Gavsadler's 130i M-Sport (E87)

[gavsadler]

Hello all,

It has occurred to me off and on over the past few months, that in all the time I've been a member of BMWFanatics, I haven't actually created a thread for my car. :rollsmile:

So consider this the official thread for my car. I'll post some brief history about the car, as well as some of my experiences along the way. As per usual, I'll try keep things as detailed and informative as possible, hopefully to the benefit of others here.

Please bear with me though, there is a lot of catching up to do from what's happened over the past few years. I'll try post dates more or less when stuff happened, and then hopefully in the not too distant future I will catch up with the present :rollsmile:

So let's begin. It all started way back in Dec-2006 (9 years ago, can you believe it?!), my brother had made some changes in his life, and had an itch for an exciting driver's car again. Long story short, he signed the deal on this 130i - to take collection in Jan-2007.

Some specs of the car are as follows (not listing standard features):
2007 130i M-Sport (E87)
Manual
Alpine White 3
Black Leather interior
Style 208M 18" rims (7J front and 7.5J rear, 205-45-18 front tyres and 225-40-18 rear tyres)
M-Sport package
Aluminium Glacier Silver interior trim
Individual anthracite roof lining
Glass sunroof
PDC (rear)
Cruise Control
BMW Professional Radio
35% smash & grab window tint
Parrot Bluetooth kit installed prior to delivery
Xenon headlights with washers in the bumper

Just a quick pic of the day he took delivery:

First impressions: it felt fresh and responsive, always eager to get going. Brakes were also good with good pedal feel. On the trip back home, we also learnt the art of the bunny hop on pull away (courtesy of the CDV).

I'll fast track a little bit. My brother and his wife became the proud parents of twin boys in 2008. Unfortunately this meant that there was not enough space in the 1er for baby seats in the back, and a 1.88m, 115kg driver in the front, so he ended up using the car a lot less. Eventually in July 2009, they decided to be sensible and get a large family car (Volvo V70). I was given the option of taking over his car, and after much pondering, procrastinating and number crunching, I decided to do the deal. And that is where my journey with the car starts :rollsmile:

July-2009:
I officially became the owner of the car, with 48000kms on the odometer. Everything about the car was awesome, and a huge upgrade over my previous wheels (Kadett 160iS - also a great little car which I miss dearly).

The first few months were pretty stable, just enjoying the car as it was, but I am known to tinker and fiddle, so there were a few things brewing in the back of my mind which I wanted to attend to. I began reading up quite a bit on overseas forums, learning a lot about what can be done to these cars.

Sep-2009:
Through my trawling of the internet and reading all sorts of info, I eventually stumbled across this very forum, and registered as a noobie :rollsmile:

Oct-2009:
Having driven the car for a few months (and previous experience when my brother still owned it), one thing was clear - the stock sound system is pathetic (I can only imagine what models with the business system must sound like). It felt very flat, no depth to the sound at all. Everything sounded muffled and dull.

Reading up on the UK forums, there was regular reference to the Alpine Hifi upgrade kit. This basically consists of replacement mids for the front doors, tweeters as well as a small amp - which powers the door speakers as well as the OEM subs which are located underneath the front seats.

The forum organised a group buy, and I decided to join them, and purchase the first mod for the car. I arranged to have it delivered to family friends in the UK, who would then bring it across to SA a few months later when they came to visit.

Dec-2009
The arrival of the family friends from the UK also brought along with them an early Christmas present. Here's a pic of the package unboxed:

It's a pretty comprehensive kit, with a plug and play wiring harness, as well as connectors for the under seat subs.

Here's a close-up of the mids:

In the pics below, are some comparisons of the Alpine mids compared to the OEM mids. You'll notice they are much better quality, with bigger magnets etc.

I haven't got any pics of when I did the install, but it was pretty straight forward. Had a couple of challenges working out how to remove the 1st door panel, but after that it was a breeze. As mentioned earlier, everything is plug and play.

And how does it sound? Fantastic! What a difference. I sh1t you not when I say it brings the under seat subs to life. To the uninformed, you wouldn't even know that they existed there previously. It just gives them that extra bit of kick which a standard head unit cannot do. The front stage is also vastly improved, with clearer, warmer mid-range, and the addition of the tweeters up by the mirrors (not available as standard) round off the vocals and upper ranges nicely.

This really is a great upgrade, one of the best things I could have done. Sure it's not a pavement pounder, but that is not what I was after. 5 years later and it's still playing as well as the day I completed the install.

I think that's enough for the first post, caught up a good few years. I'll start putting together the next updates and post again soon.

 

[3V0M-WP]

Nice write up. I need to do a new updated thread as well.

Two weeks ago I've had my car for 8 years. She's now got 120100kms.
Spent a lot on her last year with mechanical repairs.

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[gavsadler]

May-2010:

Prior to previous updates, I was doing various tests to measure intake air temperatures. Nothing too scientific, all I used was a multimeter which had an input for a Type-K thermocouple.

What I found is the air temperature at the "nostrils" just above the radiator was either at or just below the ambient temperature. And interesting finding was that the air temperature inside the airbox was almost consistently 5deg C above the ambient air temperature.

All this research and experimentation led up to the purchase of my next mod: the BMW Performance Intake. Below is an extract of my experience as found on the UK forum:

Well I bit the bullet and decided to go ahead and order one of these pieces of kit. A big thanks to the Guys at Cotswold who helped me out! Your service is excellent and I highly recommend them to anyone looking to buy BMW parts.

All-in-all, it took about 1 week from placing my order, to receiving the kit - via DHL. At this point I would just like to get this off my chest: it's an expensive piece of kit, and you have to be really passionate about BMW, or really stupid to fork out so much money for it (I had not decided quite where I fitted in, perhaps a bit of both :lol: ).

Here's a pic after unpacking the box (the box is big: 30cmx30cmx60cm by the way):

I decided I'm going to be as scientific as possible in my "analysis-review". The intake tract is noticably larger than the OEM piece, as well as the intake into the airbox. I measured the volume of the intake tract, and the BMWP part has 22% more volume, and the inlet into the airbox is 18% larger than the OEM piece. See my calculations below:

A while back, I decided I would try something different too. Just having 1 piece of the kit in CF seemed like a skimp on BMW's side, so I decided to get creative and wrap the other bits of kit in CF wrap. I think it came out quite snazzy . I also made the effort to align the weave the same as the part on the intake. Check it out....

Here's the lid wrapped:

Here's the intake nostrils wrapped:

And the extension piece wrapped:

And everything installed:

So we'll see how this wrap lasts with the underbonnet temperature's. Hopefully it stays in place. I had to make careful use of the hairdryer to stretch the vinyl to fit around the bolt holes etc.

Next I contacted one of our local tuners to help me out with the Dyno, I wanted to put my car on the rollers (stock standard) and then fit the BMWP intake straight after that and do some more runs. This would probably be the most effective way to see if there is any measurable gain. So we arranged to do it this morning (Monday).

Temperatures here took a dip the past week or so. When I arrived at Savspeed, ambient temperature was 10Deg C, nice and cold, so that would help with the power readings

Sav first loaded the car on the Dyno, and spent a few minutes warming up the dyno, running the car through the gear's and at different speeds etc. He then did 2 runs, and ended up with 136kW and 249Nm on the wheels. Some nice healthy numbers, especially considering we're 1700m above sea level [we experience about an 18% loss in power than if we were at sea-level ]

I then quickly swapped over the parts, and then he spent another 10min or so using varying loads and speeds so that the ECU could 'learn' about the new intake fitted. Then 2 more dyno runs. It was apparent that the ECU was still adjusting, as the power numbers were still fluctuating up and down slightly. We let the car cool off for 10min, and then did 2 more runs. Power went up to 138kW and 253Nm.

Sav says that the car is improving, and will probably do over the next few days. So I'll drive it for 1 tank, and then take it back for a follow-up dyno run. Then we should see the net result of lots of time, effort and money

Here's the initial dyno graph: The gains aren't huge, but they're there. And i'm sure it will improve once the ECU adapts some more in the coming days:

Initial driving impressions:
I haven't spent much time in the car, but what I can say is that there is a noticable improvement at low RPM - between idle and 2500rpm. The car is much smoother on pull-off, and doesn't seem to have that "held back" feeling as it had with the OEM intake. If the dyno could read lower, I'm sure it will vouch for this too. I suspect this is most probably an increase in bottom-end torque.

Then from about 2700-3200rpm, there is a rather annoying boom that comes from the intake. This can be heard with the windows closed or open. It was proving to be mildly annoying for me. This is probably when the 3-stage inlet manifold starts opening the other valves etc. Perhaps this boom might also be more noticable because it is being relayed through the extra air inlet piece up by the bulkhead??? I'll see how it goes, and maybe try plug off the opening and see if it goes away.

Throughout the rest of the rev range, there is a slight difference in sound. It still sounds very sporty from inside the car. I also do think that the car is more responsive, and the few times where I could give it some stick, it did seem more eager to rev. I honestly couldn't feel a difference in the power and torque through the rest of the rev range, but this might change with time as the ECU learns.

Overall, so far, so good. I'll see how it goes in the next week or 2 as I spend more time in the car and the ECU learns. For the moment that's all I can comment on driving impressions, but I thought I'd post all my developments to date

And here is some comparison dyno numbers from a BMW CCG event held at Savspeed a few months prior - just for some mild comparisons:

Below are 2 spreadsheet of the BMW Club who had a dyno day at the same place in June last year. The cars in yellow are turbocharged. I inserted my car in green. the 1st sheet is sorted by power reading, the second sheet sorted by torque reading.

And this was my efforts at trying to eliminate the drone / resonance experienced at around 3000rpm:


That drone at 3000rpm was bothering me, so the 1st thing I did was to remove that extra air inlet up by the bulkhead, I thought that might be transmitting the drone to the cabin or something. This didn't resolve the issue, so then I had to scratch my head some more....

Then I thought, the drone is probably caused by some sort of vibration, because it only occurs at certain RPM. I figured that the sound in the airbox at around 3000rpm is at a certain frequency, which cannot be dampened by the airbox itself. (Engineers, help me out here).

Then I clicked, if you look at the standard airbox lid, you'll see it is heavily braced underneath. The newer BMWP intake lid is completely smooth. This also allows for some flex, which in turn could lead to vibration occuring and transmitting the "boom". It makes sense if you compare it to a subwoofer, small movements in the speaker cone generate frequencies of vibration

SO... I thought I somehow need to reinforce the new airbox lid. This would be an engineering feat in it's own right, so I did the next best thing, I used some sound-deadening mat commonly used in the car sound industry. They use it on body panels to eliminate road noise, and also to dampen vibrations etc.

2 layers of sound-deadening mat later:

Put the lid back on and went for a test drive. I noticed straight away that the boom has all but disappeared, sounds nice and refined like it did originally. And I haven't lost any of the low down grunt I obtained from fitting the intake

All-in-all, I'm now happy with my intake. No droning, and lots of low down power, also more responsive than before. Went for a drive last night with DTC switched off, and had a few sideways moments pulling away from the robots. LOL the drivers behind me must've thought I'm mad :lol:

So there you have it, if any of you guys with the intake / exhaust want to try eliminate some drone - try this!

That pretty much concludes the detail around fitment of the intake to the car. Note that since then, I have removed the carbon wrap on the plastic bits, and also removed the insulation on the inside of the airbox lid.

That carbon dipping treatment seems to be growing in popularity here in SA now, so I have always considered that as a more viable option. Over the past few years though, my attention and finances were diverted into my Corsa Ute build. But who knows, maybe I will still get round to doing this sometime....

---

Sep-2010:

I was really enjoying the car, as well as the changes made to date. One of the other popular mods is to disable the exhaust valve on the back box. This is also known as the golf tee mod, for reasons which will be explained below.

On this car, as well as some of the other 6cyl models (both older and newer), the back box has a valve on one of the two tailpipes. This is actuated by a vacuum line from the engine bay (on some newer models, this valve is electronically activated). Without going into too much detail, the valve closes off one of the tailpipes during light throttle applications (< 15% from what I found). This makes it quieter during cruising or when coasting.

Apart from looking to prevent the tunes played by the 6cyl being muted, I also found it particularly annoying when driving through the suburbs with the windows open. It was very noticeable how the valve would open and close fairly frequently depending on speed and gear changes etc.

So, time to disable the valve. I simply unplugged the vacuum line off the valve, and plugged this with a golf tee. Then I just pushed a piece of clear hose over the connection on the valve, to prevent dirt and grime contaminating it.

And here's a pic of the valve in the back box (now defaulted to open position):

Something else I did during this month was fit new tyres. I had read up on the endless threads about whether to fit runflats again, or rather try out normal tyres, and carry a spare.

In the end I decided upon the latter. Doing some more research, I settled on Hankook Ventus V12 Evo as my tyre of choice. I read many reviews, and these received excellent feedback.

I decided to fit a square setup (225-40-18 all round). The front tyres were originally 205-45-18, but these are only available from Goodyear, and TBH, they looked a bit stretched on the rim.

Here's some pics of the tyres after I had just fitted them:

These tyres are still fitted to the car, and I am happy to report I have not had any major issues, bar the odd puncture here and there. They are fairly quiet, and grip well both in the wet and in the dry.

There's still a good few mms left on the fronts, and slightly less on the back, but I reckon I can do another 10000kms odd before they will need to be changed. I actually just checked, and to date I've done 57000kms on this set of tyres. Not bad 'ey? :rollsmile:

That's all for now, more updates to follow again soon....

 

[momo1]

being an E87 freak ,This is a thread I will be watching closely.

 

[GoCart]

Nice car boet, love the BMW Performance intake!!!!

 

[444YYY]

Very nicely documented.

How did the carbon wrap 'age'? Is there any peeling/fading etc.

 

[gavsadler]

The carbon wrap lasted about 6-9months if I recall correctly. Thereafter it started to chip and peel at the edges, the underbonnet temperatures were not helping things at all. So I ended up removing it within a year of applying the stuff (and then never got round to exploring the other options).

Dec-2010:

To end off the year, I joined the BMW CCG for their final skidpan and gymkhana event. These are always enjoyable to go to and to watch. I also managed to convince my then fiancé that she should also register and take part - it would be fun, and being in a controlled environment also helps to learn the limits of the car and the different dynamics on both wet and dry surfaces.

Some random pics below of my car at the event (sorry I don't have pics of the other cars). Apologies for the poor quality visuals, my mate was struggling with settings on his camera most of the day.

Driver's being given a demo of some of the exercises:

Getting ready to rock 'n roll:

In the video below, we had to accelerate up to around 70km/h, and as soon as we hit the water, we would need to swerve and brake - like an emergency lane change. All safety systems enabled (DTC, ABS etc)
Emergency lane change exercise

This was about 5sec before my mate ended up facing back where he came from haha:

Providing some tutoring to the Mrs:

And the results thereof:

Here is a video of one of my runs:
Timed gymkhana run

My mate decided to overall the decisions of the scorekeepers and accept the trophy himself, even though he didn't compete at the end:

Overall a fun day out. On my fastest timed run, I just didn't stop in the garage (cones at the end of the course), so they nailed me with a 2sec penalty. Being a fairly close-knit bunch, this pushed me all the way down to 16th place (3.5sec behind the overall winner).

One thing that was interesting was how my fiancé performed. Bearing in mind that this was her first time on the skid pan. She hadn't spent as much time on the track as I did that day, but when it came to the timed gymkhana she performed very well. In fact - she was only 2sec slower than my time.

Speaking to the instructors during the event, they mentioned that women actually do better than men in these type of events, because of two simple reasons:

1) They listen to instructions (how to drive, what speed, which line to take etc.)

2) They don't feel the need to partake in massive showboating antics.

:rollsmile:

If you haven't done something like this before, I would highly recommend it. It's fun and you can learn a lot about car control and wet weather behaviour in a safe and controlled environment.

 

[Karthik]

Very good write up, hope there's more to come

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[gavsadler]

Jan-2011:

Just a small update here, but I attended BMW GGC's dyno day at RG Motorsport. Unfortunately I don't have any pics or the results from the day.

Here's a pic of my car waiting in line for a run:

What I do remember is that the car made 198.8hp (141kw) and 250Nm on their dyno, so quite pleased about that.

Also, thinking back, I'm sure I met Arbee on the day. I think back then he was known as Mr Arbee? :cartel: With an E46 in like a Maroonish colour?

Another site to behold was the 1000hp Supercharged M3 CSL. Rob started it up for us and gave it a few revs. It sounded positively mental. Speaking to him afterwards, he mentioned that it was built for a customer who kept a low profile, but apparently they wanted to try organise a trip to the 'Ring in Germany (with the car), and see if they could beat the lap record set by another 'charged CSL.

Does anybody perhaps know what has happened to this car?

Anyways...back on topic

Feb-2011 to Feb-2014:

Sadly, no major updates at all during this time. I married my fiancé in Apr-2011, and then changed jobs in Jun-2011. Shortly after that, the taxis in the JHB CBD were giving me endless stress, and I decided that I did not want to subject my car to possible damage and side swipes etc.

So I shopped around a bit, and eventually found a bog standard Opel Corsa Ute 1400. This was to become my daily. Little did I know that the fiddling would start just 1 week after buying it, followed my major mechanical surgery in 2012. For more details on this build thread, you can read here:

Corsa C Ute - Another Toy Story

More BMW updates to follow again soon....

 

[Dirtydeedsman]

Great thread man, love car you got there

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[r-hart]

Hi

Great write up and thanks for the informative post.

Do you mind sharing the price BMWP intake back in 2010?

Are you planning on doing exhaust in the future?

 

[gavsadler]

Thread revival.

Shoo, I know I haven't updated in a while, but I can't believe it's been 9 months. Life seems to be overtaking me faster than a tuned M5 :rollsmile:

Anyway, let me get to some updates seeing as I have a gap.

Hi

Great write up and thanks for the informative post.

Do you mind sharing the price BMWP intake back in 2010?

Are you planning on doing exhaust in the future?

The intake was expensive, for the sake of not reopening closed wounds, I think including import duty and shipping fees it was the wrong side of R8k (but still cheaper than purchasing locally from BMW).

re: the exhaust - maybe :rollsmile:

---

Back to trying to catchup on the timeline for the car.....

March-2014:

I attended a skid pan Gymkhana event hosted by the BMW Car Club at Zwartkops. I enjoy these events, as it is time to have fun in a controlled environment. I'm not there for an outright competition, and choose to rather experiment and get to learn the car's behaviour in different situations.

Some pics from the event:

Up against the 1er's uncle:

---

Aug-2014:

I had the common issue of peeling of the covering on the steering wheel trim. Based on previous threads, I decided to try a repair using plastidip.

Before:

I cleaned off all the old trimmings, ready for the plastidip:

Painted and ready to be fitted:

Completed:

---

Fast forward to May-2015....

Just a couple of pics after the car had a good clean:

---

And another leap in time: Dec-2015.

My plastidip efforts on the steering wheel were not working out so well.

The plastidip began to peel at the "high traffic areas" around the buttons and at the 6 o'clock position. Eventually I stripped the trim piece off again, and decided to spray it properly using primer and then satin black paint (Andy also did this on one of his cars if I recall correctly).

Where it was peeling away:

Freshly painted:

And refitted again:

I am pleased to report that it is now still looking great (this pic was taken this morning 14/09/2016):

 

[gavsadler]

Jan-2016:

With the service due, I decided to tackle the job. This was only an oil change, so I wasn't too fussed.

Parts purchased from Alberante BMW:

Halfway through the job. Don't mind my bonnet prop, my struts were a bit worn and I was nervous about being cracked on the back of my head.

I also read a lot of posts that you need a special socket to be able to loosen the oil filter housing. I even researched and found that this socket is indeed listed as a part number. Upon enquiry with BMW, they confirmed the socket exists, however it is not for sale. Lol.

So I just whipped out my dad's trusty old filter wrench, and voila! no problem at all.

The old oil filter and the new one ready to go in:

Total time to complete the job: about 2hours. The actual oil change itself took about 20mins. But then what happened is when the last bit of oil was draining out the sump, it trickled and somehow ran along the bottom of the sump, and onto the splash tray, and then dribbled out all over the garage floor. So I had to clean that up first, then remove the splash tray and clean that, before refitting again. That was a real PITA.

Anyways, car was good to go again.

---

Subsequent to this, I did find a pair of good bonnet struts at MD House, and fitted these, so no need for additional props for peace of mind, excuse the pun.

Other than that, the car has served me well, only being used now and then, as my Ute is my main daily.

There are some more plans in the pipeline though, and I'll do my best to keep the updates more recent and frequent.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Sabretooth tiger]

Car is really stunning, and the way you look after it, will remain almost brand new. :clapper:

 

[MSB135]

Awesome thread

These 130's is probably the last proper NA small car we'll see

 

[Sabretooth tiger]

Sorry to go off topic, but what is the purpose of the garage doors, facing the house?

 

[Lizzard]

Want to say this is one awesome epic page update, please continue. raise:

:withStu: going off topic here.
Looking with all 4 eyes at these 2 charts you posted I couldn't but notice that there is huge mod you can do on a car, Look at pos 10 and 24, both driving similar cars E30 325I but one has a Multivalve mod on his and the other guy standard, with this mod the individual pushes his stock 68kw motor to an astonishing 141kw with just this mod (this is based on the graph presented above). Is this even possible and notice that it has more than 2 times the power now :thinking:

 

[gavsadler]

Re: off topic garage doors

Initially we had a "Hollywood style" garage (enclosed on the left and open on the right hand side and the back). When we did the alterations to close up everything, I decided to put garage doors on the side, with the intention for it to serve as a bit of an entertainment area onto our small garden.

For that purpose they were only used once, but subsequent to that they get opened for extra ventilation when working in the garage. Also handy when cutting large wooden boards.

 

[KidB]

I love what you've done with the car. It's also great to see you enjoying her on the skid pan. Keep it up

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[Kaaba]

Perfection and dedication
What's the mileage currently? Looks stunning