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Got everything assembled and bled after getting the correct retaining springs ... have ordered some retrofit pins also which take a R clip instead of having to be smashed in. Hopefully they arrive soon and ahead of (re)certification. Got out for a drive to bed everything in, feels pretty good ... would like a firmer initial pedal so will likely do the M3 master cylinder swap at some point.

Been spending plenty of quality time with the F31 - May not be the most thrilling drive but is bloody practical and looks great. Had the rack bushing replaced again (free repair FTW) and new front tyres - post prang she’s looking as good as new.

Fuel pump and filter.

Great drivetrain but I can imagine the ‘dog taking a sh*t’ silhouette might limit the market somewhat.

LPSR purple tag - The used one he send me had a preload issue so he gave me a discount on a new rack with his rebuilt one. CMP front brace - Was debating whether to install it but ive never used the fold down seats since owning the car so i figured why not. Haven't really pushed it hard since installing as i need a alignment but it appear to give at least a subtle improvement in rear end feel. Meyle HD bushings - Only found out recently looking in the Bentley manual that there is a distance spec for these to be fitted (~289mm +\-1mm from inner ball joint to rubber bushing). Mine had been re-used which wasn't ideal and weren't pressed on near enough. I made a similar tool to proper ones to ensure i got them on properly this time around. Ive always felt the car wasn't as stable and lacked steering feel it should have and this was very likely the main cause. Even with the wheel alignment off its day and night especially combined with the above tweaks.

Yep thanks to @Vass for buying these. Lucky (or not) he bought them and had sorted them to save someone the expense and headache of doing it. The LHD versions probably would of been cheaper to modify especially using the slim joint. Malian Exhaust / Kage Trading are easily the worst and most scummy company ive ever dealt with online. Finally got some money back a few days ago from credit card dispute after they stuffed me around in various ways for months. Too bad we didnt have a proper invoice in time to make them pay for what they really owe.

Considering selling my genuine bmw m performance short shift kit out of my 2008 135i. Complete with shift boot and knob. only selling to go to a chassis mount shifter as it’s mostly a racecar. these are discontinued and no longer available from bmw. Very hard to find. note, shift carrier has been professionally repaired/reinforced, doesn’t affect function and is not visible at all. Now NLA looking for around $750 considering how rare they are

I relayed this and my wife simply said "he is correct though.." lol

Sorted out today by Elite Wheels (thanks @Gaz!). 5 stars - would recommend. Dropped off this morning, picked up this arvo. Just need to get some new rubber on now (not related to pothole - just old and shagged).

Haha, I don't code for a living, but I have coded since I was about 14. I did a BE majoring in Mechatronics (which is marketing for Robotics and Embedded Systems Engineering), and worked in that space for a period of time. So I have a reasonable grasp of embedded systems (which is what DMEs are), assembly language, etc. I would describe myself as someone who has some background in this space, rather than an expert. I certainly don't have any prior experience with disassembly, so am figuring it out as I go (although tbh understanding the concepts and being able to read technical documentation are pretty much all you need anyway). Ghidra as a tool is super-impressive at what it can do and makes a lot of it significantly easier when it comes to identifying patterns, likely function entry and return points, etc. which saves a lot of time.

This one is far from new, 270,000km. Required quite a bit of love to get it be a 'nice' car. We're some of the way through building a revvy motor for it. M44 bottom end, with M42 head, ITBs, lightweight flywheel, all rotating assembly balanced etc. It's all going to the machine shop this week. The short block I got from a scrapyard for $200 with 90,000km on it.

Yeah plus one on the Nice Work - great work on the wiring remediation and patient servicing! You'll be setting this one up for reliable extended life, so many of them get neglected. I think the auto-dimming door mirrors are a pretty good feature when you're on the open road at night and there's a knob behind you on high-beam 🙂 Still, low cost is a good option! Looking forward to your next installment. Keeping chariot trouble-free and reliable for family use is a major priority.

After donating a Dinan CAI to @Vass we had to figure out what parts they used for their additional cold air source since they dont sell them easy. I know Dinan use alot of OE parts for their mods so i eventually closed in on the likely parts. A quick confirmation with Vass concluded they were indeed E39 6 cylinder airbox boots\grommets. I decided to semi mod mine to re-create theirs after i found some suitable pipe from NZ safety. An additional cold air source cant hurt and im not exactly sure why BMW did not source it from there like the M3 etc, possibly a space or cost issue. Pictures basically explain it, grommet pops out the airbox so its easily removable from the car. As far as temperature goes i didn't do enough logging in varying circumstances to say whether i has a measurable reduction, it wasnt apparent in normal highway driving with a 20 degree air temp and 30-35 IAT with both setups. For what its worth IAT temp reading was only ~5 degrees hotter than ambient air temperature with this installed once you pushed a bit past stuff the license speeds.

Not all E39 M5’s are created equal in this - todays market . When there are only circa 45 examples in nz , the condition and mileage are greatly varied . This one appears to be pretty rough and the seller isn’t doing it any favours by presenting it this way . The photos , car and write up are actually laughable .

I'd be quite keen on the seat material.

Its actually me that selling it, forgot to post here earlier! https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=5015937568 Its a monster of a thing. Only selling as Im hoping to put money towards an i8. Full service (plugs, oil, filters) and new rear, premium (Arnott) air suspension. No reserve, accepting bids form $17.5k.

What are the offsets?

Ah right. Confused cause I didn't think BMW were cheap. So figured you must be referring to VTNZ.

Last year when I took the car to them for a WOF and to recover the BMW service history their WOF inspector was convinced that there was a handbrake issue and proceeded to charge a fair chunk to "investigate". VTNZ down the road from them an hour later passed the car with no "issue". Pay peanuts, get monkeys........

Check out this link. It may have what you are after. http://wedophones.com/BMWManualsLead.htm

Score, Decent poly capacitor on the tweeter and good power handling, tweeter on a gimbal so you can align them better in relation to front. .Looks like a quality coaxial speaker.

Sold

I've also had rather extended stocking times with Schmiedmann (3 months in one example, currently have another order approaching 2 months). For genuine parts, I've had much more respectable stocking times (3 days, where Schmiedmann showed 20 for the same part) and better customer service with Hubauer Shop.

To be fair the 320Z is a pretty desirable gearbox, more so than the getrag 5 speed that came in most E36/46. The ZF came in the E36 M3 and E46 330 etc, it's pretty bulletproof and has one of the nicest gear changes of any BMW box imo. Going rate is 3-4kish depending on what's included. You can get a getrag 5 speed for $1000.

DM me if you want. I live in Rotorua and have an E30. Keen to see what you've done with the conversion as well.

thank you for that rather idelible image. never been particularly taken with the X6; that description sticks! 🤣 .... I think you've clocked the internet today, Matt! kudos @balancerider

Yea i wasnt sure either after googling so i got under it and looked. has the metal flat pan and a sticker saying its the GM one. my 530i e61 has the plastic finned pan ZF trans

Social Media Narcissist fits the bill.

Has been sorted but thank you for the offer!

yes. diesel crank needs the nose machined up - shortened - and a keyway, I think. All the M42/M44 mods seem to require $$ machine costs, for moderate increases in power/torque.

Castrol Edge 5w30 is half price in Mitre 10 Botany of all places at the moment. Not sure if it’s just there or all Mitre 10s.

this is soooo sick bro!

I went for the Toolshed own branded 1/2" and will be getting the 1/4" this week. Not flashy but the selling points for me were: Nice Nm only scale Legible 0-9 units around the twist barrel Comes calibrated, with certificate https://www.thetoolshed.co.nz/product/15319-toolshed-torque-wrench-1-2in-dr-30-210-nm <--- Pretty sure i didn't pay $219, would have gotten on a special 👍

Haven't come by this thread before. But this is one bad ass looking M3. Low key and mean looking (exactly how I'd have it if I was lucky enough to have one of these).

Was wondering when a thread about this one would pop up... Pretty disgusting state of affairs when dealers are asking $20+k above market value without even wanting to spend a few hundred on a new shift knob or getting the steering wheel, leather seats properly treated. Close to zero effort and investment yet are asking a premium. Probably looked at that blue one listed at $90k and figured this one is a bargain at 60, not realizing the first one is horrifically overpriced by 2x. Pretty sure there have been much better examples listed for less very much recently. Not sure who would in their right mind would fork out $60k for it when there's a like 5 E60 M5's to choose from all at under $40k.

It’s a June 2000 production car that has been owned by a member of the NZ E39 M5 Facebook group’s father. It’s actually Oxford green 2, and is a pre LCI car ( a fair chunk of NZ cars were pre LCI) so has the older steering wheel and sat nav screen. 1/4 in Oxford in NZ ( known of) and the other 3 have caramel leather. The asking price is kind of commensurate of dealership prices in recent times. I think we can all remember how a cheap one a few years was around low $20’s and a minter was $40-$45. Sadly, those days are gone.

Never been happy with the way this car shifted gears but after perservering with different gearbox oils and knobs I am pleased to say I am now happy. Turns out the final piece to the puzzle was a gen ZHP weighted knob, I am sure I probably have worn bushings in there but it's much much better. Would not have thought a knob would make such a difference. Also if anyone is considering Wipertech blades I can report I am happy with mine.

Amazing thread. Joined the forum just for this! The level of work and varied nature of the jobs is highly respectable. Hi from the UK 👍

I got my brake lines, supplied locally via https://nz.helperformance.com/ ... if you're in need of tasty braided lines I recommend 👍 Last week also got the misc items from Spareto (front caliper pin kit, basic pads and M3 parking brake shoes). Have yet to pull the trigger on the custom brackets and hats due to cost ... hopefully will order on pay day 😬 Then only need to arrange the remaining cross over pipe for rear caliper I stuffed up.

On the "performance" side of things, I committed blatant sacrilege by throwing on some intake mods. First was a Bevinsee intake air scoop off Aliexpress. Wouldn't usually go for such things but it looked tidy, all black, no logos and supposedly helps with intake air flow and reduces intake temperatures by a few degrees so was worth a shot for the low price. The second was a Dinan airbox. I've heard of them mentioned over on the E46 fanatics forums, supposedly being one of the few intake mods that are somewhat of an improvement on the stock setup. I'd never be able to justify the price of it though so never crossed my mind actually getting one. I happened to be chatting to @Eagle one day when he mentioned coming into possession of one as a bundle deal on his recent purchase. He didn't feel like using it himself so kindly passed it on. Absolute legend. It's essentially just a different lid for the bottom part of a stock intake with a bigger filter fitted inside. Originally would have come with extra tubing which taps into the brake duct and drills into the bottom of the airbox, adding a third source of airflow. Unfortunately it didn't have that tubing intact but it's something I can just whip up as a DIY at a later point. The filter is an odd shape but the filter elements themselves look identical to the washable K&N filters. Supposedly these aren't washable and need to be replaced every 1-2 years. Unfortunately, replacement filters are stupid expensive, are out of stock in most places and the few places that do stock them don't ship to NZ. I dug around the forums a bit and found reports of people washing and oiling them with K&N kits for years without trouble though so that's what I did. Having taken it on one proper drive so far, the sucky noises do sound more pronounced, which isn't something I ever felt the need for but nice to have I guess. Whether it does anything beyond that in terms of performance, who knows. Does look cool though. I did discover a few new issues on the first drive post paint correction. The first one being a massive puddle that started forming right after parking up. The mind straight away jumped to the worst case scenario. Luckily, it needn't have. Windshield washer fluid. I had just refilled the reservoir as well. Didn't seem to leak when stationary but once the engine gets warm the fluid bubbling up and pissing out straight out the nozzles. Real weird one. Having talked to @Eagle about it he mentioned there's certain brands of washer fluid that are known to wear out the seals in the nozzles. Pretty annoying but what can you do. Will throw a pair of new nozzles onto my next order and will do some research on BMW-safe washer fluids. The second issue could also have been more serious but ended up being a simple solution. I'd intermittently get a trifecta of ABS-brake lights pop up on the dash, maybe once or twice a year. Usually happened after the car had been on jack stands so I didn't think much of it. You'd restart the car and the issue would stay away for another number of months. This time around in the span of 2 days and 200-something km's it must have happened a good 25 times. Something more serious was at play. Got so annoying I ended up killing the engine without stopping and restarting again on longer straights. Initially thought it must be a bad wheel speed sensor - some of the last components I've yet to replace - but having checked live data mid drive they were all returning the same numbers. Dug a bit into the engine bay having gotten home and discovered the positive terminal next to the ABS unit heavily oxidised and looking yucky. Cleaned it up with some wire brushes and contact cleaner, another 200km later and the issue is yet to return. Great success.

The shadowline trims that go around the windows were looking real tired. The finish is somehow different to the vertical pilar trims, they were heavily oxidized and no amount of cutting, polishing or even wet sanding seemed to do much to improve the look. Ended up giving up and passing them on to professionals to get properly repainted. Ended up at Evan's Colour Works in Sydenham. The turnaround was quick, the price reasonable and the finish was mostly good, although did have quite a few dust bits stuck under the paint and a couple of runs. Ended up leaving one piece to get resprayed but the rest came out decent enough with a quick polish. Will have to get some 'after' shots later on. The roof rails were also pretty bad, with paint bubbling up and peeling off in a few places, as well the 3D printed plugs needing filling in. The finish was satin black so I felt more confident in taking these on as a DIY. I epoxied the plugs securely in place, carefully masked off the rubber seals, filled in the gaps around the plastic plugs and sanded down all the rough bits. I used 1 coat of etch primer followed by 2 3 coats of flat black enamel. Turned out mostly fine but I did a pretty poor job of filling in around the plugs so was left with a few craters. The spray nozzle was also pretty poor so ended up with a few drips here and there. Will sand it down at some point, fill in the imperfections properly and give it another few coats, whenever I've got some surplus motivation. I had epoxied one of the taillights back together a few years ago. Mucking around this time I noticed the other one coming apart at the seams as well so it also got the epoxy treatment. Whilst I was at it I also gave all 4 rear lights a cut and polish. Came out really nice, getting rid of the swirl marks and the yellow haze from the clear bits. Photo of a before and after of the inner lights below, no points for guessing which one is which. Finished them off with all new bulbs throughout and chrome bulbs for the indicators which made a surprisingly noticeable difference. Ohh, and I ended up swapping out for a slim black plate as well. Don't care much for personalised plates and wouldn't be able to justify the price of one, but for $200 I do love the stealthier look. Plus, it'll pay for itself if it does a good job of confusing a speed camera or two... Did get a new standard issue combination though, as a symbolic start of a new chapter if you will. Naturally, the plate holder plinths got trimmed down to size once again. Also, took off the towbar for now. Looked way too rusty for my liking so will give it a lick of paint before throwing it back in. Hoping to come across a towing module soon so I can wire that in at the same time. Another small tidy up mission were the rear arch liners. When having the rear guards rolled, the fella doing the job took a good few chunks out of them in quite a crude manner. Fair enough they're the part that rubs against the wheel as much as the guard lip itself but he took away way too big a piece either side, leaving a gaping hole for road dirt to get flung into against the chassis and inside the bumper cover. Not a big deal but has bugged me ever since. I picked up a pair of tidy ones and cut away the protruding parts in a more conservative manner. Then gave the bits some Carpro Perl treatment (the bumper and door trims got the same) and threw them in. Can now sleep a bit easier at night.

This thread is so next level, thanks for sharing!

Got my ITB's for my stroker build. Pretty excited 😊

Bled clutch and brakes, fitted d shaft, heat shield and exhaust. Once you jump in and out a few times...it's quite awrrite. Another feeling altogether sitting in this car. It's like the Ls was meant for a race spek like this.. 3.9 ratio diff in this one, with thicker shafts...last one was 3.15...so ...😳

Do they always do a half day for the national track vs full day for club also ? Was curious about that one. Thankyou Caught me by surprise when i saw the thumbnail in my recommendations, initially i thought "woahhhh somebody else did the swap !!!" hah. Hows about those stone chips on the front that the camera seemed to really hone in on 🤣 Looks a LOT better now with the new plate, stone chip touch ups and black grill. Here is the Kiwi Car Life review:

Keen to see how you go with it. Not that I need bigger brakes on mine but keen to take on a similar project eventually. My plan is to go with a simple 135i setup, mostly because it's tried and tested, adapters are readily available and the brakes themselves are relatively easy to come by locally. My main fear being that shipping on such bulky items will be the biggest killer, not awfully keen on dumping several grand on brakes alone. Wonder how 135i brake performance compares to the setup you're going with. Pretty sure all non-M E46's had the same master cylinder so your 318i one will be the same as on a 330i. From what I've read on the 135i conversion the master cylinder and booster should hold up just fine with the bigger brake setup, so long as they're in good working order. Pretty keen to know whether there are any out-the-box upgrade options out there though.

Has to be the best kept E46 in the country

Most of the cloth seats I've seen are ripped, where as only the dried out leather seats have cracked. I think better off focusing on seats in good condition instead of what type.

Cheers mate, I'll give them a ring and see if the price is reasonable.

Drivers Review - 140i War Hammer Last week I pick up the phone at work to Ray on the other end for our once a month catch-up. He enthusiastically said 'waddya doing this weekend'. My reply, not tons planned but bout time for a visit. He said, good cause I have something for you to try out. The 140i is on the road. Not batting and eye lid I said good ill be there with bells on. Roll on Saturday and a 45min commute from green lane up to silver dale. We arrive and sitting in the driveway was a stout little 1 series. Only hint of what is going on is the quad exhaust sneaking through the rear valance. After some chit chat .. He handed me the keys, the missus and I jumped into the car and prepared the usual check mirrors / belts / anything loose that would end up on the floor etc. Fired the little thing into life, which soon made me realise with the s65 shoe horned under the hood and modified pipes that this aint no 1 series any more. I locked the DCT transmission into reverse and eased the car back onto the road. Checking all the normal stuff I popped it into first and moved away ... with a quick pop of the paddles I was in second and gave it a medium sqeeze on the throttle, immediately we were both pushed back into our seats and I realized we were over the speed limit with the car showing small hint it was tapping at the tranction control. Giving the car a bit of a warm up I took it easy up to the open road and drove it down to my favourite testing ground run .. the sprint to stillwater. I pulled over to let the car finish its warm up of the oil and water to operational temp. Looking down I pushed the 'Power' button and changed the DTC settings to '6'. Now lets stop here for a second to look at its spec. Here we have a 120i Motorsport shell with e92 m3 sub frame components, DTC 7 speed gear box, e92 M3 diff and suspension, Mperformance brakes, newly refreshed s65, free flow stainless exhaust, Tuned MSS60 ECU and m3 GTS software loaded onto the gearbox computer and Mdynamics DSC traction and stability control. Back to the drive, I stomped on the loud pedal and plucked 2nd, 3rd , 4th, 5th redlining all the way. The sound was ammmmmmazing. But what trumped that was the amount of time it took me to break the legal and beyond. I see our first corner coming up at a great rate of knots. Look down and see a 2 with a couple of zeros .. hit the picks and dive into the first corner. It just soaked up the corner and the bumps. Accelerating out of the corner I pop the paddles and within a blink of an eye im through some more gears. The GTS gearbox software has come a long was since the SMGII days. Dual clutch transmission are the playstation generation. You cant get it wrong and it just builds confidence as the car isn't un-settled between gear changes. Up comes the next corner which is the start of a set of s bends. Complete with Rodney Council's finest b road bumps can throw at me. The car didn't flinch. I hit the down change and in comes the rev matching and throttle blips. holy crap I say that sounds awesome. At this stage Im giggling like a little girl while punching it out of the corners ... traction control is letting me know that its keeping the rear end in check. We get down to Still Water and take pause to figure out what the combination is and how something so potent can be so solid on the road with this power to weight combination. I jump out and the missus jumps in. She gives it the potatoes on the way back and reminds me I dont make a good passenger. We get to the open highway, and I jump back in the seat. And do the airfield run. I get a real chance to open it up. Pulling a big over taking manoeuvre past a local tourist. Up pops the stop sign to local highway .. The speedo is well past what would be considered sane. In come some braking performance .. bang bang bang down through the gears .. it pulls up with a face ripping gforce to the local highway. I get a honk honk and thumbs up from the tourist haha .. We complete our cool down run and return to HellBM. I get out of the car and walk up to ray, Ray: 'Whaddya think" Josh "Well that wasn't sh*t" Its given me the big hurry up on my plans for my next car. I own a e30 s50b32. I take on a car that was to put great power into something that I though needed it, at the time it was ground breaking.' This 1 series hatch with the s65b40 and DTC just brings into perspective what the new level is in badassness. This hatch is king. I have driven a lot of builds, with power and handling. Including some amazing factory cars. This takes the cake on all of it. Its really that good. Well done HellBM, this is the future of modding and its bright.