The Art of Restoring a Classic Car: A Personal Journey

As I stood in front of my beloved BMW, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. This car had been a significant part of my life for many years, and I had always dreamed of restoring it to its former glory. The process was not without its challenges, however. From the moment we started disassembling the engine, I knew that this would be a labor of love.

The first step in the restoration process was to remove the old mufflers. I left room for future modifications, knowing that one day I might need to add a resonator or two. My goal was to create a smooth and even sound, without sacrificing any of the car's performance capabilities. As we worked, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. This was it – my chance to bring this classic car back to life.

One of the biggest hurdles in our journey so far has been the axle shafts. Unfortunately, we had encountered some issues with them before, which made it difficult to determine their true potential. However, after replacing them with cryogenically treated axles from Alberto, I knew that we were onto something special. And, as if fate had other plans, our friend Simmons had kindly donated some of his own race car parts to help us out. His Simmonds hubs and bolts proved to be a game-changer in terms of reliability and performance.

As we continued working on the engine, it became clear that the old heat sinks were long gone. I knew that I would need to replace them with new ones, which I did. The added benefit was that this also allowed me to put new sensors in place, ensuring that they would last longer than their predecessors. It's amazing how much of a difference these small changes can make in the overall performance and reliability of a car.

One of the most significant upgrades we made was the installation of a turbocharger. I had always dreamed of having this capability, but it seemed like an impossible task at first. However, with the help of some new technology and a bit of trial and error, we were finally able to get it working. The sound of the turbo spooling up is music to my ears – a gentle whooshing noise that's both soothing and exhilarating.

Of course, no car is perfect, and this one had its fair share of quirks. I noticed that the wheels had become damaged at some point during mounting, so we decided to powder-coat them in gloss black as a precautionary measure. It may not be my personal favorite color, but it's a nice touch nonetheless.

As I reflect on our journey so far, I'm struck by just how much work has gone into restoring this car back to its former glory. From the turbocharger installation to the countless hours spent tinkering with various components, it's been a labor of love that I'm proud to have undertaken. And yet, despite all the challenges we've faced, I know that we're getting close to achieving our goal.

One of the most significant hurdles in our journey so far has been finding the right people to help us out. Unfortunately, we had encountered some issues with a previous tuner who couldn't quite get the car working as expected. However, after taking the car to Active Auto Work, I knew that we had finally found someone who understood what we were trying to achieve. Their expertise and attention to detail have been invaluable in getting this car back on track.

Now that we've made some significant progress, it's time to take a short break before tackling the final stages of our project. We'll be taking the car down to Miami next Thursday to get it retuned on the new turbocharger – I'm excited to see how she handles under the guidance of Active Auto Work once again. With any luck, we'll have her running smoothly and efficiently by the end of the week.

In the meantime, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our team for their hard work and dedication. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate your tireless efforts in keeping me busy while I've been away on this project. Your support has meant the world to me, and I'm grateful to have such a talented group of individuals behind me.

As I look back on our journey so far, I'm reminded of just how much goes into restoring a classic car like mine. It's not just about slapping together a few new parts and calling it a day – it's an intricate process that requires patience, dedication, and a willingness to learn. But the end result is well worth it – a beautiful, high-performance machine that I get to enjoy on the road and in competition.

One of my favorite memories from our time working on this car so far was during the turbocharger installation. As I revved up the engine, the sound of the turbo spooling down was music to my ears – a gentle whooshing noise that seemed almost symphonic in its simplicity. It's moments like these that remind me why I fell in love with cars in the first place.

Of course, this is just one chapter in the ongoing story of restoring my beloved BMW. There are many more hurdles to overcome before we can call her truly complete – but I'm confident that with our combined talents and expertise, we'll get there eventually. The end result will be worth it, I know – a classic car that's not only beautiful but also capable of delivering an unparalleled driving experience.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso I wasn't planning on really documenting this that much but I think I'm going to just in case interesting things happen and I want to start the the scene off here so it's a gloomy day out in Connecticut kind of goes in line with my mood you know it's really nice weather out but it's gloomy I'm a little bit sad to be leaving as I've told you guys I'm heading back down to Florida but it's important that I mentioned I'm not going back to Florida for good just yet I'm going down to Florida for about ten days I want to wrap up the super giveaway down there everyone wants to drive the Supra so I'm driving it down and my goal has been to see how quickly I can safely make it down there so right now we're doing our final wash on the Evo before I bend in her for about 10 days and then we are gonna embark down so I'm gonna kind of give you guys a little more of a rundown on what I've prepared the research I've done to figure out when I'm leaving why I'm leaving when I'm leaving and see how long we can make an 18-hour drive actually take with no stops and other than gas so I'm trying to try to make it a little more exciting because I hate long drives and right now it's predicting to get us there around 4 p.m. so or 346 I should say so let's see what we can do a little bit off schedule right now I decided to drive through the night don't flee avoid traffic and lots of cars and stuff so we'll see if that was a good idea or not it's currently 11:30 I think let me look at my phone it's 11 37 I wanted to leave closer like 9 p.m. but there was a lot of traffic going over the doors Washington Bridge and I wanted to sleep a little bit before I left so I got like two hours of sleep that way hopefully it'll be enough to carry me through so right now we are estimated to have a sixteen hour drive in eight minutes so we're leaving from Oxford Connecticut on the drive when I get time we'll kind of go over some of the stuff I've done to prepare to be able to get there in a good amount of time so we'll see if it works couldn't find my camera at the first stop and couldn't find my wallet so I lost a little bit of time there and just in Jersey where they have to pump gas but the dude was all about the cause and pump my gas fast so shout out to you I know you'll ever see this but a cool guy so anyway first look at the trip I missed my speed like average target by two miles an hour I think it's not the best way to start just because I was on the Merritt which is like super whiny not good visibility it was raining and then that of the George Washington it was really really hard to carry out the speed that I needed in order to hit the target in order to get to Florida in the time that I want but we managed to do that stopped probably in five or six minutes got to pee got gas I got my camera so I could film this gun so anyway back to a focused driving word about two hours in maybe to nap hours already had to fill up averaging like 80 miles to the gallon not the best but given the speeds it's not terrible I don't want to jinx myself I'm using the tunnel life right now by the way so you don't have all dark blog footage making great time and honestly I'm very very ecstatic that we haven't encountered many left lane hugs my biggest concern about putting a dent in our time and our average speed now I'm a little bit over the target which is good but yeah I was super worried about left lane hogs just that letting us through and then kind of causing traffic and issues I was a danger because if you get a pass on the right everyone's been pretty good there's been a lot of traffic it's late at night already go through the tunnel in Maryland so we're making a good time checking in I'm undoing my second fuel stop right now feeling decent I'm about to crack open my first energy drink I want a little bit of booze I'm gonna switch to a little bit more height playlist but I will say second gas tap already shaved off two hours off the whole Drive so it's all about careful planning that's all it takes gonna be them at the whole time it's just planning that's how I'm doing this also quick notes if you're wondering why I'm doing this like I'm kind of making the challenge for myself if I don't then I would be miserable and I wouldn't be amped on during this Drive so I like to make things into a little game and that's why I'm doing this to give myself a little bit more to you know really try and why am I being stupid Florida well Alberto and Shulman and all my friends on the floor don't want to see the Supra they want to be able to experience it there's some mods I want to do to the super down in Florida so decided I might as well drive it down like how it comes equipped with this beautiful ham and cheese made by yours truly it's 6:00 a.m. I think we've shaved over two hours now we're somewhere in North Carolina and it kind of sucks because I don't know if it's the state or if it's because people are trying to go to work I'm starting to deal with a lot of left lane hogs which is really annoying side note I love cars with extra-long gearing like having an eighth gear in this or like my Mustang having an overdrive and six amazing for highway amazing for like commutes for traveling at quick rates of speed very good that's like a number one thing that I would want in a daily and I'm glad that this has an HP because it's cool also it's been kind of annoying everyone like I've passed people and then they think because it's a super that I'm trying to race them they try to race me and it causes big problems because then they're like following me and it stresses me out and then I don't want to race I'm just trying to pick up time you know once we got into North Carolina that's when the left lane campers got kind of bad I don't know what we can do as a community to stop this but just a quick reminder the left lane is for passing not going the same speed or slower than traffic because you feel like you need extra room because you suck yeah so a lot of campers after I got in North Carolina and then I realized something they all have Florida plates so it's all the snowbirds heading back to Florida like me except they're old and suck at driving just made a last-gasp stop I think this is our fourth gas stop and we're in Florida we're in Jacksonville it was about 11 hours to get here overall to get home was probably to be like twelve and a half so half longer than I wanted but we're not gonna be able to make good time just because the fact that it's raining now it's starting to get a little tired but I got more energy drinks let it be known that I almost with the whole way without having any traffic which is kind of crazy you're just now having a little bit of Jacksonville I would have assumed if I left a little bit earlier maybe we wouldn't hit this but this might just be construction so I wasn't gonna say how fast I won or anything just because I don't want to obviously encourage speeding or anything like that just keep in mind there's a reason why I did in the middle the night they were like barely any cars on the highway and once there started be cars that's what I had to kind of chill a little bit but what I will tell you is for that basic entire stretch from Connecticut to Jacksonville I broke it up in like four different stints and like you stopped I got gas and each one was a little above or a little bit below an average of 100 miles an hour so not nothing too crazy this car at 100 drives like most cars at 60 it is extremely stable it is a BMW in that sense to where it doesn't really feel like you're going fast and to be honest even when there were other cars around people kind of average like 85 90 in the highway so it wasn't like we're just blowing five people but yeah in case you are curious I know people are probably like end up calculating anyway so if airplanes will tell you this last leg of the trip though because of the rain and there's like three accidents like a car rolled a car another car positioned on the jersey barrier like I'm just chilling just because there's traffic there's a lot of cops around and we made it without getting any tickets we made it to Florida you know what it's not worth me Steven another 20 minutes off dodging and we even through traffic for no reason whatsoever but I just thought it'd be fun to make it a little bit for him a challenge I probably did a terrible job documenting and I just did not want to film while I was driving because I was intensely focused most of the time both the whole time I had to make a pit stop at Starbucks to try to get through the day I decided rather than going home and taking a nap like I kind of wanted to it'd be smarter to power through it that way I can get and really start tomorrow so I gotta admit it's really weird being back I haven't really been in Florida since like like before May before at the Orlando so it's weird because everything's familiar but at the same time like it doesn't feel like my life anymore and it's very very weird feeling I don't really know how to explain it but it it almost feels like this was a period of my life in that period has passed so I don't know maybe it'll change the more I'm here but I'm feeling weird about the in here so we've officially made it to the shop I'm super tired but you know the first thing we got to do is have the man the myth the legend himself clean up the mess I made driving this thing down here what you think all right so there's a lot of new stuff going on with a shop but the first thing that I know you guys have been asking for a lot is an update on this thing look who it is Alberto are you can we get dinner together can we hang out and do non video stuff I thought he was gonna say he likes me alright so first thing I guess the thing that they already kinda know we can show keep up the hood for me real quick you guys remember I talked about putting a 3584 on this forever a garret GTX 3584 RS to make a little more power and get a little bit better spool Alberto yeah funny feels way better oh good point that it's drivable yet I don't know how to open the hood on my car it's been so long so you guys aren't really gonna be able to see it down here but I do have some photos from Alberto I'll put some photos in so we can show you but one thing we did find if you notice down there Alberto put a vibrant HD clamp in before there's a coupler there and it actually had a gnarly hole on it that is probably why the car drove so weird for so long it did so this thing's gonna be a new monster and now that it's all fixed up so what else we got in here those two so I spoke with some and 54 guys over in Oregon and they suggested me these coil packs because I guess some of the weird random stuff that goes on with n54 has to do with the stock coil packs acting up so I got the coil packs they recommended and hopefully they'll help it's kind of cool the 3584 is really really similar dimensionally and actually use the same flanges as the Zona rotor turbo that was in it originally so it didn't really take that much modification to make it work but Alberto did kind of redo the down pipe a little bit race works oh you made it you made a brand new downpipe old one is right here so what was the reason you made a new one just so you could go down to a three and a half inch on the bottom I made one I didn't want to hack this office it's like old all right here yeah skip this one is I gonna make one from scratch on three to three-and-a-half if you guys aren't familiar with this car 54 is in general just to do some basic background this car made about 750 you wheel before it'll probably make the same if not more at less boost with this turbo I know it'll make way more than we need but the problem is you start getting the danger territory with a completely stock engine so like we said three and a half inch exhaust if you guys remember I had a stock exhaust on this car for the longest time I was running an M Performance muffler with the stock exhaust which is I don't even know how big it is is there like two and a half inch so if you remember my car used to be very very quiet because of that but also restrictive not the best thing for a big turbo car it's weird sweating I haven't sweat in a while kind of uncomfortable I'm sticky and um but anyway Alberto may or may not have this up something cool for the exhaust so there was an exhaust back in the day that everyone always wanted for these cars it was an HP F three and a half inch exhaust is basically a straight pipe it sounded rad super light very simple I basically wanted Alberto to replicate that for my car so as you guys know I've become a pretty big fan of doing titanium stuff and I actually had some leftover titanium from the chaser Alberto you ever welded titanium before no I started with your exhaust so this is a full three and a half inch titanium exhaust how'd it go Alberto it looks pretty like it's really Pleasant - well titanium less it's just like it's like I don't know it's like well they're not momentum the feels are really soft this is even better and this is all very sticky material oh is this the first stuff you've ever back purged - yes so with titanium you actually have to back purge it and why is that Alberta sorry you're supposed to always stand still - but with titanium is that absolute must so every section have to be welded by all the hikers who are welding in sections Saucon first that make this longer and then I'll like fill the hole might put on the caramel and will that part together so it took a lot of hours - well this exhaust - this merge looks nuts so the way I did this like this so kind of like an almost mirror it in case you think it's too loud we're gonna always put either mufflers or resonators here to quiet it down sorry it prepared this hope your liking so I always like that this car was kind of a sleeper it was really quiet I like the fact that it's actually recirculated dump rather than being an external dump with the wastegate so you don't get that super loud obnoxious screaming and the car was so quiet that it was it was kind of weird because it was so fast but it didn't sound fast I'm worried that this is gonna drone I mean we'll see inline sixes or you can kind of get away with doing straight pipes on nine-sixes where you can't really with four cylinders because you get like gnarly drone six cylinders are a bit more balanced so you usually can but as he was saying he left room so if we have to throw mufflers in here we can we've just got one big resonator in there right now yeah I would have like if anything nightmare over here but you might like making a sharp bend here what are those dumb yeah this is gonna flow a lot better too I even put the nice heat sink bunks and everything on it so that Oh two sensors last a little bit longer yeah because we were having issues with them going bad are those brand new ones yeah sick no no one other weak link of this car too if you guys remember I broke an axle at the drag strip well we got an Alberto cryogenic treated axles and then also like Simmons here all your race cars have got normal washers on the auxin bolt so it doesn't come off so now we should be able to hopefully handle the power without breaking do this things are hard to replace I never replace access for 1990 or any tool before on it's almost impossible I have to replace a whole hub and not all on this side because the other axle will not come on that's crazy I haven't you suppressed I'm still I'm pretty excited to hear what it sounds like well started dude I don't film it from back here I'm really excited these car sounds so sick am I never really had a turbo whistle or anything is it going to be loud go for it and the turbo spooling at idle it pretty loud I can feel it in my chest yeah there you go it's not terrible we'll see we'll see I'll give it a chance give it a chance we're gonna let it warm up for a second also another minor thing that you might have noticed my wheels got messed up at one point from mounting them so we had a pre powder-coated in gloss black I don't know I feel about it we'll see once it sits on the ground but trying to get this thing back dialed in because those are you guys that have been around for a while this is like the car that kind of started it all for me with cars so I'm trying to get her back into a good state again you can kind of hear the spool down a little bit when you rev it yeah like you can Shh kind of like the airplane yeah give her a give her a little rev like a bump up great sound with twins and then you put a single on them they start to sound like an RV or like a JZ yeah sounds very smooth yeah so mind you this car is not tuned for the new turbo so we can't really rip on it we can like drive around and pedal a little bit but we're not really getting the full boost but we really shouldn't like grip on the rip on it but we are gonna get it tuned very soon I'll explain poor Shulman let's on yonder range that's Florida okay do you ship outs enough limiter yeah you're funny yeah so this is the exact same turbo that I have a minus fifteen that has made a thousand wheels so I know it's capable a lot of power but it's cool even just with a little like lawn Kitchell have in the car before it didn't really spill turbo at all listen spooling it now so it is currently down pouring like crazy so not the best scenario to drive the BMW around but maybe we'll take it out for a spin tomorrow and see it on your new turbo spools I'm like super super dead you guys remember we had a lot of issues with the BMW psi help me with the turbo kit and everything but we couldn't really get anyone that was able to tune the car properly until we brought the car to active Auto work they were the ones that finally got the car working if you guys remember the car was like in a bunch of different people's hands for like a year that active auto work got it tuned and it was ripping so I'm gonna take our back to them they're in Miami so I believe on Thursday I'm either gonna drive down our trailer down I haven't decided yet and then they're gonna retune it on the new turbo and we're gonna hand Miami for like a day or two so that's the plan so hopefully by the end of the week she'll be ripping but for now tomorrow maybe you guys can expect a couple driving around that I have some stuff to update you to the shop and if you guys do that rain it's crazy whatever you guys want me to do let me know and I'll do my best to do it you know there's a lot that's been going on I'm trying to keep you guys busy while I've been gone so there's a lot of projects and stuff lingering that I'll fill you guys in on but if there's anything specific you want me to talk about let me know I'll do my best thing yes\n"