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sold to @WYZEUP pending payment and pickup

Alignment sorted this week and a quick drive, I'll take it out this weekend for a proper run. The feedback it gives is amazing... perhaps even disconcerting for some as it translates every imperfection on the surface through the steering wheel. Some may not like this and over a long distance I imagine it'll take more out of you but I really like it, you feel directly connected to the road. I would certainly say that it's not worth the 100% premium over the purple rack unless you really want that direct and instant feedback. The purple rack is vastly superior to the stock one but the Z3 rack is only an incremental upgrade for me and I reckon many people would prefer the purple as it's a little more compliant. But whatever you do, if you have a stock rack make sure you upgrade it to one of these two. I've had to recalibrate my turn-in and wind-out but that was easy enough, this rack would be perfect for auto-x or gymkhana events. My steering wheel is about 1 degree off centre. ?? I'll try and re-centre it at the actual steering wheel this weekend, I'm not sure if it's worth taking it back to the alignment shop or if that's just being a pedantic dick...? Happy so far... and I've just purchased some more bits that should have me visiting Kayne sometime soonish... ?

There was a couple of Stubbs from tubing on the inside wheel well left, plus some evidence of leaking although dry of where they had drained on the inside well. Yip only noticed due to the new parts, comments like ‘suspension must have been bad if you replaced all that’, like I was an idiot for maintaining things, like most NZers I suppose. Not commen for them to actually see something good before it’s a death trap

Had the day off to get a few things done. Started with wheel alignment post the suspension upgrades. Off for a warrant, VTNZ. Ok here we go. much discussion from the team there on the new suspension. FAILED, requires LVV cert, WTF. (Replaced Self Leveling Suspension and deleted it) Also failed excess smoke, brake bias. ( has been sitting around a bit). Stupid notes about the spare wheel not being bolted down. Righto, minor argument at the time, off I go somewhat steaming. Changed the oil (was going to do it anyway), few emergency stops on the brakes. Bit of LVV website printing, back I go. into the revert line, everyone vanishes . into the office, say I want to challenge the findings thanks, in my nicest management tone. Please wait by the car sir. 5 mins later, nice manager comes out and we have a wee chat, he knew all about it. To his credit said he’ll have another look, on it goes over the pit. 2 of them prode, shine the lights around, ask me about the replacements and then are worried that all the control arms are for a different car. FU summaries my update to them, in general terms. after much umming and erring, me waving the standards about, they decide it’s acceptable and recheck the brakes, How are they I ask? Perfect no problem now sir. Ok how’s the excessive smoking ( I’ve near even seen smoke out of it)? Revs it a bit, yip that must have fixed it sir. Great, Warrant passed then, yip. So once it’s on the window, I ask how do I go about avoiding this next time and get told it’ll be fine because it won’t be all shiny and new any more, oh yeah of cause the dirt clause, missed that in the WOF Requirements .... I need a drink. At least I can drive to get one

yep no point bothering with M20 unless its for a specific racing class, you just want to keep the car "more original", or you want the cheapest option to get the car back on the road. M30 is dinosaur tech and boat anchor. was the engine of choice for decades when M5x engines were over 2/3k, but no point doing that now. i have done a bunch of M52 swaps, its easy to do and my engine of choice. just do plenty of reading, and read through a half dozen build logs and take the average of suggestions as the fact, dont rely on any one person. Bear in mind two things, 1/ most of the logs will be in American which means they are left hand drive (important when it comes to exhaust stuff, steering, and clutch control), the pinout tables are not correct for your car, and also 2/ most of the threads if not all are outside of NZ, where rules are generally a lot laxer and do not require the certification process we have. thus you will need to think about things like drive shaft hoops and bump steer tests, possible be forced to upgrade brakes etc. worth looking through the LVVTA Threshold guide as a starting point. also i recommend swapping to stock E36 steering rack at the same time, they are cheaper now than they used to be, and cheaper than having to make up custom power steering lines to adapt the e36 pump to the inferior E30 unit. use the holden barina / opel corsa linkage youll see mentioned, e30 nuckle on top and e36 on bottom. also means you dont need to recert later down the line when you do it anyway. having said all that, if i do another swap in the future, i think i will use the M54B30.

At least you know where not to go next. The place i go always comments on BMW being tidy, i tell him its not really its just you guys are used to seeing crap. They always agree.

Check out the latest video from Bad Obsession Motorsport... If you like the MG XPower, you may wet yourself.

E85 is 85% ethanol 15% petrol so only runs on high ethanol capable fuel systems. This is just 100 octane petrol so any car can use it. Wont notice a difference from 98 or even 96 on most engines, depends how wide your fuel maps are for timing advance. Different story if you are tuned and turbo or tuned and high compression.

@eliongater do the E28 have the copper grounding nut on the back of the cluster like E30s do ? i suspect in any case this is a sperate issue not related to the engine

MHD Stage 1 ots 98RON map done. New VSRF charge pipe on the way, just in case... you know. Considering FMIC/VSRF downpipe now. Mod bug alert. Have made a post about with some questions:

Yeh it was a little less interesting this episode. Although the look of awe on James May's face as he drove Neil Armstrong's Corvette down a shuttle runway at Cape Canaveral was the look of a man who could die happy now.

Hmm...