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It's as if it were like this from factory..( ) Stoked. Finished at around 4.15pm today. Installed gearbox in the pissing down rain in under 20 minutes with 2 people, a jack and a lot of swearing. Stopped raining immediately after. Definitely wakes the whole car up, gearbox is nice, clutch is nice, sits at 3krpm in 5th at 100kph which is fine. Completely transformed the car, am ridiculously happy with it. Overall about a 12 hour job for 2 people, had to take a few breaks as I didn't receive a few things with my conversion (Spigot bearing, driveshaft bolts, reverse light plug for gearbox, shifter selector arm pin), so had to run around getting them. Also picking up new BBS RG 17x8 in gunmetal tomorrow - will look nice. Will refurb and sell the BBS RX-204's.

Decided on Friday night that my little 2002 wasn't going to start restoring itself, so spent Yesterday today tearing it down, mainly to investigate the rust situation and see if my gamble has paid off. Several surface spots which are nothing Some reasonably set in rust in the bottom of the fresh air box in the firewall and drivers side floor pan is totally rotted out, including in the chassis rail for want of a better word, I am confident sorting out the rust in the firewall and have done floor pans before in my Suzuki SJ410 i had many many years ago, However I will have to get a professional opinion on the chassis rail as there is very little integrity left in it. Have also decided I need to build a carport off the side of the house or find an alternative residence for my E30 while i am doing this sanding and whatnot, dust just goes everywhere, and you need quite a bit of extra space for panels and seats etc when they are not in/on the car!

5 Years today as of 3.00 am this morning. I was saving my 10,000 th post to mark this as a milestone to my journey and now being a non smoker. I hope others that have tried or are trying to do the same can achieve their goal.... if you haven't... just keep trying..... it is achievable

About time i did an update on my Touring project. Its not taking off like i had hoped yet due to other goals taking priority, and the car taking a back seat, but i have slowly been chipping away to some extent. Being brought up with American classic and muscle cars in my blood, it was decided to keep things V8, so the touring will be getting an m62b44 conversion! Its time to get out of my comfort zone, as the only place to get somewhere you’ve never been is to do things you’ve never done, right? Engine mounts, gearbox crossmember extensions, subframe spacers and an rpm tacho module was purchased from Garagistic. I also snapped up a 2.93 LSD diff, this needed the rear cover to be changed to suit an e30 and a delrin bush was added, cheers to Kerry from Mosen Euro Parts for helping me out there. Then it was filled with Castrol XJ oil and ready to go! My focus changed to the rear end of the car after that and i decided to give it all a freshen up. with the subframe being blasted and powder coated, new bushings from Revshift and a cleanup and paint of the trailing arms, i finally got this all installed yesterday. Another major part of the puzzle is the gearbox, i decided to go with a 6 speed Getrag 420g, this was purchased off eBay along with the shifter, and eventually got to NZ after nearly 4 months of hassles and sh*t communication from Kiwi Shipping, cheers to Troy for helping with this. Still a long way to go but at least the dream has started!

Had a photo shoot a week ago with Docile's 135i M Sport. The Down Loaded boys take great photos and its great that they've changed the scene from the usual JDM cars they cover.

You just replied to a 6 year old thread. Please avoid doing this.

Couresty of Down ↓ Loaded photography https://www.facebook.com/down.v.loaded

So this is scary. just tried to insure my new Suzuki Swift Sport, all was going well until it came time to list the modifications. So, to be clear the mods lists are adjustable suspension, exhaust, pod filter and wheels. Nothing too serious. That all went well, other than the stupid woman not knowing what a modified intake was, but then suddenly im slapped with a $2000 excess because my car is "excessively modified". When questioned they claim its system imposed and nothing they can do about it. When i questioned why out of all my cars insured with them i have never had a special excess, she didnt want to hear about it. I pushed further and demanded to speak to her supervisor because she was just arguing with me. She refused, telling me that he would say the same thing. After much argument i finally get put through to a supervisor, who indeed does proceed to tell me the same thing (obviously in the 5 minutes on hold she brought him up to date), but when i questioned him about why i have never had this excess before, he decided to do some further digging. As it turns out, the reason i didnt have a special excess on my previous cars? because they never noted all the modifications at all. My golf, which had a modified exhaust, adjustable suspension, carbon front and rear, and tints was listed as just an exhaust and lowering. My turbo integra type r, which i advised of each and every part was listed as alloy wheels and exhaust (not even turbo). Basically, if i had stacked any of them, or had them stolen they would have had grounds to void my claim on the basis i never declared the modifications. Essentially what it came down to, is apparently 4 modifications is enough to increase the performance of a suzuki swift to the point where it is racekar and high risk and all my previous cars have not had their modifications correctly declared. My partner is now arranging to speak with a broker and i will be taking ALL my insurance (both cars and contents) away from STATE INSURANCE and having them correctly insured elsewhere as i cannot trust State to have competently insured me. This is just a warning to make damn sure you're insured correctly.

Straight in to taking care of the important bits, the engine. Vanos test in GT1 tells me the exhaust advance value on Bank 1 in crank degrees is way out of wack, like 11 degrees out. Bank 2 passes with flying colours. No fault codes in relation to Vanos, so the issue points to being mechanical. I initially swapped the solenoid packs from bank to bank thinking it may be a solenoid issue. No joy, time to open the engine up. This engine is very clean on the inside. It was apparently rebult 35k ago with : -New oil control rings (excessive oil consumption) -rod bearings -all new chains, tensioners and guides Bank 1 valve cover was removed this evening in preparation to check static cam timing, as per the DIS recommendation during the Bank 1 vanos test. Bank 2 cover and some other bits to be removed in order to do the work. This is the underside of the valve cover on bank 1. Usually these are gummed up badly with old oil so it means one less cleaning job to do.

For Sale **NO swaps** E30 325 Manual (Sedan) 1989 North Shore $6000 ONO. Here for sale is my beloved 325 (factory 318 auto). 14" Basketweaves (near new tyre) H&R Sport Springs (six months old) SACHS shocks Houndstooth door cards Fog lights/Smileys Comes with sub/amp wiring. Near new Pioneer Headdeck - Bluetooth/USB/Aux/MP3 - handsfree mic set up in car. Recently done: Cambelt/Water Pump/Thermostat Front right wheel bearing Front brake pads/discs WOF Expires November, Rego on Dec 31st 2015 Fairly tidy, however there are paint imperfections. As is where is Will add extra pictures if requested, light is limited tonight/I am a hopeless photographer. Contact me on 0275050303

Hit a bit of a brick wall over the weekend. Got to the point of checking static cam timing, as suspected the exhaust cam on bank 1 was way off the alignment window on the first cam bearing cap. Correcting the cam timing is easy, however to do so the vanos gears need to be in the initial position. For the exhaust cam that's off time, the vanos gear cannot be retracted as per the proper procedure. This suggests the vanos piston is stuck or there is excessive spring plate tension which essentially sandwiches the vanos assembly to the cam gear. My only options are now to loosen all hub bolts and try move the vanos to initial position, then set static timing and proceed on with disconnecting the vanos units for a refurb. Or I remove the bank 1 vanos unit prior to setting the timing in one of 2 ways. if I have to remove the vanos unit prior to seting the timing, more investigation will be required to figure out what's causing the vanos gears/piston for this cam to get stuck. To set the timing on an s62, you need to spend about 20 mins on a bench grinder making a 27mm wrench to look like this This the bank 1 exhaust cam, as you can see the marking on the cam is way off the window in the bearing cap. All other cams ok. The position of the vanos piston needs to be close to flush at the end of the bore when the vanos and cams are in the initial position, as you can see here bank 1 exhaust piston is about half way up the bore, so needs further work to get it to the initial position before the cam timing can be corrected.

My 323i had issues with revs hanging between gear changes. Apparently common with manual conversions using auto ecu. i just learnt to drive around it. Otherwise it ran fine on the auto ecu, with the tcu removed. Looks much better in manual, and i know the feeling of that first drive. So good. Well done.

Brain farts that make you look silly. Like replying to a nine year old thread. Dooh

Started dealing to the faded trim. Tried some Dulon sponge on trim paint for the roof trim but it was terrible. The original paint had bubbled on the side I butchered with the Dulon so took the opportunity to sand back to bare metal. Then etch primered and painted a gloss black enamel. Although I removed to sand it turned out to be far easier to mask off the rubber edges when in place. Also tackled the rubber-coated body trim with some SEM trim paint. Painted in place as these are hard to remove without bending and/or breaking and not easy to replace. What a difference! Will do window trim next weekend. Before After

red details but yellow brembos? i dont approve.. hahaha but very nice car!

Good effort. Looking forward to see what it goes like in comparison Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

'Onya Dion! makes a massive improvement to the car for sure. (im still short a reverse plug, shhh) it seems you must have a 3.23ish ratio diff in there then. the M3 is spot on 3k at 110, 2850+- at 100. the 328i with a 3.07 is a 2700+- at 100k. No Diff swap FTW!

2 Day surgery as it turns out. Dropped all the auto parts yesterday, was being messed around trying to find a Spigot bearing - have got one now. Current status: Flywheel bolted up to engine, pedals are installed, clutch hard line installed. Need to bolt up clutch and pressure plate, gearbox, crossmember, driveshaft and shifter assembly, reinstall all heat shielding, exhaust and all the other in-the-way things we've taken out etc, then wiring and can turn key. With any luck it'll be done by early arvo and will be driveable.

This shape has really grown on me. I'd like to apologise to Mr Bangle for all the mean things I said about him when the E60 came out.

Upgraded headlights to Xenon on the 540i. Unfortunately they came with the white indicators which does not suit the green color of the car, but the difference compared to Halogens is huge.

Pulled out the damaged side vent and put in a new one, also repaired the damaged inner guard, no more scraping at full lock!

Surgery tomorrow. Let us all pray that the car comes out the other side as a man...ual with no hiccups.

This might be a BMW forum, but i think it would almost unanimous.. . RS4 wagon > M6

drunk guy in town gave me $100 to drive him to the street where the prostitutes hang out, 3 minutes drive from where we were. perfect

Ah you know you have now spoilt almost everything else now It'll be an addiction haha

Took this thing for a B road blat this afternoon, with the windows down. Awesome. The N52 is a real pearl of an engine, makes just the right noises with BMW performance exhaust, without being loud. Loads of induction roar down low, and snarling exhaust up high Gearbox is heavy and notchy to start with, but the ratios are just right, and it pulls hard right to the redline, the actual in gear acceleration is definitely rapid enough to have some fun. Steering is tight, and car feels very agile. Ultimate driving machine... for when you need a hatchback Its even started to look less funny looking, some angles actually look good

This one's cleaner than the other for sure, but that's because it's all been apart recently and cleaned. Vanos adjustment units need to be removed in the next few days to get to this leak. Found one of the oil rails munted a bit. Where it's dented oil flows through to lubricate each cam bearing journal.

Ha! No. The boys are hassling me to get an e30 so I'm thinking of replacing my daily driver. An M62 swap sometime in the future might be fun though!!