AMG3.2's Mod Journal
 

Alright folks - time to start my build thread!

I may be new to the C63 world, but definitely not to the AMG world and am very excited to be back.

As of late, I became bored with my E46 M3. In my opinion, it's not a fun car to daily drive and that's really the bulk of my driving. The E46 is a fantastic track car / canyon carver but that's just not what I value in a car at this time so I sold it to my best friend from high school who's a BMW crazed fanatic and picked up this beautiful and perfectly optioned C63. I never plan to take the C63 to the track but I do intend to have some fun with it :D.

The purpose of this thread is to document my mods/maintenance/whatever else I do to the car for others to enjoy!

Specs on my C63:

2009 Arctic C63 - 46,XXX Miles
P30 AMG Performance Package
P2 Premium Package
318 AMG Leather Package
320 Multimedia Package
H73 Carbon Fiber Trim
057 iPod Integration
359 Teleaid
AMG Y Spoke Wheels on Michelin PSS 235/265

The AMG at it's second home -- the gas station.

Attachment 444211

Prior to my E46 M3, I had a W203 C32 AMG. Below are a progression of my cars:

Jaguar X Type at age 16:

https://farm7.staticflickr.com/6103/...c209aab2_b.jpg[/url]
Then came the W203 C32 AMG

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2909/...77d9817d_k.jpg[/url]
Followed by my minty fresh Alpine White E46 M3

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j4...pswmvje2fh.png

Reserved

Reserved #2

congratz. that m3 was sweet too

Congrats, nice car. I see it came with a few mods to get you started. Enjoy!

Nice man! Sweet Jag for sure...and the C32.

Looks sweet. Anymore pics of the M3 too? Always had a soft spot for a properly done E46 M, yours is definitely one of them.

Time for a small update!

In such excitement while buying the car, I failed to notice that there was a small tear in the drivers front seat. Worrying that it would continue to tear, I immediately called my local Fibrenew repair guy and he came out and mended the leather for $150. Before and after pics are below:

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Next up was replacing the egg-yolk orangy bulbs with AZNOptics 194 5K LED's. They look really nice in my opinion.

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I also installed HR Lowering Springs with, believe it or not, 5MM rear pads. I ordered the 17MM and they just looked so tall compared to the front. See the pics for yourself.

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Cleaned and conditioned my leather with Leathermasters Soft Cleaner and Leather Masters Leather Protection Cream. Also, cleaned the alcantara steering wheel with a toothbrush, a terry cloth, and some warm water.

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And lastly, added a sticker to rep my alma mater.

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I'll be getting a custom alignment on Saturday with the following specs:

Front Camber: Max Negative allowing both sides to be even within spec.
Front Toe: Zero

Rear Camber: -1.5
Rear Toe: Still undecided

With the HR springs, the car is pulling just slightly to the right. We'll see if the alignment shop is able to correct it. If not, I'll have to install the alignment bolts I purchased and have another go at it.

After I get an alignment and know exactly what my spacing is due to camber, I'll be going ahead and ordering spacers and a stud conversion kit from Motorsport Hardware.

Looks amazing :y

Thanks :)

Resonator Delete with H Pipe

So far, it's too quiet for my taste. I've only driven about 6 miles since I had to get back to the office, but I could definitely use a bit more volume.

EDIT: Deleted my secondary cats a couple of days later. Sounds epic...

I heard that straight pipes at the secondary cat is the best way to get more volume and keep AMG sound without rasp.

Yup - will definitely be going back for secondary cat removal. Will keep the H-pipe in the resonator section and just go full straight on the cats.

I second secondary cat removal with straight pipes. Look into a tune as well!

Already have an appointment to get the secondary cats out :y

I'll look into a tune down the road as for now I see no reason to get one. The car is already stupid fast on the street and I'm more into spending money on other aspects of the car like Endless MX pads, brake lines, and other performance and chassis type mods.

Power is already enough to get 99% of the C63 driving population into trouble. I'm in that boat too...

So in the last couple of days, a buddy of mine decided to measure the drop on all four corners of my car...

The two fronts were dead even, the rears, not so much. I was actually quite a bit lower on my passenger side than drivers. I'd say about 3/32 of an inch which was enough to really bother me.

I begin trying to think of ways to raise just one corner of the car and came up with this:

Attachment 444139

I created shims from a square foot of linoleum I had laying around and after two tries got the rears to sit dead even, actually the passenger side a little higher to compensate for any squishing of the linoleum that might happen but this stuff seemed to be quite compact and hard as it is...

Yes, there is linoleum in my AMG...

Great set up. We are pretty much the same.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...e5c61505b6.jpg


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...7f22cf49d3.jpg


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...dfdbdae02c.jpg

Looks awesome! What spacer setups are you running?

Absolutely no spacers.
HR Springs with 17mm rear pads.

After I install CF spoiler and wash her I will take better pics...

Sounds like a plan. Carbon on silver cars always looks awesome.

Right rear sits lower due to the battery being on that side which weighs approximately 40 lbs.

Well damn! Now I know. I was wondering what the in world was going on there. It had to be brought up a good couple of MM. I think 4.5 or so.

.

U are using 5mm spring pads & u added custom shims on one of the spring pad? Hope it's safe.

I think ur rear sits too low compared to ur front. And keep in mind when the car is in motion, the rear goes a bit lower so I bet ur rear tires tuck in. It's ok as long as u don't buy aggressive & flush wheels/tires set-up.

Yup. I actually had the 5mm spring pads installed on my car with the stock springs. The previous owner must have done it.

I did shim the passenger side a bit more so think of it as a 9mm spring pad on that side to compensate for the 45 pound battery. I really was un-happy with the uneven-ness.

And yes, the rear is lower in the front. That tends to be the way most european cars are set up when lowered and definitely tends to be my preference.

Looks good for sure, but I know I would rub with my aggressive HRE.

Based on what you see, what would you recommend my spacer setup be both front and rear?

I'm thinking 15mm front? and maybe 10mm rear? Thanks in advance!

Finally got some time to paint my front calipers today! Woo!

Used VHT Brake Caiper Red, VHT Brake Caliper Clear, some steel wool to rough up the surface, and a lot of disposable gloves.

Here's some pics of the process:

Not a fan of overspray...

Attachment 443950

First Coat

Attachment 443951

Went with white decals to go with the paint.

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Final result

Attachment 443953

I see your C63 is on life support like mine always is ;) Always connected to that gas pump hose hahaha

Always... :/

Looking great!

There are options for light weight batteries, the lighter the car the better. On my previous 63 sedan I took out everything possible, rear head rests, seats, manual, spare tire, etc and installed lighter brakes, battery etc etc. made a huge difference. Not saying to do the same but there are a few heavy parts that could go.

As for tune, I know u are happy with the current power but as anyone with a tune would tell u, "trust me it's well worth it". Your car is de-tuned from the factory. A tune changes a lot, sounds better, feels more urgent, and believe it or not, u can gain better gas mileage. Ultimately it's your decision but in my previous c63, the tune was one of the best mods.

Will be tuning my CBS ecu & tcu and valvebody with weistec very shortly. Gaining +47 wheel horse power and +32 torque from a tune is insane lol. Just the way it feels greatly increases the driving experience.

Got me a set of HMS Fender flares along with some Gunmetal Work VS-XX's from this thread https://mbworld.org/forums/wheels-ti...els-tires.html

I'll have my OEM Multispokes for sale soon.
Specs are as follows:
Michelin PSS 235/35/19 with about 6/32 left
Michelin PSS 265/30/19 literally mounted a month ago

Some wheels have minor, minor curb rash.

Willing to ship - not sure how much I should be asking but open to offers.

Absolutely thrilled to widebody this beast. Stay tuned for updates!

How can u be sure the VSXX will fill in the rear fender flares nicely w/o even trying on the flares?

Sure -- good question. Basically, a lot of fitment research has already been by HMS and others on the HMS Group Buy thread. To your point though, I already have the flares in hand. Not that it helps much though. Until these things are all in place, everything is pretty much an educated guess.

HMS has pictures of what 19x10 +25 looks like on their page. That's the starting point. After that, a variety of spacers (3, 5, etc. ) will help fine tune the fitment to where I want.

Not too mention, VSXX allow you to swap out lips should I want to fine tune without the use of spacers. I don't think I'll get to that any time soon, but always another option.

Yes 3 pcs wheels will allow u to swap inner barrels & outer lips to change width & offset. But it will still be a tricky situation to figure out the offset & width needed which can become expensive to buy lips/barrels as trial & error.

IMO, waiting to install the flares & do the measurement afterwards is a more efficient way.

If HMS fitted 19x10 +25, then yes its a good base.

Nah. I'm not sure it'll be too tricky. This is what they claim a 19x10 +25 looks like. From here, I can add a couple of spacers depending on how aggressive I'd like it to be.

Quite simple really given the +25 baseline. Granted, this fitment is with 285. I'll be running 275 for the time being since the wheels I bought came with tires.

Attachment 369539

Hummm, let me try to understand the concept of these fender flares... My regular C63 runs 19x10 +50 with 275/30/19 which is most likely what your VSXX is as well (more or less few mm offset difference).

So you are going to slap on a 25mm spacers to push them out (making them +25mm offset) & call it a day?

There's got to be more room inside the inner suspension allowing you to run wider wheels & tires otherwise from looking behind the car, your wheels will look funny as heck. lol

I bought the WheelFit wheel offset tool for my Camaro and Charger. allows you to mount your desired tire and then slide it back and forth to nail the offset.

http://www.thewheelfit.com/

If you're gonna for through the trouble of flaring your car, you should stuff the widest and fattest you can in there

For sure there is more room.

19x10 +25, has the same clearance as 19x11 +38.

So, ideally, with these HMS Fender Flares, you should be running a 19x11 +38 with a 295/30/19 or a 305/30/19.

Porsche's run OEM 19x11 on 305/30/19 without issue. That's probably as far as I would push it, as the 305s are quite beefy on the 19x11.

19x11.5s will not fit, as the barrel will hit the inner strut. You can fit 11.5s, but you need to go more aggressive on the fitment, so you'll be even close to rubbing.

No. I will be running a 25 or 30mm spacer at first to figure out what size lips I need. After that, like mentioned above, the plan is to buy new lips to adjust.

I'd rather not be driving around with my sunk multispokes while figuring it out, when I can just install a spacer for the coming weeks. Spacers are much cheaper to mess around with than wheel lips and thus would rather go this route.

Yup, and rubbing on fiberglass just seems like bad business lol

With the Work VS-XX. You will need a huge spacer, 35mm spacer will work for the time being. For a 10" +50 with a 275, you would need a 45mm spacer to fill in the gap.
I would re barrel the VS-XX immediately and do the fronts as well. Are you planning on a big tire set up? or an aggressive wheel set up?

Before you venture into this, I have a few friends who can help you along the way.

Logan@Work Wheels USA - Ask him about AMG brake caliper clearances on which disk size to run.

Andrew@VRwheels - He can swap out barrels with new hardware, etc.

Tell him David from Chicago sent you.

I'm planning on a big tire set up as opposed to aggressive. I've seen that VR Wheels does indeed have the lips/barrels I'd need. Maybe I'll give them a call later today.

Thanks for the pointers :y

Yea you will definetly want to get the widest tire you can fit. My previous 63 rears were 255s and my CBS are 305s and I can assure you the increase in traction is massive. Hope it all works out!

Well today was the day!

Took the car in for HMS fender install. Modification and a bit of work is still needed on these pieces, especially on the rear bumper piece as the molds were built for a FL car as opposed to PFL. Regardless, I know the car is in some of the best hands in Northern California. Will be a couple of weeks before I get it back though... :(

Attachment 443833

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Also, my Work VSXX came in today as well.

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Will be getting new lips at some point, but until I get the fenders installed, I don't know how much of a wider lip I'll need so 30MM HR spacers will have to do for now. I think with these installed, I'll still have around 10mm of conservative sunk-ness or 15mm if I want to be aggressive.

How safe is it to run such thick spacers (30mm +)?

Wow! Upping the ante with those wheels.

I don't want to mod my car.

I don't want to mod my car!

I DON'T want to mod my car!!!

ARRRRRGH!

;)
TC

AHAHAHAHA Story of my life.

Looking good. :D

Excited for you and can't wait to see the finished product. :y

Modding is fun...modding is fun...modding is fun :eek:

When there is ever any doubt say it three times quickly....lol :rolf:

Click your heels and run your credit card!:eek::rolleyes:

TC

Rear Wider track all bolted up ready for fenders. Not sure it'll be wide enough so we'll see.

Attachment 443833

The wait is killing me...

how did you fit a dual exhaust onto the C32?

Great to come across your build thread here! It's always fun to see our E46 M3 friends on other forums with new cars. :)

Loving the build so far. The fenders will look INSANE!

Can't wait to see the finished product.

Thanks Alex. Very much enjoying the new ride. Although, my old E46 M3 will always hold a special place in my heart...

On another note, just got some pics from my shop. No turning back now... :D

Attachment 443831

Wow, this is going to look EPIC! Can't wait to see them installed!

Damn.. she's under the knife !

Another update. Just about fender time!

Attachment 443827

Good progress.

Can't wait to see it finished!

Neither can I!

Holy Hips Batman!!!! This will look incredible!!!!

its looking dope!! cant wait to see a finished product and your wheel choice/set up

Thanks guys. The wait is nothing short of agonizing lol

So I've decided the wheels are a bit too dark for my taste. I'm going to have a shop remove the powdercoat from the front from lips and polish them, and get new rear polished lips that are probably about an inch wider than I have know to ditch the 30MM spacer and run a wider wheel. While I'm at it, I'm also going to have the wheels powdercoated a lighter silver color. I tend to like brighter finishes on cars as opposed to the murdered out look.

Looking great so far, can't wait to see final results!

Thanks man. Just called the shop and they told me it'd be another two weeks...

Damn.

Breaking news:

Attachment 443818

Attachment 443819

Looking awesome so far :y... this wait must be killing you!

Looks epic , it's going to look super aggressive. I still think those VSXX doesn't suit the flares well though.

Wow...coming to life. I see you are molding the flares on. Did you always plan to go this route? Nice to see as I was thinking of doing the same and it will be great to see yours for inspiration. I think it will end up with a more finished look than just surface mounting the flares and having a bit of a tacked on look. Looking forward to your pics and results. :y

No, for sure they won't. I've always planned on replacing the outter lips with wider ones to widen the wheel. I'll most likely be widening to 12 inches or 11.5 at min with a small spacer.

To be honest, no. I went to the shop with full intention of installing them without molding. Similar to the way a Rocketbunny or RWB kit is installed.

After talking to the gents at the shop and taking a look at some of the work they've done before, I quickly realized that I'd rather do it right. I've been down the road with modding cars before, and I'll go the cheaper route and I ALWAYS end up regretting it a month or two down the road. I said the hell with it and told them to go for completely molding the kit as well as respray the rear bumper as it had a couple of knicks etc. I especially want to pay close attention to the door jam and that's the part where it will look the most tacked on if not done right.

The shop owner has set my pickup date for next Friday no ifs ands or buts so stay tuned.

Then I have to focus on the wheels and replace the lips with polished ones as well as powdercoat the faces to the Work Burning Silver color or something similar.

I think I'm more excited to see the final product than you are!

Im with him on that!

Yeah, cause we're not writing the check!:rolf:

TC

Hahahahha could be very true. Even though the fenders will be done by this Friday, my wheel adventure will continue since I still have to measure and order new polished lips.

Fronts are going to stay the same -- I'll remove the powder and polish them myself.

Rears are going to have to be measured. I have a 59mm (2.3") lip as mentioned by the previous owner in one of his threads, so I'm going to have to order either a 3.5 or 4 inch lip to match up with the fenders.

I'm going to wait to have the car this weekend though before ordering anything.

But yes, I am beyond stoked to have this all come together. Getting the fenders right was the hardest part here, and based on the above pics, it looks like that'll be accomplished soon.

Time for paint!

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Your doing it right bud! Moulding it is the way to go! Over fenders are just a "thing" right now. Moulding them in is the way to go! well done.

Looks good!

Thanks guys. Really excited.

:y:yCan't wait to see the final results

Looks like top notch work from ur Bodyshop! Can't wait to see it all together.

The quality of work is unbelievable. I myself am absolutely speechless.

Looking good, great job by the shop. A little scary looking...lol

Getting close. :)

You have some real artists in your body shop. Nice!

You'll have to change the pic in your sig line.:)

TC

wow looks really good.

Looking sick! *drool*

finish looks incredible! you're making a lot of members want to get in on these fenders :)

They really are artists. When he sent me those pictures, I couldn't believe how factory the door jams looked.

Thanks everyone. Tomorrow's the pick up day! I'm sure I'll get some more pics later today once everything is put back together. This is what I'm really excited about!

Wow!!! The job is incredible.I think i'm going the same route. The wait is killing me, cant wait anymore.

Amazing.

Install is so clean! A+

Looks really good, lots of love and time went into it and it shows, can't wait to see it!

SO NICE! Mad props! Looks excellent! Glad to know there are body shops and painters still that do great work!

Can't wait for final result!!

This is really amazing! Can't wait to see pics of the completed product!

Looking good!!

Any pics already, the wait is killing me!

Damn... car is looking mean.
Waiting impatiently for updates !

Got the car back. Pics up a bit later. Words cannot describe!

What a tease .. Lol

# this thread is worthless w/o pics

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Also, the body shop said the OE BS Fender liner didn't work... I haven't yet looked into it because March Madness, but I'll get to it soon and report back.

The flares looks really good. Well done from ur Bodyshop.

Wow after the trans re build these are going on!!!!!!

Wow that came out really nice. Enjoy!

Dat ass! :D

Awesome!

TC

Looks amazing! Great job. If my car looked like that I'd be fingering it too

Thanks for the pics, looks great. Your body shop has done super install & finish work. I am happy it worked out for you and you are pleased as I bet you had some anxious moments. The results look great. :)

Interested to hear what you discover about the BS liners. I am sure there must be a way to make them fit. It just might not be too obvious at first. Sometimes you have to be pretty imaginative and adaptive when modding. Just jamb them in there and get the nail gun.....OK never mind....lol.

Have you decided what you are doing with your wheels and ride height? More decisions and another wait. It will be worth it in the final result. :D

One down (almost, the hardest part at least) and seven more to go. :naughty:

Congrats on being the first! :y

Wow! That looks OEM. Can't wait for the suspension and wheel setup.

Damn! that looks amazing. is this body shop in the bay area?

Thanks, Mort. I really am happy with the outcome. Once I get the wheels in order, I'll think I'll be a happy camper.

The BS Liners: So these don't fit well and definitely need trimming and hole drilling to make work. After about two hours of work, this is what I've come up with:

Attachment 443784

Attachment 443785

Wheels: I'm going to relip the rears to go with a 3.5" inch lip which will make the wheel poke 30mm more when mounted without spacers. From there, I'm going to run a 5-12mm spacer depending on my finals clearances with a 295/30/19 on an 11 inch wheel. I could go with an 11.5, but A) don't want that big of a stagger between my front and rear wheels, b) don't really want to run a 305 (it's going to be too tall and IMHO make the car look like a dragster) and c) Don't want to risk any sort of rubbing since we are dealing with fiberglass.

For reference, this is what a 40MM spacer looks like with a 19x10 +51. Do not worry, the car was not driven like this... Just wanted to get an idea of where I stand.

Attachment 443786

In terms of suspension, I'm currently on H&R Springs with 5MM spring pads. With the taller 295/30/19 and more aggressive offset, I think a lot of the height will muted. I have no plans to go to a coilover setup. Ever. I've never found a coilover in my life that rides as well as OE suspension.

Well close enough. Elite Auto Body in Sac. Unbelievable group of guys.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/elite-auto-body-sacramento

The last pic makes the rear pop! Very nice.
Now u need front lip, bigger trunk spoiler & more aggressive diffuser. Never ending lol

I legitimately could not agree more lol. I have to pace myself though. This definitely set me back a nice chunk of change.

1) Arkym Front Lip in Carbon
2) Then *maybe* a carbon trunk spoiler (I forget which one I like lol it likes swoops up)

Very nice congrats man your car looks awesome!

This **** looks amazing!!! gives you a whole new look.. super aggressive!!! Great thread!!!

Damn... not a huge fan of those lips on the wheels but those flares are perfect.

Nice to see someone actually do it but to me the rear bumper part just doesn't look right (no offense) where the arch comes down into the two lines on the rear bumper.


The door and the rear quarter panel look fine but the rear bumper part needs more work imo as they look out of place. See the silver one below I think the lines need doing like this to make it look factory.


http://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbwo...f9990050e.jpeg


http://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbwo...75a2397f88.jpg


https://mbworld.org/forums/attachmen...-rs-28_big.jpg

:y

Neither am I actually. Wheels will get attention soon enough though. :D

Aahaha it's funny you bring these pictures up. I actually walked into the shop with these pictures printed out and told the guys this is exactly what I didn't want on my car. If you look at this car more closely, you'll notice that the rear fenders a "bubbly" while our front fenders have a very angular, chiseled look to them. IMO this is what looks so dramatically out of place on that car.

Maybe it's just the pictures I've posted, but in person, there's isn't a thing I'd change about how the rear bumper was molded. I guess this proves the point of different strokes for different folks. No offense taken at all, by the way.

If you'd like, I'd be more than happy to post some close up pics of the rear bumper to quarter panel area.

If these fenders are made to order, I would assume that's why the fenders differ so much. Its someone literally making these one at a time. Too bad the BS fender liners didn't fit.

WOW! Great job... Looks amazing man!
This is how these cars should have come from the factory...

OP, after installing those fenders, your ride is too dope lol, just need some CF bits here and there and you'll be set, oh and some wheels haha

These fenders open up a whole new ball game in terms of aggressive wheel fitments. 19 x 11 ET 25-35 should be fairly flush with a 295/30/19.

I can't wait to see what wheel setups members run with these fenders.

Thanks man. I'm really enjoying the new look. Yup - some more carbon is definitely the plan. I'll be getting an Arkym rep lip from RW Carbon in the future.

I also plan to go with gloss black trunk badges and emblem. Since I have gunmetal Works, the chrome just looks out of place right now.

My plan is 3.5" rear lips, powdercoated in Tiger Drylac Series 38 Argento Metallic. This is the powder currently on the lips but obviously since I'm getting new rear lips, those will have to be powdercoated to match.

The plain will be 19x11 +21 with a 295/30/19.

The gunmetal may not pop in the pics, but in person they're actually growing on me a lot. We'll see if I change my mind down the road... :nix:

Met up with AMGPower88 and got me a front lip.

Attachment 443759

Damn that was fast!!:eek: Haha. Looks killer bro. How many screws did you end up using..?

I used like 8 and then 2 nuts and bolts on the ends. Yeah, fast is the name of the modding game haha

Car looks wicked man!!

Nice work, facelift side mirrors and painted markers will clean it up

Your car looks awesome. Your body shop did a great job of molding the flares onto the car.

Thanks guys.

Thank you. Yes, I agree on the painted side markers. Been thinking either that or clear. I just can't seem to find anyone that sells the painted ones. However, I have no plans of updating the mirrors as the facelift ones don't really do much for me. Would definitely rather put that money elsewhere into the car.

Looks sick bud! With the widened rear wheels it will look great. Are you lowered on anything at the moment?

looks great. now get deop facelift tails !!!!!!!!!!

Thanks! I think it will come together nicely with the widened wheels too. I'm currently lowered on H&R springs with 5MM rear spring pads.

lololol Thank you! Maybe down the road. Still have a couple of other things to do before that. :naughty:

u have to get the tails ....a car nice like this you have to.. I got a few guys on here to do it hahaha... its the best mod you can do ... its a brand new car again trust me.


pic whoring
Attachment 368560

Wow..haven't been on here in forever, car is looking amazing man! Good job with it!

Thanks man :y

Also, yippie. Work VS-XX 19x3.5 lips came in. This will move the wheel 30mm closer to the fenders without a spacer. Then, depending on how the 305's fit, I'll run a 10,12, or 15m spacer at the absolute most. Lips will be powedercoated the current color. Tiger Drylac Series 38 - Argento Metallic.

I'm actually really digging the look of these wheels with the carbon bits around the car.

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Also got me some 305/30/19's -- Hankook Evo 2's. Apparently, there much improved over the V12 Evo's that have been around forever. Yeah... We'll see. Regardless, it;s a super meaty tire and quite a bit taller than 275/30. Should fill in the black series sized arches much better.

the flares look amazing man great job

Waiting to see how it looks for you!

Thanks guys.

Small update.... Got my rear lips powdercoated to match the front and....... they didn't match. Back to the drawing board. Rather than try to go back and forth trying to match the Argento Metallic, I said the hell with it, undid all 176 bolts holding the wheels together and dropped off the faces and front lips off at the powdercoaters (they still had my rears).

Car sits looking lonely right now.

Attachment 443664

But, on the bright side, no pun in tended and a clue to what's coming, I've decided to change things up a bit and am going with a powdercoated chrome from Cardinal Colors.

Pretty stoked. :D

Bummer! Sux you had to take them all apart! I assume you saw the color sample right? I used to work at a place that did powdercoating and the chrome powdercoat looks more like a shiny silver or a dull polished aluminum. Just an FYI.

^^ Chrome powdercoat will never have the luster of real polished chrome.

You can try PVD coating, its probably the closest to finish you are looking for.
And that sucks about your wheels. Disassembling wheels are a PITA!

I cannot tell you enough to be careful once your re-assemble them. I would use new hardware, use loctite and properly retorque all the bolts in the proper pattern.

Yeah, was a bit of a pain but all good. Yes, I definitely saw a sprayed sample of the Cardinal Chrome over Prismatic Clear Vision -- exactly what I'm getting applied. EDIT: Other way around -- Prismatic Clear Vision over Cardinal Chrome.

While the name is "Chrome", I'm not actually going for chrome, nor would I ever. I'm not a fan, but I am a huge fan of the luster and sheen that "chrome" powders provide. I think it looks really unique.

Yup, ordered new hardware, blue thread locker, and will retorque one at a time at 19 ft.lbs alternating in a star pattern.

That's great that it's the look your going for! Hurry up and get it finished! ��

Really nice job man

Getting there.

Attachment 443658

Attachment 443659

Attachment 443660

Looking good.

Now do the fronts! ;)

Now that's a wheel setup worthy of your build. Hurry up and put them on!

Gotta let the dang sealant sit for 36 hours or so before mounting the tires :(

Stunning look on the wheels and a great choice on the color- they will look awesome on the car.

Looking forward to seeing the wheels on the car. Going to make a huge difference. :) :y

excellent color choice, will look great on your white car

I agree on the new finish looks much better than the gunmetal.

Ladies and gentleman, the day has finally come.

Attachment 443654

:bow::bow::bow::bow::bow::bow::bow::bow::bow::bow: :bow::bow:

Ok folks, now that you all can see what you already knew - that this could, should, and would look incredible, can you please all go over and make your deposit for the 2nd group buy?

Truly georgeous!

Tons of work but it looks like it paid off very well. Great job AMG3.2, looks amazing :y.

There you go. Looks much better, big improvement. :)

What's your final fitment?

Looks killer! Awesome setup and love the new wheel color. Excellently executed my friend. 👍🏾👍🏾

Thanks everyone. Really, really happy on how it turned out.

LOVE the 305's in the rear for two reasons: 1) Really fill in the larger wheel openings much more effectively 2) My god do they look awesome.

Looks awesome! I would have went gloss black lips, satin black centers personally, but nonetheless looks killer!

You need some better photos ;)

Something from the side!

Ugh, fine fine. I'll post a few that a snapped a couple of days ago. :)

Brake pads were squealing pretty badly so I hit up a buddy at Speedfreaks for some Endless MX72 pads.

According to him (a guy with about 100 track days under his belt with his Dinan Stage 3 E46 M3, and track only S2k), these are some of the best street pads money can buy. Low dust, low noise, incredible stopping power, and fantastic feel. They sure will break the bank though... Details here: http://bit.ly/1qm44eN

With the weight of our cars being so up there, I feel that stopping power isn't the place to skimp.

Will do more of a formal review once I properly bed etc.

Attachment 443601

Found some cracks in my rotors so got my hands on some custom Coleman Racing Rotors and replaced them this morning:

Attachment 441148

Attachment 443530

Attachment 443531

Attachment 443532

Attachment 443533



I'm very happy with them, from what I can tell, they're awesome. Cost is about $350 or so a rotor depending how how you get them spec'd. They're fully custom, so you can go with only slotted, only drilled, blanks, etc. At this spec, like I mentioned, they're right in the ballpark of $350 a rotor shipped.

Another great aspect of these rotors is actually weight savings. I weighted both rotors without hats and hardware and got the following numbers. 25.6lbs for OE, and 22.2 for Coleman's. That's a 3.4lb lighter than stock, but this is unsrung weight. Generally, the rule of thumb for unsprung weight is that every 1lb you shed, equates to the car feeling like it lost 8 lbs of spring weight. In other words, my car *should* feel about 54.4 lbs lighter. I may not ever feel that, but hey, it's great to know that I'm not adding weight to the car as well.

Another mod: RW Carbon DTM Spoiler

Crappy cell phone pics:

Attachment 443333

Super glossy, but clearcoat is pretty soft...

Attachment 443334

Really like the high kick look from this angle:

Attachment 443335

I'll try to get some more higher quality pics with my DSLR down the road.

Long story short, the fitment is pretty much 9/10 which is something you can expect at this price point. Very happy with the weave pattern and the lacquer over it.

Face lift tails are most likely the next mod in line. I think this'll totally complete the back end of the car.

Oh yeahhhhh, the big trunk spoiler really transform the look of ur car. The small OEM lip spoiler wasn't cutting it anymore. Good job!

I love the "ducktail" spoilers for our cars. Have one on my coupe

2010 side mirrors will look wonderful on your car as well.

Thank you!

Love 'em too. Really give a nice flair to the back of the car.

As do I, but super low on the totem pole of mods. FL tails and head bolt replacement come first. :nix:

Delete.

:) looking good!

Camber arms went in in anticipation of coilovers.

Was running -2.5 in the rear. Want to go more modest and need adjustability since if I go lower with coils, I'll need to lessen the camber.

Not sure what my front and and rear camber specs should be now that I have (or will have) camber plates up front and camber arms in the rear.

Attachment 443096

Attachment 443097

Attachment 443098

Can you post a link to those camber arms please. Thank you!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mercedes-Benz-Rear-Camber-Kit-Adjustable-C-Class-W204-C63-AMG-Made-In-USA-Hex/291535769053?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D39035%26meid%3D3c3e8fc5a6f54661a52262f37d8e612b%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D112051450884

The alignment specs I have for a PFL are:

Front -1*30' +/- 0*22'

Rear -1*35' +/- 0*30'

Wow - that camber spec is kinda low.

Talking to a couple buddies, and looking at my current alignement specs which I really like, I've decided on this:

Front:
Camber: -2.1
Toe: +.02

Rear:
Camber: -1.4
Toe: Have to look at what I'm running now.

I am currently at -3*30' front and -2*30' rear. I am going to play with them a little over the winter if I can lower them without causing any rubbing. I don't really expect I will get any where near stock specs. Maybe -2.5 front and -2.25 rear.

Holy Camber. Now that's more like it :y

Any reason you've decided to go so aggressive with the camber? Is it mostly due to wheel offset and not rubbing?

The camber ended up where it is from lowering the car on the KWV3. I did make my offsets a little aggressive too get a flush fit. I ordered my tires a little narrow just to be safe. Now I want to jump up a size on the rear to 305 and narrow my rim on the front from 9.5 to 9 so I don't rub on the strut. Then I will have a better idea of how much I can adjust the camber or not. Then my tires will not be so stretched as well.

Ahh makes sense.

More modz:

Attachment 443090

A signed piece of paper with my valving specs and QA. Wowzers. This is the real deal.

Attachment 443091

Packing looked nice.

Attachment 443092

Now for some seriousness.. These look amazing. The built quality, at least in the hand, feels awesome.

Spring rates are 7k front, 11k rear.

So far I've only got the rears in, but they feel really, really nice. They are stiff, yet blow off small bumps like cobblestones quite nicely.

I personally think I could go with 12k or 13k rears and soften up the damping on them, but 11k on full stiff will do. I think... More testing is needed.

Nice build quality (from the pics). Any noises from them? I'm interested in going with coilovers soon. Keep us posted 3.2

Out of curiosity, why do the rear shocks have threaded bodies? Aren't the springs separate? I know the KW coils just have shocks and the springs have an adjustable collar for ride height.

You can fine tune the shock travel exactly the way you want by having rear threaded shock bodies.

Lowering the car no longer means that you have shorter shock travel.

Oh. Duh. That makes perfect sense! Thank you.

All corners are in and I've got about 10 miles of driving on them so far.

Here's what I'd conclude. At 11k, the rears are a bit soft. I think 13k would be more suitable. The fronts are a bit soft at 7k as well, I think 8k here would do the trick.

To stiffen up the chassis due to lack of spring rate, I'm at full stiff front and rear.

Steering response (slalom type movements) is quicker and more responsive, which is factor of the reduced body roll I'm experiencing.

They're stiff, don't get me wrong, but they're plush at the same time. Meaning, smaller bumps don't startle you or the chassis as much as what I've experienced with Bilstein and KW coilovers.

No noise to report other than some little chirping noise that sounds like it's coming from inside the cabin... So odd.

The camber plates are stupid though and almost pointless. You can't adjust them unless you drop the strut from the mounting point since the camber adjustment bolts reside under there. This makes adjusting camber a massive pain...

Overall though, pretty happy.

Final ride height after hours of adjusting:

Attachment 443089

Looks good

The stance looks perfect now

Are you planning to upgrade the springs?

Does look good.

At least now you can adjust camber even if it is a pain in the rump. Once you have it set it should be good and not require further adjustment. Are you planning on racing and changing from a race to a street setting?

Nice looking set of coilovers. :D

Thanks -- I too think the stance is just about on point now.

No plans to race this at all. If I wanted to have some track fun, I'd buy an E36 M3 hands down. This is purely the fun daily car.

Not sure yet. I don't think I'll buy uprated springs. After more driving, I think the fronts at 7k may actually be the right choice.

The rears however, could use an up rated spring. But unfortunately, Fortune Auto/Muller doesn't offer them since we have a one off spring seat design. They've basically tested the C63 at 11k and decided that would be the only spring they'd produce which really sucks.

To combat this, I've had to go full stiff in the rear with minimal suspension travel -- most likely around an inch or so.

What I've found about this car with every suspension setup so far, P30, H&R Springs, and now Muller MSC-1, is that upon dips, the rear of the car loves to compress while the front takes the dip at face value and "rolls along" with minimal suspension compression. This is the biggest suspension flaw thus far and you need a hard spring or very stiff damper setting to negate this. The former is generally the preferred way to to go about this.

The damper quality is fantastic, however.

Beautiful coilovers. Could you share where you got them from, or did you work with Mueller directly on the valuing and spring specs in consideration of your intended usage? Would love to pickup a set if the pricing and performance is competitive vs the KW CSs. Thx.

EDIT: Forget it, I see I asked before and did some research already. Looks great on your car - perfect stance.

Update on coilovers:

7k is like ridiculously soft. On full stiff, I can't go over dips at 35 MPH without rubbing on, get this, not even the side of the fender, but the top of the liner.

I don't know why Fortune/Muller would suggest 7k. I'm thinking they tested that on a regular W204 and called it a day for our platform.

Truly disappointing, so I'm going to call them tomorrow and hope they give me a deal on 9k springs...

After spending close to 2K, I even debated reinstalling my old H&R setup up front. They're progressive, but way harder than 7k...

so, for heavy cars you generally always want to go with a stiffer spring. heavy cars react differently to heavy springs than light cars do, the concern is will the shock be able to handle the stiffer spring? 7k front and 11k rear is a bit odd if I do say so myself. these cars are front engine therefore upon heavy braking the spring configuration allows for heavy weight transfer and nose dive. the only way to somewhat combat this would be to run a stiffer damping front shock.

basically to me sounds like a big mess.

Generally though, for RWD cars, wouldn't you usually run a stiffer spring in the rear?

I did some reading on M3Post and that seems to be the consensus.

I called Fortune this morning and they said I can handle up to a 3k difference in spring rate.

Now I don't know whether to go 9k or 10k. Leaning towards 9k.

stiffer rear means more grip for front.

And with my 245/305 stagger, wouldn't mind... :D

Ugh: swapping to 9k. We'll see what happens.

no, not necessarily. having more spring rate in the rear if a nose heavy car serves no purpose other than to prevent oversteer. when you have a stiffer rear spring you really need to have your front to rear shock maps tuned for that configuration. by no means is it optimal for racing as preventing oversteer by upgrading rear spring rate also can affect turn in weight transfer. if you don't have correct weight transfer your initial turn in will be imprecise.

look at how Toyota tunes all their cars...heavy for understeer to prevent crashes. they do this by up'ing the rear suspension spring or dampening.

with suspension at anytime you lower dampening or reduce spring rate in the rear of a car it will induce oversteer or a "loose" car.

So, update on these coilovers.

Amazing. With the 9K springs and 5 clicks out from full stiff, the car rides so good. Like SO GOOD.

I did, and still might have, an annoying tweety bird noise issue on the front dampers, but we've narrowed it down to shaft seals on both sides as when I sprayed the shaft with WD40, as directed to by the guys at FA, the noise vanished.

I do also want to comment on the service which has been outstanding. Now that we've found the source of the noise, their engineer offered to send me replacements if the noise does come back before I send mine into them for inspection. This is something that is unheard of at most companies.

KW etc. might make a good product (Idk about that one...) but I'm certain that if I was in this position with a brand new KW or Bilstein damper, they would have told me to send it back for inspection prior to sending me a new unit.

The service here has just been phenomenal and when you find a great product with service to match, you've got yourself a winner.

Glad things worked out. And to know the substance that comprises WD40 is fish oil....

Yup. Thank god for WD-40.

Interesting, I had always heard it was kerosene with vannila for scent.

Glad it worked out for you.

KW is a good product but the KW-USA Customer/Technical service is garbage. KW-USA designed these for the C63 AMG (Non Black Series), OE part on the Black Series C63 (But no height adjust ability in the rear)

They KNOW they the rear damper design is not properly designed. It leaves absolutely no room for lower height adjustment relative to the front and the sway bar links provided are the wrong length. They are only slightly different than OEM and will eventually cause the links to bind up and clunk over bumps.

So I've taken matters into my own hands and swapped out the useless top hats to K-Mac camber plates and will be working with a small company to create new sway bar links. I've never owned a car with such difficulty finding,setting up coilovers.

Definitely interested in sway bar endlinks. I've been lowered on H&R springs for awhile and my end links are making noise now.

Couldn't you go with an aftermarket endlink? I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find a set that work on our cars, no?

Honestly I've just been too busy/lazy to look what's out there already. Lol

Update on these adjustable arms as they didn't come with a way to attach the headlight level sensor so I have to zip tie them for the time being.

The seller of these was nice enough to fab up some brackets and send them my way.

I'm a happy camper.

Nice.

How's the adjustment ability?

I know it can pull out some negative camber from lowering. But what does it max out at? -/+

Great question. Right now, I'm at -1.7 in the rear and I know I can get a whole heck of a lot more negative with adjustment as well as positive. Not sure on an exact range though.

Also:

Attachment 442944

Attachment 442945

They clean the rear up so much. OEM or depo?

They really do! Depo from Fishcake on Ebay.

Nice! Plan on tinting them?

Nah -- I like the look of untinted tail lights for the most part

Nice. :y

I traded my car to upgrade mine....LOL :crazy: :eek: :rolf:

Nice looking car.

As I was going through your thread, I was so pissed to see your rear cut like that. But then I was stunned with the final results. Great job so far.

I was looking at the same LED tail lights on eBay, but there seems to be quiet a few variations from DEPO in red/clear. Did you have a chance to figure out what the difference is when you bought yours?

Well that was an expensive modification :p:

Ha! Thank you.

Yes> There are two options. One which indicated red for turn signals, the other that indicates orange.

Did you choose red?

Maybe it sounds lame but orange matches the front signals lol.

I did. Yeah, you're right but I like the red more when flashing. Seems more cohesive.

Also, bought a minty fresh E36 M3 5M/T today as a daily/beater. Although in trying to find a beater, I found probably the cleanest un-ruined E36's I've ever seen in my life.

Attachment 442911

Very nice!

Nice, possibly project track car?

I can't tell yet to be honest. I doubt it. If so, a very mild one. I truly want to DD something I don't care about.

Maybe just bushings / drivability mods but nothing aesthetic.

Sorry man, don't get this wrong, but my advice is to say goodbye to the E36 as soon as you can and to not try to make it into a dayly driver.
We had a E36 in our family until 2 years ago, the most advanced 1998, in a 6 cylinder, kept it till 225 000 miles.
It was a daily driver for my wife, I maintained it.


The list of things I did to it would take too long for me to type here.


Even if the parts are not expensive, you're going to be busy doing work on it a lot of time and won't have time to do other things, at least if you're like me and need everything to work properly all the time.


Uuhh, some highlights?


-It always runs somewhat hot.. why??
1. It has a tremendously complicated submersible connector for the fan in the chin/lip of the car. Although this was designed to dip in water and saty dry inside, because its so complicated in time it allows.. some.. water inside and corrodes.. somewhat.
This reduces the amperage availability to the auxiliary fan and makes it have less torque and pump less air. I found this and got so pissed I soldered the wires and shrink-tubed them.
Now, because the fan had full amperage id died, because it was not used to it, spent 50% of its life half-assing the cooling.
Then the thermostat housing is plastic, the water pump impeller is plastic, the overflow tank is brittle plastic, these need to be replaced with metal/aluminum units.
Then the cooling system runs unusually high pressure. When the radiator goes, it goes with a BANG, as in explosion, not as in springing a leak.
Which it did, leaving my wife stranded. I replaced it with an all-aluminum unit, which required me to re-engineer the transmission cooler which was integral to the radiator and separate it.
Then it sprung a leak in the water box of the heater by an o-ring where you can't even see it.


Other things? Alternator went, 2 coil packs went, the trip computer lost pixels and the odometer lost pixels, I fixed all of these.
shocks tophats bushings.
The ignition switch jammed and fixing that, getting the switch out of there was... involved. Much more than the 3 Mercedes I had.


For your car be careful with the impeller of the oil pump, I read something it loosens up, you have to secure it.


The hood release cable broke, the door handles stopped working.
I could write a whole chapter about the redesigned hydraulic tensioner for the serpentine belt and how expensive it is and how many times I replaced the mechanical one and how bad the access is for that.


The engine was mostly fine but had a shrieking at cranking, there was something that had to be done with the starter, which I refused to do and waited for it to die before fixing it. It never died but annoyed the hell out of me.


In the end, the rear shocks, once I replaced them, went through the rear shock towers. Apparently I should have known this was going to happen and bought tower reinforcements. So I temporary fixed it and traded it for a new Abarth for my wife.


Anyway, please understand that I am only sharing something that I'm firmly decided to follow myself, no more E36, don't mean to ruin your day.

Looks very clean, I had a friend that just picked up an E36 and it's been a nightmare but you never know you might be lucked out.

Ha! Thanks guys. I appreciate the pointers and tips but my friends and I know E36's/e46's/E9X M3's like the back of our hands at this point.

We've checked all the failure points like Vanos, cooling system failures (radiator, water pump, etc.) rear shock tower mounts, all electronics etc.

I know it's very hard to find a clean E36 M3 these days as most are tracked or kicked to the curb. However, I think I might have lucked out. If not, used parts are cheap and I'll have one of my buddies work on the car while I drive the Merc. No doubt about it that these are finicky cars, but the E36 is a lot more forgiving in terms of maintenance that the E46 is.

OHHH E36 M3 I love it!

The Depo Tails are awesome! really does make the PFL's rear look cleaner.

Ha! Thanks. I'm actually really enjoying the E36. Most likely because it's such a different car than the C63.

The tails really do clean it up. They look amazing in person and no codes yet.

Do you remember the name of the vendor that gave you the custom arm bracket for the adjustable headlights.

Same guy that sold me the camber arms. Link above!

Doh. How'd I miss that. Sent seller message. I have the same arms.

Though I seem to have some binding in the rear. The end links smack against these camber arms over bumps. I am fully lowered in the rear on kW v3s.

Hmm. I've never noticed this. I'll have to take a closer look under there so see if I'm experiencing the same.

I havent checked in here in a bit. Love the E36, and I love that you did the taillights. On my 09 I did the same ones from fishcakes and I absolutely stunned to see them in person and see how much cleaner and brighter they looked. Great mod. And then I traded in lol.

If you ask me, looks wise, a PFL front end, a FL back end and some flared wheelwells would be just about perfect and HEY! thats what you have :)

ahahahha thanks man. Totally agree!

I'll be there with you too soon.

Removed chrome badges, paint corrected, and applied these suckers.

Gloss black.

Attachment 442557


Also wrapped my chrome strip piece gloss black. Just need to figure out my chrome license plate frame situation...

Nice job, looks good.

License frame....CF?

I sprayed my alumni license plate frame with black plastidip and it actually looks pretty good

Emblems look great. Always worried about taking them off to paint and putting them back on.... did you use some sort of template?

Hmm. I'm thinking I might just run without a plate frame. Might make it look less busy.

I did. The AMG emblem comes stuck on to a hard template. For the C63 emblems, I just used some painters tape that I applied prior to removing the chrome as a reference.

Rear of the car is finally done.

Muffler delete yesterday along with brand spankin' new tips. The thing sounds MEAN, but there's a a moderate amount of drone. I'm actually loving the note from the muffler delete though. The car sounds totally different. Before, the exhaust sounds kinda flappy if that makes sense? Now it just sounds nice and throaty and you can almost hear every cylinder fire.

Not going to lie, the closest V8 I've ever heard to sounding like this is the GT350 which ofcourse is a flat plain so idk how this V8 sounds like that one...

Current setup is as follows: straight pipes from cat back. Most likely going to re-install the stock resonator to see what happens. Anyone have one for sale in the Bay Area? No clue where mine is...

Attachment 442542

:y

Nice fat booty

Audio/video clip?

Working on it. Have a cold start so I'll upload that shortly.

It's been raining here in CA, so I've driven the M3 instead... California probz. :D

i like how the m3 gets driven over the c63 for crappy weather nice lol

Were they new badges or did you paint the old ones? If old ones, what did you stick them back on with?

hahha Yes, definitely.

New ones.

This thread and a few more reviews on M3 forums have me seriously considering going with Muller coilovers through FA over H&R springs - thanks for the detailed review. Car looks beastly with the HMS fenders BTW.

Any updates after a few months of driving on them? Buying new, would you still go with 9k/11k? How does ride quality compare to the H&R springs you had on before?

I love the Muller's. I would however, go with a stiffer setup. I'd go with something along the lines of 11k, 16k, but that's just because I think they're a bit soft right now, even when comparing to H&R springs.

If you want a comfortable ride, 9k,11k, is perfect.

My buddy Matt Dion is a fantastic photographer as you can probably tell:

Attachment 442417

I linked his Instagram account to this photo so just click through should you want to see some epic automotive shots.

Shameless plug: He's always down to shoot automotive photography, so if you'd like something similar to above, either ping me or contact him via Instagram.

More to come when he's done editing.

This is wallpaper quality!

-Patel

Your car is perfect. The stance is is sunning! I think CF side skirt extensions would look nice on your car. Connecting the front lip and rear diffuser together.

Speaking of diffuser, where did you get yours? I need one for my car badly.

Sweet pics!

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mbw...6ddf6fbd06.jpg

WOA :y

Thanks everyone. Here's another one.

I also want to update on springs now that I've had a lot more seat time.

9k,11k right now at mid -damper stiffness is the most comfortable and compliant I've ever felt this car. Stock (P30), with H&R springs, and now with Mullers. It is extremely comfortable. The shocks do a great job of mitigating any vibrations or reducing any sharp impacts which otherwise might have been very jarring in the cabin with P30 suspension.

Mind you, I'm also on very hard Hankook RS3 tires. I can imagine one I install something softer like a Michelin PS4S or new Continental Extreme Contact Sport, the ride will be silky smooth, but I admit, might not be the best from a pure performance standpoint.

Given the seat time now, I would opt for 10k front, 14k rear springs.

Muffler delete with J-Pipe. Sounds godly. Will post video soon.

As can be seen in my earlier posts, did a muffler delete a while back, but the drone was starting to kill me.

Finally had enough and decided to research ways to mitigate it and came about something called a J-pipe which effectively cancels the drone sound waves if the j-pipe is fitted at the perfect length. Read up online if interested -- someone can explain the above more elegantly.

Since I didn't actually know the length I needed to cancel out the sound waves, I had a muffler shop create an adjustable j-pipe with a clamp that I could fine tune on my own time once I had more seat time. The initial length was set at 27 inches. Right off the bat, my drone was reduced 85%. A hugely dramatic difference.

I used these pipes to start off with since I wanted a mandrel bend:
Clamps:
It did quiet the exhaust down a little though, but I no longer have that annoying bass type noise neither in the cabin, nor outside.

The real difference with this exhaust as opposed to basically any that I have heard with the factory mufflers is the "flappyness". For some reason, the C63 mufflers give the exhaust note this sort of strange flappyness noise that I've never found to be too attractive. I've always been fond of BMW's S85 engine and the note from, and have always wanted my C63 to pur a bit more as opposed to sound flappy.

The beauty of this though is that this exhaust still barks, a lot.

My current setup is factory cats to straight pipes all the way back to muffler tips with j-pipes where the factory mufflers were.

Attachment 441976

I swear I'll get a sound clip in a few weeks (travelling).

New FL steering wheel being consrtucted by LedermanZ (highly regarded in the BMW community) in Latvia. Can't wait to get this thing on. Still to come is white cross stitching, the trim piece in gloss black, Brabus paddles and an OE leather stitched airbag.

His work is amazing, his prices are reasonable, and his communication is top-notch; he's constantly checking in to make sure he's building everything to spec via Whatsapp.

His ebay store is here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/ledermanz?_t...38.m2547.l7859

Attachment 441966

Edit:

The finished product.

Attachment 441967

Attachment 441968

Wheel is in.

Attachment 441074

Had to swap my chip from my old PFL wheel though... Was a huge pain but the DIY helped out a ton.

The Brabus paddles looking good... They feel much easier to pull on, but engage much sooner than the old ones. It's tricky to describe, but the paddles engage at the top of the press as opposed to the bottom.

Attachment 441921

Wheel looks great

I'll second that. Love the leather airbag cover. Sweet.

No more face shrapnel now?

Wheel looks fantastic! Did you decide not to do the trim in gloss black anymore?

I was debating if I wanted to get the stock paddle shifters covered in carbon fiber or opt for the Brabus ones.. These pics and your comment regarding the paddle engagement are making me lean towards Brabus when I order a new CF wheel.

Thanks.

I'm hoping now :nix:

I would love gloss black trim, but I can't wrap it well enough. I tried, but the little indentations where the silver buttons are on the FL are super hard to wrap over.

Before I got my carbon trim - which you should really look into anyway - I took off that trim and painted it satin black with spray paint. It came out way better than expected, and was down to the surface prep and many light mists. I'd look into doing it that way, it looked flawless on mine and was surprisingly durable.

I saw pictures of your trim somewhere on here and it looks amazing. The problem is, the only 2x2 weave I can find is a stick on, looks somewhat mediocre, and costs $275 from China.

Your exact trim is hard to find (where it says AMG at the bottom). I found a seller in the UK, but they want $500 for it... A bit steep for trim.

I might think about doing the satin spray. I think it would look better than the current silver.

You can buy the trim separate, its about £110 from Mercedes, It was in the E63 and SL

It's this one though, not the regular SL silver trim.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MERCEDES-AMG...53.m2763.l2649

The price is just ludicrous.

Yeah, I don't even want to admit how much I paid (it was around that). Just a stupid carbon trim piece, but for some irrational reason it just makes me feel happier behind the wheel. The leather airbag cover is a great touch too.

I might have my old painted trim piece lying around somewhere. If I find it, I'll send it to you so you can either use it like that or refinish it to your liking. I remember wrapping it up in bubble wrap before our move last Fall, but don't remember seeing it since. Give me a few days to track it down...

That'd be awesome. If you track it down, let me know. I'll pay for shipping of course.

Thought you meant just the silver one with thr silver amg logo, I have a contact in Europe that can make carbon parts or laminate originals that would probably do one alot cheaper if you supplied the original silver one.

Nice. I wonder how much he'd charge? You can guy the stick on ones for like $275, so not sure it'd be worth him doing it no?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Carbon-fiber...1Y6Htz&vxp=mtr

What rear diffuser do you have and how's the fitment? I'm having trouble finding a good one for the PFL. Ty!

Not sure. It came with the car. I'd suggest RW Carbon though.

Messege him

http://www.mcarbonparts.com/www.montanamg.ro

Yeah maybe I will. Thank you.

Also, new Work wheel caps to replace the uglies I had on there.

Attachment 441910

Updates to the benz.

Finally got sick of looking at my rusty and dirty rotors so cleaned, prepped, and painted them.

Attachment 441720

Also, finally got my custom rear control arms in with plates and universal perches bolted in so I can swap any off the shelf Swift or Hyperco spring in. My current 11k spring rate is just too soft for the rear so I'm jumping up to 14k.

Attachment 441721

Attachment 441722

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I just realized u painted the rotor bases haha...did u use caliper paint? Looks good!

I wish they'd change the default on quotes with images to change the img tags to url so we don't see the same images embedded over and over.

I know right?

To answer the other question -- just some Duplicolor Silver I have laying around the garage.

Been tackling a new front end "look" the past few days. Ordered Eagle Eyes FL style PFL headlights and retrofitted them with Morimoto EvoX-R 2.0 D1S Projectors. Some pics below of the progress. Given that these lights were made for a Halogen car. They need to be completely re-wired for a Bi-Xenon car. It's not that bad, but I'd had a TON of help from a member here, jptaylor.

Attachment 441629
Removed my front bumper to have as much working area as possible:

Attachment 441630

Baked the headlights open. 200F at 10 mins does the trick.

Attachment 441631
Attachment 441632

Removed old projector and started to clean up the wiring. The blue and red wires below are the positives for the LED's. The grey is the ground for the turn signal as well as the LED's. The green wire is the positive for the turn signal.

Attachment 441633

After that, it's quite easy to start testing with a 9V battery to make sure everything is working.

Attachment 441634

Time to start wiring the high beams and low beams.

High beams just ground to any wire and the positive is the other wire coming off of the projector solenoid. Either way can be positive or negative. This is wired to the high beam signal on the factory harness.

Attachment 441635

Next is time to remove the factory ballast plug.

Attachment 441636

Baked open my factory headlights to remove this plug.

Attachment 441637

All you really need is the 3 large wires.

Attachment 441638

They correspond to the following note cards. On plug #3, disregard the "black and green" note. Those wire to pin #2 on the factory harness.

Attachment 441639

Doing some testing to make sure my wiring was done correctly.

Attachment 441640

Final testing before baking the headlight back together.

Attachment 441641

If this is the first time you're doing this and are very diligent throughout the process, expect this to take you roughly 20 hours.

does the W204 have auto leveling motors?

Yes, I believe so. Gave those up with this mod, but I'm totally cool with that.

Wow man that's a big wiring job, looks killer!

Thank you!

Finally finished up. Now comes the adjusting of the headlight fitment and cutoff.

Some crappy pics I shot before calling it a night.

Attachment 441625
Attachment 441626
Attachment 441627Attachment 441628Also, installed Michelin's new Pilot Sport 4S in 235/35/19 to replace the Hankook RS3's which I do not recommend.

Attachment 441458

Would have personally stuck with the OEM front end.... This looks 'cheap' IMO.

Really? I think they give the front end a nice update. The PFL front end was starting to look a bit dated to me, but to each their own of course.

Yeah man, to each their own. I found your car perfect before these headlights.

Think it looks great. Really updates the look. :y

Thanks man. Some love it, some hate it, but I sure love it.

Speaking of lights -- if you want to send me some pics of your Depo lights, I can try to help out with your wiring.

A few small updates just for the sake of updating the thread.

Installed Fatcat Motorsports Hard bump stops. This allows me to run a softer damper and spring rate for the first inch or so of travel (think cobblestones) and after that, a hard bump stop to limit highway speed type suspension compression.

Attachment 441157

Had my rear fenders and side skirts repainted and fitted with XPEL PPF 30 days later to prevent rock chips. (They were constantly pelted prior)

Attachment 441158

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Attachment 441160

The dirt here is not under the PPF - only on the edge after driving home.

Attachment 441161

Really like those headlights, good job.

Thanks. Just the wide-body extensions in particular.

Thanks. Most folks seem to dig 'em.

damn this build thread is epic! love everything you've done man! is that rear flare custom?

Thanks. They're not custom, per se. They're HMS fenders. https://mbworld.org/forums/c63-amg-w...group-buy.html

I've been thinking about 507 stripes lately. Yes, yes, yes, I do not have a 507. But below is a scrappy mock up of what it's gonna look like. I went with grey to keep it a bit more subtle as opposed to black. I might not like them once I apply the vinyl to the car, but let's see.

Attachment 441083

Thanks. I'll debate it. I've been slightly torn between the two. I like that the grey will match the wheels and flow nicely, while the black may flow well with the black badges, and carbon stuff.

https://i.imgur.com/kKVgSt4l.png

Agreed. Black nor nada. If you want to be different, maaaaaybe CF-look vinyl. But I'd want to see it "live" on the car.

You can't be that close to selling if you're thinking about stuff to add to it... :stick:

Alright, let's go with black then.

Every time I realize how much effort (also money) I've put into the car, I realize that selling it would just be dumb. Realistically, I'd get someone coming from craiglist asking to buy it for "$27k because that's what the other PFL cars are going for". And the what, I'd turn around and buy another money pit (E90 M3). Not the best of ideas at the end of the day.

This should be an SC or Sticker thread...

Should we vote on it?

X3 for S/C!!

Oh yeah S/C it! otherwise what else you gonna do...

So have they narrowed down wheee the insulation problem is, or are they calling for a new harness ?

Fluke accident caused one heck of a situation in the engine bay...

Some how, some way, something must have gotten stuck between the block of the engine and this pulley which caused the pulley to be shaven on the backside a good 5 mm or so. (5mm thinner than it's supposed to be)

Attachment 441077

Because this pulley was thinner, the part of the belt that was hanging off of that pulley on the backside tore off about a foot and a half while the car was on essentially acting as a weed wacker in my engine bay. That weed wacking didn't slice, but exposed my camshaft position sensor wires which shorted my ECU.

They were able to repair the harness, replace the ECU, but now it's throwing another code so they're thinking something is up with the oil temp sensor or AC compressor. Fun times.

Wow.
Recently faced something similar. Was doing timing belt on the Subaru and saw a slice in the timing plastic cover. The a c belt jumped one groove because it was not OEM but Gatorback. As it was one groove off, it used that to slice through the timing cover. Underneath, the timing belt started to rub. .....

Very weird... I agree that it's one of the first things we should be looking for. A simple belt and pulley change, regardless of symptoms, could have saved me thousands.

When I noticed this issue, I replaced all pulleys with OE (about two weeks ago), replaced the belt, engine mounts, and transmission mount thinking the mounts were shot and the belt must have rubbed on something while driving causing the belt to partially shred. Of course, I did the pulleys last being the easiest, and it wasn't until I pulled the old shaven pulley out that I realized the pulley was shaven at all and that this was the issue. At first glace in the engine bay, everything seemed mechanically solid. Anyways, after discovering that, I thought I had dodged a bullet given that I drove the car around for a day or so without issue. I have a feeling a piece of belt got stuck in the AC compressor and also knocked out either some wiring, or my oil temp sensor all together which is I wasn't getting oil temp on the dash, and my fans were running at 100% even at cold start idle.

Yikes. Never did I think belts could be grenades.

How common is it to have the belt grenade? I've only heard of a handful happening because of neglect for the most part.

Didn't a few people loose coolant hoses and PS reservoir components as well?

What caused it?
The belt being old?
The idler bearing being wobbly?
The tensioner of the belt being old and not having enough tension?

I have a new belt, all new idlers but didn't replace the tensioner yet.

A little metal bolt on piece would be pretty wise. Maybe I'll work on something...

Probably not too common, but it's happened and when it does, it's costly. A few people have lost a lines etc. The damage all depends on how big of a weed wacker line the belt turns into. Maybe I was lucky with only a $2,400 bill? :nix:

No, read the post above. It was a pulley that was somehow shaved and became thinner causing the belt to partly hang off of the pulley. This broke a part of the belt and it started weed wacking the engine bay, per se.

Stripe mock up before applying. I'm somewhat on the fence.

Attachment 440981
Attachment 441069

I kind of preferred the gray but caught the post after decision for black was made so withheld comment but now that I see it on, I think it looks good.
With that said, I'm now picturing blacked out wheels as well https://mbworld.org/forums/images/smilies/smile.gif

IDK!!! I'm so torn. I feel like right now, the car has a bit of class to it. I think with the stickers, it looks a little "childish" if that's the right way to describe it? I agree it looks good, but I'm not sure I want it for my car if that makes sense.

Attachment 441065

Apply the stripe.... flows well with your car.

+2

If you move forward with the 507 trim sticker on a non 507 you should do this next.

https://www.dhresource.com/albu_3033...ctive-door.jpg

First you say supercharger, now you say more stickers to show the horsepower I have under the hood. Make up your mind dude... :nix:

There's room at the bottom to add the SC manu sticker :rolf:

You move to Texas and still showing the CA 1 sticker?? You're brave!
As for the 507, I agree that it looks good on the car. I don't think many people are really saying it wouldn't look good. I think you've got a bigger philosophical question of whether adding the 507 "exclusive" decal to a non-507 car is "appropriate", whatever that means, almost in the same way as adding an "M" badge or tri-color to a Non-M car. Sure they look legit, because they are after all factory designs, but do they belong? Do you care what any of us enthusiasts think? Are you concerned with giving the impression, mistaken or not, that you're trying to pass a non-507 for a 507 by doing it? Personally, my last car was white and I was a fan of black/white/carbon...

https://i839.photobucket.com/albums/..._1903_1024.jpg
https://i839.photobucket.com/albums/..._1905_1024.jpg

The day has come. It's up for grabs: https://mbworld.org/forums/market/715669

GLWS!

GLWS friend! Kinda sad to see it for sale :/

Have you decided on what cars you're looking for?
Giulia?
New E43 or E63?

P.S. I didnt like the sticker lol. I considered gray too. Settled on keeping my c class side trim in black.

Thanks man. I'm not too sure yet.

Super sad to see it go, but really want something under warranty as I just don't have time to deal with repairs, etc. myself anymore. It'll also prevent me from modding my car. A serious issue I have continually failed to address properly.

Ha! I'm temporarily living elsewhere. Never will I abandon the Bay Area or California in general. Too awesome of a place. Plus, I go back every 6 weeks or so which is nice.

As you all know, car is for sale. If I can't sell in the next few weeks as is, I'm going to start parting out some parts. See list below. All parts will require your factory part sent to me first so I can make the swap and then send you my parts.

1) Muller Coilover Set up with Camber Plates with custom rear control arms to accommodate Swift or Hyperco springs
2) Custom FL Steering wheel with leather wrapped airbag, Brabus paddles
3) RW Carbon Front Lip (will sell outright)
4) RW Carbon Rear Spoiler (will need factory white spoiler)

Not sure what else...

Picked up a Jaguar F-Type a week ago and sold the Benz today.

Thank you all for such a fun ride with the forum. I'll be back one day.

Attachment 440976