Cosmos Widebody Turbo Build

[3literheater]

Hey guys

My buddy bought a e36 M3 due to his e46 M3 vert getting rear-ended and totaled. The e36 already had a AA stage 2 turbo kit on it, but we are upgrading it to a 35r setup.

Poor e46 M3 vert:





















The Car:













Cosmos 95 M3 3-liter with Reiger Infinity I fender flares
MA Shaw LTW high rise spoiler
Hamann LTW replica front splitter
3" Exhaust
UUC Short shift and DSSR
Autopower Roll-bar
Black Powdercoated CSL replica 18's
LTW flywheel
600ft-lb torque clutch
Ported and Polished head
UUC Tranny mounts
Bilstein Gruppe N Coilovers
RD sways
GC Rear Control arms
SPC Camber plates
Alpina rear diff cover
Brembo front BBK
Stainless brake lines
6-point harnesses
Corbeau Seats
Full Aluminum Radiator
Spal Pusher Fan





Our parts so far:

gt35r82r anti-surge compressor housing, T3 flange 4 bolt, 4 inch intake, 3inch v-band exhaust
24x12x3 intercooler
Delphi #50 injectors
Walbro 255
AA manifold
Tial 50mm blow off valve
Tial 38mm wastegate
Porsche 803
Manual Boost Controller (not sure which one to get yet..do you guys have any suggestions?)
S54 Oil housing
AA OBD1 Tuning (From Mike R.)



Out with the old in with the new:





So we are doing a full black interior swap, custom turbo system, rebuilding the brakes, widebody fender flares, full cooling system with a huge oil cooler, and a bunch more stuff.

Its kind of a picture book so I hope you like it

[3literheater]

Dropped the front Subframe and did the oil pump nut:





With Red Loctite and Safety wire:





The oil pan off with the stock baffle we will be replacing it with the VAC one:





The old oil drain which we moved the new one a little higher up:

[3literheater]

38mm wastegate:





50mm blow off:





We gusseted the front subframe:











Then we cut the room for larger tires on the front:








Turbonium:






Then cleaned up the oil pan for welding:






The first blood of the project:





The rear brakes being rebuilt:





The flash caused a white wash so Josh looks like Casper...lol

[3literheater]

Cutting the rear fenders:














The weld bung for the oil pan:





The machining of the manifold:





The metal is really hard so we had to make the hole close to perfect with a file:





The black dash:

[3literheater]

Here are pics of the VAC baffle. I was never able to find that much good information on the baffle systems available for our cars. So I guess I will provide it.

















The stock baffle out:





The way the new baffle goes in:

[3literheater]

And now for the oil drain. We sanded down the the long rib on the side of the pan and sanded the old oil drain down. Then drilled the hole for the new drain.








We welded the old hole closed





From there we welded the oil drain at the same angle as the stock drain plug. Our welder laid down some nice bead on the inside and outside of the pan. I figure if the oil can drain out of the pan at that angle, then the oil should be able to drain out of the turbo.











Once all of that was done we welded the baffle in place. All you have to do is slide the baffle posts in the stock location and run a bead in the place of the old one.





The Vorshlag Mounts:





The Hallman MBC:

[3literheater]

The Stewart Water Pump:





Mike Radowski Diff bracket:





The tabs for the intercooler mounting:





The intercooler template:








Finished the modifying of the rear fenders for some huge meats in the rear. So with the spring out we tested the car under full bottom out and we still had an inch of clearance. That was with lifting the car off the jack stand in the one corner. If the tire was ever able to make it through the bump stop it would still hit smooth metal and nothing would get hurt. If you wanted to do this yourself I would suggest using 18 gauge steel with a 120 volt Mig welder with argon gas. Also the most important element was an auto-darkening helmet borrowed from one of our good friends (thanks Bob). This fender is so strong it almost feels like a lift point on the car.





The 50lb injectors:








To do the fenders we had to know how high we could cut them with the Reiger flares. They were previously installed on the car so we knew how high we could go. You could do the same thing by tracing the outline of the fender on the car and moving your cut line 3/4" down from that outline.


We had three pieces of metal to tie back into once the fenders were cut. So we basically made puzzle pieces to go in place. Thats why you can see three different weld lines. You cannot put a solid bead on the fender because it is too thin and will warp the body from too much heat. We spaced the tacks 1/8" or less and nothing warped at all. The fenders are really strong now.

We used 18 gauge sheet metal, a small 4" cut off wheel, a sanding disk, and a small Lincoln MIG welder with the argon/co2 gas hooked up, .30 copper coated wire, and a auto-darkening helmet. FYI it was very low budget as far as tools and materials go.

The metal we grafted in place is very solid and flat if the tires were to ever hit it.

To seal the fenders off we will use Krylon primer to keep the rust out, then undercoat to seal off the water from getting in any of the holes that may still be there.

I will have pics of the fenders all sealed up later.

[3literheater]

We got our tuning in from Active Autowerkes.








Mike Radowski sent us our first shipment of parts. The Walbro GSS341 Fuel pump (AKA Walbro 255) and install kit.

I had trouble finding the correct install kit. This one consists of:

1) Walbro GSS341
2) Two Blue 16-14 gauge butt connectors
3) Foam sleeve. Dimensions are 3.5" long, 2 1/8" in diameter, and 3/8" thick
4) Fuel filter
5) 14 gauge wiring harness
6) Filter Retainer
7) Two 3/4" hose clamps

[3literheater]

OK guys here is the some more on the fenders. We prepped them for primer by knocking off any slag and sanding the sheet metal a little bit. On the fronts we just taped them off so we could prime and paint the cut edge.

Here is the rear fenders ready for primer.















Then we fully taped off everything so we wouldn't get the paint on anything but the bare metal.

[3literheater]

The fenders after primer:




















Here are the front fenders with just the primer. The weird spots on the fenders are from the old epoxy that held on the fender flares. Once the car gets the fenders flares molded in they will be attached properly.








The passenger side rear fender with the first coat of undercoating. This stuff is really thick like tar and completely sealed the fenders off from water.











We finished the painting on the fenders. They look really good. Now we just need to reattach the fender flares and the widebody is done.

We got another shipment of parts from Mike Radowski.

The Porsche 803 HFM and the Mike R turbo motor mount.

[3literheater]

We got the PWR 57mm radiator in and its huge.








Now to the intercooler. We had some 6" x 2" quarter inch thick brackets welded to the sides. We decide to use the bumper shock studs to mount the intercooler. It almost fits perfectly in between them and takes absolutely no cutting of the bumper support. We cut off the bottom intercooler mounts and gained 3/4" of bumper/splitter clearance.

My style of modding is to modify as little OEM stuff as possible. Also mounting the intercooler like this provides enough clearance for people that have the OEM LTW splitter because you don't have to cut the bumper support and that is what actually holds the LTW splitter in place.

We cut the brackets we had welded on at a slight angle and then cut half circle provisions for the bumper shocks.

















And some pics without the bumper shocks in:

[3literheater]

We also put the Euro/s54 oil housing on for our oil cooler.





We put new SPC camber plates on the TMS Bilstein Group N World Challenged suspension. They had crappy K-Mac plates on there before. Notice the huge shock piston. It is almost 2" in diameter.







We got the whole front end of the motor reassembled. Some old school underdrive pulleys gave us a little trouble until we realized that we were supposed to replace the one power steering bolt with a socket head cap screw.





We got our huge Fluidyne oil cooler. This thing is going to take some custom modification to shoehorn it in there.









We got our JYD connector in for the Porsche 803 HFM.







Here are the pictures of the intercooler mounted up for now. The oil cooler will be sitting on top of it.









And a cool part we got for the interior. An MTech II steering wheel covered in alcantera.








Our reinforced tranny brace:











We also got our AN line kit for our Euro oil cooler:

[3literheater]

So we got the turbo manifold back on and hung the turbo to mock up the charge piping. Our oil drain is just about perfect. Just a little 7" line should do.








And the tranny brace mounted up:





Our universal charge piping:





Oil distribution block shipped from the UK for only $15:





The clearance for the turbo from the new motor mount:





Our AN fittings:





We painted the old exhaust:





Dynamated the trunk:





Got an MA Shaw CF GTR hood to put on this one only weighs 15lbs and the weave is pretty good:

[3literheater]

So we got our electric fan setup in. It is the Spal fan that puts out 1610 cfm and is 2.48" thick. I hope it puts out enough air to keep the car cool in our hot summers.





Got our -10 AN line:





The fan is pretty easy to install. I centered the fan and clamped the straps to the radiator. You have to off set the hole on the strap in order not get in a larger hole on the radiator(you wouldn't need to do this if the fan was a little off center). Then I primed, painted, and pop-riveted the straps to the radiator.
















I was able to get the stock shroud on the radiator with no modification. I think I do want to trim it down to make it have more clearance between the resevoir and the valve cover. The clearance between the fan and water pump is about a 1/2"






Here is the clearance from the oil pump nut:





I made a tight radius 90 degree for the bend off of the throttle body. It came out really good. We are trying to figure out what finish we want on everything...so for now its brushed aluminum.









So I got the last tabs welded on top of the intercooler. It all fits up perfectly and the intercooler and oil cooler will be mounted so bomber that you could pick up the car with them. I also welded on some tight bends for the charge pipes so we could still use brake cooling ducts. For the hot side 2.5" charge pipe I put relief cuts in it and flared it out to 3". We should only have 2 silicone couplers per side of pipes.











To mount the oil cooler on top of the intercooler we drilled out some 3/4" holes in the top bar and machined some threaded plugs to fit down inside them. Yes we loose 3/4"of the cooling fins, but this way it is mounted clean with our space constraints.








As for the oil cooler I had to cut off that top bung to clear the radiator support. We welded it shut and drilled the mounting holes in the mounting brackets we welded on.







You can see the whole assembly as one bolt on unit.

[3literheater]

We got the black rear quarter panels in, the roll bar bolted in with all new grade 8 hardware, and the black dash in.

We put the FMIC and Oil Cooler in place, but my camera went dead before I could get pictures of it. We figured out the oil cooler line routing. We tried out the front bumper fitment and we have more than enough room for big a$$ brake ducts.

We also got the Walbro 255 installed. It was kind of a bitch with the foam sleeve. It takes quite a bit of force to get the Walbro in there. We used a Mag Light with the battery cap off of the back to push the pump in the correct location.

With all the ifs, ands, and buts about the wiring of the Walbro we soldered in the 12 gauge wire all the way to the stock pins on the bottom and covered them with heat shrink. We will replace all of the stock wiring eventually with a thicker gauge.











We got the exhaust hanging again and the rear bumper back on and trimmed for the wider tires. Now we just need to reattach the fender flares to the rear and its done.










We got all of the trunk carpet back in and the Water Injection reinstalled. We also came up with a tentative place for the Nitrous bottle to sit for the intercooler fogger.









Here are a couple interior shots with the Lux door panels on, the black rear quarters in, and the dash mostly installed. We are not going to put the black carpet in until we fab up the harness mounts and weld them in.










We are going to micro-suede the rear deck in black and probably the headliner and A-pillars too.





We also made a run to ATP Turbo to pick up all of the turbo plumbing parts and silicone connectors we need. We bought an A/C system and it will be going back in the car too.





The wastegate parts and 3" V-Band for the down pipe.





We got the intercooler modified and finished the cold side pipe. We just need to have it completely welded.