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Last weekend I went up to Bimmerfest East in New Jersey from my home in DC. I don't own a car here yet as I haven't had a need for one and have been doing a ton of travel with little time. So we quite often rent a car from a peer to peer rental company called Turo. If you have a spare car or are not using yours and want to make some money, this is where you list it. Ranging from junk like Toyota Prius right up to the latest Ferrari's. Great thing is there are plenty of BMW's. And this time I went for something practical that would still be interesting. So we grabbed a cheap E60 550i Motorsport. Manual. Yep unlike NZ many of the BMW's are still manual. Sadly the 2016 M3 I wanted was being used. 550i was $85 per day and the M3 is $109 per day. And these are peoples cars so they are looked after. Before heading up to Bimmerfest we went to a very popular local Cars and Coffee event called Katies Cars and Coffee. It is a little coffee house just up the Potomac River which has some nice winding roads through the forest on the way there. Being close to DC there is pretty nice cars that turn up. I took a whole heap of photos on my crap point and shoot. Click the link. I was a bit gutted to see a whole bunch of E30 M3's hooning their way there after I had to leave early to get on my way north. Next time. https://goo.gl/photos/QzJWDBgKwxSrnLPw5 The drive up to New Jersey was interesting though. There were a lot of others heading up there in their BMW's also. But the driving was pretty bullshit really. Every stereotype that comes with owning a BMW was on display. There were even groups racing. I have never seen less indicating, more cutting off, tailgating and general sh*t "My cars ability is the only driving skills I have" in my life. But apparently this is all normal here. The event itself is a two day one. It is at Raceway Park which has both a Drag strip and a circuit track. Sunday is usually the busiest day but Saturday had filled out nicely too. The quality of the cars was pretty high. Most of the cars were newer models and most of them were M cars. There would have been a good 30ish M4's. And the new M2 was featured quite well too. Quite a few done up M2's already. Some of the tuning houses were there too. And the big parts suppliers. BMW had their own stand and even brought along Bikes. They were doing some VR thing and having people sit of the bikes for immersion. Drag racing was not bad. There was a turbo E46 M3 running 9's. And a couple of E60 M5's screaming their way into the low 11's. Once again here is some photos from the event. https://goo.gl/photos/mGEmp23ZGRipNUVo6 Till the next event. No doubt some more of Katies Cars and Coffee for the variety. Also trying to plan to meet the RoadKill crew at some stage.

No worries mate, again sorry about the slowness. Things have slowed down a bit at work so I can now spend a bit more time on it. there are some pretty sweet new features in this release. EG you can now copy an image in your copy paste buffer and directly paste it into a post. No more having to store images remotely and post img code in.

progress Today I picked up the push rod to change gears. I've had to extend the linkage between the gearbox and the shifter as the seat is as far back as I can get it. the short linkage is uuc, the long is a copy from a friend. SSSHHHH. don't tell. Its 315mm long from hole to hole. The other part is the adaptor to hold the rear brake callipers in place as they are not factory fit. This still has some work before I'm happy. Shifter is from https://www.facebook.com/npparts.lt/ cool guy. And you got to train the young.

are you talking about the flokati rug, or the lube?

I didnt think they made an e21 318i, and with those scoops they will get plenty of air Into the cabin, but thats It!

Just click on the time stamp for the last post is easiest.

Just an update the audiovox media bridge works a treat installed in about 20 minutes and ran it to the glove box. Front cup holder were broken so took them out and ran the microphone through the hole. Going to make a blanking plate instead. and attached beside the steering wheel. Good option to leave everything looking stock and and only 200 bucks.

I'm in denial about the 335i John, I think you're absolutely on the money. I'm heading for a 330i myself. I'll be hanging on to the e46. Shame I can't justify three vehicles, I'd snap up your coupe in a heartbeat. Denial? Yes, I love the idea of the grunt and fun of the 335i, but my wallet says "be cautious young man, the next one's for two years only", and I arrive back at the 330i. That's more to do with my personal income risk, and is not a reason for others to avoid the 335i! I think the motorsport will be the way to go; non-msport you'll miss out on the seats and have to do all your suspension. The downside of Msport in the e90 series is that damned black headlining and pillar trim, does make it seem a bit grim inside. The windscreen seems smaller (pretty sure it is smaller) than the e46, so coupled with all that black it's a bit like peering out through the slot in a pillbox. There's some photos on a recent thread of the walnut intake clean, looks like a very good idea. One of those boost pipes (I forget which) is plastic and breaks - particularly with added tuning (boost), so normally replaced with an alloy item. They're a bit more complex under the hood than your NA unit, so you can expect a little more $$ in maintenance... but look at what you get in that package, eh? Do it. Oh, hang on, let's try that again:

New addition to the HellBM family, BMW 1502 with some extras: 2litre M10 transplant,Alpina headers, cam and dual carbs etc

Love the front picnic tables in the E38, looks factory... maybe it is??? haven't seen it before

See a nice black bread van up millwater this morning, looked like it was running 260m's

Are you putting the internal temperature setting to max (32°) before you bleed it? That should clear any air out of the heater.

Sorted. Now just to find some style 22's

This ones done itself a small mischief. Previous owner lived across the road. Had a broken headlight, bumper and smacked in guard before it moved on. Made funny noises before the prang too.

As some of you may know I do a fair bit of electronics tinkering between Toyotas and BMWs Now able to offer my services to repair the annoying E90 LCI tail light issue were the amber indicators get illumination failures Rate is $180 per tail light, including 12 month warranty. If both lights are affected I can do them slightly cheaper at $320 for the pair. Simply remove your light unit, drop off or post to me in Auckland and I can have it sorted within 48-72hrs. TM

I no longer have any problems like this... people just let me in. Funny that.

7.12 l / 100km

I was wondering why I was loosing coolant, having to top up each week over the last few weeks. Thought here we go.... Turns out the heater hose wasn't tight enough. Now I have wet carpet again.... and another leak. Any one experience rust around the thread that the glovebox bracket screws on to? I had noticed it prior but because it was so minor (And easy to get to), I hadn't thought anything of it at this stage. Turns out water is dribbling through there too. Things I need to still do: Put car back together Muffler replacement, have the muffler already. Work out why L low beam bulb blows straight away Retrim sunroof headlining and gearboot Install LSD New IS side skirt and also new Reiger lip Bigger engine?!

Of course only 1 litre goes in the engine. The other four go on my driveway.

Do you realise you know me Nathan

Stripped my instrument cluster and a japanese import cluster. Rebuilt a working cluster with NZ New gauges. (l/100kms, 55l fuel tank w/ no additional writing, symbols not words for parking brake lights etc) Now have a complete working cluster, and no fuel instead of the 30ish the 62l gauge was suggesting

So I delved into the 750i today. Not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Started with this. And got to this. All in an effort to get this out. Bonus for me was that someone has already been in there and replaced all the fuel and vacuum lines. It looks like the intake manifold gasket/boots are fairly new as well though I'll take them off and inspect them just to be sure there are no leaks.

So what a mission of a weekend that was!! Started off with the headliner Saturday afternoon.. quite fiddly and patience is required. In the end we got it in and wow, she looks amazing now. I had forgotten what having a headlining looked like! Finished off the afternoon putting the grab handles, sunvisors and rear interior light in place. First thing this morning (yes in the frost) I got the car out in the morning sun and we positioned the dash. So much easier with the wind screen out!! Gave it a nice shine up with this beeswax stuff I got for vinyl/leather/wood surfaces. No matter what I do in this car however I always get followed.. Come mid afternoon putting the sunroof back we discovered that it's leaking. One of the guide rails is broken. Damn. Oh well... lots of cursing as this means I cant risk driving it just yet in the wet weather - especially with new headlining. Went to start the car to move it back on the garage and what's this? It doesn't start. I knew it was low on gas but didn't realise it was THAT low. Off to the gas station and back and still no go. Sh*t. Turned out Simon had fiddled around under the bonnet and left the TPS unplugged. Phew but really?! Guess we're even since I've done that before with the race car. Managed to get the carpet in place, revacuumed, front seat and trims in place. Either during the week or next weekend I need to: Get the audio going correctly. Place passanger trim pillar and passanger seat in. Put passanger sun visor and remaining interior lights in. Centre console put in place. Glovebox area put back together. A wash also though need to sort out the sunroof issue beforehand. May be that a new guide is needed. At least the weather was good right? Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

CH in 18" or 19" would go close to 1k, 17s really don't hold a lot of value these days outside of LMs, style 5s, genuine Alpina etc. If he took the Chinese plastic circles off the wheels he might find a buyer a little faster.