Recently in Car Pictures Category

Goal: 200 MPH

We had a simple idea: get enough horsepower to hit 200MPH in the standing mile. Thank goodness, things never work out exactly as you plan. In this case, that's a good thing because we wanted to break this project up into two phases (maybe more). Phase-1, go to the Mojave Mile and see what we can learn, apply any changes, and go compete at the Texas Mile. As we found out, it's a good thing we decided to "learn" locally -- because many things went wrong.

Here's the final car weigh-in as we ran at the Mojave Mile

Here's the final pictures before leaving for the Mojave Mile

Here's a few more pictures. We primarily cleaned up the wiring. There's a few cool pictures of the boost gauge too (see left air vent). This might end up being a temporary boost gauge. I found some really cool electronic gauges that I might buy. There's two companies I'm looking into. Both have a central control module with a variety of input sensors. Then you can configure the display to show whatever gauges you want. One of them even has a head's-up-display option -- but after seeing it, I'm not sure I like it.

More pictures...by the way, don't blame me for the graphics. The guys at AutoTalent own all of it...let's just say they are going a little crazy.

Strange Week for the ESS-46 Supercharged Stroker

This has been one of those weeks with my car that started out strange, and kept getting stranger. It all started last Saturday night while I was driving my ESS-46 home from Arizona (that's what I'm calling the SC stroker). After about 6 hours of driving I got a phone call that went something like this:

Robert, I heard you were running 6 PSI and made 550whp.

Yesterday I flew to Arizona to pick up the ESS Supercharged RS-46 stroker motor. Late the night before, Roman called to inform me that ESS wanted to make one last change to the basic kit, and that might take most of the following day to complete. When I arrived in Arizona I called Roman to come and pick me up at the airport. The only question on my mind was "did everything go as scheduled today?" So I was very pleased to hear Roman tell me "I'll be right there...I'm driving your car."

M3Post user AckM3 came up with the idea of a caption contest for the following photo. Two RD Sport 4.6L stroker M3's sitting in front of RD Sport competitor -- Dinan.

These are the best photo captions submitted.

Many of you have been following the progress of the various RD Sport "Stroker Motor" projects (seen here), and others may not have heard of it at all. For those who haven't, the RD Sport "RS-46" stroker motor is much more than a larger displacement version of the BMW M3 V8 4.0L motor. The RS-46 is a complete turn-key motor, headers, exhaust, ECU-tune, including installation.

I waited five months for the Amuse Ericsson M480 Titanium exhaust to arrive, and when it did, I didn't have time to dyno test it. Now that SEMA is over, I put aside some time to dyno test the exhaust. Though the horsepower gains are modest, the torque gains are VERY impressive.

The BMW Performance Steering Wheel is offered by BMW for any E9x cars with CAN-BUS.  It should work with all 3-series and M3 models with all Transmissions variations.  In addition to providing engine and water temperatures, the steering wheel has shift indicator lights, 1/4 mile timing, lap timing, sub-lap timing, g-force meter, etc.  It's not accurate as it could be, but it's a great addition to the car.

After getting the HRE 540R's (see them here), I wasn't completely satisfied with the look on the car, but there was nothing I could do about it. The wheels were supposed to be compatible with the Brembo big brake kit. However, when the Brembo's were installed, the two rear wheels were not compatible. This was nobody's fault really, Brembo had changed the specs for the rear calipers between the time I ordered them (the wheels) and the time the Brembo's were installed.

Shortly after my car purchase, I spotted an ad on M3Post asking for a development car for the Eibach Pro Kit for the E92 BMW M3.  The requirements were simple:  bright color car, already owns wheels/tires, and preferably in Southern California.  I submitted pictures of my car and within 30 minutes got a call from Eric Dickerson @ Eibach.  He wanted my car!

The Brembo BBK installation became a bit of a problem. Brembo was out of stock on all colors except silver. So we decided to custom paint the calipers. The only question: what color do we paint them. I talked it over with a very good painter friend of mine, and he warned to avoid RED at all costs because it would clash with the color of the car.

There is one thing I should point out: the wheels were supposed to have Red/Silver/Blue caps, not the monochrome caps you see here. HRE will be replacing those caps with the correct ones. The pictures you see below that appear to have the correct caps have been photoshopped to replace the monochrome caps with the correct ones. If I were to do it all over again, I might go with polished outters and polished inners instead of brushed inners.

Here's some pictures of my car a week or two after my purchase.  These pictures were taken when the car was still completely stock.