BMW Advert 1986 - 635CSi, M6, E9 3.0 CSL, M1 - 'The latest in a short line of supercars...'

Another great advert from BMW, this time from 1986, promoting the benefits of their tuned straight-six power plants and their innovative (for the time!) use of four valves per cylinder. 24-valves were first seen in the E9 3.0 CSL 'Batmobile' in 1974, again in the M1 supercar in 1977 and finally making its way to the general consumer in the 1986 635CSi model E24 6er. 

As BMW discovered years ago, when you need extra power from an engine - on the race track for instance - just double the valves per cylinder.

The extra valves mean the the cylinders can take in more air and fuel on each stroke, burn it more efficiently and expel it quicker. So much so that 6 cylinders with 4 valves can produce more power than 12 cylinder with 2.

Take the three cars above, developed by BMW Motorsport.

The 3.5 litre CSL, affectionately known as the Batmobile, won the first of many races at the Saltzburgring in 1974, beating a 7 litre Camaro in the process.

A 192 mph version of the M1 won its class at Le Mans for the last 3 years. (At the Nurburgring in 1981 it won the race outright.)

The M635CSi, however, is merely a luxury road going coupe. Although it's capable of 158mph, it hasn't won a thing.

Except praise.

E81 120d M-Sport: New springs and dampers!

Sean at work has a 1er with nearly 200k miles on the clock, through you would never tell as most of the parts have been replaced since he got it for a mere £700. Yes, you can get a zippy M-Sport 120d for this price, but unless you are willing to get your hands dirty I wouldn't recommend it. Of course, you probably are willing to do that or you wouldn't be here in the first place, so go sick there are bargains out there!

This time it's having new rear springs and dampers as one has leaked all of its fluid and is jammed in position. The opposite side was constantly hitting the bump-stop. She rides good now.

F10/F11: Seat Fitment Guide - Differences between 10-13 cars and later models.

In 2013 BMW changed the floor-pan layout of the F10 5 Series to accommodate X-Drive, Hyrbid-Drive and stuff, which in turn makes the fitment of the front seat mounts different for post-facelift cars. I see a number of F10 guys upgrading to M-sports and a few having this problem, offering seats for newer models to swap for the older type, so if you're about to do the same make sure the seats you get are for your corresponding pre or post-facelift F10. [I was upgrading my stock cloth interior to standard SE leather on the other hand, my car being the only example I've found so far with cloth from factory. A 530d as well, very rare.]

This is the same for M-Sport and Comfort/SE seats of all specs.

This is the same for LCI and non-LCI models.

FRONT SEATS:

These are NOT interchangeable between 2010 - 2013 cars and later 2013-2017 facelift cars.

This is the same for F10 and F11 Touring models.

M5 seats of correct model year variant will fit, but features like active corner-restraints are lost.

Front seats from E60 5-Ser and other model BMWs do NOT fit and would require adapting [see bottom].

RUNNERS:
The runners on pre-2013 seats are spaced significantly further apart than those from later cars, meaning a straight swap is impossible. It is possible to adapt the seats / floorpan to accept these seats, as I will discuss at the bottom of this page, but in reality forget it.

WIRING:
The wiring plug fits, but changes to the seats do not work with the safety-system. Active Head-restraints are removed on the post 2013 front seats and although this can be bypassed with the 2-ohm resistor trick to get rid of the error message, there may be another airbag related error coming up and it is unclear whether any of the safety systems in the seat will function properly. The seat-movement electrics all work as normal though.

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If you don't know the model year of the seats you're buying then here is what to look for:

Control-levers - Pre-2013 seats have the classic handles built into the seat-surround trim with the white logos, whereas post-2013 seats have plain black handles sticking out from under the centre of the squab.

Head-rests - Pre-2013 seats have squarish split head-rests with a button on the side to extend half of it forward, whereas post-2013 seats have slimmer, one-piece head-rests with visible stitching on the front panel.

M-Sport - These are identifiable in the same way. However, the control-levers are similar to those from the E60 M-Sport seats, which will not fit. E60 seats have brackets on the runners that stick outwards and the head-rests are plain/round, as pictured, so make sure you don't end up buying a cheap set of those instead.

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REAR SEATS:

Straight swap. These are totally interchangeable on all F10 models from 2010-17.

F10 rear seats will NOT fit the F11 Touring, however, as they have the split/folding back. [The shape of the seat is the same though, so it would not take much to adapt them to fit and give the F10 split/folding rear seats! This is something I would really love to try out in future.]


DOOR CARDS / TRIM:

The door cards are interchangeable between all F10 and F11 Touring models. Curtain-airbags are now in the seats, not the doors, so swapping the wire over is easy and does not differentiate between model specs, LCI etc. [NOTE: With F11 Touring, the rear door-cards do not have grilles for the door-speakers, so they will need swapping over from your original ones. This is something else I would love to try out - putting rear door speakers in there F10!]

Most of the dash and centre-console trim is a straight swap also. The only change to the post-2013 cars being the centre-console switch-panel - older ones having the ash-tray at the front and a poorly designed cup-holder in the centre by the E-brake. Later ones have a double cup-holder at the front and a smaller ash-tray / cubby-hole by the E-brake. These panels are interchangeable, as the console itself is the same, though I'm not sure why you would want to.

---

FRONT SEATS RETROFIT:

Adapting the floorpan or seats to fit the post-2013 seats is a possibility, though the level of effort required makes it a bit pointless. The first thing to consider is safety - will they stand up to a crash or even pass an MOT? The other things are the seat not quite being in the right position and the areas where the carpet doesn't match up will look ugly. If you're sick of waiting for the right seats to come along and the above things don't deter you then there are some possibilities, but I have not tried any of it out or would recommend it...

The bolt-hole spacing on the pre-13 seats is about 100mm wider left-to-right, but the spacing front-to-rear is the same on all models. This doesn't mean you can use the mounting points on one side and just adapt the other side to fit, as works with other BMWs, since the pre-13 bolt-holes are just too close to the sill / trans. tunnel. The difference in width is not central to the seat either [as in ~50mm equal either side], so adapting to fit is not going to be easy.

Adapting the Seats:
Making a one-piece adapter from thick sheet-steel would be best, similar to the ones that Sparco etc. make for other cars, that bolts to the floorpan and has more holes further inboard to bolt the seat to. These would be difficult to make without proper equipment, though an engineering firm will probably knock two up for cheap and with some black paint they would look OK.
Making one out of slim strips of box-section steel would also work, welded into a square or even just a left-to-right strip across the bolts front and rear. Either way, all the above methods will raise the seats slightly higher than usual, though lowering the seat fully might account for this.

Modifying the Floorpan:
New holes can be drilled at the correct positions in the floorpan and new nuts welded in their place to accept the seats. By the look of it, the floorpan has just enough room to accommodate this, but if not, the raised sections of floorpan with the captive-nuts for the seats could be cut out and welded back into place slightly further inboard. This sounds hairy, but would not actually be a huge undertaking, though you would seriously have to know what you were doing to get it right! 

E46 Clubsport: Vanos Rebuild + Upgrade Kit / Re-map... 300BHP!!

With the vacuum / intake leak issues and the rough idle sorted, a rough transition into the upper rev-band had developed where the Vanos-system opens up fully. Time for a Vanos rebuild then, with new Teflon seals and Viton O-rings, but not wanting to sell himself short after going to this much effort he decided to plump for a full upgrade kit that supposedly boosts top-end power.

Whether or not this is really doing its job is unclear, as Nathan hurriedly took the Clubsport to a local tuner / rolling road and had what he describes as a 're-map' done. They then dyno-tested it right away and reportedly managed to get 296 engine-horsepower! This has been confirmed by two colleagues, but even so sounds a bit drastic for a 2003 car with 135k miles and a stock lump, save for a Vanos kit and the butterfly-valves removed from the exhaust...

I will have to get more information on this Vanos upgrade kit, as it seems a little too good to be true. Nath promises a full set of pics and confirmed dyno-figures, but these are being slow to come as he is now working for Lookers Vauxhall. Oh, and he is now finding himself preoccupied with the 3.5 litre, super-charged V8 finally lowered into his Lotus Eclat drag-car... yep.

E46 Clubsport: Quick rev and exhaust burble...

Quick rev of the CS as we stave off real work by fiddling with Beemers. It finally has that proper vanos whoosh and exhaust note, though there is still a bit of a misfire / bogging down under acceleration and no fault codes are coming up on Autocom GDP, but DIS will find something and I will post the results. Shame, as this is delaying that front bumper splitter...

E46 Clubsport: Nathan's split rubber + other issues.

More big spending as the Clubsport gets back on the road with a new MOT, starting with 4 new Maxxis tyres for the refurbed split-rims. It's been running a bit rough, but as he started it for the first time in a month it ran a bit worse and began producing a lot of white / blue smoke from the exhaust. Fearing the head-gasket he started dismantling and found it was just one of the profile-gaskets in the rocker-cover [16 in the bottom diagram] was split and hadn't seated in the head properly the last time it was replaced and was allowing oil to spill down into the chamber and was causing the smoke. This, he assures us, is a common problem in 6-cylinder BMW petrols and had nothing to do with any 'engine-weld' products he may have also added. Never the less, with a new rubber-gasket the smoke has ceased. During the job he found the rubber intake hose was also split in two places, clearly contributing to the lack of smooth acceleration suffered since he got it, so he treated the 330 to a new one of these as well.

The MOT threw up borderline high emissions, which was waved, and both front lower ball-joints were knackered. These are usually replaced as a whole control-arm, so that's what was done and finally the Clubsport is back on the road, looking and sounding as it should with better pull and a really raspy vanos exhaust note. Next up comes replacing the lower bumper splitter sorely missing from the front end.

E46 Clubsport: New split-rims!

Oh yes... it's time the 330CS had some money lavished on it and what better way to start than new wheels. They are the same set of Italian-made Cromodora 18x8 and 18x8.5 2-piece split-rims that come with the car. He still has the old ones, but after 2 failed attempts to refurbish them he's been keeping an eye out for a replacement set, which aren't common. Finally some have shown up and been quickly snaffled for £ delivered. They've been sandblasted back to bare metal, then lacquered and the colour / finish is very nice indeed. Awesome.

Also, a rubber rocker-cover gasket to signify the start of the engine tweaks. Lots more to come...

E60: Replacing headlight-washer caps / hinges!

Despite how it looks, you can't replace them with the bumper on. This is best done while the whole front bumper is off the car, but thesis the quick and dirty method, of course.

1. Lift each cap out of the bumper on the hinge and remove them by depressing the clips at the back and sliding the lugs out of the hinge.

2. Remove the screw holding each corner of the bumper to the wing using a 10mm wrench.

3. Pop the corner out of the wing and bend it out enough to reach behind the headlight-washer cap.

4. Remove the hinge / lever by bending one side out and unhooking it from the outer lugs, the other side should then come away easily.

5. Remove the spring by squeezing the coils towards each other and unhooking them from the inner lugs.

6. Fit the new spring as a reverse of removal.

7. Lift the spring up forwards and fit the new hinge / lever as a reverse of removal, then release the spring ensuring it is tight against the flat-bar on the hinge.

8. Refit each corner of the bumper.

9. Lift the hinges / levers out of the bumper and fit the caps.

New trim pieces for M-Sport bumper + painting!

As my bumper didn't come with the cover-caps or hinges, I had to source them separately. I got the headlight-washer hinges directly from BMW Parts [Williams, Liverpool] and they were only £2.70 each inc. VAT. BMW are good for clips and random bits, but trim pieces are a bit more expensive, especially if you have them painted in your colour-code.

I turned to eBay, but was surprised to find used pieces are thin on the ground and no silver ones coming up. New, the headlight-washer caps start at £16 each and go up, plus delivery, so a pair of genuine ones for £30 delivered actually seemed reasonable. These came from MM Autos [eBay ID: adrian5882745], the same place in Wrexham I got the bumper, but I checked and the silver caps from mine are long sold! The tow-hook caps start at £25 for a new one and again no used ones in silver, so I recommend buying from a seller on eBay Germany called bmdoubleyou24. A new genuine one in primer is £18 delivered and only took 5 days to arrive so was worth the saving.

£70 worth of plastic. Headlight-washer caps, hinges and tow-hook cap, only the essentials.

Finally, I bought a can of Titansilver (or Titanium Silver, same paint-code) spray from Halfords, along with a fresh can of clear-lacquer, £6.49 each. After giving the caps about six coats of both, I gave them a good rub with T-cut so they look OE, though I have a feeling they will look a lot shinier than the bumper. I will have to get polishing and sort those scratches...

M-Sport Bumper Total Cost:
Bumper - £200
Hinges - £5.40
Washer-caps - £30
Tow-hook Cap - £18.11
Paint/lacquer - £12.98
TOTAL - £266.49

Pre-primed ABS-plastic is a piece of cake to paint and was going great...

...until it rained and spotted the lacquer...

...so needed a bit of flatting back...

...and repainting, followed by a quick blast with rubbing-compound.

New 'M-Paket' hinges do indeed need the corner of the bumper pulling out to fit, they can't be done from outside.

E60: Fitting M-Sport Front Bumper

1. Bumper Removal:

1.1 Remove the bolt holding either corner of the bumper, just inside the wheel-arch, using a 10mm wrench. The edges of the bumper inside the wing should be free to pull out of join.

1.2 Remove the screws holding the wheel-arch liner to the front bumper using an 8mm socket. *If you are replacing your arch-liners then remove them entirely.

1.3 Remove the two screws from the lower centre of the bumper, using a T25-Torx socket, located just under the lip below each corner of the licence-plate.

1.4 Remove the two screws from the lower centre of the bumper using a T25-Torx socket, located inside each spotlight-grille recess.

1.5 Remove the five screws holding the upper-centre of the bumper along the top edge of the grille/slam panel using a T30-Torx socket.

1.6 The bumper should be free to move, so wiggle it forward and gently rest the front-centre on the ground.

1.7 Unplug the wiring to the spotlights and four parking-sensors (PDC).

1.8 Unfasten the wiring from the hooks along the inside edge of the bumper.

2. Preparing M-Sport Bumper:

2.1 Swap over the spotlight bulb-holders. They are removed by rotating a quarter-turn anti-clockwise.

2.2 Swap over the four parking-sensors (PDC). Remove them by pulling them out from the back while gently pressing from the outer side. They should fit the lugs on all E60 bumpers, regardless of year.

2.3 Ensure the grilles, headlight-washer hinges and springs are fitted to the bumper as they cannot be fitted once it is on.

2.4 On the car, remove the wiring from the foam-polystyrene blocks and remove the blocks from the car.

2.5 Fit the 'M-Paket' foam-polystyrene blocks to the car and re-insert the wiring to them, or if you do not have compatible foam blocks and are leaving them off, find a suitable route for the wiring over the top of the grille / air-ducts.

2.6 If you do not have 'M-Paket' brake-air-ducts on your bumper, then swap the existing ones left to right and flip them upside down to clear the M-Sport grille-recesses. 

3. Fitting M-Sport Bumper:

3.1 Place the M-Sport bumper in front of the car and reinsert the PDC/spotlight wiring to the hooks along the inside edge of the bumper.

3.2 Reconnect the wiring-plugs to each parking-sensor (PDC) and spotlight.

3.3 Lift the bumper up to the car, so the front-undertray slides above the deeper M-Sport lip and put one screw loosely into the centre hole on the top of the grille.

3.4 Hook each corner of the bumper round into the slot in the wheel-arch and replace the 10mm screws, but not tighten fully.

3.5 Find a suitable placement for the bumper, where the shut lines at either side of the headlight are as equal as possible. Do this one side at a time and fully tighten the 10mm screws.

3.6 *If you have the adapter-brackets on your bumper then fasten these to the two centre screw-holes from step 1.3.

3.7 Loosely replace the remaining four screws along the top of the grille / slam-panel, find a suitable placement for the grille panel where it does not disturb the shut-lines at the headlight corners and fully tighten the top screws using a T30-Torx socket.

3.8 Fit the M-Paket wheel-arch liners and fasten them to the bumper using the 8mm screws, or if you are keeping the SE ones, measure where the outer edge of the liner fouls the M-Sport bumper and cut a sliver off. One of the 8mm screw holes should still line up and hold the cut liner in place.

3.9 Replace the weather-strip trim to the top grille-panel.

3.10 Check the headlight-washers are clearing their apertures and refit the cover-caps.

E60 M-Sport Bumper Retrofit: '08 LCI to '04 SE

I have mentioned hankering after an M-Sport or M5 style front-bumper for my 530d, but they are expensive. A new spurious one will cost about £230, the same price as a damaged genuine one and either of these require painting. A mint one already painted in Titansilver, complete with grilles, parking-sensors and trim will run £400. I've been looking for a few months and this week spotted an undamaged '08 front bumper for £250 with new spot-lamps and grilles, but no sensors or trim. Best of all it was in Wrexham, less than 30 miles away, so when I emailed the seller offering £200 cash on collection and he accepted, I realised that I was now bound to the idea. I got the bumper on in 2 hours, but a lot of bits had to be removed to do it and before I start modifying them to fit I'm sat on a fence between bothering at all, or just going back to stock - I can still get £200 for this M-bumper all day long.

Before you consider doing the retrofit to an SE, I must mention that even if the M-Sport bumper is fully-loaded with trim and bits, you will still need to buy a heap of extra parts to make it fit properly. If you don't, stock parts that get in the way will either have to be binned or modified to fit...

Things that DO fit:

• Wing and top-grille mounting points.
• Spot-lamp bulb-holders.
• Parking-sensors (PDC).
• Grille-top weather-strip.

Things that do NOT fit:

• Headlight-washer caps.
• Headlight-washer cap hinges.
• Tow-eye cover cap.
• All 4 lower-grille mounting points.
• Left + right brake air-duct.
• Under-tray left + right corners.
• Front wheel-arch liners.
• Bumper shock-absorbers (foam-polystyrene blocks).

Assuming your bumper comes bare, you will need these essentials:

H/Light Washer Hinge (Lever) Left [51117896601] (22 in below pic)

H/Light Washer Hinge (Lever) Right [51117896602]

H/Light Washer Cap Left [51117897211] (21 in below pic)

H/Light Washer Cap Right [51117897212]

Tow-eye Cover Cap [51117897210] (9 in below pic)

You can get away with leaving the bumper unbolted in the lower-centre, or easily fab-up some custom brackets, but if you want to buy them then you will need:

Holding Strap [51111973721] (10 in below pic)

2x Adapter Bracket [51117896611] (33 in below pic)

The foam-polystyrene bumper 'shock-absorbers' can be cut to fit or just left off, but if you want them they are:

Shock-absorber Left [51117896589]

Shock-absorber Right [51117896590]

The plastic wheel-arch liners only need a sliver cutting off to make them fit, but if you really want to replace them:

Front Wheel-arch Liner/Cover Left [51717896605]
Front Wheel-arch Liner/Cover Right [51717896606]

The diagram above with all parts can be seen on this page of RealOEM.com.

E39 530d: Engine Tuning thoughts...

I've no intention of fiddling with the engine any time soon, but a work colleague has recently had his 320d chipped by Peco, a small firm in nearby Birkenhead, Wirral, who you probably know best for their exhausts and it's food for thought. The chip costs £300 and my colleague claims that the car feels much quicker, without having a noticeable effect on economy.

Hmm, sounds too good to be true really and it would be a shame to stifle the 5's superb fuel consumption, but if I do decide to up the power of the 184bhp diesel in future it seems that the chip is where to start so I'll be asking Peco soon about their 530d module.

If the mood takes me though I'd love to try out a couple more subtle mods to make sure power goes way past the 200bhp mark. A K&N panel air-filter for starters. I don't fancy a full on induction-kit, it's not a Scooby after all. Then for the main course installing a larger intercooler further forward in the bumper. The OEM i/c is very small, so it wouldn't take much to find one a bit larger, a Ford Transit i/c would be an ideal donor to fit into the front-bumper, then fab up custom extensions for the pipes. With the chip installed and mapped-in after this lot we should see a nice power gain.

Watch this space.