Newera's other project... A sort German version of the AE86.

[Miguel - Newera]

Some of you asked on the thread about our AE86 to post pictures of the M3, so here it is. Having got married, had a baby and getting more and more busy working on customer's tuning projects progress has been slow, as I only put in time when I can spare it - It's still not finished (Is a car ever? but a lot's been done so far.

Brembo brakes (front) and brake ducts with proper motorsport hose and attachments to take cool air to the centre of the discs took me a good 5 hours of fiddling to get right, but the result will hopefully mean never cracking or warping the discs.





As this is a road car, suspension needs to not only be comfortable enough to accomodate my wife and baby on long trips to see the inlaws, but also not be too low to get into our steep drive, etc. Replaced the front arms, fitted Treehouse Racing bushes and stronger rear top mounts. I'd been afraid the ARB's I'd chosen would be too thick, but car rides well and has no noticable roll

I'd wanted to fit Defi gauges, as used on my other 2 cars as these have excellent accuracy and having user pre-set audiable warnings - would give me ample warning if anything ever were to go amis. The oil temp sensor is longer than most and the adaptors available for fitment to S14 motors wouldn't work. It took me some time to find a suitable sandwich plate and shorter oil filter to fit in the standard location, but resolved the problem using parts we usually supply for Japanese performance cars.
The filter has a magnetic trap and can be dismantled & cleaned - with the main benefit being that any steel particles caught can be analysed for wear.
Never have to buy an oil filter again either





I fitted a DTM style exhaust - which is too loud. Have now got some stainless steel 500mm resonators with stainless (As opposed to fibreglass) wadding, complete with custom made brackets to hold these around 3mm apart. Need to find some time next month to make use of a friend's tig welder to fit these properly. Will be nice to hear that special DTM carbon intake roar - which has been AWOL since switching from the standard exhaust!!

Whilst looking at the front, some of you might like this. A spring loaded hinged mount. At slow speeds the plate's vertical:

At higher speeds... ahem, it's not:


Mapping has been fun. I've spent far too much time tweaking and adjusting target AFR's on closed loop, to see what differences are, then adjusting to make error correction the least possible before changing to open loop for best ECU response. I've found an alloy adjustable FPR for Porsche 944 which looks as if it'll fit the standard fuel rail, so I'm looking forward to fitting this then adjusting mapping again. The more I tinker, the better it gets

Not being built by me, but by Techno Pro Spirits (Who built my AE86 engine a few years back) none of the engine components were photographed before being assembled unfortunately and I hope to never see them again! Briefly - spec consists of: Arrow Forged rods, custom designed forged slipper pistons of compression ratio 12:1, modified head with enlarged intake ports, Schrick valve springs, Schrick 284 & 292 cams with 11mm lift, titanium retainers, 48mm Evo throttle bodies, custom ingition chip in standard ECU with 8250 rpm rev limit, Alpha-N version 3.07 ECU, Maxx-Automotive carbon intake (Larger version) with snorkel and filter unit.
Whilst the engine was a project I preferred to just keep my head down and forget about it as much as possible whilst the car was away for over a year.

The new engine pulls very hard and I'm happy with the power it's making. Roughly 280 bhp. Plenty of torque is now fully run in and pulls strongly all the way to just over 8,000 shortly before the limiter cuts in. It always puts a smile on my face and the fact I seem to play with this more often to the other toys means it's working out to be more of a usable car. It's a corker!

Had some fun yesterday with two new M3's which responded by chasing me when I passed them... Not a full out race, but I think they were surprised at how well the old car could fly. A new M3 should be quicker with 400 bhp or so - but I didn't have trouble putting space between us when they begaun to try and keep up.
It's a hoot to drive. I'll take some proper video footage sometime, but l want to finish it properly first.. There are still a few things left to do
Everybody who sees it here in Japan seems to love it....

A friend who's really into car polishing spent an afternoon with me on it. We clay bared it then polished with some light duty Pooboys compounds, finishing with a good wax and sealant - using two Portercable machines with suitable pads. Paintwork came out a treat. Some excellent car cleaning products are available from http://www.autogeek.net

Here's some pics taken recently of how she looks now.