Project Update for June 20th, 2017: Another round of updates to the E46 M3 V8 monster project. In this installment we will show some unusual suspension/upright coatings, the brake parts we chose plus custom brake cooling, and most of the aftermarket suspension components being installed.
It took some time to get from tire mock-ups (at left) to making the final flares (at right)
The max width tire and wheel testing will also be shown, which we used to order the first set of wheels, which we are flaring around now (will be shown in more detail later). We also cover the electric assist steering upgrade, pedal box installation, and wrap it up.
NICKEL PLATED SUSPENSION PARTS
I mentioned this in my last update about the front spindles, but will expand on it here. This seems a bit over the top, but we didn't pitch the customer the idea of making show-car-like coatings on the remaining BMW suspension components (spindle, trailing arms, etc). We were actually building another E46 in 2015. The customer for this car saw what we did to make those parts look better than new and said "Do mine like that!", so we duplicated the effort on Chainsaw Massacre.
We started with this extra M3 rear subframe I purchased brake-to-brake for a good price. Normally we get parts from Texas and there's never a hint of rust or corrosion - we're very spoiled here - but the pallet came from the mid-Atlantic area and it had just the hint of some signs of salt corrosion. I abhor rust in even the smallest traces, so it was time to blow the entire rear subframe apart, bead blast all of the steel and aluminum parts, and re-coat everything with a more durable and corrosion resistant plating.
Our guys got all of the parts stripped down, then pressed out all bushings. Next the taped up any surfaces we didn't want to blast - machined bearing surfaces (the acid wash process before nickel plating would clean any remaining paint off without giving these surfaces a "blasted" finish). Upper rear control arms, lower trailing arms, RTAB cassette buckets, rear hubs, rear caliper brackets, rear uprights, front spindles, even the rear diff cover were all glass bead blasted.
After seeing what salted roads can do to metal coatings and platings, about a decade ago I switched the plating we specified on steel camber plate parts from zinc chromate ("yellow zinc", shown above left) to electroless nickel ("e-nickel), shown at right. It costs about 4x as much but lasts a helluva lot better on steel than anything else, and the added thickness is nominal so it doesn't mess up bearing tolerances. This is why I wanted to re-plate the steel suspension arms and spindles with nickel.
A local blaster did the honors and got the parts perfectly down to bare metal. I picked up the pallet from there and took them right to our plater (except the front and rear subframes, which we had powder coated after reinforcement).
Then another vendor we use double nickel plated the parts. This was the first time we tried this. This started with the electroless nickel process we already use, which flows into every nook and cranny. The Rear trailing arms are hollow and the E-nickel can get up inside there. Then on top of that we had them electroplate another layer of nickel - called "Bright nickel". Electroplating only grabs onto the outer surfaces of the metal part but it gives a shinier finish. This double plating worked out better than I had hoped. It was several hundred dollars of work but on a build like this the results were worth it.
So that is why we had to blast/plate these parts, and once you see these in person it looks so shiny and sparkly its hard to say no. But for Optima there is a "car show" component that cannot be ignored, and additional tasks like this only help.
BRAKE SYSTEM - ROTORS, CALIPERS, & COOLING
The nickel plated E46 M3 spindles from above are now being fitted with new wheel bearings and brakes in this step.
If you follow our build threads you will notice that in the last 2 years we have begun working with a new Motorsports brake company out of South Africa called Powerbrake. They machine their calipers, brackets and rotors in-house and the quality and construction rival the highest cost iron based brake kits in the world. I always say "you get what you pay for" but due to a strong US Dollar relative to SA's currency, we can get these kits for a good bit less than other brands.
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