Joel's Z4 coupe 'keeping it original' gone wrong..

[joelvdrZ4C]

On to the next update!

Short after the last photo I posted here, I did my first trackday with the coupe! About an hour drive from my home there is the (also F1) Circuit Zandvoort. A quite small but very challenging circuit. I've been looking and doubting to go for some time and a week before, Bart went his first time with his coupe, asked me to go the week after.. And boy it was a blast! Sadly Bart lost control in the first lap and ended in the wall (updates on his forum posts), so that made me a bit more careful for the remaining 28 minutes of the session! After a few laps I got quicker and that's so much fun. Was still careful cause it was a cold and misty day. Next trackday, May 29th





While driving the track, I noticed that my suspension wasn't anymore what it used to be, it wasn't stiff at all and my tyres scraped little pieces out of my wheel arches
So the first mod I needed to do next was new suspension! I've been looking around before but could never really decide what to get, cause there is so much for sale for aftermarket coilovers. My eyes got on ST, it's the cheaper version of the KW which are very good. KW would be too expensive for me, I did spent a lot of money on the Z4 yet, but still the ST seemed fine and I'm not worried about the difference in material. I ordered the ST XA which are adjustable in height and in damping, and 3 weeks later I got them, with matching blue springs!





In the same week as the coilovers were placed (didn't do it myself cause I don't have the space and tools for it, was better if my garage did it hehe), I also asked my uncle if he could paint the lower part of my front bumper in black. I've seen it before and it accents the Z shapes in the bumper, making it more cool. A few weeks before I went to Thomas cause he's good in wrapping parts, so he tried to wrap it but sadly the wrap was too tough for work with. After all it's better now being painted, cause when scratched on the floor, it could damage the wrap.





With that bumper and on that suspension.. It looks so much better again!
I'll be back soon

 

[joelvdrZ4C]

Well that took a while, sorry for the delay on this next post!

Life's busy and also lots of things planning for the Z4. I still have a few mods left I didn't talk about yet. Some quite big mods actually!
To start with.. you've all seen the carbon diffusor on the green machine of [ref]Barty[/ref]... Yeah I did too. When he first put it on, I was like; nah that's just too much for me. But hey, the keeping original thing was already gone and after seeing a German silver grey one with the diffusor, I just needed it!
So together with Peter, Bart ordered 3 of them (since he broke his one on a trackday at Zandvoort..) and we took an evening.. and night.. and almost morning.. to fit them haha! Also in the same night we fitted his M bumper (which looks just brilliant now!)
It was a very long day, got home at 5:30am.. But it was so worth it! Look at that ass now!




While working at my Z4, Bart gave the advice to change my matte black grill for a gloss black set, to match the gloss bumper lip. So of course I got those just the day after and fitted them since that's such an easy job. Does make it look better now!

Also at this night, my plan was to fit a new air intake. I've been looking around for a long time to get an aFe intake, almost going to buy a new one but since those are quite expensive, I waited a little longer. A bit later someone sent me an ad on mobile (Germany) from a guy who sold his GruppeM intake he got out of his 3.0si to go back to original. For a very good price he sold it to me and he was able to ship it to Holland. Such a great deal.
We wanted to fit it in the same night but we found out I needed a new screw for the dyno. Had to order it so we could fit it a week later.
Could combine the fitment with a nice small meeting with Bart's coupe and another Dutch one, so we could hear and compare my new intake with Bart's aFe intake and crap that thing is loud! Love the sound of the aFe but this GruppeM is so great as well! No regrets!






After that spring and summer started and modding time was finished, it was time for taking it on drives and to meetings all around! Actually got some very nice photoshoots done! Rolling shots also, really love to see it now the exterior is fully my taste. So enjoy some nice photos I love the most











Well can't believe I'm saying this but that's most of the mods done to my coupe so far! But hey, more is coming.. Something big is coming.. Only has to wait until next winter!

Next up! The trip to ZedFest! I'll be there! With Bart and Max (Maldives blue Z4 roadster) we've been planning to go to Zedfest, but we wanted to go for longer, so we're going for a week to the UK. On Sunday 6th we take the ferry to Newcastle and on Monday we drive up to Cairngorms National Park where we have our first night.
The day after we'll start the NC500 from Inverness and drive the whole trip in a few days. Then we go back to Cairngorms for a night and then we take the cars to Lake District. After that we'll be at Zedfest on Sunday, sleeping at The Link the night before! After Zedfest we'll drive all the way down to Folkestone to take the train to Calais in the evening, then driving the last few hundred miles back home! Gonna be around 3000km in a week so excited!!

See some of you there?

 

[Mr Tidy]

See some of you there?

I'll be there.

Enjoy the NC500. I did it earlier this year and loved it. :driving:

 

[Barty]

Another bunch of cracking upgrades
The Gruppe M really brings the straight six soundtrack to life, and I can only echo your sentiments regarding the diffuser 8)

Looking forward to the NC500 trip :driving:

 

[wyshyvanuk]

Excellent documentation and a beautiful result!! Thank you, sir.

 

[joelvdrZ4C]

See some of you there?

I'll be there.

Enjoy the NC500. I did it earlier this year and loved it. :driving:

Awesome! How are the roads for the Z4?

 

[tomscott]

Looks great

 

[Mr Tidy]

Awesome! How are the roads for the Z4?

The ones we used varied from smooth sweeping A Roads to bumpy single-track ones with passing places, and most things in between. Just look out for potholes and worn away edges!

 

[joelvdrZ4C]

Hello again!
It's about time for me to write something on here again, and wow it's been a rough half year for the zed.
To start with the better things, talking about the trip to Scotland and Zedfest, that's been awesome! Great guys with great cars, driving the most beautiful roads through Scotland. I'll post a few photos right below, out of the hundreds of photos made (of mostly the cars) it's hard to choose!
The next trip is planned and it's almost time to go, at the end of April, together with [ref]Barty[/ref] and [ref]MaldivesMax[/ref] we're going back to the UK, now we'll start at Ultimate BMW and then drive through Wales for the rest of the week! Can't wait for that.








Brilliant trip and the best photos to have of the car(s)!
After the trip, or well.. After Zedfest, I got in contact with a girl with a Montego blue roadster, Beth. Well one thing came after the other and she's been my girlfriend now since 5 months love to share our love for the zeds and to take photos of them together every now and then. She'll be joining us to our trip to Wales next month!




Last September I went on a small trip to France with my family. I got to take the zed with me. My cousin went biking up the Mont Ventoux for a good foundation. I did this a few times but now I didn't, so I could take the zed up and around the mountain that day. Lovely way to spend a day there! It was about 2200km in total, while going there for only 4 days, but hey, the zed was doing amazing. Great car to drive in mountain scenery or just highways.
Few photos of that






After that trip is was time for something else, something cool and well.. expensive haha..
I ordered the ESS G1 supercharger for the car. Not only to get about 100hp extra, also to have something unique and cool under the bonnet!
It took about a whole day to mount it, mostly [ref]Barty[/ref] and his friend Mika mounted it for me, I got to watch and help the little bits around it. There were a few struggles along the way but eventually around 9pm it was up and running. I didn't get the tune until the day after so I took it home to do that the next day. You have to make a readout of the car where ESS will make the tune based on. A small problem was that my car was chip tuned before this, which made the software not being original anymore, so ESS saw that and tried to make the tune on that. Sadly it didn't work properly. I had to bed in the kit for about 200 miles and after that I could go more full throttle. Well that wasn't much different compared to before. Also running idle was very rough and the rpm's were bouncy.
Best was to get the DME updated so it's back to stock and do a new readout to send it to ESS again and get a new tune. Did that and I directly felt a difference with the new tune, felt much faster!




That lasted for about one or two drives and the engine started to struggle a lot, not giving full power and rough idle again, so started to replace a few parts, I got new coils, new vanos solenoids, spark plugs and a new valve cover (with PCV) cause I noticed a lot of oil in the intake and around the MAF sensor. It kept struggling and it took about 4 months to try, replace parts, try again and still no luck. What it does now, when driving slow it's all fine, but when going full throttle, the engine stutters and runs on 1 bank, so on 3 cylinders. Turning off the car and turn back on, it runs on 6 cylinders again. Going full throttle again, same thing happens. Is it software or hardware? Still don't know, ESS doesn't blame their own software and they kept mentioning MAF, O2 sensors and fuel pump.

After a while it was about time that a very good specialist here in Holland, Procar, had a look at it and find out what's going wrong. They import and mount ESS superchargers in a lot of BMW's. I brought it there 1,5 month ago to diagnose what's wrong. They replaced the fuel pump, O2 sensors and MAF and nothing seems to work. They still notice that especially when the engine is hot, it'll run on 1 bank once going full throttle. They tried changing coils and spark plugs but nothing seems to work.
I got a call last Thursday about what to do, the Wales trip is coming up soon and they said they need lots of time and effort trying to find what's wrong, they got new and weird error codes about the DME this time.

So after 6 months of having a supercharged Z4 coupe, it's already time to take it out. I'm desperate and if they don't even find the problem, how can I ever get it running well. I just want my very good working zed back. I'll go and see if ESS wants to take the kit back and give me a (full or partly) refund for it. I’m hoping to pick up the car next week or the week after. Then I got enough time to get it chip tuned again and get some fresh new summer tyres. It were a few nice and very quick drives with the kit but I just want the car back now. I won't try supercharging it again since the zed is quick enough and just want to keep it on the roads!

That's it for now, I'll try and write more again here, the Wales trip should be in the next post!

 

[Barty]

Having been an up-close party to the supercharger saga, I really feel for you. A lot of effort by a lot of helpful, good people yet we never got to the bottom of the issue. The hardware was all installed properly, the software coded in as per the instructions, and yet… no dice.

Really looking forward to the Wales trip, hopefully you’ll be able to enjoy the Zed properly for the first time in nearly 6 months!

 

[bigwinn]

Looking forward to you guys coming over will try to rendezvous with you at some point

 

[1536Z4]

So after 6 months of having a supercharged Z4 coupe, it's already time to take it out.

I`ve had similar issues ( not with a supercharger ) with having a tune done which didn`t go to plan and it is really frustrating when you are left in a situation where you have paid good money for something and it doesn`t work out and you are left with a worse performing car than stock. I am currently doing road logging with Josh at Severn Tuning [ref]pokeybritches[/ref], to get the car sorted . He has been excellent from the start and very thorough . He had to start from scratch with a OE tune and gradually sort issues that arose from there . Hope you get it all sorted and look forward to your next update . I`m just on the border of Wales so may see you about :rofl:

 

[Mr Tidy]

Well you've certainly had some highs and lows Joel!

You should enjoy Wales - I did when I did a driving trip there a few years ago.

 

[Meds]

There was a guy in the 130i community (same N52 as ours) who did the ESS supercharger conversion.
He had similar issues to you, spent months trying to fix it with numerous specialists writing new maps, changing parts etc..
In the end, he removed it.
You're not alone with the problems.