BMW leaves F1

Pretty bad news for us Bimmer fans. Well at least the WTCC is bringing a bit of consolation for us lately. Below are excerpts of BMW's departure from F1.

BMW confirmed this morning that they are to leave Formula One at the end of the season stating that the resources ‘freed up’ from its exit from the sport will be deployed in other areas. The German car maker took over the Sauber team in 2006 and has since gone on to record one victory.

“Of course, we, the employees in Hinwil and Munich, would all have liked to continue this ambitious campaign and show that this season was just a hiccup following three successful years,” said BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen. “But I can understand why this decision was made from a corporate perspective. We will now focus sharply on the remaining races and demonstrate our fighting spirit and put in a good result as we bid farewell to Formula One racing.”

The current season has been a struggle for the Hinwil-based team with Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica 13th and 15th in the championship respectively.

The team had expected to challenge for the championship this year having recorded its first win with Kubica behind the wheel last year in Montreal.

However the F1.09 has not proved competitive and despite the various aerodynamic updates, remains one of the slower cars in the field.

“It only took us three years to establish ourselves as a top team with the BMW Sauber F1 Team,” began Board of Management member Dr. Klaus Draeger. “Unfortunately, we were unable to meet expectations in the current season. Nevertheless, our ten years of Formula One experience have had a major impact on our development engineers. We have racing to thank for numerous technological innovations as well as the competitive spirit that drives us to develop mass-produced cars.”

The team stated that redundancies at both Hinwil and Munich “cannot be quantified at present.”

It is expected that the signing of the long-awaited Concorde Agreement, the legal document that ties the teams with the sport’s governing body and the commercial rights holder, will be completed shortly.

However, this makes the coming days critical for the sport as rumours persist that BMW may not be the only car-maker looking at its option before agreeing to remain in the sport until the end of the 2012 season.

Ongoing speculation suggests that both Toyota and Renault are considering their future in the sport, speculation that will only be heightened by BMW’s surprise announcement today.

2010 5 series

Here are some renderings of the new 5 series. According to forums, this are the closest to the real front design of the new 5. It looks great and I can almost see the value of the current 5 plummets to god knows how low. Thats the bad thing about owning a bimmer. The new model designs really makes the generation before look bad.

Mod wisely

Came across a great article about why you shouldn't mod your car with real race car components. Seeing this phenomenon on the streets everyday I thought it's really appropriate that drivers understand the concept of modding for streetcars.

Race components are designed for track use and nothing to do with using it for the street. So while we all mod to make it look great we spare nothing in terms of usability, safety and performance.

Below are some excerpts from the article:

"Our racecars idle at 2000 rpm and they live between 6000 and 8300 on the track," says Clay. "That's where they make power. Big cams and a wide-open exhaust work great on track cars and make good high-end power, but if you want your street car to come off the line strong, this setup will hurt your low-end power and you won't be happy with your investment. This definitely applies in choosing turbo sizes--decide what rpm range you'll be running, and remember a big horsepower number is pretty meaningless in real life."

You wouldn't want a race engine underhood anyway. This one is dry-sumped, with a sleeved block, custom pistons, rods, camshafts, lifters and springs, and it needs a rebuild after every 25 hours of operation--if nothing goes wrong. The incredible Ducati-like throttle blips are the result of ridiculously light rotating mass, primarily the flywheel and clutch assembly. You'll never replicate it on the road. Clay says that the most common misapplications of race parts are the clutch and flywheel. "The 4.5-inch twin-disc clutches on our racecars allow the engines to rev incredibly quickly and sound cool, but new clutch disc thickness is 0.106-inch and worn out is 0.095. And if you try to slip the clutch to start the car smoothly, you'll be through that material in a matter of days."

Much of the bad-ass suspension present on the BimmerWorld racecar, like the Moton four-way adjustable Clubsport spring-and-damper assemblies, is designed to work with a racecar chassis. That is, your street car has enough chassis flex that it's often tough to tell the difference between a good suspension and an extremely high-end variant, even in lap times. Feel free to try and make your chassis this stiff, though--BimmerWorld estimates about 450 hours of metal work and fabrication per car, and about 200 more building the subassemblies and putting everything back together. Even if you've pulled it off--"Race parts are meant to be strong and durable, but not always to have a long lifespan," Clay says. "We typically spend about 10 hours per car inspecting and replacing parts after each race weekend." That's after three hours of running.

It's an easy mistake to make. After all, the fastest variant of your car is invariably a racecar. Since you want your car to go as fast as possible, common sense dictates emulation. But the fact is that the parts that make cars go fast on the track aren't the same as those required to make your car fast on the street. And more importantly, as tough as race parts are, they're designed to stand up to a certain type of rigorous treatment--the kind that doesn't involve potholes, rain and snow, and soccer moms.

In some cases, race parts do work on street cars, but as Clay points out, the benefit is usually not worth the cost. Take the giant Performance Friction brake setup on the BimmerWorld 325. Just about any street car can benefit from four-piston calipers all around and floating rotors up front, but it's the brakes' ability to radiate the massive amounts of heat generated throughout the course of a race that makes them really worth the money. And as with the tires, you're not going to want to use racing brake pads on the street, because they'd simply never reach operating temperature.

According to Clay, the 2008-spec BimmerWorld cars cost about $240,000 to build, and there are now 14 people on the team, which campaigns three cars at around a million bucks a season. In a given season, the team can paint and replace as many as 30 sets of fenders. Typical damage costs range between $30,000 and $40,000, but are sometimes much higher. But the cost is finally paying off--Bimmerworld had its first World Challenge win at Road America just last year.

So before you find yourself with an empty wallet, sitting in traffic, and attempting to slip that three-puck race clutch without kicking and bucking like a rodeo bull, realize that you spend a hell of a lot more time on the street than you do on the track. And you don't have to wait until you send a race shock flying through its shock tower to admit to yourself that you've been a bit... ignorant when hoo

Heim-joint suspension components

Prepare to shake those fake "M" badges right off the trunk lid. Heim joints work great on racecars for two simple reasons-- there's no consideration for noise, vibration and harshness, all of which are extreme, and they can be replaced every 10,000 miles on a racing budget.

Carbon body parts
Carbon-fiber body parts for street aren't usually the dry carbon weave you'll find on racecars. They're usually wet carbon, and typically consist of a layer or two of weave over a fiberglass body. In addition to not being particularly strong, they're not particularly light. Not to mention you'll be replacing your carefully designed crumple-zone hood with a sliding decapitator. Your door beams designed to protect you from side impacts, but you'll need to remove those to install carbon-fiber doors, and since you shouldn't have a rollcage (see "Rollcage"), you're now a sitting duck. Finally, these parts don't fit well, and they allow enough road noise into the cabin that you won't be able to hear yourself think.

Engine
The tiny 2.5-liter engine sitting in the bay of this E90 rips out an astonishing 290+ hp at more than 8300 rpm, but tight tolerances required to create this kind of oomph mean a rebuild every 25 hours at $10,000 each. But the real kicker is the amount of tuning required to make it run right, not to mention the custom wiring and the fully programmable $13,000 MOTEC M800 Pro and MOTEC ADL-2 datalogging system.

Steering wheel/seats
That sweet Toora steering wheel definitely adds to the driving experience. Just one thing: It comes at the price of your airbags. The Racetech seats are top-notch for racing, hence the name, but they check in at the cost of comfort, and worse yet, your blind spots, which probably won't pay off on the highway.

Transmission
Xtrac sequential six-speed. This is as fast as you're going to get if you still want to move your right arm. And if you thought those carbon-fiber doors were making things noisy in the cockpit...

Side-exit exhaust
Actually illegal in most states, a side-exit exhaust (located on the opposite side in this case) is a great way to get rid of that unwanted leg hair and exfoliate your skin. If you're a good fabricator you can build a relatively quiet system, but where's the fun in that?

Rollcage
You'd love the added stiffness, but unless you plan on wearing a helmet every day, putting a rollcage in a street car is a fool's gambit. One good knock in traffic could send your skull into a bar and--poof!--you're a goner.

Rear spoiler
As we all know, downforce plays a critical role in keeping a racecar planted in high-speed corners, and it works great in this application because of the heavy-duty spring rates. Since there's no way you can run racing spring rates on the street, the massive downforce created by a wing like this would serve largely to push the back of your car into the asphalt. But no worries; you won't be cornering fast enough to notice a difference anyway.

Tires
Tires make the single biggest difference in the handling department. But while it's perfectly reasonable for the BimmerWorld 325 to polish off three sets of sticky Toyo R888 rubber per weekend (at $800 a set), your street car will need to compromise, like with a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 2s, which have more than twice the treadwear. You won't have quite the same ultimate grip, but street driving is about having fun, not setting lap times. Incidentally, race tires can quickly overwhelm even the best street suspension setup anyway.

The making of the E90

Poor LCI

Just came across this on a forum and sometimes you kinda wonder why would people do certain things. It's just my rant I suppose. I'm sure you would have a big reaction seeing this too. I'm a great believer of good design concept. But when you mess around a product of great design it becomes a pile of ****.

LCI steering problems

One of the popular rants about the new LCI is the power steering. I never like it since day 1. It felt remote and not really as precise as my older cars. Of late the seems to be more travel on the steering. Progressively it became worse. A low clunk is felt whenever the steering is turn anti clockwise. You don't really know how important a precise steering is. Only when it starts to act funny. Made a complain with the BMW service. They say it's not a common problem. Anyway I send it in and they took 2 days to sort out the kink... well sort of. The steering felt lighter and smoother after the repair but there's still the little soft clunk. Well if you are reading this and have this problem, do send it in. It's not suppose to be there. I've read in the forums where some drivers say it can't be fixed and usually it has a bit of free play on the steering.

Bridgestone 3rd Generation RFT

Here's the latest news regarding the infamous RFT ( Run Flat Tyres). Bridgestone has announced their latest generation of RFT that promises to address the issue of harsh ride. Hopefully this new generation RFT delivers. Reading from the Autoblog review, it seems promising. The tyres perform as well as non RFTs.

Below are excerpts from autoblog:

Consumers embraced the additional mobility and safety benefits of the 2G RFT, but they never warmed to the handling compromises as a result of the additional unsprung weight, the harsh ride (the sidewalls are a noticeable 15 percent harder than a conventional tire, says Bridgestone), or the expensive replacement cost (up to 30 percent higher, in some cases). Frustrated, many vehicle owners exchanged their run-flat tires with conventional tires even before it was time for their replacement.



Meanwhile back in the laboratory, Bridgestone engineers were hard at work developing the third-generation run-flat (3G RFT, above) designed to address these concerns head-on. Their research and prowess resulted in three new cutting-edge technologies:

• Unique ply construction: The reinforcing layers of a tire are called the "ply." Bridgestone developed a tire ply that uses the heat generated by a deflated tire to contract and curb deformation. In simple terms, the material in the new sidewalls automatically shrinks to abate damage from abrasion and heat. When the tire cools, the ply automatically returns to its original state.
• New rubber compounds: Laboratory-engineered rubber compounds, Bridgestone calls them "NanoPro-Tech," are also used in the sidewalls to limit heat. Conventional tire compounds warm through friction between the carbon and polymers (two common tire ingredients). By optimally distributing the polymers, friction and heat are minimized. Of course, this also reduces energy loss increasing fuel economy.
• Innovative heat control: Bridgestone developed so-called "cooling fin" technology for the new tire. Molded into the sidewall are small protrusions (think of them as miniature spoilers). While this seems rather rudimentary, they effectively disrupt the airflow at the surface to help radiate heat and cool the tire. Thermo-vision (heat sensing) photography of the "cooling fin" technology in action shows a dramatic improvement when compared to smooth sidewalls.

Bridgestone utilizes these technologies independently, or combined, based on the specific design parameters and size of each 3G RFT tire application. For example, the lower sidewalls of a sports car (e.g., BMW Z4) will unlikely receive cooling fin technology, but a higher-profile tire with more weight to bear (e.g., non-sport BMW X5) would have the cooling fins. Regardless of the formula, Bridgestone says all of its new 3G RFT tires are designed to operate safely with zero pressure for up to 80 kilometers (about 50 miles). But, more on that a bit later...

Leaving the technical jargon in the classroom, Bridgestone encouraged us to try its new third-generation run-flat (3G RFT) from behind the wheel. Lacking sensitive test equipment to capture objective differences between the 2G and 3G tires, we were understandably apprehensive approaching this tire "comparison." After all, how does one subjectively "feel" through fast-food sculpted posteriors the subtle nuances in ride quality that reportedly differentiate the two generations of run-flat tires? The answer was Bridgestone's European Proving Grounds in Italy.



The European Proving Ground (EUPG) is to a tire enthusiast what an unattended pharmacy cabinet would be to a drug addict – pure bliss. Located 50 km (about 30 miles) south of Rome, the purpose-built facility is a sprawling high-security testing ground for the latest in Bridgestone tire technology. Set within the outer perimeter gates of the four-year-old complex is a glass-smooth four-lane oval nearly 2.5-miles in length with 35-degree banking in each corner. Inside the oval, and connected for high-speed runs off the main track, is a massive skidpad (an amazing 22 acres of smooth concrete!), two independent short road courses, a wet handling course, and several side-by-side lengths of paved straight-aways designed to mimic various smooth and rough pavement surfaces found around the world. The whole package is wrapped in neatly manicured grounds sprawling with blooming Italian wildflowers.

Strapped in near identical late-model BMW 5 Series vehicles, Bridgestone offered us the opportunity to drive three different variants of its high-performance RE050A tire back-to-back: Conventional, 2G RFT, and 3G RFT.

We drove the conventional RE050A first. A high-performance tire fitted to such cars as the Nissan 370Z and Lexus IS-F, the standard rubber was comfortable on the smooth sections. The course/rough pavements didn't provide much of a challenge either as the compliant sidewalls absorbed the abuse without drama. We've put thousands of miles on these high-rated tires in the real world with few complaints.

Next, we tried a set of RE050A "2G" run-flats, the OEM application found on thousands of late-model BMW and MINI models. Owners appreciate the run-flat technology, but have raised issues with ride quality initiated by the stiff sidewalls and additional mass rotating on each wheel. While they were comfortable on the smooth sections, the compromises of the 2G run-flats were immediately evident when we entered the first sections of rough pavement. What had been damped by shock-absorbing sidewalls on the standard tires was now transferred into the cabin in the form of sharp, and rather uncomfortable, impacts. This test reinforced what many owners have expressed and what we have personally experienced.



The final run through the test course was done with the all-new RE050A "3G" run-flats. Eureka! Surprising even the skeptics among us, the third-generation tires were nearly imperceptible in ride quality from the standard tires (non run-flat) we had driven on merely minutes earlier. The ride was very comfortable. According to Bridgestone, test instruments reveal that the slight difference in ride quality was a near-imperceptible 5 percent change in harshness.

Bridgestone also allowed us to drive a 3G RFT technology-equipped vehicle with a flat tire through a simulated slalom course. The car handled sloppy, and the tire howled when pressed, but it was entirely controllable. Afterwards, the tire wasn't even very hot to the touch.



Driving their message even further, we were shuttled by bus out into the Italian countryside for some real-world observations. Another fleet of late-model BMW 5 Series vehicles were fitted with 2G RFT and 3G RFT tires for back-to-back comparisons. Bridgestone held us close (with pace cars front and rear) as we toured 2-lane roads across farms and into the surrounding hills. The roads were in fairly lousy condition, but they again demonstrated the newfound compliance one can expect with the third-generation run-flat.

While Bridgestone states that all of its new 3G RFT tires are designed to operate safely with zero pressure for up to 80 kilometers (about 50 miles), the reality is that a run-flat tire is designed to get you safely off the road and out of harm's way to where the tire may be safely serviced or replaced. In truth, a virtual clock starts ticking the moment a RFT loses pressure (the frictional stress and heat literally "cook" the service life out of the rubber compounds). Consequently, high vehicle loads, high ambient temperatures, and high speeds accelerate the clock, while light loads and cold temperatures slow it (when we experience a loss of pressure with a run-flat, we immediately pull over safely in the hope that the tire may be properly repaired before it is destroyed by driving on the vehicle). Of course, run-flat tires should never be fitted to a vehicle without a tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS).



The track sessions and test drives made it clear that Bridgestone has eliminated the biggest objection to run-flat tires – abusive ride quality. We never had an opportunity to push the performance envelope of the tire, but Bridgestone says the tread compound of the RE050A 3G RFT is identical to that on the conventional tire, so the grip levels should be very high. Lastly, the cost of RFT technology has come down a bit. While pricing has not been announced as of yet, Bridgestone expects the 3G RFT to carry a 20-percent price premium over the equivalent conventional tire, a small price to pay from a safety aspect.

Bridgestone's third-generation run-flat technology also seems to have clearly addressed the issue of comfort that plagued its predecessor. Moreover, the new "NanoPro-Tech" polymers and "Cooling Fin" technologies will undoubtedly allow the company to expand the fitments and marketability of the new 3G RFT product line, likely helping to bring the cost down even further.



While the first two iterations of zero-pressure tires from Bridgestone delivered the safety and mobility they promised, their negatives frequently outweighed the benefits... particularly in performance applications. Bridgestone's third-generation run-flat tires seem to represent a solution with far fewer compromises. It is a path we are finally willing to take.

LCI Internet Connected Idrive

Here's a glimpse of how the idrive would be even more engaging with internet connectivity. Hopefully this feature will be available in Malaysia soon via BMW Assist. My advise, don't buy a bimmer without idrive. You've been warned.>

BMW 3 series GT 2011

Here are some photoshop renderings of the 3 series GT that will be rolling off production lines in 2011. I don't think it will look this bad!

MUNICH, Germany — BMW has confirmed its plans for a 3 Series hatch called the 335i Gran Turismo, which follows in the footsteps of its bigger relative — the 2011 BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo. It's slated to hit the streets in 2011.

Like 5 Series GT, the 335i GT will carry a price premium, settling in between the standard 3 Series and 5 Series. It is meant to rival Audi's A4 Avant lineup as well as the new Q3 SUV, which is an interesting point considering the compact X1 crossover is similar in size to the 335i and already set to come to the States in 2011.

With comparable models like the X1 and 5 Series GT, BMW offers proof that a global recession is not hindering its production plans: "We haven't cancelled the crossover of the 3 Series, as it is considered a volume builder with which we can earn good money," said BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer.

Like the 5 Series Gran Turismo first shown at this year's Geneva auto show, the 3 Series GT will have a unique two-stage tailgate, giving owners the option of opening just a small part of the trunk or the complete tailgate (including the rear window) if more space is desired. Remember, BMW does sell a wagon version of the 3 Series in the U.S., so the Gran Turismo will bring the model's body style count to five (coupe, convertible, sedan, wagon and the GT five-door).

Sources also tell us that two seating configurations will be offered, a four-seat or a more practical five-seat setup, and BMW's latest turbo and diesel engines will be offered. As far as we know no M3 version is planned. --

BMW Performance Kit - Black version

M sport & iphone - Perfect integration

e90 LCI M sport in 4 colours

Here are the four official colours that you can choose from. Titanium Silver, Le mans Blue, Black and White. I have not seen it in any other colours apart from the 4 I mentioned. White and Black seems to be the popular choices just looking through the web. Over in KL I haven't come across any Le Mans blue on the street. My favourite is still the Titanium Silver. It's got huge presence and looks big in comparison with the other colours.

The white looks too feminine to my liking. To most buyers, white is the new black. Too bad it's very common to see white cars in all shapes and sizes on the road.

The Black is my next favourite colour. Problem with black is that the car don't look like an Msport. The kit is well hidden and I guess some buyers like the subtlety of it.

Le Mans Blue was The M Sport colour a few years ago. Somehow it never caught on. Maybe it's because Blue is a taboo colour for the chinese. Resale value for uncommon colours are pretty bad.