With the quieter festive time upon us we thought it was a great time to get Project Z4 GT3 V8 to first base, and that meant a trip to the wizards at Emerald M3D so this week we took the drive over to Watton in Norfolk, and catch up with the ECU gurus and entrust them with their magic, it was also an excuse to stop over at the Bentley Hotel & Spa and unwind with a beer or two.
This is the most important stage of the build as we have to make sure all of the BMW Z4 electrics, work with the all new V8 engine, it’s imperative if you want it to run with the BMW idrive factory oem set up, this is the first process we have to go through, as well as building the engine loom and ECU upgrade, whilst it sounds like not much is going on, this is the main ingredient to make sure this car and conversion works correctly, so it’s a pretty important parts of the conversion.
With the car at its new home for the few couple of weeks, it will be mid to the end of January before we get to collect the car from the Emerald crew, that’s when phase two of the build will kick in, as its off to Dynotorque, Craig can then get creative with our install, and boy oh boy do we have some Great plans for the overall finished package, pure quality being added, brakes, engine, suspension, will all come in for some changes, he will leave no stone unturned in his quest for the ultimate Z4V8 build.
We are working with quite a few people on this build, well they do say “teamwork makes the dream work” and we are happy to welcome another company onboard the build, Reflex Auto Design from Daventry, who will be responsible for the painting this beast, these boys need no introduction they are extremely well known for their paint qualities across a wide spectrum, from restoring old classics, to custom one off body work modifications, their credentials speak for themselves, so we are happy a company with this much talent are involved with the task of painting our beauty.
We have now decided on the final wheel choice and finish, and it was such a hard decision to make, a lot harder than we ever thought it would be.
Our wheel partners on this build is AVANT GARDE (AG Wheels) as we have been the Exclusive European importer for the brand for the last two years it was a no brainer, so it was just a few weeks of backwards and forwards of what to build.
The front wheels is a 10x19, the rear wheel is 13x19, and we have decided again to run with a different design on each side of the car, we have done this a few years now, it’s a great talking point, but it also shows what two designs and finishes look like on the car.
The first design we decided on was the AG F422 we like this design a lot, plus the fact we have only seen the design in the spec 3 concave profile, and we decided on the Spec 2 with reverse lip, this will be finish in the all new Monaco Copper, with a brushed matte centre and gloss inner and outer barrels, with brushed silver hardware and logo. On the other side we will be fitting the AGL23, from the Luxury line up, finished in black, with matte centres and gloss barrels, with Monaco Copper hardware and logo, we chose this design, because it’s very reminiscent of the race wheel that is fitted to the Z4 GT3 Race car, tyres we are using Nitto in sizes 285/30r19 front and 345/30R19 rear.
This is going to be the long four months … roll on the spring.
