99 Techno M3 coupe project

I bought this car last April from a close friend. He used it as a DD and for track days and did some tasteful upgrades like H&R springs/bilstein shocks, M50 intake manifold, Active catback, square OEM wheel setup. The paint and interior need some work. Paint I’m trying to restore but the interior I’m unsure of whether to restore to factory or do something wild. 

Plans for now are basically to get most broken or whethered parts back to normal condition or restored. Undecided on Apex Arc8 wheels or some deep dish 5 spokes. 

I really like Techno Violet. 

Is that an Abrahams wing? How do you like it? Any sagging? 

Beautiful car. I love the Techno with the dove interior. Hope you are not putting on that wing. 

I too love Techno Violet.

mr2s2000elise said:

Beautiful car. I love the Techno with the dove interior. Hope you are not putting on that wing. 

Its a copy of the factory ltw wing. It really fits the car once painted. The real ones are becoming scarce and sell for over $1k. 

In reply to Slippery :

The real OEM ones sell for FAR more than $1000...  Just the OEM risers sell for more than $1000

Is FAR more than $1000 over $1000??? 

The interior really needs a lot of work. I’m still trying to plan a road a head for it but....do I want to keep it clean and restore to factory freshness or go a little retro rad with it?

Slippery said:

mr2s2000elise said:

Beautiful car. I love the Techno with the dove interior. Hope you are not putting on that wing. 

Its a copy of the factory ltw wing. It really fits the car once painted. The real ones are becoming scarce and sell for over $1k. 

Yeah i realize its a copy of a LTW. My brother has a LTW with sub 30k miles

i was hoping you werent putting a copy wing on it. As your car looks beautiful as is

enjoy the ride :)

Techno/dove is probably my favorite color combo. I’m also loving the square contour setup you’ve got on it.

As far as the interior goes, I found that I enjoyed my m3 infinitely more after I went back to stock interior, but I mostly use mine as a street car anyway. I had some recaros, a 4 point cage, and aluminum door panels, which were fun for a sec, but got old fast. 

The stock coupe door panels suck, but I haven’t found an alternative that I like

Another vote against putting on the wing. And for keeping it as close to stock as possible, at least in terms of appearance, both in and out.

Turbine said:

Techno/dove is probably my favorite color combo. I’m also loving the square contour setup you’ve got on it.

As far as the interior goes, I found that I enjoyed my m3 infinitely more after I went back to stock interior, but I mostly use mine as a street car anyway. I had some recaros, a 4 point cage, and aluminum door panels, which were fun for a sec, but got old fast. 

The stock coupe door panels suck, but I haven’t found an alternative that I like

 

I like the Hard Motorsports molded door panels as pictured below. My door panels are in decent shape they just need to be refurbished as the leather has been stained pretty bad and the plastic frame has deteriorated and crumbled to pieces. Luckily I found an aluminum replacement to that on ebay that's holding up well. 

Also finding a replacement for the armrest cover thats close to factor is not easy. I have come up short in all my research and even purchased a few different kinds and they A) don't fit B) Are way off color C) I tried buying a matching cover from redlinegoods.com to the shift boot and e-brake boot and it's like they sent me a childrens small size for a piece that should have been adult large and had terrible customer service about it (they stated I didn't know how to install it and after arguing they eventually told me to send that and the factory one to their shop in Poland at my expense to correct it). So the tacky looking amazon one stays for now.

Here for the Techno Violet! 

Good lord I love that color. Techno is my favorite color ever put on a car.

Daytona Violet from ‘95 is my favorite.  The Techno isn’t a bad second choice.  I don’t know what materials BMW used for the Dove interior, but I haven’t seen one in person that wasn’t trashed.  The black interiors seem to hold up better.  The damn door cards are hard to find in decent condition.  No one will redo them because once the insert gets lose, nothing will keep it tight.

Slippery said:

I really like Techno Violet. 

Is that an Abrahams wing? How do you like it? Any sagging? 

It's just an ebay wing. I paid like $120 for it so we'll see how it looks once it's sanded, primed, painted, etc. I'm buying a second trunk lid to mount it on as well. I really enjoy how the LTW wings look on these cars. They also double as a lifted truck headlight blocker and picnic table at the track. 

maj75 said:

Daytona Violet from ‘95 is my favorite.  The Techno isn’t a bad second choice.  I don’t know what materials BMW used for the Dove interior, but I haven’t seen one in person that wasn’t trashed.  The black interiors seem to hold up better.  The damn door cards are hard to find in decent condition.  No one will redo them because once the insert gets lose, nothing will keep it tight.

All of the plastic on the back of the door cards goes to trash and then the dove material literally stains from breathing on it lol. I've found replacement covers from Lseats that a lot of people have had success with in their E30s and E36s; however, I really don't care for the dove (waiting to get the fire roasting from some of you lol). The issue with doing a color swap is finding carpet and a dash to match. But if I ever plan on selling this thing in the future to someone other than a college kid whos strapped for cash I'm guessing at least "authentic looking" will fetch me far more coin than a flavor of the week fad that I'm feeling. 

skylarhagler said:

Good lord I love that color. Techno is my favorite color ever put on a car.

I had zero intentions of ever buying a BMW and my friend said he would sell me this and I bought it strictly because of the color lol. 

I had the seats for my TVR recovered by a very good local auto-upholstery shop.  Gave them the old frames and the nasty ratty old covers, and they replicated them beautifully.  Wasn't even terribly expensive.

You could go to a similar shop and pick out the color of leather you like.

Ooh. Very nice color.

If you can't tell in the pictures, the kidney grills are sagging and as of a few nights ago the passenger side one is just falling apart. I purchased an Amazon special replacement set that is matte black with the M stripes on some of the slats but it looks kind of corny with the M colors and its very cheap plastic. Anyone have a line on decent replacements for these? Bimmerworld, ECS, Turner, eEuroparts, etc don't really anything. 

If this is your first BMW, RealOEM (https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/select) is a fantastic resource for you to use when looking for parts. Without it I would be absolutely lost at keeping my fleet on the road.

If you are looking for a OEM quality replacement you can find it at ECS/FCP Euro/Pelican/whatever your vendor of choice is. This is what I got with a quick search of the part number.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-bmw-parts/kidney-grille-right/51138195152/