Meth Kit DIY detailed install description of CM Pro tank w. VC2 and AR meth elbow w. CM10 nozzle

[xbox_fan]

I did this DIY since I thought it would be nice with a detailed one with lots of pictures, and because it was quite fun doing the one for my injector swap

I wanted to make sure the car can be return to stock so I didn't want to cut or alter anything of the cars interior, I am happy with the end result, it is a clean install and it works great!

I am happy to choose BMS and CM as suppliers, they both answered my questions over email in minutes, amazing customer support!!!

So here goes...PART 1 (since there is a 30pics per post limit)

I got a piece of plywood and some fabric for car audio speaker builds, the fabric matches the interior of my trunk (there is several colors to choose from) and is somewhat stretchy so it is easy to get it nice and snug around the shape you need to cover.


I started by removing the plastic tray on the left side in the trunk and roughly cut two pieces of wood and attached them to form a mounting point for my new "panel". The wood pieces come up to the same level as the interior of the trunk.


I could have used normal wood screws to attach the "panel" to my mount but I felt I am probably going to screw up the cables etc so to make it possible to take the stuff apart multiple times I used those weird things that allows me to later use normal screws (m5). I did leave them standing like this until I was done with the panel so I could press the plywood against it and get marks where to drill.


Mount ready for the new panel


Used a piece of cardboard to make a template for the new panel


After cutting the plywood I used a staple gun to attach the fabric over the plywood. If I would redo this I would wait with the fabric until I done all drilling and fitting of the plywood piece, it is not a good idea to drill through the fabric like I did, even if it turned out ok. I would also use glue under the fabric to attach it properly to the plywood, it would probably make drilling through the fabric easier as well…


My "panel" done, I used similar metal fittings to allow for multiple removals of the tank from the panel as well, not showed here…


Before doing any more cabling or anything I needed to cut the corners of the cooling mist pro tank mount to make it fit against the trunk wall, if I hadn't done this I would not been able to open the hatch in the trunk, it is a tight fit!



I started pulling all cables from the tank towards the front of the car under the trunk "carpet". All hoses and cables except for the orange wire to the JB4 runs on the left/driver side of the car, the orange wire to the JB4 goes on the right side towards the glove box, I did put the JB4 cable tighter with my USB cable when I installed the JB4, I have no pictures of this, but it was easy, I didn't remove anything on the right side. I just pushed the little orange cable under the passenger side plastic "strips" with my fingers.


I removed the panel around the trunk cargo holders to make the "carpet" come loose enough for me to pull all hoses and cables





I pulled out the lower part of the right side of the seat and routed everything behind it and over a small metal seat mount behind it.






I removed the plastic strip using mild violence, I had to remove some of the plastic clips that stayed stuck to put it all together again. I pushed the nylon and rubber hose together with the 4-in-1 cable I got (instead of having 3 separate cables for the flow sensor, but I think it is probably easier to hide several loose cables than one bigger, though it made it neater in the engine bay in the end…)




I removed the opener for the engine bay as well as the ODBII cover and then the entire plastic piece holding all of this, then I removed the 3 screws holding the panel above the pedals.

[xbox_fan]

Tricky part here, but not impossible, remove the riverside plastic cover in the engine bay that sits over the DSC system (you removed this installing the JB4 and DCI) and find where the cables for the DSC system come through the firewall, there is two unused rubber seals for more cables (BMW clearly intended for us to install meth on this car). Cut the top of the bigger top one otherwise you'll never get anything through it. I then used a small steel wire to get something easy through the firewall first, then I used tape to attach the nylon and rubber hose together with the cables and pulled from the engine side. Until everything went through the firewall.







I continued pulling everything forward into the actual engine bay. This is when I realized CM sent me a 1 feet to short rubber hose for the boost tap seriously annoying, double check the length before starting install, it is cheap vacuum hose and buy 10m before starting if in doubt of the length.



I put the cables together using zip ties and then starting putting everything back together. The plastic strip on the driver side did require some minor cutting, it is not visible when mounted, but I did cut a little piece of plastic out to allow for the hoses to not get squeezed by it. Compare yours to the pic and you'll see what I did.




The cables was in the way of re-assembly so I just held it down with a small piece of string that I pulled out after the screw was there, simple fix!



Only issue I had with the Meth Kit from Cooling Mist was the length of the vacuum hose, I needed to extend it since I already installed it. By using those fittings that is for pressurized air tools (tip if you end up in the same situation, I got the hose and fittings from Biltema.se)



I removed the front DCI to get access to the vacuum lines to the DV's, it was really easy to just cut them and insert the Y provided by CM and then hook up my new vacuum line to the VC-2.

[xbox_fan]

I did get the AR meth elbow and used it BUT had two issues with it, first I attached the silicon couplers to it and did tighten them up (not super hard) and just tried to blow in them while blocking the other side (and the bung) and it leaked like h**l

I did try to tighten the couplers really hard and it still did leak a little, so I ended up getting some heat resistant silicon (the red stuff) and used it to make the elbow properly air tight, not hard to do but messy…

The next issue was that the elbow is somewhat to short or the silicon couplers to short, it didn't fit it was to short I however had a extra silicon coupler I got with my cp-e FMIC that was supposed to fit if one had the cp-e charge pipe, it was a few inches longer than the AR coupler and after some cutting in length fitted well.

I thought first that my cp-e FMIC created this issue, and maybe it caused some of it, but the stock elbow fitted perfectly and the AR one is designed to replace the stock one, so at the end of the day I do not recommend getting this piece of the puzzle. Spend some extra and get a charge pipe that has a bung for meth and that can take the stock DV's instead…



Put some tape on the threads and put the check valve and flow sensor together as well as on the meth nozzle and attach it to the elbow. I did add some overview pictures here as well, I did put the flow sensor under the bracket for the power steering reservoir.

[xbox_fan]

Started to solder everything together, I got myself a simple cigarette lighter connector and used the outlet on the left side of the trunk to power the entire meth kit, it is already on a fuse and it is in the perfect location (once again I feel BMW wanted this to be done to the car)




I drilled a hole in the tank mount from CM to allow for the 12v feed to come up just by the outlet in the trunk.




In the engine bay I did the same exercise again and soldered everything together, it is an easy setup, the flow sensor shares the 12v cables (red and black) with the VC-2 in the trunk and the white return from the sensor goes to the white small cable on the VC-2.



Kit installed! I am very happy with the location, I have no issues filling the tank and I can still use the entire trunk (I have 3 soon 4 kids and a dog so this is used heavily).

[enrita]

totally sucks you cannot see the pictures and have to click on a link...

Great install and DIY !

[xbox_fan]

Configuration time!
The CM pdf's, read them first, but I had one thing surprise me (it was not obvious, to me at least) that in the configuration mode some parameters are not accessible since they are dependent on other parameters. I.e. if you don't enable parameter 13 you wont be able to reach 14-19, not that it matters since you do not need to touch those, but I was playing around with my new toy and thought I did something wrong during the install or that the unit was broken. CM and Terry was great answering my questions in the normal but still amazing BMS support way

I did two videos for this DIY both are very short, first one shows startup of the VC-2 and entering the config mode.


The second one I set parameter 12 to 000 (default is 003 which output boost on the orange wire MUST be changed or you trick the JB4 to believe it sees meth injection rate) then leaves config mode and enters run mode here I set min and max spray boost targets. It is really simple once you get the hang of it.

[xbox_fan]

totally sucks you cannot see the pictures and have to click on a link...

Great install and DIY !

Weird my browser loads all images, but it takes a few seconds, I made all pics 35-40kb so they would load fast hoping it works even over gsm/edge connections and the US slow version of 3G

[enrita]

Weird my browser loads all images, but it takes a few seconds, I made all pics 35-40kb so they would load fast hoping it works even over gsm/edge connections and the US slow version of 3G

haha my fault, i had the wrong settings in my profile :-)

[Blaizon]

Good job bro!

[xbox_fan]

Good job bro!

Thanks!

[hworang00]

Awesome DIY...would love to try it out on my 5...but i'm scurrred

[Forcefed]

Are you using the FSB? I never had to change parameter 12.

[xbox_fan]

Are you using the FSB? I never had to change parameter 12.

Well if you have firmware 1.07 or 1.08 you must change it to '000' default is '003' which is to output boost instead of flow ie you're tricking your jb4 that it has meth flowing but you are only providing a boost signal! I would double check this, since if you are on map3 or 6 jb4 are raising boost based on boost, really bad if you run out of meth.

Of course could I be wrong but since this is how my setup behaved I think you should verify your setup asap!

Please post your findings...

[Sticky]

Started to solder everything together, I got myself a simple cigarette lighter connector and used the outlet on the left side of the trunk to power the entire meth kit, it is already on a fuse and it is in the perfect location (once again I feel BMW wanted this to be done to the car)




I drilled a hole in the tank mount from CM to allow for the 12v feed to come up just by the outlet in the trunk.




In the engine bay I did the same exercise again and soldered everything together, it is an easy setup, the flow sensor shares the 12v cables (red and black) with the VC-2 in the trunk and the white return from the sensor goes to the white small cable on the VC-2.



Kit installed! I am very happy with the location, I have no issues filling the tank and I can still use the entire trunk (I have 3 soon 4 kids and a dog so this is used heavily).

Just wanted to say excellent work on the entire DIY.

Yes, yes, DIY section coming soon.

Once again, great job!

[xbox_fan]

Thanks

[Irishace]

Awesome DIY, very clean install. Well done and thanks for taking the time to post this.

[Forcefed]

Well if you have firmware 1.07 or 1.08 you must change it to '000' default is '003' which is to output boost instead of flow ie you're tricking your jb4 that it has meth flowing but you are only providing a boost signal! I would double check this, since if you are on map3 or 6 jb4 are raising boost based on boost, really bad if you run out of meth.

Of course could I be wrong but since this is how my setup behaved I think you should verify your setup asap!


Please post your findings...

I definitely dont have to change any parameters. I have version 1.10.

[Terry@BMS]

Awesome DIY!

[xbox_fan]

then I understand how you didnt have to change anythung, thats is the self learning version, right?

[xbox_fan]

Awesome DIY, very clean install. Well done and thanks for taking the time to post this.

thanks it was fun doing the install and documenting it, and even more fun driving around on map3