Well it’s been my 2nd weekend since the end of the project and of course I still need to tinker with something. I took this opportunity to address my corner lights as the “diamond clears” were just too bling for my liking. There are lots of options out there when it comes to corner lights but I don’t really like any of them! The frosted look of the OEM Ambers, Clear style and Smoked just don’t do it for me as the difference in texture compared to the headlights just doesn’t flow.

Here is what I started out with today, with the help of a Dremel and a cut-off wheel I was able to separate the lenses from the housings. After that I masked off the areas I wanted to paint and scuffed down the areas that I wanted to paint. You can see in the pics I had the center pieces masked off but I ended up painting them in the end.I used Dupli-color trim paint which is a Satin Black finish which matches the headlamps.

After the paint dried I used a soldering iron to “Plastic Weld” the lenses back to the housings. They came out pretty good. I think they compliment the headlights rather well however I am not sure that I am sold on them yet. I am considering painting them silver to match the trim now and doing the housing portions of the headlamps too. We’ll see but this is what I have for now, I am very satisfied with the results. They are different but better than Amber, cleaner than the Clears and flow better than the Smoked.

Well it was an extremely long weekend, not to mention a long 10 weeks! It has taken me the past week of trying to relax around my full time job to adapt to my new found extra time! The weather has been beautiful and it has been nice to be able to take a break for once. As for the show, everything was a great success. Thursday morning of March 11th, we were on the road by 9:30am and had a nice easy ride all the way to the International Center in Toronto. I ended up driving my 2000 Lightning and the ACS and Mustang followed on car trailers.

The rest of the day was spent detailing and setting up at the show. It was nice that all 3 cars managed to be positioned next to each other to make set-up and sharing of detailing products very easy! I had a few friends help me out, so big thanks to: Mike, Chuck, Andrew, Jordan and my Wife! Everything went smoothly, just took up a lot of time. Had to jack up the cars once they were inside to adjust the coil overs and of course the detailing took forever! The cars had collected quite a bit of dirt, dust etc. I would like to give a huge thanks to Carpolish.CA for providing the ZAINO products used to detail the cars. The instructions were intense but WOW does it ever work great!

Friday was the first day of the show and it was great to meet people and answer questions to those who had been following the project along. It was also my Birthday so I managed to take full advantage of free meals at local restaurants. Saturday and Sunday were some long days but friends, family and fans kept me busy. Here you can see a few pictures taken by myself, friends and others who have been kind enough to send over their pics.

Sunday was the awards day and I am pleased to say that the 1992 BMW ACS and the 2000 Ford SVT Lightning came Runner-Up in their respected classes. Unfortunately the Mustang was up against some pretty fierce competition and did not bring home any awards. I am very proud to have not come home empty handed, it’s been a long few months but I feel great knowing I had finished this project and possibly look forward to another in the future!

I want to personally thank everyone who has sponsored, contributed and/or followed along fun. You all definitely made this project worth while and kept me motivated to work on these cars every night after my full time job! TIP2?

A big thanks goes out to HID Canada! Jason, was simply awesome to work with and he kindly sponsored TIP with a full 6000k H1 HID kit. I was impressed when opening the box that their kits comes with a spare bulb! That’s right, 3 bulbs in total. Great concept, as it allows you to have one on hand in case one burns out and you can warranty the other instead of having to drive around with a burnt out light!

Installation of this kit is super simple and the hardest part is finding a good spot to mount the Ballasts. They are what provide the power needed to properly power the lights. With the headlights out I found a great spot on the actual bumper re-bar to mount them. I had to file out the mounting hole of the ballast just enough to get the bolt used to go through the hole I found on each side of the bumper!

The picture above shows the hole I used. Using this hides the ballast and keeps it away from all the elements! I did not need to extend any of the harnesses, it was completely plug and play! I did have to modify my headlight housings some to allow the wires to pass through the housings and connect to the bulbs. As shown in the picture below.

As you can see, the results are fantastic and a good alignment will light up the road wonderfully! Again a big thanks to HID Canada! These are definitely stand up kits and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking to upgrade their lighting.

I had the pleasure of having a personal visit from Mark Dsylva (aka. Mark D) creator of DSylva-Tech yesterday. This guy is a bit of a legend on a few BMW forums I frequent. He has been making custom chips for OBD-I BMW’s for a while now and was kind enough to provide me with a custom chip. Although I already had a Bavarian Auto chip, since the M3 cam install it was time for a tune that would utilize the cars modifications and bring out its full potential.
The installation process is very simple and even a person with next to little experience working on cars could do it. The following pictures below outline the steps that were taken in order to install the new chip. The metal tabs that must be bent backwards are very brittle and all of mine are now broken due to frequent entry into the DME. Do not worry too much as the 4 main screws hold it together just fine!

This chip should make a significant difference in the performance of the 1992 BMW and Mark is excited to hear the results when I drive it up to the show this week. I could tell right away when starting the car that the idle was even smoother. This particular chip is made to run on 91 octane gas (and higher of course), and also takes into account my modifications such as, exhaust, cams, cold air intake, pulleys, etc… He also has a red line set to 7500 rpm. He told me he normally does 7100 but knows how I like to push the limits sometimes so it should be interesting to see!

Mark, I would like to thank you again for making the trip to see me in person and even help install the chip! It was an honor. To anyone out there looking for some nice canned tunes (or maybe a custom one if you’re willing to pay for it) Mark is the guy to talk to, he really knows his stuff. Be sure to visit his website or you can contact him directly at:  mark@dsylva-tech.ca

Well here I thought this was going to be some seriously difficult task.. The S52 Cam swap into my M50 engine.. So a few tools and a few parts combined with a few hours of work = instant HP upgrade. My friend was kind enough to pick up the cams for me from 8 Legs Racing in Carleton Place (just outside of Ottawa). Scoth was even nice enough to loan us a few specialty tools such as the cam holder for the install!

So removal of the old cams were easy… Was not much more work than changing the valve cover gasket itself! (which was salvageable!) We located the so called “sweet spot” where we could loosen off all the bearing caps and except for the #1 lobes where we did the 1/4 turn method to slowly release the pressure off the lifter/valves. Install was a breeze and everything buttoned up perfectly.. Following the directions from Pelican, we managed to fire the car up with great success!

I can’t wait to see the increase in power these will add along with the supporting mods I have! It is a pretty simple procedure to do and make sure you follow the steps by Pelican or the BMW Bentley manual and you shouldn’t have any issues.. Making sure you work with TDC (top dead center) and time your gears properly with a tool and set your vanos as required..  Here’s a few pics from the removal/install.

Well the day finally came… after many many hours of prepping by myself and talking time and breaks to make sure I didn’t cut any corners, the end result speaks for itself! I am very pleased with the results and other than the odd tiny run from really laying the clear down.. Car looks awesome. I used just shy of 1 full Gallon of clear with my HVLP paint gun. Sprayed the clear at about 10psi (at the tip) and reduced the clear slightly just to get it to lay down extra “wet”. For those interested the gun i use is a Devilbliss with a 1.3mm tip.

Tomorrow I will be starting to put all the trim back on and getting ready to paint the moldings etc! ///M3 cam install will also be on its way so make sure to tune into that! Let the performance mods begin! Next week providing delivery we will also be looking at the header/midpipe install to get some better sound out of the ACS catback!

Be sure to check out the video of the Unmasking to see a walkaround of the car! I am also going to update the Previous Recordings page so that there is a small description beside the links to provide those with easier navigation! I apologize for the glitches that have been occurring with my USTREAM connection, but it looks like they have sorted out their issues. See you all tomorrow

Well I finally managed to shoot primer tonight! After prolonged hours spent on the side skirt you can see that it came out pretty good. I will be touching up a few little spots but other than that I think it turned out really well! So the body work is done and the primer is on. Tomorrow I will be spending the night sanding the car down getting it ready for paint so be sure to tune in for the cars transformation as it gets sprayed the brightest and purest white there is!

I know it has been a long process getting the car ready but.. its worth it! Not too bad as we are only 1.5 weeks into the project and already the car is almost ready for paint, Stainless brake lines from UUC are installed (I did find the clutch line today! So that needs to be installed), the PSS9’s have been adjusted and spaces fit, fenders are rolled and stretched, etc.. Not to worry the performance mods will soon be getting bolted on! Stay Tuned…

Well I keep finding more and more little things that I am trying to make perfect. Some great progress but I do need to be putting in some more hours here and there! I hope to be painting this thing on Wednesday but we’ll see how the progress goes over the next few days as I need to get better lighting set up first. On a good note Sean from Oakville Motorwerks has sent the pics of the custom Mid-Pipe he has built for the ACS car. Check out the pics! Definitely a beautiful piece and I can’t wait to bolt it on!

I have managed to stretch and roll the front fenders, fitted the spacers and we should be good for some serious slammage! All the main body work is now complete.. Just finishing up the passenger side skirt! Man what a job that has been… but it’s coming out pretty good so far! I will have more progress pics up tomorrow and be sure to tune in!

Well I made it through the first weekend! Let me tell ya.. the stress of trying to get everything ready over the holidays was a challenge! Now it’s just a matter of scheduling myself in a routine fashion to get some serious work done and knock these 2 projects out! In case you guys have missed the shows you can click on the “previous shows” link so you can view the missed episodes. I am trying to find a suitable host to upload the files to as I have already maxed out my limit on USTREAM. I plan to rectify this issue as soon as possible!

So far we have found out how low the BMW will sit on it’s PSS9’s, still some fender work to do for proper clearance but that will be taken care of very soon. I have installed the UUC Brake Line kit, consisting of 6 brake lines all in braided steel with nice blue silicone sleeves. I have not bled the system out yet as I still plan to bypass the ABS unit and bleed the system out with DOT 5 racing fluid.

The car has been completely stripped down as body work has commenced getting the car ready for paint. There was some rust on the passenger side rocker panel which required removal of the passenger side AC Schnitzer side skirt. It was urethaned on, and required some serious force, patience and prying to get it off! After removing it some shaping and bending to try and get it straight again was needed.

Finally some body work and sanding has been started on the passenger side. Everything seems to be moving along quite well. Once the body work and paint are out of the way I will be moving on to installing the performance add ons such as the M3 S52 cams/trays/lifters, Super Sprint headers, Custom 3″ midpipe with race cat from Oakville Motorwerks, and a few other goodies here and there. Some door panel dyeing and white face gauge installation for the cluster are some of the other things to come!

For now here are a few pics of the progress over the weekend. Enjoy.