My car (upgrade descisions and fnances for the summer)

jarossamdb7

jarossamdb7

Active member
I stand to make about $4000-$4800 with the remenants of the summer. I like my car a lot and would like to upgrade it, but I also like traveling with my friends, and would like to have some extra party and/or skiing money left over for the school year..

here is a list of things I would like to do sometime.

ACS Type 3 2 peice racing Replicas and tires that are somewhat decent, and will last a while. $930 for wheels shipped, plus atleast $100 per tire = ($1330)

ACS3Header.jpg


Bekkers Coilovers ($650)

front Reiger Lip ($210)

Chip (probably TMS) ($250)

Intake ($270)

Under Drive Pulleys ($170)

Fan delete ($90)

Front and Rear Strut Bars ($300)

total: $3270.

also:

not for a while: headers ($600)

not for a while: Exaust ($500)

Now, I could do most if not all this with the money I will make over the summer, but I wont..

A few Options.

Not getting the wheels or the Coilovers (total $1290)

not getting the wheels (total $1940)

getting the wheels, Chip, and Reiger Lip ($2190)

any other suggestions??

I think I like the last option the most. that leave me with about half the money I stand to make, and also takes care of the most substancial things on my car. although, here is what my car will look like in a week (minus Racing Dynamics Side skirts.) Would it look pretty good if I just painted my wheels I have now black?

regwheels.jpg


w/black wheels (if I decide not to get ACS Type 3s):

blackwheels.jpg
 
I have seen it done quite well actually...

those wheels are not stock. they are a factory upgrade. If I buy wheels, It will probably be atleast $800 for the wheels themselvs. Its a BMW, and decent upgrades are not cheap ($250 for a chip, $270 for an intake with heatshield, and so on...)

If I get wheels, it would definatly be the AC Snitzer ones pictured. They look better then just about anything, and I will not compromise on that...
 
sure, they're nice wheels. but i think there are better looking ones. however, since you insist on getting them, i would skip the performance mods for now and just go with wheels and suspension first.
 
suggestions on better looking ones? Im just saying if im going to spend money on wheels, as of now, its going to be those wheels.

the other ones that I was considering (sort of a different style) were these:

asa_jh8_blk_ci3_l.jpg
 
i say save the 200 you would spend on the lip. i hate how much of a ripoff that is. my cousin paid a shitload of money to get that tiny little bump of a wing the m5 has put on his 5 series and he still wants to get the front lip. also i think the acs wheels look great. i would also hold off on the chip for now. with small bolt ons or no upgrades the chip wont do too much for performance. save that for a time further down the road if you start throwing on some serious mods.

my vote goes to the wheels/tires, coilovers and swaybars. get the bimmer sitting mean and handling like a champ. that should still leave you with a good bit of cash
 
im thinking you should get intake, chip, headers and exhaust to increase horsepower, and if you have some money get new rims/tires
 
my suggestion would be to never upgrade to much in the engine of that car becasue its never going to be really fast.... make it more show rather than more speed....
 
You should take this advice, don't spend all this money on your car if it runs just fine. I learned that the hard way, now its breaking down on me and I'm almost broke. I also wished I just saved all my money for booze, oh well
 
You sound like a Honda Civic driver.

But about something relevant. It all depends on what you're going to be doing with the car, that should dictate where you spend your money. If you do a lot of autocrossing, go for the wheels and coilovers. If you want your car to be faster in a straight line, go for the chip and let the engine breathe a bit better. Your question was a little too vague to give a good answer to, so either be more specific or figure it out for yourself. But whatever you decide to do, don't waste your money on body work when you could be getting more performance instead.
 
I was thinking of getting a trunk lip off ebay for like $40 shipped. I dont see how you could mess that up, so I have no problem buying an ebay one.

here is a pic of the front lip. Im not sure, I think if my car was lowered it would be less nessisary.
b3adb90a6dbcc66c1fc9975b55ef8f45.jpg


and yea, its not too fast, but the Turner Motorsport Chip is supposed to add 20 peak Hoursepower and 20 peak ft/lbs. thats pretty damn good. you can get it tuned differently if you have other mods and send it back to the shop to re tune it... I also could make my own heatshield and intake costing a total of probably $50. Headers, are, in my understanding a waste of money unless I do ///M3 cams as well, so it will probably be a while before I do that. so proformance wise, I have on my list:

Fan Delete

underdrive pulleys

chip

intake

with those, my 0-60 may be around 7 sedconds or less. stock, its 7.4.
 
you can get a front lip on ebay for super cheap. and how does it cost $90 to delete the fan? maybe im missing something but can you just take it out yourself?

e36s are dope though
 
i was just looking through my stack of eurotuners and i noticed a bmw 330i that a guy was using as his daily driver and then modding it to take it to the track every now and again he would use all TMS parts i cant seem to find the first issue for what he did first but he started out upgrading his brakes stoptech brakes 332mm rotors and then put on some bbs lm's (one of the lightest rims on the market which most german race cars use)then adding better suspension H&R coilovers and a limited slip differential they r hard to find for bmw's and tms adjustable sway bars with h&r teflon coated bushings and tms frotn camber plates after all this he started upgrading his engine with a tms intake and supersprint exhaust his inatke is a tms/conforti intake and used tms underdrive pulleys and also added supersprint headers and added schrick cams thats all i could find in the 2 issues i cant find the other issues when the guy first started but i also have another suggestion look into A/C Schnitzer tuning they do great things with bmw's i hope this helped u somewhat
 
I think your already driving a BMW. Adding stupid plastic parts will just make your car look cheesy. Lower it. Get some good tires and new rims and your golden. Spend the rest on partying and buying shit for the girls that date you for your car.
 
its a kid that comes with the pully you need there instead of the fan, some stuff you put in with your anti freeze and some other crap.

there are lips on ebay. but the ones that are super cheap are fiberglass and that is no good. will crack in a second if i hit something. an ABS one will just scuff. the ones that are cheaper then $200 and are ABS dont look very good IMO.
 
AC stuff is super expensive. like I said, those wheels I want are replicas. the AC ones are about $4000. its freeking $250 for a rear lip the same as one I could get on ebay for $40.
 
these aren't just stupid plastic parts (although that front lip does look pretty crappy NOT painted). Reiger is a well known and respected company. The side Skirts (which I already have at my house) are Racing Dynamics. Racing Dynamics is a very respected BMW tuner company similar to AC Snitzer and Hamann. While yes, there is better things to spend money on, I only plan on getting the side skirts and front lip, and of course Im going to paint them...

as for spending money on girls that date me for my car, you may have a point there, but mostly, I just want a nice car, and probably wouldnt waste my time with such girls.. but then again, girls can do that shit to ya..
 
go to ur local 7/11 or w/e and grab some mags such as eurotuner european car or sometihng like road and track and it will make shit so much easier
 
I'd say grab some used BMW wheels off another (cooler) model. Something from a e36 M3 or something. I'm pretty sure they'll bolt right on and getting them off ebay used (they don't have to be perfect, $930 is a waste) is cheap and easy.

Just make sure you check the bolt patterns.

Personally I spend my money under the hood rather than on the outside of the car. Then again that's why I drive a fucking Ford Taurus with a 220hp Yamaha engine and a stick shift... I'm not out for looks.
 
sho... nice. my friend has one of the last gens with the little v8 in it. sucks that those ones only came in auto but hes got some mean sounding pipes on there (with other worthwhile stuff but i havent talked with him in awhile so i dont know all of whats been done). ive heard the v6 ones are pretty nasty
 
the thing is with chips is that they are amazing if your running a highly modded car or are pushing some form of boost. but for relatively stock engines they wont be such great bang for the buck. also the key to getting the most power out of a chip is having it professionally tuned while running the car and datalogging on a dyno which can be very expensive (but very much worth while when running boost). so getting a pretuned chip right now will just trick your computer into eating more fuel and taking in more air to get a few more hp to the ground. the fan delete might free up a couple hp and you wont see a huge improvement from the intake but it will be good to have and will probably sound good. the underdrive pullies are usually a pretty good cheap mod to get a little more grunt out of your car. good luck with the mods
 
Great advice!! Someody knows their tuning!! When they say 20hp gain,that is one THEIR car on THEIR dyno tuned for THEIR setting, usually they tune it so it runs really really well waaaaay up to so you see a 20 hp gain at 6500 rpms, but when you do that, tey lose about 30 down low.

There is no reason to do a chip and intake w/o the exghaut. More air comming in can only do as good as the amount commung out!
 
it depends what your looking for and how far are you going to modify your car in the future too cuz if your going to sell your car in like a year go with the cheeper bolt on's...the one kids idea of using bmw wheels from a different model just check the bolt pattern...cuz i think that would look really cool and orginal...oh well that my take
 
stock, my car is faster 0-60 then most Ford Shos.

since my car is NA, I cnat jsut throw a chip on there and get a lot of horses. thats ok though, I much prefer NA. anyway, you are right about that chip. Im looking at other ones that perhaups have a smoother tourque curve. although, it showed it stock verse JUST THE CHIP, and with the chip, it never lost anything at any point in time! But what I really way is more power at the lower RPMS...

Im thinking a chip like Dinan or Racing Dynamics might be better, because they do have less peak horsepower, it might be better all around...

but the trouble with having a NA engine, especially ones as technical as a BMW one, is that you cant get much horsepower/torque withought spending a shittload of money.

im thinking the next thing im going to buy will be coilovers. Id'e rather have handeling then speed anyway (isnt that why I got a bmw..). Then, I will see if I think getting those wheels will make much of a difference, or if I want to just go for tuning from there...
 
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