Cement

Had some delays with the infusion as the bag was not holding the vacuum well enough. Will says we need about 3 hours of good vacuum holding so the resin can gel and we get a good part out. The good news is the bag is holding well now so we are good to go tomorrow to get the resin in Also went with BMW NZ for the require parts which I've listed out below ... prices were not THAT much more than Schmiedmann after a little back and forth. Got the adhesives and a few of the other bits today that are not ex Germany ... only to find that 1 out of 3 window adhesives and both of the structural adhesives were past their best before dates 🤬 Not awesome when one is ... wait or it ... $300 and the other is a relative steal at around $200. INSANE prices but as I want to get this certed I must stick to the OEM products, one of which is clearly a Sika product. If anybody else wants to do a roof any time soon hit me up for some of the more expensive K1 adhesive which I only need to apply to exposed metal where spot welds are ground down etc as corrosion prevention. Shopping list if anyone is interested: 51318208468 E46 Window moulding front 51318208471 E46 Window moulding rear 83192211217 R1 Cleaner 41328242075 E46 Roof bow 83190413015 Body adhesive K1 83190417144 Body adhesive K3 83192289286 Window adhesive

https://evolution-cstms.com/car?id_car_mark=18#id_car_mark Just looking about for some inspiration and came across this crowd based out of the UK who do all sorts of custom 'items of interest'. I'd be very curious what the quality is like !!

Looking pretty slick ... I reckon you should get a dry ice blaster ... so I can borrow it

Phase 2 of 3 for the manufacture complete ... temporary bag removed and all of the proper steps completed ahead of infusing on Saturday. So cool to see it done in the flesh just like so many of the great vacuum infusion videos on YouTube etc. Steps done now and pictured: Layer of peel ply added Flow media added Flat channel for encouraging resin flow Spiral tube for feeding in resin 3x bungs for resin and 1x bung for vacuum pump

That's the one yep

So no resin flowing this weekend but some sound decision making which should lead to a better / more certain result. Essentially it's pretty difficult to get the fabric right into the corners so we had to change approach after getting the first layer of fabric down (the most important one) using spray adhesive ... it was too aggressive and was not allowing the needed movement of the fabric causing all sorts of weirdness. So that layer was removed and is now the last layer instead where it will not be seen. In the end the best method was to lay in all of the fabric (1x200gsm, 2x400gsm, 1x200gsm) and pull a partial vacuum, then massage into the corners nicely through the bag where you could move the fabric in from the outer edges, leaving the large flat part of the roof alone. The vacuum will be left on it for a few days so the cloth takes on the needed shape ... we'll then de-bag and add in the breather fabric, resin pipe work, flow media etc ready for the actual infusion. To the pics ...

Allo allo ... just PM'd you about the purple tag racks I have a rack attached to the subframe I welded some bits onto from memory when making my engine mounts. You can have it if you look after me when its purple rack time 👍 Will try and remember to dig it out from under the house tomorrow.

Saturday is the day we shall get everything layed up and in the bag, pump it down and if all is well it shall infuse on Sunday Got the parts list together for the fitment, adds up more than the roof itself !! Then there is certification expense etc etc ... probably another venture where could have spent better else where buuuuuut ... should be pretty cool right 😎

Not quite a BMW but close enough ... been helping my brother with his R53 Mini, including spending an insane amount of time bleeding the clutch on the feckin thing !! The internet helped yet again and provided a 3D printable pressure bleeding cap, works super well In the legitimate bimmer camp I used the little Bissel Spot Clean Auto to clean my passenger seat ... I'm REALLY hoping this was a coffee somebody managed to spill through the thing !!!

Back from the dyno in one piece Made 306hp / 228kW at the hubs which seems fairly good compared to the factory numbers for the VQ37. The OEM tuning had things pretty well under control so was not a whole lot of additional torque / power to pickup and ironically the biggest improvement was from replacing the crank case breather with a rubber bung with a small hole in it 😂 This let the crank case run at about a 4psi vacuum due to the dry sump ... aiding ring seal and reducing windage. Will go over the CSV exports from the dyno and see if I can whip up a start / end graph or something fun.

Got a dyno session booked in tomorrow which is pretty exciting. Going with Edgell Performance who will let me do the tuning (and lots of learning !!) and provide a mandatory staff member to operate the dyno and provide guidance which is perfect for where I am at. To get ready for the dyno session I got a few things done which I've been meaning to for a while: Wired in a 3.5mm stereo jack to the OEM knock sensors based on the schematic from UpRev (https://uprev.com/documentation/Knock Listen Device.pdf). I can either listen to this feed directly via a portable headphone amp (https://www.fiio.com/a3) or feed it into the laptop to reduce all of the frequencies but around 6kHz where my knock should occur. This is done via a USB device (https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0484) as basically every microphone input i only mono and I need stereo. Using Equalizer APO for the audio manipulation, which works great after some initial issues. Calibrated the crank case vacuum sensor voltage output since I'm feeding that now directly into the Arduino for display on my custom display. Used a simple vacuum generator and big cheap gauge. Will be interesting on the dyno to actually be able to watch what vacuum is pulled when up in the RPM's ... will also see if we can measure some hp gain from running a higher vacuum. Not mandatory but I sorted out a 'proper' shifter boot as the previous one had lost its seal and was letting in all sorts of horrible gearbox chatter thanks to the light weight single mass flywheel. Using a steering rack boot now and a new 3D printed enclosure to snugly fit the boot. Got some templated views ready in MegaLogViewer HD for different tuning activities. Outside of getting dyno ready I also received my two power supply boards to use with the new Orange Pi ... these are super cool and will allow the Pi to have time to shut down cleanly after ignition off etc. Also located a 3D model of the Rotrex C38R centrifugal super charger which I printed out for fun ... might be 2024 makeover 🤪

Hah yuuuur was on the Friday noodle run Where did you see me ?

I have already got leather door cards from @Harper funnily enough Was going to wait until the new roof is on until putting them in but they are under foot so might get them all done sooner rather than later. Also was going to replace the stuffed speakers and wood trim with something else while at it ... just keep on pulling that piece of string !! Wondering what the wood trim pieces would look like with a tint file / charcoal wrap over the top ... kinda carbon meets OEM wood vibe 🤔

Awesome feedback thanks @Harper !! I shall investigate ... i could in theory go with something 'similar' if I do everything in one shot 🤔

Doing the sunroof delete shortly(ish) and got the new black headliner plus A/B/C pillars all in black to replace the existing grey interior. Might take the opportunity to recover everything before it goes in but would like a perfect match if possible for the OEM fabric. Anybody had good experiences and can recommend where to get such things ? Looking at you @Sammo

Super cool !! Everybody getting their feature on the 'tube lately

Got the new Orange Pi and cables etc, completed the mounting of the screen into the console and its all looking good. The Pi with NVMe SSD and 8 faster cores is so much faster than the Raspberry Pi ... loads quickly and the dashboarding is really responsive now. Might even need to slow up the update frequency or apply some moving average to chill it out a bit. Still plenty to do in this space: Make some filler panels for the sides of the screen Wire up the back lighting brightness to the OEM cable that used to go to the auto trans indicator lighting Connect up the screens touch feedback so I can switch dashboards with a touch or swipe (overview, detailed, performance etc) Configure a button or switch to tell Arduino if it should be polling the ECU for metrics over CAN or not (only needed for some dash types)

So satisfying to see you got absolutely maximum value out of that clutch 😂

Pretty happy with the steering wheel overall, great product I have to say !! Only issues were my own making ... the top section is 2 stitches out of alignment front to back 😫 Where I started on the left came out mint however never checked the alignment until I got to the centre mark, which is now on the piss haha.

Very cool to have the car represented on the 'tube ... watched a few of this guys videos just now and the intro has startled me every time 🤣

Something else that's been on the list to get sorted ... steering wheel with controls on it for a future head unit (really want the Blaupunkt Frankfurt) and the cruise buttons for my ECU map changing (will need some K line to resistance ladder magic I think !?). So I got a wheel from Ebay and to add a little spice I got a Mewant genuine leather cover for it also. I think this will be the very first cosmetic thing done to the car !! 🤪 Keeping it pretty simple, perforated and solid leather with a grey centre marker.

Not a whole lot to report on this project of late in terms of pictures but have been chipping away: Simplified the dash to not include the CAN derived metrics so I get faster updates Ordered an Orange Pi 5 to replace the Raspberry as its not grunty enough to update more frequently Ordered some right angle plug ribbon cables so I can get the screen mounted in the console https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071G7P33P Ordered some really neat power control modules designed for automotive use, this will signal the Pi to shutdown cleanly and then remove power when ignition goes off https://www.tindie.com/products/picotouch/raspberry-pi-automatic-onoff-v30-new-version/

Got the wiring all sorted now and there is no more dummy data going to the screen ... just have to sort out the vacuum sensor I have on the crank case as its readings are bogus. Used 1500 ohm resistors to make voltage dividers for the two temperature sensors. This selection is based on wanting a fairly linear relationship (resistance to temperature) around the 90 degree mark. The pressure / vacuum sensors all output a voltage which I can happily read with the Arduino so no issues there. I took the standard sensor wiring that was previously going to the gauges and added a separate 5V supply so things are more self contained where the wiring terminates and to reduce the load on the Arduino itself. Working on the screen mounting also and it should work fairly well. Need to order some slim line right angle HDMI and USB cables from Amazon to make it functional. Will 3D print some end caps so the screen has a flush look once finally installed. The update frequency is a little sluggish (maybe 2 or 3 Hz ?) due to the Raspberry Pi not having enough juice to drive the Grafana dashboard in the browser. I will likely look to switch to something with more spice like the Orange Pi 5 which should be multiple times faster. Also still have to integrate the screens touch capability so I can switch between multiple dash views. Maybe throw a backup camera in the mix ? Who knows ...

Have given the go-ahead to make the roof and will be able to help out over a weekend in 2-4 weeks time ... exciting !!

Awesome, any details to share on how one gets a hold of, manufacturing technique and price etc ?