So I'm the old head helping my 19 year old son. He had a BMW 335xi and all the sudden decided to want to learn to drive a manual and targeted purchasing a MS3. Took us a few weeks but we were finally able to pick up a 2011 1-owner car, with 64k miles with tech package. Only modification is a air intake and a shitty one at that so that will be replace shortly with something of quality. Looking at the Cobb, CorkSport and HPS. Will have to do some more reading to make a decision but most likely Cobb as his plans in the future is to mod the car to his liking, I'm just here to guide and help out the most I can. The dealer did some initial maintenance prior to putting the car up for sale so I know the jobs that don't need doing. On the list is trans, brake, power steering and coolant changesand cabin filters. Will also be doing heavy interior cleaning and leather conditioning. Exterior wise we will do usual wash, clay bar, polish and wax just to freshen everything up and protect. Kid already has ordered big mouth grille as his first change to the car. Front bumper needs a respray so will wait for grille to arrive since they will be pulling the bumper to paint so they can just pop in the new grille real quick before putting it back on the car. Today I did notice part of the front fender liner is gone and no jack in the car so will probably visit a salvage yard to find a wheel jack and just order the fender liner online. Great site here, been doing as much research on how and what to use on these cars. Sure we will be asking some questions in the future.
Whalecum. Cobb intake is stock sized maf should be fine, I never had issues. Also Pete has autotech hpfp internals on the way thanks to @L337TurboZ to pair up with them.
Well today turned out to be one of my least productive days turning wrenches. Took off the belly pan to change the transmission fluid with TriboDyn and couldn't get my socket wrench to squeeze between the bolt and the lower control arm, no luck with breaker bar either. Thought about running to the store to buy a 15/16 wrench to get in there but ehhh figured just bolt the belly pan back on and lets do the spark plugs. So get to taking TMIC cover off, breather hoses off, loosen hose straps, unbolt the 3 intercooler bolts and think shit I didn't see the spark plug socket in the drawer. WTF can't find the damn spark plug socket anywhere. At least I didn't get to pulling the IC completely off. Put everything back together. WTF! By this time we only have another hour or so of daylight so no use running to the store now. After all this all just, to say we did something I had some spare LED bulbs from the swap I did in the wife's CX-5 that we swapped out all interior and license plate bulbs to LEDs. Minimal but at least we did something. Off to the store tomorrow to buy tools we will need but its going to be cold and possibly snow some so we have to leave it for another day. Kid also wants the side mirrors black. Gonna take a look at those shop manuals to see if i can locate how to remove the side mirror cover to either wrap or paint. Feels like I can just get my nails and a plastic pry tool to pop them off but don't want to break anything. Checked YouTube but none showing the side mirrors with turn signal so need to dig a little deeper and here is to hoping that when those HPFP internals arrive shit goes smoother than today.
24mm socket for the trans drain / fill iirc, it does need to be short, I know some people have gotten a cheap socket and shortened with a grinder to make it a very shallow socket to make it fit. I believe I had lowered the car a little so that the control arm was partially engaged in order to fit my socket in there.
I remember seeing the ridge towards the front side of the car but not the back side of the car, Almost like you could get a wrench in there if you came at it from behind the control arm. Might have to look for a lower profile socket wrench and or create a shallower socket via some grinding the way Awafircan mentioned.
Wait what are you guys doing on the back? I have to go look at my car but I'm pretty sure everything is on the front.
What I mean is if you go at the drain plug lets say by crawling under the drivers door I don't think there is a ridge there. IIRC the ridge isn't all the way around the plug but rather just on the side closest to the front of the car.
