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No more stone chips.... until next road trip. have had a good run out of this car in the nearly 3 years of ownership. Some niggly things but no massive bills. It must be able to read my mind as the diff will be coming out soon.

At this current point the plans for this winter are mostly panel and paint, plus a few other odd jobs. List includes.. - replace rear guards with genuine E30 M3 guards (on order) - full M3 fibreglass kit for other panels, including the C Pillar extension over the rear window. -5-stud hub conversion. Got a compact rear, just trying to sort out the fronts. -overall paint an panel work to tidy her up and paint the black base colour ready for the gold "JTS" decals. -any other small jobs that I come across on the way. - carbon air intake for the engine & piggy-back ECU with tune if there is enough money left in the kitty.

Because there's ALWAYS one !

So the E30 race car is in the garage after a long, hard season for some TLC and a bit of a refresh. I have now given in to the reality that I am never going to be in a position to afford to buy an E30 M3 chassis, let alone a complete car, to build into my race car and so I am going to modify my existing car into an M3 tribute to be as close as possible to an actual car. More specifically it will be a tribute (not a replica so I can put my own twist on things - Team JTS) to this gorgeous piece of machinery..

Contactless? Hardly! And being a little older it has it's 'quirks'.

Cool... but please don't assume the USB->Square will work with my setup because mine is configured to use the RS232 port and I'm loathe to muck around with that. It may however be suitable for other, USB-based INPA/DIS setups. If you run out of options and think that other kit I have might be of use I won't need immediate payment FWIW.

You don't need an excuse! Come down, offer moral support, suck teeth... Food will be supplied.

Having to wait for your new trolley to be processed. Last one available in the colour I wanted after selling 2 of our other cars ? Also for sale is the Ti M52B28..... you can take it away for $8,000...... owes me more than $20,000

Are you sure? my e36 had an issue after i changed the door handle, the new one was from an ews car, and if i didn't unlock the door with the key it would crank over until the battery died but wouldn't fire, if i unlocked the drivers door with the key or reached into the door and flicked a little switch on the handle housing it fired up straight away.

I'm happy to come down and help. I just don't have the knowledge on the diesels, so hopefully someone can chime in with some advice, or some troubleshooting.

If it was key/EWS related I'd be all over that... sorry.

Obviously so very pleased Nathan's car is running again. ? Could I have some suggestions for the problems we have? Pretty please? ?

only the older type key has the seperate chip sitting in it not the later diamond type RF keys , chip is part of the circuit board etc , no screws to open up that type

Took the m3 in to a mates work shop for a check up and dyno run and this was also in there

No chip in the key, Yup, can think of that scenario a couple of times on AA call outs. Both times checking the key & confirming no output. Question owner - no haven't had the key apart since last start. One found in a handbag (woman), the other on the floor of the ute (guy) Have been others with dodgy/broken keys where the chips have fallen into oblivion.

Mine is supposed to have 42 PSI: 'specially since it has a fat-arse cast iron VR6 in the front now ? : I'm continually amazed at people who just put 30PSI in everything! ?

I try to avoid 'the tardis'.

i have plenty of spare bodies here if you want to practice on some cars that don't matter if you stuff it up before you start on your own car. i also have an arc welder you are welcome to use any time, probably not useful for what you want to do, but i used it to build the frame and drawbar for the E30 BBQ trailer and it did just fine, need to strengthen up my car trailer too at some stage... getting a bit cold now tho ha.

FIXED! So @Gabe79 scanned the ews and the key, and it turns out the key was faulty. Weirdly it had no transponder chip in it so thats a bit of a mystery. So a bit of coding later and the car fires up. Big thanks to Gabe, and everyone else who gave advice. I've learnt my lesson and am getting spare keys cut for all my cars at the locksmith today.

Do you have any purple tag racks or z3 racks available Brent?

At the EWS plug, short the two largest wires with the 30 amp fuse, one is from the ignition switch and the other goes to the starter solenoid. The E46 wiring diagram I looked at had them at terminals 1 and 3. Turn the key and see if the starter cranks Possible results: - Car cranks = problem with the EWS, it could be one of the "required signals" on being present (something other than the EWS) or the EWS itself - Car does not crank = problem somewhere else. Suggest you get a wiring diagram for your car and a good multi-meter for fault finding. Also get access to a good scanner like INPA that can read the EWS error codes. Most scanners only read the engine codes

Have you tried disconnecting the battery to reboot the system? I have found this fix this same (no crank) issue on multiple different brand vehicles with AA callouts.

I can tell if your key reads correctly, and I can tell if your EWS can be read correctly from the chip itself. I won't be able to tell if a connector is broken (like physical damage) but I'd say that's less likely. Put it this way, if you send me your EWS+keys, I can tell you if your EWS can be read, if your key can be read, and I can send you a programmed transponder (assuming I have one, I have to look...) to try it out with if the issue is your key.) If you want to bring these to me during the day in Stanmore Bay I can tell these things in 10-15 minutes for you.

Have a ecu ews and key etc if you wanna swap the whole kit out etc

If the ews is still good we can code you a new key (or just a transponder) easy. Edit: even if your ews is dead, get a used one and we can code a new vin to it easy too. Edit2: this can even be used as a diagnostic step. Coding keys is cheap, like $5 for a transponder. We can code a key and you can test it to see if your car starts. That’ll answer your question. Same for ews, but I don’t know how much a used ews would cost you.

Dead key or fault in ews box give the key a hard wack try that

My ickle BMW Scanner 1.4.0 picks up a cam sensor failure (0x70, decimal 110). That's a fairly easy one to replace - I have to do this on Miss M's 318Ti (M44 engine). My OBD-OBD II adapter arrived today. However, I doubt that's stopping the car from turning over. I think the engine can run - sub-optimally - without the cam sensor? (That would need to be confirmed.)

get ya volt meter out

ezy go towing

A friend on Facebook - I think he is in Blockhouse Bay - has a trailer, was looking at doing occasional jobs for cash. He'd be cheaper than a commercial firm, and you could be there to assist/watch?

Did the lights illuminate brightly, as you'd expect? If so, could be starter motor... I had a similar issue years ago when the earth strap corroded/frayed/wore through. Hope it is something simple and you can sort it quickly.

spare key.?

That system too lean code is a prick. It can mean so many damn things.

Finally got the car WOF'd and Reg'd....such a great feeling to be able to drive this car. The drive is unreal, the power delivery is smooth and you don't feel the need to drive it hard. Cruising in it with the exhaust note and the strange looks you get from people not expecting the v8 sound from such a small car. Couldn't be happier, spent 3 or 4 hours with a friend getting some good photos and video footage, here is a few from the massive selection that he took. enjoy.

Something we have done with a couple of E30`s and an E34 is the M54B30 Conversion. What we can supply is: M54B30 with ancilliaries ZF Box E36 Arm MS43 DME with ews delete/manual/EU2 tune E30 pedal set with E46 Accelerator Drive by wire pedal. Necessary wiring. Not to dissimilar to an M52B28 conversion.