The Drowned Man and other stories: an e91 project
So, introduction to myself and why I have this car is fairly simple: I have had euro wagons for most of my adult life as daily use cars and my go to choice has always been Volvo, and I felt the need to try something different.
I have purchased a 2011 e91 to bring back to life. It’s a purist/poverty spec in rwd and very few options. I would love it if it were a slick top too, but I wasn’t that lucky.
This project will follow the path that many of my previous tinkering car projects travel in that how it evolves all depends on what I can find. I’m resourceful at collecting things.
So far I’ve collected 3 parts cars to contribute things to the e91.
Probably most significantly a M Sport kit N51 with the drowned man inside (the inspiration for the name for the thread). Hilariously the car would turn on and lots of things would power up even with the water having completely covered the car!
Then I got a rough N52 Non-M Sport to get the updated seats and paddle shifters (yet to be retrofit).
And most recently a 135i for brakes.
At the moment I’m uncertain whether all this stuff will make it onto the car and what the finished product might be, but this is the project so far. Of course I plan to swap in the 330i intake (taken from the n51), and then it’s probably suspension modifications, and the usual things. I’m not committing to doing all that as I’m notorious for growing tired of a project and going on to something else… but I would like to do those things and more, if it can maintain my interest long term!
Hopefully the car will be going in for paint work in a few weeks. And yes, the M sport side skirts will be going on too. They will be easier to paint off the car, so I won’t install them until after they are painted. I did buy the M sport rear bumper too, which is again the same story. It will be painted off the car and then installed.
So here the build thread starts with just shy of 83,000 miles on the clock of the car. It needs cleaning, painting, and modifications!
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Questions:
There are conflicting opinions on what the stock sport springs for an e91 should be. I contacted bmw and they can get me the stock springs, but that will be a $800 hit to know I get the factory correct springs. Does anyone know what the stock sport springs are? Currently the car has C5s in the front and F4s in the rear. The N51 M Sport donor parts car has D4 front, and D4 in the rear. I presume I should not use these? They are free and only have 66k miles on them, if acceptable, it seems an easy upgrade. I would certainly consider alternative options than stock, but I don’t want a significant ride drop or a drop in ride quality.
Speakers upgrade: are there options? Can I retrofit the higher grade factory speakers and amp or would that be aftermarket territory?
Bluetooth audio retrofit?
Any other nice quality of life improvements recommended?
And, YES, I WOULD ALSO LOVE TO RETROFIT IN 3 PEDALS, BUT UNLESS SOMEONE WANTS TO VOLUNTEER TO DO IT FOR ME, I DON’T PLAN ON DOING IT. If someone who has experience doing it quotes me a number to do it that my financial algorithm thinks is worth it, I’ll buy a complete car with whatever the required parts are required and I’ll pay someone to do it. I won’t be doing that myself as that is beyond my skill level and in general I believe that the transmission a vehicle ships with from the factory is the transmission it should keep. PM with references if applying for the job to perform the gender swap.
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AND YES! If you would like parts off of these 3 donor cars, I will sell them to you to help lower the cost of my own project. If it’s extensive to pull or difficult to ship, please be very patient with me as I do have a very demanding day job and it’s hard for me to keep up with everything. Local pickup is ideal and I can’t ship any body parts larger than say a headlight or wheel. I’m located in central VA, just outside of Lynchburg.
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So, this forum setup for photo organization is new to me, so the photos in order of appearance:
e91 on delivery, N51 M sport and drowned man, N52 non-m sport interior, 135, and then the e91 as it sits right now.