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Ashkans mate Callum was up buying this minter .... Ashkan gave us a call and so I took off for a cheeky Techwan photoshoot with mine and his. Enjoy.

Cheers Brent. Loving the RD's.

Guess you haven't been to the mount or te rapa for awhile. Rota hoes everywhere. Oh wait, you said women not 17 year olds.

Hi all. I posted a thread on my wheels in the wheels and tyres category a couple weeks ago but here we have my 328ci coupe. I bought her at 120 ks a year and a bit ago with a blown head gasket from one of my clients. Turns out the viscous fan had stopped working. Fully rebuilt the engine and she's been running like a dream ever since. Now I am getting so bored with the automatic/tiptronic transmission so my intention is to do a manual conversion at some point this year. Any tips or pointers would be really helpful as I haven't done a manual conversion on an e46 before. Heres some of her specs : * Done 144 xxx kms. * Blacked out kidney grills and chrome accents ( Done by Grant Peterson at Custom Coatings North Shore,Mad love for his work and him,my good friend) * Smoked front,side and rear tail lamps with three stripes left clear for theatrical effect ( Custom Coatings North Shore) * 19 inch style 95 wheels in a custom colour wrapped in Falken 452 215/35/19 on the front 9 inch rims and 235/35/19 inch on the rear 10 inch rims ( Major thanks to Grant Peterson (Custom Coatings) for the painting and CPR ( Matt Brook) for the Blast work * KNN performance panel filter * Pioneer USB/SD/Aux headunit * Twin Pioneer DVC subwoofers 400 rms each with d class amplifier * M sport bumper (front) * lowered in the front slightly ( ) rear sitting just on tyre. * Carbon Fibre front and rear BMW badges * Personalized Euro plate EUROHO Plans and wishlist : * Performance chip *M sport rear bumper and skirts *Manual Conversion * Cold air intake * Upgrade Air flow meter to 330ci * Install Angel Eyes ( Already have em, major thanks to Jasjot for clips to secure them) * remove cat converter and change rear muffler to amplify sound of that beautiful six *Re- secure front bumper due to it being pulled by my lovely lady at the mall carpark Anyways here are some pics folks. I also do welding and exhaust work and would be happy to hook you guys up with some very competitive prices if you need work done. A mechanic by trade and have my own shop in Wairau Valley. here is Delilah now ( pre rims and suspension change) Any suggestions more than welcome. Also thoughts on wrapping the roof centre section in gloss black?

The engine size has very little to do with economy. The car weight makes the most difference. Even the V8's are very good if they're driving similarly. The 520i's don't save fuel at all in real life usage, and may even use more at times - more passengers etc, with it working harder. The facelift 520i's are actually a 2.2 which is WAY better than the earlier 2.0 ones. Be aware that Jap import pre-facelift 523i's are badged 525i, but aren't anything like a facelift 525i. Some facelifts are registered as year 2000, but are actually 2001 models. The 525i and 530i are good allrounders, with generally lower running costs than the V8's. I'd look at them, and not the 520i. Our 525i is factory manual, and I can tell you it's a FAR better drive than an auto one when you want to push it a bit. You can take advantage of the torque in the manual box, where the auto box will just downshift and rev, unless you stick it in tiptronic. However, if you're only after Auto, I wouldn't even consider the 2.0, unless it was way cheaper to buy or something - you won't be saving anything in running costs. My wife somehow manages to average around 11L/100kms, where I did 9.something while she was overseas, and I did the same run: drop kids off, drive across town to work and back again. She's a gas on, gas off, brake on, brake off, gas on etc driver . I drive faster, but l more consistant. I did a run from Whangarei to Warkworth by myself, and got it down to 7.0L/100kms, travelling at normal speeds, but trying to squeeze some economy out of it (by myself). On a run with the family in the car, I got 8.2L/100kms heading up to Bay of Islands - not really economical roads, so pretty good really. AC is ALWAYS on auto too. I'd expect a 530i to average a tiny bit higher consumption than a 525i, and i wouldn't be at all surprised if the 520i was at least as hungry, or even hungrier. Like in E30's, the 320i auto used more fuel than both the 318i and 325i in most circumstances. On Fuelly, which isn't enitely sceintific, but had a pile of data that should give a good enough "average" 6x 2003 520i average 11.6L/100kms over 100,000kms (one of them appears to be a 2004 E60 though, and there are no other facelift 520is on there, excpet 2003) 30x facelift 525i average 10.9L/100kms over 350,000kms 43x facelift 530i average 10.1L/100kms over 920,000kms 32x facelift 540i average 12.2L/100kms over 442,000kms So that suggests the 530i is the better allrounder, considering likely lower running costs, though if you like power, the 540i isn't going to kill you (unless the timing chain fails!)

sell your 3L daily toymota and buy this cruise ship mike . I have a few customers with these and some say they get upto 1000km on tank on a long drive

Yeah when I was 17 I got jumped outside work when I jumped into my e30. Some fairly normal looking guy waved me down in the car park and being the good c that I am, I pulled up to see what was wrong. He then said what are you looking at and if I had an eye problem (lol). He then grabbed me by the collar and started punching me in the head which was nice, and said to give him all my money and my phone. Luckily for some reason I didn't have my phone that day and only had my eftpos card on me so he said "your going to drive me to the bank and get all your money out". Sweet as bei, Being 17 I had about $30 in overdraft in my account anyway. Then he ripped my mitre ten name badge off and said if you drive off I'm going to find you and went to walk round the front of the car. I put the car into first and launched it at him harder than I have ever launched the race car even. He managed to just get tagged on the leg and I drove off. Had I hit him I swear to baby Jebus I would have reversed and run him over multiple times. He didn't come back to find me. That's one of about 7 times that's happened to me in my younger days. Admittedly I was asking for it driving around in nice cars. Zzz

A baseball bat cannot be classed as a weapon if it is accompanied by a glove and ball. I believe the alloy bats are the better ones

From the hundred lot of people doing photos, I've found merely one proper shot of the ECC lot. And that was only because it was requested. People tell me there is no divided line between JDM/American and Euro, but it was proven by 99% of photographers there, ignoring our cars pointblank. When you see an album of 650 photos pop up on Facebook of the day, you sort of hope it might of ended in there, like the 250 others cars that were shot, sh*t box or not. Yeah I understand it was Euros in the wrong scene, but we were invited and told to come along as it was open to all grade cars. Meh. And this is why I started Euro Specific events, and next time the JDM bunch cry and wine about how they are left out, will remind them of our sour experience at an event told to be aimed at 'all' makes, yeah right.

Ahhhhhhhh I want them! But vanos rehaul first

So, who wants to order some detonators to strap to your fuel tank and wire them up to a GSM module so when you ring your car it explodes. Would rather destroy my car and take scumbag with it, then let someone else destroy it.

its a paltry 3 80 metres lamp posts 22 yards apart x19 = 418 yards =382 metres

Nice one bro, cheers for that Callum was stoked with it.

in before proper gearbox bandwagon arrives

Anyone driving an M car is on a mission!

The wheels aren't reps. It was part of a bunch of cars who all got Work wheels when Joseph owned the work wheels importers. Probably some of the strongest rims around next to BBS and Rays

So far so good on the VANOS front but I've still not reved it out and won't until that chain guide arrives - it's halfway here now. FYI - Dealer = NZ$135 and three week delay - Schmiedmann US$29 and delivered within 7 days. I'm also running without my clutch fan and have been doing so for over a week. It's an interesting experience that has taught me a few things: The fan is absolutely superfluous in anything other than hot weather (by NZ standards) The fan does nothing at all over about 80km/h, natural airflow simply overcomes it's ability to keep up The electric fan does a fine job of keeping everything under control It has averaged 25 - 27 degrees here in Auckland over the last 8 or 9 days I've been driving without the fan and even in stop/start traffic on the motorway the water and oil temp needles (which I've been keeping a hawk eye on) very infrequently move above their nominal centre point. It's important to point out that both needles do push past the halfway mark occasionally when stationary or going very slow for extended periods but they don't rise further 1 - 2 mm past centre and then they stop. As soon as airflow picks up they drop back down. I find the electric fan comes on quite late so I wonder if we can get a lower temp thermostat for that so it kicks in a few degrees sooner? I wouldn't recommend this for an Albany to City run in rush hour at 27 degrees but that's an unlikely scenario for me. But it does seem that for at least 9 months of the year, whatever your circumstances are the fan is unnecessary. It would definitely not be providing any benefit whatsoever for a track car (or any car on the track for that matter). I'm leaving it off for now and will report back if I notice anything untoward.

That's so nice especially the hardtop, big money and not common. Only down fall is it is not manual, But easily fixed. mint car mate good luck with sale

I think i have read that exact post over 400 times on the internet. Please do not be offended by this, but have you actually done any research whatsoever? There are literally thousands if not tens of thousands of threads on the topic. what you need, what works and doesn't work, power expectations, etc etc etc. I spent more time researching than actually doing the job. sounds boring, but you will know when you are ready to do your swap and have your car off the road for minimal time

sounds like your viscous fan coupling should have been replaced long ago . but yes common for the m30 to chew out its cam lobes , normally due to lack of oiling up the front from loosing banjo bolts on the oil spray rail bar and lots of slow traffic driving don't drive it too much like that as the head of the valves can break off because of the extra force when closing due to the worn camshaft.

No..What you do is e-mail me tomorrow at [email protected]. I can organise depot to depot for you at a surprisingly low cost.

Ill take you rolling in the Hutt when you get here. you aint seen nothing yet

Are they actually dedicated car women? Or just fakies and cake faced up to the max? RaeRae and Jo are the two most awesome women in Motorsport I have met - more like them. Non arrogant, down to earth car (BMW) loving lot. We need more.

them m pars never really pulled my rip cord standard but they look very nice when polished up like that! Ken you need these

Why not. An M3 is over double that price. The next best thing in immaculate condition will be chasing at least half that price these days.

x2 for MTS. Fadi's hooked me up so many times I've run out of fingers and toes to count with. They do all of Tristram Euro's lowering e.t.c so dealer approved too.

I had pulled over one night at about 1am to disconnect my horns as I had a faulty horn button and the horns kept going randomly. As I got back in my car I noticed a group of 4-5 coming towards me quickly that I had a bad feeling about. I had just started the car and about to take off when one tryed to rip me out of the car. I floored it and took off, he finally fell away / let go at about 60kph and I felt him hit the back of the car. No idea what happened to him, nor do I care. No need for people like that

An e39 m5 touring to complement?

I've unfortunately had to spend the last 4 days getting my car started again after a VANOS solenoid crapped itself. Details in this thread but it involved a new VANOS unit (thanks Mark!) and taking the exhaust cam out so I had to re-time the entire lot (again). The solenoid that failed was the only part I couldn't clean/repair when I did my VANOS overhaul about a year ago (see this thread). Now I have the task of cleaning my VANOS unit up and getting it fixed and bench tested. Car is humming now and no error codes but I've not stressed the engine yet and won't do so until I can get a new chain guide because I broke mine (it was very, very brittle - like the e46 ones that go boom). I've ordered the part. On a happier note my pile of parts is building up and this lot arrived from Amazon yesterday. Eibach Pro Plus kit matched to my Bilstein B6 shocks (the combo sells as the B12 kit direct from Bilstein). Will lower the car by 25mm up front and 15mm at the rear but I'm going to use spring pads to push the rear back up when I'm using my 18" wheels (i.e. most of the time). Sway bars F/R are 26mm/24mm and adjustable (stock is 23/20 fixed). Not bad for less than NZ$190 eh? See here for the crazy details.