2010: A year of mods! Eisenmann update P2

[PawnSacrifice]

This thread
This is something of a vanity post. I'm going to be doing a few mods over the coming months and this thread will detail the updates, what I've done and how. As far as I know I'm not doing anything new but if there are any gaps I'm more than happy to up together a How To. There will be a load of pictures, partly to show what I've done but also to show how easy some things are. As I have found out.

The mods will be mostly aimed at looks and sound. The one improvement in performance that I am going after is the handling, or rather the feel. As much as I believe the grip and corner speed have improved with a change to non run-flats, the steering has lost some of its edge, turn-in feel. I want that back, and some more!

I will also be collecting data along the way to see what the different changes to the car make to the performance. To make this clear though and am neither looking for nor expecting any gains its just some fun along the way!

I don't really have a deadline, but I'd like to get things finished by June in time for my trip to Italy in July. The mods aren't being done in the order of availability rather than rank of importance.

Thanks already to all the people that have given council, inspiration or advice

Here are a couple pictures of the starting point:




I apologise in advance for the poor writing

[PawnSacrifice]

M Theory

A few of the people I've been speaking to about the project have asked the same question, "I thought you wanted an M?"

I did. I saw one close up for the first time at the Aebous meet, Andy's, and was truly hooked. Driving one for half an hour, and I'm sure I didn't get the full affect, but I thought it was outstanding. Truly outstanding.

I still do want one. I drove a few and they are phenomenal. It is a fabulous machine and had one of the three dealers I spoke to offered me more for my car I'd be in one of those now. Best I was offer for mine was £8k, worst was £6.5k! No thanks.

So, I've decided to give myself an allowance of a quarter of the difference between mine and an M to go to town on mine, the rest I've banked for future enterprise (not sure what just yet). Seeing what some of you guys have done with your Zeds reminded me what personal touches can add to a car, more so when it's your own!

Part of me does still wonder if I've made the right choice, head over heart, but with each mod on my humble little 2.5, I think it was the right choice.

[PawnSacrifice]

Steering wheel
A small change, and not one I intended to make. However I was on eBay and I noticed an M wheel at a good price. Decided to bag it. I then had an issue finding the correct spokes. So I ended up buying the standard multi function spoke kit.

To see the difference, here are the wheels standard and M steering wheels side by side… standard looking a little weedy…


Getting the standard spokes on the M wheel was a bitch of a job and took a combination of force and time. The only place they don't fit perfectly is the bottom, where the spoke is not completely flush to the base of the wheel. Shown in the picture below.


On the face of it an M steering wheel appears a waste of money. But, it looks good and it makes a surprising difference to the feel of the car. Personally I like the look of the silver spokes too.


This may help anyone wanting to undertake the upgrade:
Sideshowbob's Steering Wheel How To

Worth it? Yes, although not a top of the list item.

[PawnSacrifice]

Lights
Slightly different issues with the lights, front and rear…
Rear - to a lesser extent the indicator colour, but I wanted symmetry.
Front - pre-facelift, the indicators obviously.

Rear Lights
Having looked through a number of threads on here there seemed to be a few options varying around red, clear and dark lenses. WIth the silver car I favoured the red option.

To get symmetry I ordered a new RHS rear from Germany which has a reversing light come clear fog light. Below is a picture of the RHS and LHS lights - to remove undo three nuts under the light covers in the boot, disconnect the cable and push the unit out. Simple.


Next, I wanted to remove the orange indicators. I removed the French fry from each light - this is just held on with an adhesive tape. I masked off the reflector and reversing / fog light and sprayed the indicator and brake lights with a red tinting spray. Lots of passes laying fine layers each time. It went on and dried very quickly and easily. I had practiced on the original light first. This was my tinting kit:

(I'll be posting pics of what I used throughout, for reference)

I have overdone the red tint slightly and cut it back with acetone… okay I couldn't get any, I had to go and buy nail polish remover! I did want to fit orange builds which have a 581 fitment, so I needed to buy a couple of bulb holders from the facelift rear lights, sourced from Cooper Parts.

Here's a pic with the lights back on the car…


They flash more red than orange which I wasn't sure about, also the fog light isn't the brightest, but I have spoken to other members running the same setup who reported no issues - main concern being passing MOTs.

Worth it? Yes, the light from Germany was less than £30 with shipping. I think it looks a lot better. I am keeping the red third brake light as it fits with my colour scheme - silver with black and red for contrast.

[PawnSacrifice]

Front Lights
Some of you may have seen some post on this already. It turns out I have been rather fortunate. I had originally decided to use the CJ method… get hold of donor lights, cut them open and replace the indicators lenses (Thread here). I saw a halogen light with clear lens on eBay so I bought it. A couple weeks later another, advertised as a facelift light, came up and I bought that too. Hurrah! What I didn't realise was that these were both in fact very rare pre-facelift lights with clear indicator lenses. Facelift ones wouldn't have worked, I have now learned.

It wasn't all plain sailing - one of the lights was advertised as having a broken lug, the second was scratched.

Light with broken lugs.

Thankfully all of the broken parts were supplied.

First broken lug, probably the worst:


Second, split slightly:


Third, broken bit that the cover clips in to:


After posting on the forum as to the best adhesive I was advised that the lights were made of a thermo-plastic and could be "welded" back into place with a soldering iron. Never having done this I was mildly sceptical; of my ability not the advice! I practiced on a drill bit box with great success. Then turned my new skills on light. I took an old Nokia phone charger which I cut into strips (with my RotaCraft, SK93) and used as a solder.

To add, DaveG put me on to Isopropyl Alcohol as a cleaning fluid - bought from Maplins, absolutely brilliant for preparing the surfaces. Using it a lot now for other jobs. Something I would recommend having in the tool locker.

Lug re-attached:


Cover retaining thingimy fixed:


Very pleased with myself! This is what I used:

[PawnSacrifice]

Light with scratch.

Strangely I was the only person to bid on this one! I wasn't put off by the light being scratched as I'd read a thread previously where Mister Roger discussed his technique for getting a scratch out - one a few people have used. This was the light as supplied:



Technique was to sand the damaged area with 800, 1200 and 1500 grit wet and dry. Would have gone to 2000 but couldn't find it. I then used a scratch remover (one I bought for paintwork), used that for a long time and then moved to a glass polish. Finally glass cleaner. Repeated from the scratch remover phase until happy. Ended up with this:


This was my scratch removal kit:

[PawnSacrifice]

Fitting the lights

Remove the bumper using Bumper Removal Instruction as my guide. Again, first time doing this on the Z4. Actually very easy! I had read that it was a bit of a faff as a one man job so I used my steering wheel box to help:


The other issue I'd read about was getting the lights to lineup against the bumper and bodywork properly. So, prior to removal I checked the gap with my wood flooring spacers:


I tried a few sizes until I found the best fit. I put a little tape from the light to the bodywork to help stop the light fro dropping when the bolts were removed. I removed the inside and bottom bolts first, leaving this one until last:


Undoing that side bolt I held the front of the light to stop it from falling away entirely. Then, removed the cables from the back of the lights, the small connector is obvious, the larger connector, you need to slide the housing to the side:


One point to note, on a couple of the lights that I bought the was a plastic bracket that had snapped off, shown in the picture below, my light went back on fine without it.

You will also need to move the metal tube to the new light.

To fit the new light, I connected the cables and then put all of the bolts in enough to hold the light in place. Then inserted the spacers as shown below:


I moved the light up against the spacers and tightened the top bolts first, this held the light exactly where I wanted it and allowed me to tighten the other two bolts. Lights on, then refitted the bumper. I forgot to re-connect the fog lights first time! Using the spacer method the whole thing seemed to line up just right.

Couple pics of the car with the new lights…




Worth it? Hell yes! Although if I didn't have the money aside for the suspension this would have waited.

[Z4 Beemer]

Nice! The headlights make a huge difference, much cleaner.The red and blue stitching on the M wheel looks amazing too. What's next?

[m44rrt]

Very nice
I like the clear headlights
Do they have the dark rather than chrome insides?

[PawnSacrifice]

Thanks chaps, I think so too

Z4 Beemer, I'll continue working on the brakes when I get a chance (cleaning up some old 330 callipers), but I think the next thing on the car will be the exhaust

m44rrt, yes, dark internals. Which I wanted... to compliment the titanium silver I want to stick to black and red for the mods.

One thing I'm not sure of now... I was going to go with a facelift bumper too, but actually I really not sure now the lights are on

[daveg]

Nice thread and pictures.

Do you have a link for the rear RHS light or was it an eBay jobbie?

Thanks,
Dave

[PawnSacrifice]

Thanks, Dave... RHS light was from eBay - bought from Germany for a little over £20. Postage wasn't too much either. Turned up within a week

Would happily use German suppliers again.

[texasjohn]

Just to comment on the headlights, makes a great difference to the 'cleanliness' of the aesthetics at the front.

There is something about silver and the newer style front lights that just looks so much better than the original orange indicator ...

[Dreamer]

Headlights look fantastic mate Really good job with the plastic welding. Orange indicators really do age the car and yours is looking very fresh now .

Looks like you went a bit dark with the rear light spray, having used it on my rear lights maybe you could have done less layers so more orange shone through.

[sk93]

looking really good matey! I think I'll be watching this thread and stealing a few ideas