The E92 has reached its final stages, now the we are onto the home straight of this build…

The final touches have graced the M3, and it has served to be a phenomenal project to work on – all of that hard work, research and development has come to fruition and taken shape. We’re now left at the reflecting stage of the build, she has seen some track time and has been in the public eye for a while.

We’ve seen success with the car, with a 2 for 2 win at Silverstone on the National circuit the car showed incredible promise in BMWCCR – even taking home a 3rd and 6th at Croft. Club Enduro however told a different story, whilst leading at Oulton Park the E92 suffered with problems which ultimately led to an early retirement. Issues with our long-range fuel tank drew a close to that weekend and took us back to the drawing board. We recovered though, taking home a win in Club Enduro at Silverstone with a hefty lead on the pack.

The car is a different animal compared to M3 Cup E46, heavier, torquer and with the S65 an entirely different method of power delivery from it’s throaty V8. It’s been a learning curve, but a steady one, and while the cars successes have been great the lessons learned have only improved the car further and further.

The roll cage was fitted by Safety Devices as they were looking for a donor car to be able to create the E92 Roll Cage. This car has all the options ticked and as you can see it is a very thorough FIA cage.

We have all the cages listed for sale here:
E92 ROLL CAGE OPTIONS

We have also fitted a cool shirt box to help keep the driver cool as we know how hot it can get inside these race cars during a long stint. COOL SHIRT

We wanted to keep the inside of the car very clean but also light weight so we have used CF panels where possible as well as removing the standard heavy drum style handbrake and replacing it with a hydro to help with getting off the line.

Safety is always number one so we didn’t want to make any compromises. We went with the MOTORDRIVE RACE-3 COMPOSITE BUCKET SEAT which was made to measure for the driver and then of course the Takata Race 6 harnesses.

As the car is now finished we will be following up with data from our testing on track. We expect to have a few electrical issues as we have removed a lot of wiring and modules so hope to over come them in time.

We decided to go with the APEX FL-5 wheels wrapped in Nankang AR-1s. We have had great success with the AR-1 in the past so decided to use it again on this project.
FRONTS – APEX FL-5 18X9.5″ ET22 (265/35/18)
REARS – APEX FL-5 18X10″ ET25 (295/30/18) with 10mm spacers (to clear the fuel pipes in the arch.

The FL-5 is the only Apex wheel that features the use of rotary forging for both the front and rear barrels. This was done to produce the strongest front lip possible. We decided this was vital after all of the buckled wheels we had from a different supplier on other recent projects.

The Tegiwa rear wing and front lip are now complete with just the undretray/splitter missing to complete the aero package. The wing is made from Carbon Fibre with aluminium uprights that mount to the OE tailgate hinge points.

The front lip was required to flatten the bottom of the standard front bumper to allow it to receive the flat splitter.

As we are now near the end of the build our next blog will be the final interior touches.

The engine is now back in and built up with the Tegiwa Carbon Fibre air-box providing all the breathing the s65 V8 needs. This should help to achieve the power figures we are aiming for. As heat is always an issue with these engines we have used DEI Reflect a Gold through the engine bay. Also the Moroso PAS reservoir has been fitted to ensure the fluid stays in the system and not onto the track.

We have also give the rear end all of the adjustment needed to be able to transfer the power through to the ground with the Yellow Speed rear camber arms and the Tegiwa toe adjuster arms.

Up front we have fitted a Tegiwa 28mm anti roll bar as well as the Powerflex Black series bushes all round.

It is now sitting pretty on some Nankang AR-1s and APEX FL-5s so read our next blog for more info on the fitment and stance.

The dash is now back from Banbury Flocking Services and they have done an amazing job. As we had already trimmed it down and trial fitted it before sending it off it was an easy install. Then the install of the Race Technology Dash4 Pro to give us some lap time data and alarm functions whilst on circuit.

As the floor is uneven it was easy to mount the Super B battery under the passenger seat location as well as the fire extinguisher behind it.

The boot floor in the E92 is a large plastic moulded panel that simply unbolts, as its a heavy panel we decided to replace it for a CF Foam sandwich panel.

We will come back to the interior in a later blog but for now we need to get back to the engine and suspension works.

Now the engine is back in the car we are able to work on con-rod bearings and bolts. We are using the highly regarded BE Bearings and ARP bolts for this job. As you can see from this photo the job was well over due on this 101,000 mile S65 engine.

As the sump is off it made sense to baffle it as the S65 is notoriously bad under high G for oil starvation.

The interior is our next big job. The cages are now on order for our stock SAFETY DEVICES E92 CAGES

We have removed the dash ready to get trimmed and flocked to follow our next blog for an update on this.

The car is back from Safety devices now and it has also been through the bodyshop for a quick in and out paint job. We will be wrapping it to give it the final scheme but that will be kept as our last job before the Autosport show in January.

Since the last blog we have had another car come in for build too which we have managed to get to grips with the main mechanical jobs.

We stripped the underside of the car bare to enable us to remove any excess sound deadening and replace any of the hard to reach parts. The engine had to come out to enable us to fit the dipstick to the sump as well as remove the secondary air pumps from the back of the engine. We will be switching these off with our ECU software at a later date.

We then moved on to re-bushing the whole car with POWERFLEX BLACK SERIES bushes to help tighten the handling up when its on track.

The diff was stripped and rebuilt with the shorter 4.44 final drive ratio to match the same spec as the official E92 GT4 car BMW once made.

Whilst the exhaust was off we fitted the TEGIWA de-cat down pipes to remove the primary cats as well as doing the infamous 2.5 back box mod. We did this as we want to keep the exhaust standard for the regulations but still want that v8 burble.

Once the exhaust and engine was back in the car it was time to move on to the YELLOW SPEED coilovers and brakes. YELLOW SPEED have managed to make a full coilover rear to work on the back of the E92. This is very desirable for track/race cars and most other manufactures keep to the shock and spring separate. The YELLOW SPEED camber arms compliment the rear very well along with the TEGIWA toe arm adjusters.

The rear brakes have just been checked over but are being left standard where the fronts have been replaced with the 356mm YELLOW SPEED 6 piston setup.

The next blog will follow very shortly with more progress including the con-rod bearings.

Safety Devices need no introduction. They are leaders in motorsport rollcage fabrication amongst other sectors including the military. If you have been keeping up to date with our E92 M3 build blogs, you will know that weeks back, the car left Tegiwa HQ to head over to Safety Devices as a development car for bolt-in and weld-in FIA approved rollcages.

We have just received images of the bolt-in cage and I think you will agree that the aesthetics, even in it’s raw state are mega. Our build is awaiting the weld-in cage as it is a dedicated race car, but for obvious reasons the bolt-in has been designed, fabricated and test fitted first.

Once both the bolt-in and weld-in cages are finalised and in production, they will be available via M3 Cup and Tegiwa Euro. We will keep you posted with any updates and images as we receive them.

A big thank you goes out to the team at Safety Devices!

Yellow Speed Racing have worked their magic on a special Big Brake Kit for Project V8 M3. Spec on the setup is 356MM floating grooved discs with the 6 piston calipers. Prior to purchasing an E92 for the build, a render was created to envision the final outcome. Day-Glo Yellow/Green is featured more on this build than Luke’s current E46 M3. So Yellow Speed Taiwan matched the colour and here they are. Combined with the APEX FL-5 in Gunmetal, the brake/wheel setup is perfect.

The car will be back very shortly from Safety Devices with a freshly designed welded in rollcage. We can’t wait to get building the car, the number of parts is building by the week, so be sure to expect an epic end result.

If you have read ‘Build Blog #1’, we didn’t give a massive amount away about our E92 M3. The car is still with Safety Devices having the roll cage fabricated. In prep for it’s much anticipated return, parts have been arriving ready to get our build on and move forward with the project.

To unleash more power and noise from the V8, we have a carbon fibre intake which features a snorkel type intake scoop facing upwards, drawing cold air from the OEM bonnet vents. The quality of the weave is excellent and teamed up with the new exhaust (yet to be finalised) thats the basic breathing upgrades done.

Tegiwa have recently become a dealer of Apex Race Parts. A California based company specialising in aftermarket wheels for both track and street. For 2017, Apex have released a new line-up of wheels, one of which is the FL-5. This wheel is not only lighter than OEM but is a fresh design, one that we have only seen on a BMW M2 online in promo material. However, a quick Photoshop rendering allows us to envision how the wheels will look on the M3.

WHEEL + TYRE SPECS:

FRONT – 18X9.5 ET22 // 265/35/18
REAR – 18X10 ET25 // 295/30/18

Onto the mechanics of the car, the engine oil level is monitored by the cars computer. For obvious reasons, this is not ideal at the track and an error on the computers part could result in fatality for the engine. To be able to check the oil level manually is key and our solution is a dipstick designed and fabricated for the E92 M3. Aside from the Samco hose, it looks relatively OEM and is a straight forward fit.

We have covered some of the key arrivals for the build, you can check out the build list (so far) below, which we will add to each blog. Until the next blog, check out the Photoshop rendering teaser by clicking below:

Tegiwa & Ti Motorsport have built a number of race cars in recent years. From Civic Cup Championship front runners (CRX / EP3 / FN2) to the BMW E46 M3. The BME M3 E92 pictured here became available and was a perfect donor car for the next build project, which starts here.

The car arrived at Ti-Motorsport HQ wrapped in a hideous hue of matte pastel peach. First on the to do list was remove the wrap, revealing the original factory black paint. Next up was to strip the interior in preparation for the car to be delivered to Safety Devices where a bespoke rollcage will be designed for the E92 M3 Coupe in both bolt-in and weld-in applications.

A few parts had started arriving for the build including a Varis style Carbon Fibre bonnet allowing us to reduce weight and increase cooling. Since there will be no night time driving in this car, Carbon Fibre headlight blanks have also been fitted in place of the factory weighty units… Because racecar!

Items that are still to be removed include, Air Conditioning, window glass and sound deadening in both the engine bay and underside the car. The dash is also going on a diet, removing the airbags etc.

BMW M3 E92 from the factory = 1580KG
Our M3 E92 as its stands = 1300KG

In the coming weeks, there is an extensive list of jobs to complete on the car once returned from Safety Devices sporting the new rollcage.

The final appearance has been rendered in Photoshop, Yellow Speed Racing are making us a one off Fluorescent yellow front Big Brake Kit. This colour is used on our current M3 Cup car and it’s an office favourite.

Want to see the render of the side of the car? Stay tuned and keep an eye out for our blog updates on facebook.