Overdue for the next update, so I’ll jump right in.

For the first time in a little over two months I got to make the maiden voyage back to my garage. Having it back at home meant I got to tweak panel gaps and fitment items at my own leisure.

I also got to start cleaning up the engine bay again and rid it of all the dust and dirt that had accumulated through it’s stay in the body shop.

After two failed attempts I finally got the correct side molding clips to finish up the car. First I had to strip all of the trim stain I had used in the past, the fresh front bumper trim was far more of a matte finish than the rest of the car.

Back and forth on the nose panel / hood gaps and then the front splitter / front bumper gap. It looks like there’s a slight gap in the center, but I haven’t been able to pinpoint if this is normal or if something is awry. Everything is lined up and snugged down as best as possible.

I drove the car to and from work and around town for a week or two, everything on the car felt sharp and the car shoots straight. The oil in the car was well overdue so it I switched out the 10W60 for some 5W50.

I realized that my APEX studs were roughly 3 years old now, so I changed them out for fresh Bimmerworld studs. Removal was easy, torquing the new ones to 40 ft/lbs was abnormally frustrating.

Next, the flaws in the paint on the wing had been corrected so I spent an afternoon mounting it onto the car with the MSportParts lower gurney. Finally, some four months since the accident, it was looking like my car again. I gave the car another nice wash and stepped back to appreciate it in the setting sun.

It’s been a long time coming getting to this point. Aside from maybe some different wheels down the road, I’m now at the point where I can say that the exterior of this car is done. The paint is fresh and protected by PPF on every surface and it really glows in person. I’m super happy with the final product seen here. It really needs to be seen in person to appreciate.

So what do you do with a near-perfect, freshly repainted E36 M3?

You get your friends together and go to the track!

Apparently I’ve got a knack for going to the track on the hottest days of the year, ambient temps were probably around 100. The car still handled it pretty well, cylinder head temperatures topping out around 215*. This was my first time back on the track with the TCKlines, the new diff setup, and the RE71R’s. Most of the morning sessions were spent getting stuck in traffic while trying to fine tune the compression and rebound on the TCK’s.

By the time I had found a setting that felt decent I think the heat in the tires just ended up being too much and hit a plateau. The car would feel pretty good and planted mid-corner for the first 2-3 laps but started to fall off after they really started to get hot. However, I still managed to set a new personal best with a 1:47.6 in one of the early afternoon sessions, but couldn’t break out of the low 1:48’s much after that. Last time I ran this track in the clockwise format my best was a 1:49, so that’s a good bump I suppose.

A little friendly rivalry with my friends absurdly loud 991.1 GT3. Unfortunately GoPro’s lifecycle is trash and I can no longer produce the speed, g-forces, or any other GPS data on my videos so the videos feel a little plain now. I’ll be moving over to a different action cam for next time, GoPro can pound sand.

One thing I know I can change for the next event will be more front camber. If I recall correctly I was at -3.2* up front but as seen here I was rolling over onto the sidewall pretty good. Luckily there’s still a lot of adjustment in the TCK upper plates. I kept an eye on pressures and hot temp pressures were consistently at 30 psi. Maybe I’ll try going a little higher next time as well.

Now, the painstaking task of scrubbing all the melted rubber off of the PPF and cleaning the car up nice again.

I think the car could use a little more power, so maybe it’s time for the ASC delete elbow, Porsche MAF, and 24# injectors that have been sitting on my shelf for a while.

Next task is to finish the rear seat delete panel I started long ago so I can finally install my leather wrapped roll bar that has been collecting dust. For now, just happy to have the car back in the garage and under the cover!