We managed to get the car on the trailer even though the rear wheels are almost completely bound up. Once I got it down off the trailer, the first order of business was to assess what we have to work with and start to develop a way ahead. This car was parked under some pine …
Twenty one years after the start of my first MINI adventure, I decided to open a new chapter. My first MINI was a brand new 2004 R53 Cooper S which slowly evolved into a track car over about ten years. My second R53 was a slick-top 2006 model which I purchased in 2011 and set …
Most track event organizers (myself included) require in-car cameras and mobile devices to be securely mounted and tethered. This is to prevent the device from coming loose on track and possibly getting under the driver’s feet. This video looks at two solutions for securing the Garmin Catalyst: The Garmin Cage Mount as well as a …
If you installed brake ducts in your E46 M3 track car, chances are you also removed the windshield washer reservoir (aka, “windshield cleaning container” part number 61 67 7 895 571). The container wraps around the AC dryer and sits in the path of the Hardmotorsport bumper duct inlet. If you no longer drive your car on the street, …
When I gutted the interior of the M3 I had to find a new home for the combo door lock – emergency flasher switch. I originally used some Gorilla tape and stuck it to the shifter console, but it didn’t hold up to the 90+ degree days of summer. So I decided to fabricate a …
This is one of those mods that only makes sense once you’ve driven a stripped-out track car a great distance on the highway. You NEED cruise control. In your track car. Stay with me here. This was going to be the year I finally got a trailer. But the opportunity to buy this M3 came …
Toward the end of my last track session for 2018 I noticed a significant change in exhaust tone. I thought the larger second position OEM cat had finally failed, but it turns out it was the first smaller cat ahead of it. If you see a break like this, you should also check your motor …
One thing I really don’t like on the E90 3 Series cars is the “soft touch” plastic coating used on the interior plastic bits. It should have been called “don’t touch” for how easily it is damaged. I wanted to fix the steering wheel trim which looked like this: So I ordered some 3M vinyl …
Keeping mind my past experience with a carpet swap in a BMW E30 some years ago, I finally found a good replacement for the carpet in the 996 and, uttering those infamous words “how hard could it be”, set off to do the carpet swap last weekend. If you’re curious how much of your interior …
I finally got around to indexing the MINI DIY projects we’ve written about over the last 13 years or so. The list is located in the menu bar at the top of the page. Use he tags to find BMW E30 and Porsche 996 projects.