E92 M3
After a year hiatus since project E93, we decided that it was about time to get another project going for the Spring season. We made a phone call to our old friend Mike Shaddock at BMW West Houston about the possibility of finding a buyer for the E93 and getting us into something else, at which time he mentioned that BMW USA was running a special on the current generation M3s. After some discussion, we decided to take him up on his offer, and came home with a brand new Jerez Black E92 M3 coupe from their inventory. The car arrived well equipped, featuring the all-new DCT transmission, extended Silver Merino leather, Premium package, Navigation, Satellite radio, and an all-new carbon fiber roof, but of course it wasn’t long before we started adding our own personal touches.

The first area of concentration was to get the stance in order, and to accomplish this, Pat Arnold of Classic BMW in Plano, TX, installed a set of RD Sport lowering springs along with an 4-wheel alignment. With the stance set, we proceed to swap out the rolling stock, which we did with a set of 20” Modulare Forged M14B wheels. These Modulare 3-piece wheels were tailor-made to order for the E92 M3, measuring 20x9 up front and a whopping 20x11 in the rear with a monstrous 4” rear lip. To complement the bluish hue of the Jerez Black Metallic exterior paint, we chose a brushed finish for the 3-piece wheel centers, with a special tinted grey clearcoat, which was a new finish for Modulare at the time. The finish, which eventually became known as “tinted brushed”, yielded a very high-tech appearance, which complemented not only the exterior paint, but the factory carbon fiber roofline as well. Stan Chen of Toyo Tires provided us with a set of their Proxes T1-R performance tires, measuring 255/30/20 front and a whopping 315/20/20 rear. Surprisingly, no modifications were required to stuff this massive wheel/tire combo underneath the rear fenders.

The high tech/carbon fiber theme would not stop with just the wheels, as we continued the theme with the rest of the exterior modifications. Peter Nam of Vorsteiner Technik graciously provided their company’s carbon fiber add-on front spoiler, rear lower diffuser, and rear decklid replacement, which were all finished in a 1x1 weave to match the factory carbon fiber roof. We decided to treat the rear decklid to a special paint scheme, that would blend in the factory Jerez Black paint but at the same time show off the carbon fiber underneath. Thomas Liu of New Concepts Auto Works in Plano, TX, was called in to apply a sheer layer of Jerez Black on the top and rear facing surfaces of the decklid, leaving the air blade in exposed carbon fiber. Finally, he sealed off the entire job with several layers of clear, before installing the parts to the car. Along with the Vorsteiner components, a set of matching 1x1 weave mirror covers from Lumma Design, a pair of matte black kidney grills and side vents from J Levi Streetoworks were also installed to round out the exterior mods.

The last bit of the project was to address the exhaust, as the factory exhaust note left quite a bit to be desired, not to mention that the factory exhaust tips looked quite anemic inside the newly-installed Vorsteiner rear diffuser. A call to our friends at IND Distribution/Eisenamann North America proved fruitful, as we soon had an Eisenmann Sport exhaust on the way to us. The crew at IND also threw in a pair of their pre-painted front bumper reflectors, which helped clean up the appearance of the front bumper. Steve Fordham of Autoscope Park Cities handled installation duties on these last 2 items, thus wrapping up the project.

A special thanks goes out to all who helped out with this latest project……stay tuned for our next installment!