🔧 BUILD IDAFC21's 2014 BMW M235i

General Information

Yes. I have decided to become a BMW M car knob. And yes, I know it's not REALLY an M car, so at least I still get to piss off all the M car purists who don't believe there should be an M on this car. (Or 17 M's, as the case may be. I've counted :rofl: )

To begin my knobbery, I shall provide a brief synopsis of the car, for the plebs that are unaware of what they're looking at. A few years ago the 2 series replaced the love-it-or-hate-it 1 series coupes as BMW's smallest car in the lineup. It got a complete redesign to make it fall more in line w/ the looks of the 3 and 4 series. It really does look like a mini 4 series. Your early options were a 220i or 228i, which had a 4 cylinder turbo engine, and were boring.

OR. You could go for the M235i. At the time there were no announcements about an M2 model, so this was the most M model you could get for the 2 series. What you got, roughly, were redesigned front and rear bumpers, better wheels and tires, larger M sport 4 piston/2 piston brakes, adaptive suspension, that wonderful M steering wheel, and most importantly, a proper turbocharged straight 6 engine that made 320hp and 330tq. Given the 235's small stature, (relatively) light weight, and near perfect 50/50 weight distribution, there are many who would actually liken this car to a mini e46 M3.

With that out of the way, the car i purchased is a 2014 with a mere 15k miles on it. I found it at CarMax of all places :rofl: and they were asking a very fair price for it, so it piqued my interest. I'd always been kinda interested in these cars, but never really seriously looked into them. I started watching every video review i could find on youtube, and it didn't take long to figure out this is a car I would like to own. Went and looked at it at carmax, drove it, and found that reviews had not been overexaggerated. I offered up my ST as a trade, they gave me what I thought was a pretty fair offer for a trade in, bada bing bada boom, you guys know how car deals work, the ST is gone, and this is now in my driveway.

Last night at carmax.

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This morning at work

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few more random pics

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As you can see I went with God's transmission, the ZF 8 speed auto. I was quite impressed with this transmission, and after 13 straight years of driving nothing but manuals, I was ready for something a little different. With how quick this trans shifts it's almost hard to believe its not a dual clutch. Plus it gets the DSG farts, even tho its not a dsg. And it makes me giggle.

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I'll try and get some more pics this weekend if i get ambitious enough to give this car a decent detail. It definitely needs it after sitting on that carmax lot for god knows how long. Theres a lotta hard water spots on the roof/trunk/hood i need to deal with. Otherwise its actually in pretty damn good shape. Couple scratches here and there, but again, it is a 2014 so i expect a few of those. At 15k miles this thing wasnt driven much more than I drove my ST :rofl:

It was optioned out fairly nice. I had to educate myself on BMW packages, but it does have the premium package, tech package, and driver assist package. I thought it might have had the cold weather package, but i think I just have heated seats. Cuz theres no button on the steering column for the heated steering wheel, and Im not sure if i have the headlight washers. The plates are there, but I think they're there on all the cars whether you have the system or not. Sadly I dont have the harmon kardon sound system, and this standard 6 speaker system just does not compare to the 10 speaker system that was in the ST. I'm also unsure whether I have the optional locking LSD, or the regular open diff. Only way to tell that would be to jack the rear up and try and turn the wheels and see what happens. Or I could just take the car out and try and drift it :rofl:

Overall the way this car was optioned out it was easily a $50k+ car brand new. I did not pay anything anywhere near that :rofl: That was actually one of the complaints people had about this car when it came out. BMW hid a lotta things that probably should have been standard on this car behind their option packages. I would NOT reccomend anyone buy one of these cars brand new, but in the used market, if you can find the right one, I feel like these are quickly becoming the bargain of the century for the amount of car you can get for the money. So far I love everything this car does, and theres so much god damn tech in this car its gonna take me a month to figure out everything this car can do. This morning before I went to work I programmed one radio station in, and paired the bluetooth on my phone, and that was it :rofl:

I still have the GTO at the moment. My ultimate plan was to find a car that could replace both of my cars because I've been growing tired of the 2 car thing. This car is definitely a competent replacement. In acquiring this car, I didn't have to make as much of a down payment as I thought I would to hit my target payment, so it's not AS crucial for me to sell the GTO, but I don't know. It's something im struggling with right now :rofl: But I will say anything is for sale for the right price. This may come a bit out of left field for a select few who thought I may have been headed in a drastically different direction, but I feel like I've made the right choice, as I usually see at least 11 of the OTHER car on every corner on my short 10 minute commute to work every day, and these are definitely not on every corner. Plus as it turns out insurance was way cheaper on this car than it would have been on the OTHER car.

Anyways, TL : DR. ST-OUT. BMW-IN. #Knoblife

IDAFC21

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The gummy bears I ordered showed up!!

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Oh and they also threw some spacers in the box as well. I really need to find more reasons to order from Bimmerworld.

Got my wheel bolts also. Yay more removing/replacing wheels this weekend! I feel like I could audition for a spot on a pit crew by now.
 

IDAFC21

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You keep all these different bolts in boxes with the size written on them or how do you keep them straight?

My stock bolts are just in a ziplock bag right now, the bolts that came w/ my BMS spacers had their own packaging that have their sizes labeled on them, so I just returned those bolts to their packages. My apex bolts that I have on the rears now, i'll probably just toss those in their own bag also :LOL: They're all stock length bolts anyways. The only ones i need to make sure I dont mix up are the ones that go to my 12 and 15mm spacers
 
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IDAFC21

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Got my rear 5mm spacers on today. Definitely a nice improvement. I actually wouldn't mind a TINY bit more poke, but if I go up to a 10mm I still think that would be too much, considering how the 12mm looked when I tested that. I'm happy with this for now tho.

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And EmersonHart13 EmersonHart13 , both my cars, in sunlight, at the same time!! ?

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And by itself

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And I also did figure out what was rubbing in front, and I was wrong, it appears my tires are just kissing the inside lip of the fenders when I go over bigger bumps. It's not major, hasn't cut into the tires or anything, but now I need to figure something out. Don't really wanna raise the fronts more than I have now. Might have to look into how to roll the front fenders. Never done that before.

Drivers side

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Passenger side

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You can KINDA see a line where its rubbed on the tire.

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Luckily most of the roads I drive on are smooth. I just need to watch it in a couple spots until I figure out how to rectify this.
 

IDAFC21

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I can’t keep up with your spacers, do you have them on in the front?

:LOL: Yes, I'm on 5mm all around now


Looks great Paul, looks like it is rubbing in a pretty small area. The way I did the rear fenders on the Mustang was with a heat gun and a dead blow hammer. Take your time and make small movements with the fender.

Interesting. Thanks for the tip. Gonna have to start doing some research
 

greasy

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:LOL: Yes, I'm on 5mm all around now

Do you need to be on a 5mm spacer in the front? That could save your fender work right there. Also the rears are tucked slightly more so in theory your could remove the front spacer and match the rears right now?

Ok good. I don’t feel responsible for 235’s rubbing then :rofl:.

I am holding you financially responsible for any body damage that may occur.
 

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2-3mm in front and 7mm in the rears.

Because I want someone else to buy the same part over and over again like myself. :rofl:

I think the car looks great. But the correct spacers above and should be money. Mainly getting the rears out more.

Also, do you have max camber upfront? I think I read somewhere you had maxed that out as far as stock parts will allow.
 
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IDAFC21

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Do you need to be on a 5mm spacer in the front? That could save your fender work right there. Also the rears are tucked slightly more so in theory your could remove the front spacer and match the rears right now?

2-3mm in front and 7mm in the rears.

Because I want someone else to buy the same part over and over again like myself. :rofl:

I think the car looks great. But the correct spacers above and should be money. Mainly getting the rears out more.

Also, do you have max camber upfront? I think I read somewhere you had maxed that out as far as stock parts will allow.

I need the front spacers for inner clearance, definitely w/ the 235 tire. I'm not sure if I could drop down to a 3mm w/out any issues or not....... As for the rears, the only smaller sizes Apex and Bimmerworld make are 3mm and 5mm. Turner Motorsport does sell a 7.5mm... But god I do not wanna buy any more spacers :LOL:

Not sure what my camber is at up front, I'd probably need to get camber plates if I wanted to mess w/ that any further
 

greasy

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I need the front spacers for inner clearance, definitely w/ the 235 tire. I'm not sure if I could drop down to a 3mm w/out any issues or not....... As for the rears, the only smaller sizes Apex and Bimmerworld make are 3mm and 5mm. Turner Motorsport does sell a 7.5mm... But god I do not wanna buy any more spacers :LOL:

Not sure what my camber is at up front, I'd probably need to get camber plates if I wanted to mess w/ that any further

You mean buy more gummy bears?
 
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IDAFC21

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Was bored the other night looking thru amazon, and came across a shifter paddle set I thought I'd give a try. They were only 58 bucks and its the entire assembly, not some cheesy stick on junk that you just paste to the back of your existing paddle. They're not fancy carbon fiber or anything but they look factory and a little sportier than the stock paddles IMO. For 58 bucks I thought why not give em a shot.

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gotta pop the airbag out to get at em, but they're only held in by 1 T20 torx screw. There's a couple methods of swapping out paddles in these cars, and one involves keeping the stock actuators and just swapping the paddle on, which i tried first, but it was not to be. The paddles are held on by a little plastic pin thats smaller on end than the other. You just pop the pin out and the paddle comes off. Well of course with these paddles the ends were the opposite way, so I could not slide the pin back in with the stock actuators, so everything had to come out. Oh well.

New on left, stock on right

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And all done!

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Went out for a quick test drive. I'll have to give these some more use before I decide how I really feel about em. They do feel good, but you pretty much have to pull them in the middle where the actuator is. If you try and pull them up near the top, they just dont have the movement to press in the actuator. Which kinda defeats the purpose of a taller paddle, but meh. Even more odd......if I pull the downshift paddle near the top, it will sometimes UPshift the car........ I can't explain that one. But its perfect if you're right in the middle of the paddle.

Again, for 58 bucks they were worth a shot for me. I do like how they look, and I only occasionally use the paddles when I'm feeling extra sporty. If I get tired of them it really doesn't take that much time to swap the stock ones back in.
 

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