[Ruddigger]

What, another wagon thread? I thought these things were supposed to be sort of rare, but, here's another one. I bought this in August 2015, so here comes 6 months of mods all at once.

The car is a 328i Jet Black on Saddle Brown wagon.(which is the exact combo I wanted, got really lucky there.) It's my first BMW, loving it so far.

Stock photos. Still purdy, with so much potential. Plus, did you know you can fit a Queen size Ikea bed back there?




Started modding the next day. First mod, I tinted the tails. I know you guys hate tinted tails, but I always wanted em on a black car, so I sprayed em down. Then off to the window tint shop for Hüper Optik ceramic tint all around. Medium on the back and sides, light on the fronts and windshield. Then when I got home I plastidipped the grills satin black. That was a busy day.




Debadged it.


Next, did the vinyl pie cuts on all the emblems. Should have paid more attention to the direction of the carbon fiber pattern, lol. Whoops.


Then, coilovers. ST makes one especially for the wagon, so I went to a place whose name I cannot say, but rhymes with shmod shmargains and got a deal. They installed and supplied me with some spacers. 10mm up front, 12mm out back. Tucking just a little tire.




Installing the Curt hitch. Not the sportiest of mods, but it IS a wagon, and I need a way to carry my old bikes. They're way too heavy for a roof rack.



Then I plastidipped the wheels. Metallic Black.


Muffler delete with 3.5" stainless steel double wall tips.


Changed the halogen bulbs to Philips Diamond Visions, the Angel Eyes to Lux LCI v2, and the fogs to yellow.



Then I got some coding done, no more amber signal daytime running lights. And got some Cyba intake scoops for the 30 extra horsepower. (But really to give the front some color. I painted them copper.)


Rocked it like this for a couple months, and made some new friends along the way.

[Ruddigger]

Version 2 is now in progress. The LEDs in the left tail failed, so got some aftermarkets. They offered me a deal on headlights to go with them, so I got those too. Mars/Rolling Gears heads and tails.



And the last day before the facelift was complete...

[Narvin]

do you live in irvine? looks like tustin/irvine marketplace plaza

[Ruddigger]

Now working on version 2 of the car. Step one was the new lights. Step two required a stop off at ABS Autobody in El Monte.


Huge thanks to Kevin at ABS Autobody for being a cool dude, and giving me a great price on painting and installing my new front. JC Sportline (polyurethane) 1M bumper with a carbon fiber Revosport rep lip.




When we dropped the car down off the lift after installing the bumper and lip, it was only 1/4" off the ground. So, up went the coilovers. No more tucking tire, but I have 3" of clearance for the lip now. Still scrape it a little, but it's driveable. I also went from 10mm to 15mm spacers up front to hide some of the tire gap, 20mm's on order for the rear.

I'm loving the new face. This morning I brought it back to shmod shmargains for rear coilover adjustment and a new alignment.


Next phase of version 2 is wheels and tires. I want to stick with 17's and run a meatier tire, and apparently, that means going with Apex. C'mon wheel manufacturers, not everybody want's 19's. A square set of 17x9 ET 30 Arc-8's in anthracite are on order, (I'm gonna plasti-dip them bronze,) and 245/40 Sumitomo HTR Z III's are incoming as well.

I also ordered the inlets for the 1M bumper from BMW, so I'm going to try to make them functional brake ducts and ditch the grills on the sides of the bumper. And I just ordered my black California license plate. (Update: Ca DMV rejected the plates.)


(More pictures coming soon. I need a new USB cable to get them off of my camera.)

Future plans include:
•M3 skirts (Done)
•Carbon Fiber skirt splitters (Done)
•M-Tech rear (Not as easy for us E91 guys, nobody makes a rep. Gotta go with the real deal.)
•Carbon Fiber rear diffuser
•3 Stage intake manifold and AA tune (Done)
•Upgrade the amp
•Performance Electronic steering wheel with paddles
•Carbon Leather interior trim
•M3 rep fenders (Still on the fence about this one. Thoughts?)
•Carbon Fiber vinyl roof (Not sure about this either.)
•A smaller lip, or maybe the 1M carbon fiber splitters.
•Pearl Orange plasti-dip paintjob.

[Ruddigger]

Originally Posted by Narvin

do you live in irvine? looks like tustin/irvine marketplace plaza

No, but you're right. That was after Bimmerfest, or one of out cruise nights.

[mad1stgen]

Long live the wagons !!! Badazz !!!

BTW, e91 Mtech rear cover partslink BM1100195.

On ebay here http://www.ebay.com/itm/351655983422...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

You can use any e90 diffuser with that cover.

[Ruddigger]

Thanks man. I think that you need more parts when switching to the M-tech bumper. Weird that the listing you posted says E93 bumper, if it's the E91 part number.

[Ruddigger]

Mailman had a lot to drop off today.



I don't how I'm gonna make the inlets work, we'll see.

[VMRWheels]

The new bumper looks awesome! So much more aggressive than the stock E91 bumper!

[Manberg]

You forgot supercharger on your mod list.

Also the BMW perf Aero skirts look good, and another hole for another 5 horsepower.
Edit for pic - not sure if e90 skirts fit a e91

[The Maxican]

Looking good, I've always been a fan of wagons! How's the fitment on the 1M bumper

[Underground6t9]

looks sick

[Ruddigger]

Originally Posted by Manberg

You forgot supercharger on your mod list.

Also the BMW perf Aero skirts look good, and another hole for another 5 horsepower.
Edit for pic - not sure if e90 skirts fit a e91

The supercharger isn't worth it, the engine can't handle much power. 4,000 bucks and you can only run 6 pounds of boost. There is some interesting stuff going on in the NA section with turbos running at 11 pounds, though.

[BrandJas18]

Do you have a video of how it sounds without the muffler? Would love to hear it.

[mike@x-ph.com]

Looks great

[Ruddigger]

Put on the rear 20mm spacers, wheels are all flush now. Not that it matters, since my new Apex wheels should be here in a week or two anyway.

I also took off the bumper today and fooled around with the brake ducts. I don't see an immediately apparent way to make them work. The shape of the bumper openings is slightly off from the real thing, as one would expect from a replica. I'll figure something out though.

A couple of pics from today.



And one of mocking up the duct.

[NYBulldog]

Goddamn that looks fantastic. What tails are those? That plate would be perfect.

[Ruddigger]

Thanks man, just wish it was widebody like yours! They're the Mars/Rolling Gears heads and tails. The headlights give me errors, but the tails are okay so far.

[PORTMOODY]

you likely need coding for the led turn signals.

[Ruddigger]

No, it has resistors in it. The wiring is shitty, the codes are intermittent.

[tetsuo111]

Perks! She's a beauty. Thanks for sharing

[Ruddigger]

Thanks Tetsuo, your car is like inspiration to me.

Not too much to update. I'm waiting on replacement headlights, hopefully ones with working turn signals, and still waiting on my wheels to arrive. I'm getting sad staring at these empty tires. Lol.