blue is one of my favorite on E36. Years ago a friend bought a brand new E36 white interior & interior with vader seats. Another friend missed out on an original Lightweight M3, white with checker flag (It is worth a lot of money now). I missed out on an E30 M3 few years ago (Still regret it).

 

[dincl7]

Veryyy jelez with u driving e36 m3 huhu

 

[Izso]

It does make a different with what weigth of oil you are running for performance & logevity of engine.
Thinner oil does gain a little of performance. Thicker oil will get a little more wear protection. Just like anything else, there are limitations. Too thin or too thick are not good. Imagine swimming in a pool of mud vs water. Many race motor uses thinner oil to gain performance but the engine will be rebuild after every race. As for most of us, we choose longevity.

Agreed, but I was talking about the first weight number. Actually I'm a little confused on your point. Are you advocating 0W / 5W/ 10W weights or not? Cuz I'm a hardcore support of 0 and 5 weight.

---------- Post added at 11:46 PM ---------- 6 hour anti-bump limit - Previous post was at 11:45 PM ----------

Btw TLG : Wth man.. I'm surprised you managed to even find a guy to go do that much for you in the first place. 99% of the people I know wouldn't even accept a job like yours much less do what you've asked them to do! This job probably costs well into the 5 figure price range?

 

[enthused]

Beautiful color. Estoril blue is one of my favorite on E36. Years ago a friend bought a brand new E36 white interior & interior with vader seats. Another friend missed out on an original Lightweight M3, white with checker flag (It is worth a lot of money now). I missed out on an E30 M3 few years ago (Still regret it).

Estoril Blue just works for an E36. It looks quite right with the somewhat boxy shape.

Veryyy jelez with u driving e36 m3 huhu

Thanks! Good to hear the hard work is appreciated :)

---------- Post added at 11:54 PM ---------- 6 hour anti-bump limit - Previous post was at 11:47 PM ----------

Agreed, but I was talking about the first weight number. Actually I'm a little confused on your point. Are you advocating 0W / 5W/ 10W weights or not? Cuz I'm a hardcore support of 0 and 5 weight.

Btw TLG : Wth man.. I'm surprised you managed to even find a guy to go do that much for you in the first place. 99% of the people I know wouldn't even accept a job like yours much less do what you've asked them to do! This job probably costs well into the 5 figure price range?

I completely understand... I too am an advocate of thin oils where they are able to keep oil pressure and don't cause engine wear. The startup protection and the ease they get up to temperature and give good fuel economy are key benefits to me.

Re the paint job - its not that expensive. I genuinely appreciate the guys at Veng Cheong. They took on the challenge and completed the job.

 

[leonl]

Agreed, but I was talking about the first weight number. Actually I'm a little confused on your point. Are you advocating 0W / 5W/ 10W weights or not? Cuz I'm a hardcore support of 0 and 5 weight.

---------- Post added at 11:46 PM ---------- 6 hour anti-bump limit - Previous post was at 11:45 PM ----------

Btw TLG : Wth man.. I'm surprised you managed to even find a guy to go do that much for you in the first place. 99% of the people I know wouldn't even accept a job like yours much less do what you've asked them to do! This job probably costs well into the 5 figure price range?

You are right. I was thinking back and forth on the lower and upper weight & viscosity. Sorry about the confusion. Here is the link that explain better. Hoep that helps everyone.
Motor Oil Viscosity Grades Explained in Layman's Terms

 

[enthused]

Then, after a day of sitting in the paint booth drying, I finally saw it out in the open!

This is a completely unpolished and unbuffed photo showing the depth of the clear...

Then we do some polishing, and can see the shine starts to emerge:

You can see that no matter what you do, 447 scratch resistant clearcoat still doesn't have the same level of clarity as a good high-solid clear...

On the show goes with reassembly.

While CKIzso is AR in some areas - this shot shows you I too have some of that attention to detail -check out my new foglights, and all new metal clips securing the brake ducts and undertrays.

And so, 10 days of reassembly later we are here!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Izso]

Could I ask you to PM me the price of this paint job?

 

[leonl]

Very nice. Looks almost done. Congrats.

 

[enthused]

Could I ask you to PM me the price of this paint job?

PM incoming.

Very nice. Looks almost done. Congrats.

Thanks Leon!

---------- Post added at 11:40 PM ---------- 6 hour anti-bump limit - Previous post was at 11:00 PM ----------

At this stage of reassembly the pressure is really on. The challenge is there to get everything perfect and some things just arent in your favour.

The first challenge was in the central locking. When I collected the car this was already intermittent for the passenger door. As it turns out during disassembly we discovered some modifications to the central locking system. The gun on the drivers door had been changed for an aftermarket unit, whilst the passenger one was the original unit. This frustrated me - as when I made reference online to some PDF manuals describing the central locking system I realised that the logic would be compromised if this were done and deadlock facility would not actuate.

The deadlock facility is designed such that if the car is locked, even if the window is smashed and you tried to unlock the car from the inside it would not be possible easily, unless either the central locking remote was triggered, or the key was used physically. I wanted this back...

Another thing which was annoying was that the replacement of the door actuator for a coupe requires the removal of the window glass to gain access. Therefore putting the car back together was stuck. Under the pressure of time the frustrations of being a fan of an old car kicked in. The actuators were not available new from my usual source. The chop shops said they had them, but when I went to collect them said they weren't available... Two days of hunting later and having lunch with some good friends they were able to help me out and I was sorted. The actuators were delivered, and after some head scratching with rejoining the previously modified wiring we were back on track. Wherever needed we soldered and used shrinkwrap on the connections so they would be as good as original, and more importantly, would not oxidise or corrode as they are potentially exposed to the elements being inside the door where water drains into when it rains.

some shots of the excellent documentation online for the central locking system:

The next battle was for the front kidney grills. Being an early 3.2 EVO, the car has a pre-facelift nose. Many people said that since I had gone to the extent of a full complete respray I should take on the small additional step and facelift the car with the facelifted e36 nose. I am a stickler for originality so I decided against this. For reference, an image I found online which shows the facelift vs non-facelift easily:

The old grills were crispy black plastic which were glued together using 255 windscreen silicone. I wanted replacement originals but again no originals were to be found... The car (for shame!) currently has some cheap taiwanese copies whilst I find some original ones as the pre-facelift parts are getting rare...

Around this time I also got somewhat excited because it meant some of the finer items I had been keeping would finally be closer to installation - original stickers for the engine bay and door jambs and fuel lid which had been removed during the respray!

.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Izso]

I knew you were a stickler about originality. LOL!

And cool deadlock feature. I didn't know such a feature existed in any car! Wiras have it easy though, we just shave off the lock stick thingy so it can't be yanked up, have security plates so it can't be jimmied, then hide the door open switch. But then again it kinda turns my car into a trap for my passengers. LOL

 

[pwhyze]

Original interior stickers are cool as hell!

 

[enthused]

I knew you were a stickler about originality. LOL!

And cool deadlock feature. I didn't know such a feature existed in any car! Wiras have it easy though, we just shave off the lock stick thingy so it can't be yanked up, have security plates so it can't be jimmied, then hide the door open switch. But then again it kinda turns my car into a trap for my passengers. LOL

Most of the european cars have it. The actuators weren't prohibitively expensive. They run about 40usd - while this is not really in the same league of a RM30 set of china actuators from mudah I couldn't see the logic in not taking the effort to fix the central locking properly as per factory whilst we were in there and the glass was all out.

Original interior stickers are cool as hell!

Thanks - they make me smile everytime I look at them! Its also this that drew me to the BMW as a platform for a restoration project, as stuff like this still exists! The only other platform which has cool restoration stuff like this is the Volkswagen Beetle/Combi stuff...

 

[BLaCkHoWLiNG]

come... photoshoot time!

 

[leonl]

Very nice details. I am really glad you choose the pre-facelift. I like the pre-facelift also. It is almost there, think about driving & enjoy it when it is all done. Especially done right.