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I quite like Melania Trump.

Time to throw some colour at the bay! Scott from Scooters Customs in Hamilton did an amazing job, the photos speak for themselves!

Thought I'd share today's arrival, very exciting times! Karbonius CSL Air intake - Box, Snorkel. Have decided to go with carbon fiber trumpets over OEM plastic trumpets. Carbon Fiber M3 GTR Style Vented Bonnet. Muffler (already on my car): https://www.agency-power.com/shop/titanium-muffler-exhaust-bmw-m3-e46/ My M3: http://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/59830-new-forum-member-on-the-north-shore-e46-m3/

Oh yeah, it runs! Thanks to Will for his time and knowledge at the start and also massive thanks to Troy for finishing off the rest of the wiring recently. Turn your volume up or use headphones for the full effect! IMG_2648.MP4 IMG_3035.MOV Current State: Home time! And time for me to get stuck into a list of small things to be complete before certification and hopefully a full panel and paint this year too. Lastly a huge thanks to Kerry and his team at Mosen Euro Parts in Hamilton, can't thank that man enough for his countless hours and knowledge to help me get to where the car is today.

Cats are in and rasp is gone. It's so damn quiet, can barely hear exhaust. But intake ... oh my. The intake. This is a good sounding motor. I also go these in today's courier, final piece of the OEM puzzle ..! Untitled by Christian Taylor, on Flickr

I have finally found the last car that I will have for a while. I have been searching all kinds of models to decide what to go for from E92 335i , E82 135i, E46 M3, E92 M3, M235i and also a renault megane RS265 but I have finally settled on what I think is the best car for me at this point which is the F20 M135i with N55 and 8 Speed ZF auto. Coming from a long list of previous BMW's as most of you know, it had to be a substantially newish car for it to be worth while upgrading. When I saw this come up for sale I jumped on it instantly, test drove and paid and collected within an hour of listing. Anyway, it ticks every single box on my requirements list - newness, powerful, practical, mod-able, and of course still BMW. (I still have my E46 which I absolutely love and would love to keep but I just dont see myself driving it as much now I have this thing which works great as a daily and a weekend car) I was lucky to find one with a sunroof which was my biggest requirement and this also came with a M performance exhaust already fitted which makes a great sound. Anyway, if you come long to the coffee meet no doubt you will see it but here are a couple of quick photos!

Surprisingly well once you sort out a few minor items - Shocks don't last more than 140,000 km's, new ones are great. - Fit E36 M3 or poly LCAB's, fixes any tramlining issues you may have read about - Fit poly rear sub-frame bushes to really plant the ass of the car. You will get more diff whine. - Fit a front strut brace As for driving - 1.9L's are really chuckable around the corners, lighter engine than the 6's, lots of fun. Adequate power for around town and open road driving - 6 cylinder cars are really good fun too, Good choice of engine sizes. from 2.0L to 3.0L - Have a lead foot? Like lots of horse power? Get a 3.0L Z3, great power to weight ratio and spec 5.9 seconds 0-60 miles. Then there are the Z3M's (Roadsters and Coupes) in S50 or S54 flavour. Suggest you get out there and take one for a test drive, topless of course, and discover the fun of the Z3.

spent the weekend plastic dipping the wheels and dechroming the window trim to black. Let me know what you think team. Sorry about the one sh*t picture

$10 says it's for sale within 2 months. JK. Nice car! These engines feel like a torquey v8 rather than a six. 0 lag.

I don't have any Motorsport history, and as i mentioned above I've pretty much only ever driven family wagons and such. So take this for what its worth. My Z3 is the best handling car I have ever driven. The way i look at it is, when under normal or even "safe but spirited" driving on NZ roads will i ever even get to within 80% of the limit of this cars handling. Yes i know if things ever do go really pear shaped id be glad for every sliver of extra performance, but as is its already significantly better than anything else I've driven, so I'm already significantly ahead of the game compared to other cars in my driving history. A lot of the Z3 "naysayers" tend to focus on the rear's trailing arm suspension. which was apparently a bit dated when the Z3 came out. But its the same rear suspension as the E30 which gets a lot of love. So go figure. I do intend to make all of the changes that Murray mentions above. They are recommended consistently across a lot of Forums. Another "Serious Issue" is the rigidity, or lack thereof. its a roadster, so yes its never going to be as rigid as the coupe. There are stiffening kits you can get (including butt and body braces), but unless you looking at a serious track car, I'm not sure if they are necessary, Some even dispute their effectiveness, and it seems a lot of the benefit can be achieved by replacing some of the bushes in the rear. I tend to think that the perception of poor handling was affected by a sense of disappointment in some of the press / reviewers etc at the time of release, I think some people had really high expectations, and what they got initially was a good car (if slightly under powered with those initial 1.9's) but not the amazing car that they were hoping for. So yes it might not be first choice as a race car, but is it a great little roadster that will make you smile? At the end of the day, the Z3 is now a 20 year old car, I don't expect it to perform like a modern sports car, Its perfectly fine too me if it performs like a good car of its time period. Its still one hell of a fun car to drive, and IMHO the retro styling is aging really really well.

With the previous headers from Ergen Motorsport in the UK not fitting as planned after we changed the mounting configuration, they were onsold and a full set of custom stainless headers and exhaust was completed by Gaz from LDS Fabrication, i went with a 2.5" system with 2 Borla buffers which have the crossovers inside of them, it is a little loud so will see if i have to quieten it down for cert closer to the time. To keep things cool I'm running the Mishimoto e36 Aluminium radiator, cheers to Neil from 41 Automotive for sourcing this for me. I just couldnt resist a quick bolt up to see what the finished product will look like! The small details, like notching the strut tower support for the stainless line from the coolant expansion tank adds to the overall tidiness of the install and Kerrys attention to detail.

Ho-ly crap! awesome

You got this all wrong. It’s all about the inner qualities and the interior is not bad looking.

Positive battery cable? Apparently a common issue with the E60, not sure if diesel models is an exception though... also assuming that your 530d is e60 model...

wait what? you mean I've been doing it wrong all these years... no wonder it hasn't been as successful as i was lead to believe.

Likewise. And would probably have some aversion to my participating in any picking up... Probably. In the interests of a quiet life, I'm not testing the theory.

I dunno. Reckon it would be alright at picking up gay blokes tho!

For Sale Genuine set of BBS RS RE001 (factory 4x100) 15X8 -Falken 195/45 15X9 " " " " plenty of life left in the tires Also, have a set of Toyo semi-slicks. Perfect fitment for E30s, Hondas, VW... basically any 4x100. Missing 1 hex nut no badges (easily avail ) As is $2800 Can also do a custom wheel build at buyers expense Pickup Pukekohe

Not really a rant. I was offered a radar detector to 'assist' with monitoring activities n SH1 - vans and patrol cars love SH1. I did a bit of research to find out if what I was offered was in fact any good, and found the following on a forum: "My Wife got a ticket in Europe doing 140 mph through a construction zone by a speed camera mounted on a bulldozer. They have some shady stuff over there." Hahahahahahahahaha....

Nav. now upgraded from MK3 to MK4. Trialing a square setup with 275x35x18 all round. 5 mm spacers on the front. Great improvement to overall feel and handling.

Next came time to test fit the engine with the Garagistic engine mounts and subframe spacers i had purchased for the ease of a bolt in application. I got fellow member will to help out with this side of things. This discovered the kit design to have a few flaws, mainly the angle of the mount to the subframe, the fact that the steering geometry gets messed up by spacing the subframe down 20mm and there is no provision for the oil lines that run through the factory mounting arms and into the block. The decision was made to move on from the kit and custom fabricate some engine mounts and mount them off the chassis rails as will has done in the past, and also allowing the entire front subframe, steering rack and suspension to be removed while the engine can remain in the car. Finished mounts installed, with crush tubes located within the middle of the chassis and gussets to prevent the engine moving forward in a frontal impact, as requested by the certifier upon inspection. This allowed us to locate the engine where we thought was best to give us enough room behind and infront, and as low as possible, and also allowed us to run the factory m62 engine arms with the oil lines running through them and into the block. With the engine sitting so low, we had to notch the sump for clearance of the Z3 steering rack, work was carried out by Aero Machinists & Engineers in Hamilton With that done it was time to move on to mounting the driveline and 6 speed Getrag 420G gearbox and getting the alignment sorted with the driveshaft, an issue that many people run into, this was sorted when the engine mounting position was decided on without having to run and rear diff risers/ spacers in the rear. Im running Revshift 95A hard, street/track mounts throughout sourced from Mike at Euroturbo along with his driveshaft hoops that meet all certification specifications and are designed and made by his business here in NZ.

Hi All, New to the Bimmer forum thought id give it ago, proud owner of a 2005 e46 M3 (SMG). Have owned for about 3 years (bought it when I was 19) and have loved every moment! Obsessively maintained to always be looking/running her best but did not come as it currently looks as I thought it could do better and wanted to make it my own. Fortunate enough to have full service history which was important as it’s done more km’s than most. Joined the forum to learn more about BMW’s and see/learn what others out there have done to there’s to make them better and possibly go along to some meets as iv never been to one. Future plans include CSL air intake ect, agency power headers, mid pipes. GTR vented bonnet on its way from overseas. Carbon fibre going to be pained car colour with vented grills left black.