[M3] Drilling the Sport Evo wing carbon flap, alignment, Memorial Day drive

[note: this post, like an air-cooled 911, is back-dated to when these events occurred] 

 

Car went for an alignment, or should I say an expensive front toe adjustment. I have to say, it feels really good right now to drive. It all just gels. The short shifter is taking things to the next level, and I hate to say it but I'm loving the stock 15s for look (from some angles) and feel on the road.



I went out for a drive on Sunday with Jon - starting from Alice's, the old 84-Pescadero-PCH-84 loop. This is apparently the only photo I took. I should have known better than to go out that way on Memorial Day weekend, it was a total zoo. Jon and I were shooed from the Alice's restaurant parking lot - no loitering if we weren't ordering anything. On the way out on 84 we were stuck behind Subarus and CRVs with bike racks, lollygagging out to the trails. We had Pescadero to ourselves all the way out to the coast, but highway 1 was slammed with people trying to escape cabin fever. The beaches are closed, and the off-road parking near them is closed, but some of the higher lookout pull-offs remain open. So there were cars strewn all about, people crossing where they pleased, and walking on the small shoulder of the (50mph) road all the way down to the closed beaches. We saw motorcycles, groups of all kinds - the BMW GS touring kind of guys, the Japanese sport bike guys, the Ducati guys, the Harley guys, packs and packs of them. As we got back to the Skyline/84 junction there were car clubs ripping in every direction, dozens more motorcycles, bicyclists. Alice's entire parking lot was motorcycles, I've never seen so many. Cars were parked along Skyline wherever they could fit and three police cars were there, I learned later from Facebook that they were handing out no-front-plate tickets and running a speed trap. I got out of there quick.

I am planning to visit body shops this week to get quotes for the Evo wing job. I thought before that, I would take a crack at drilling the mounting holes on the carbon flap, since none are present (like the CF replica front splitter). The problem is that the holes are blind so I needed a way to transfer the hole pattern to the flap. I tried a lick of paint on the holes but the surfaces are not line-to-line so that wasn't successful. I considered measuring carefully from one piece to the other, no way. I had seen someone turn a screw down to a point before, on a different application, but I don't have the means to fabricate that at home. Enter this wonderful M8x1.25 transfer screw set. $15 shipped to my door in two days.







They thread into the wing base and have little points. Line up the flap and press them together, you've got your pattern.



The bolts are M8, I ended up drilling all of the holes to 10mm to open up the tolerance a bit and get a good fit. The bolts are not on the same plane, and the parts don't have the identical contour, so it makes the whole thing a bit easier.





Nailed it. Very pleased with myself.



And that's that... it's a big empty Bay Area out there right now. I expected to be home for a while, but as I enter week 10 of working from home it's kind of amazing to know that I'll be here another 7-9 weeks at least based on my employer's return plan.