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been a while but time for an update. The E30 is a garage queen now, weekend and sunshine car nowadays mainly due to a work relocation and also the rising value of the old girl, been after these for a while and eventually got round to getting some OEM iS skirts for her from CATuned in California (8 days door to door for $36USD shipping), some fitting and after pics, used the official clips for anchoring the underside but didn't use the factory grommet method as really didn't want to drill holes so got a recommendation to use windscreen adhesive which has worked fantastically - really pleased with how she looks

I'm supposed to be listing this on TradeMe this weekend... if you want to get started on a build! It's not long clicked past 99,999 miles, so at a little under 1800 kms per year, I bet it's carbon footprint is pretty good... 'specially since it only got built once and there is a distinct lack of plastic crap. Nobody could be bothered with the effort of driving, so if you wanted to use the car, it was only for a trip that was worthwhile! Whereas an electric car is so good for the environment, you should drive it everywhere and never walk/run/ride etc!

CNG was introduced as an alternative fuel, the government jumped on it enthusiastically to the extent that they offered a substantial subsidy to anyone prepared to convert their car (have a familiar ring ?). It produced less power than gasoline and had a short range between fill-ups. None the less gas stations with access to the natural gas distribution network were coerced into installing special high pressure compressors and banks of storage cylinders. It was a classic example of a knee jerk reaction to the fuel crisis at that time, and seen as a way to reduce our dependence on overseas fuel supplies. There was no consideration given to the fact that much of the country did not have access to natural gas, the large CNG tank substantially reduced boot space, and no-one jumped at the thrill of lower performance and difficult starting on cold mornings. One of the reasons that CNG fell out of favor and eventually disappeared was the mandated requirement for the cylinders to be pressure tested by an approved testing agent which involved taking the cylinder out of the car... at a cost. Most opted to simply removed the CNG conversion. Jumping on the hydrogen bandwagon and forcing people into electric cars is another knee jerk reaction to a problem, chosen because big polluters are not so easy to push around. Go for the short-term solution, sell the benefits and ignore the downside... that's how politics work Now, where did I put that gasifier ??? Cheers...

4.5 a year is probably a smidgen over estimated when it took 11 years to gain consent and begin building Turitea windfarm, which isn't finished yet. Was plenty of talk about infrastructure projects (current and planned) at the EEA2021 conference when we were there, I guess its just not particularly sexy for news these days

Any investment in this area will be painted as subsidising fossil fuels. The real problems we face are ideological. There are many waste to energy schemes overseas and we ought to produce enough waste to make it work. We have terrain just crying out for more dams. Sadly the focus is on planting pine trees on the worlds most efficient farms, and importing a mix of very expensive new and half worn out 2nd hand electric cars. The Minister responsible for energy spoke of building 4.5 wind farms per year, this has proven to be all talk. Plans to upgrade the distribution network must be a state secret, because so little is talked about it. And still we aren't allowed to say the "n" word.

Hi all, had my car since October 2016. 330e F30 new to NZ. Pretty stock at the moment, but will add some rims if i can find a suitable replacement for a busted one. Looking to add some tweaks to it shortly

As if my plate wasn't full enough, I remember why I shouldn't be left alone on Trademe. I had been looking for a second reliable road-legal car for a while since neither the Marina nor Tomcat fits the bill and having just the one working car for both of us has proven bit of a pain. Thankfully the couple I had looked at ended up falling over as they were up there in price and it turns out I needed the money to get the Tomcat back together. Once the idea was planted it was hard to let go of, so I started keeping an eye on the lower end of the market, the sub 1K cars. Either something that I could fix easily or something that was already on the road ready to go. After wading through pools and pools of utter shite on TM and FB, I bid on a cheap 1st gen Manual Honda Jazz that had failed a WOF on surface rust on the underside, but when bidding hit my upper limit I bailed out and let it go. Next I spotted a cheap E36 Compact. Under a grand, and had hit reserve. It was local, but the auction finished that night, so no chance to go inspect the car. The description on the listing was vague. The model, "a future classic??" and "sold as is because it's an old BMW, please view". was all that was said. On the plus side, it had a new WOF, current rego, and moderate KMs. The photos showed the car as in OK condition, and the seller had answered a question asking if it ran/drove and if there were any faults, with a fairly simple "no error lights, drives well, leaks a few drops of oil and has a dent in the side". A photo from the listing What can possibly go wrong? I chucked a couple of cheeky auto bids at it, kind of expecting to be outbid, but suddenly I was the highest bidder and the listing was closing. I turned to my wife who was watching TV next to me and said "Uh, I just bought a car". Needless to say, she was somewhat surprised. The next day I met the seller in town, had a quick look around and handed over the cash... $1050. It didn't quite end up being sub 1K, but it's hard to argue with a new WOF and ready to drive away. That's how I became the owner of a 1998 BMW 318Ti Compact with Motorsport options in a fetching Arctic Silver Metallic. It has the mighty M44B19 1.9L 4 Cylinder and a 4-speed auto. The engine has no fancy anything, other than fuel injection, but is a simple and reliable twin cam that puts out about 138hp. Compared to the N series engines that followed, with Vanos, Valvetronic and all manner of fancy gubbins, the old M44 is bulletproof. The drive home was uneventful. The car had half a tank of gas in it, even if it was likely to be some old 91 octane. One thing that immediately struck me though was how slow it was. I've driven an auto 318is before, albeit in a coupe, and found the engine rather sprightly and loved to rev; this one was flat and felt down on power. That was until I gave it a bootful when joining the motorway. My wife who was following me in the Honda, commented that there was a cloud of brown smoke, but suddenly the car was feeling a bit more lively. The more I drove it hard, the more the engine freed up. Clearly, it had been living an easy life, puttering around town never seeing more than quarter throttle. The suspension is a bit soft but good for absorbing bumps for a smooth ride, and the auto shifts like a 90s auto. Not silky smooth, but not harsh or jerky (and no Jatco jerk like I had in the 323i). I do really like the E36 series cars. It's a classic design, easy enough to live with, and generally built quite well. There is also that distinctive smell, kinda like crayons. Getting into this car for the first time instantly transported me back to my first BMW (the 323i above) and it was very nostalgic. On the way home I swung by a local river and grabbed a couple of quick photos. I know the back end is a real Marmite thing; people either love it or hate it. After years of not really liking it I'm firmly in the love it camp, but only under certain conditions, such as this one where it has the Motorsport bodykit and topped off with that little spoiler on the tailgate. The poverty pack ones don't do it for me. And yes, that is a proper tailgate, not like the Tomcat with a pathetically small boot opening. The whole glass opens up on this to reveal a spacious load space, with split-folding seats. It's very practical. Interestingly, the compact weirdness doesn't end with the back end. The front panels are from the saloon, not the coupe (saloon front is apparently shorter), the doors aren't pillarless like the coupe (they are similar to the saloon doors but apparently bespoke to the compact) and the interior is just... weird. It's like a crossover between the E30 and E36, but sharing little with either. I can imagine a low spec model without half leather seats must be a pretty dreary place to be as its all hard plastics and the dash does feel quite low cost. To be fair, the whole car was designed to be low cost as it was the entry-level model, designed as a stepping stone into the world of BMW luxury. The interior trim on this is kinda special for such a low-cost model; all the leather trim has blue stitching and it gained the MSport steering wheel which under all the filth, has the tricolour ///M stitching. It's all in dire need of a damn good clean, but it's generally in good condition with only a couple of minor spots worn through the leather on the drivers bolster, a couple of cracks in the door trim, and some sagging at the back of the headlining; all common 90s car/E36 stuff. The other major weirdness with the compact is that while it shares the front MacPherson strut setup with all other E36s, the rear suspension is completely different and more similar to the Z3 or E30, being a semi-trailing arm setup rather than the more modern multi-link setup. The mighty M44B19 in all its filthy and unloved glory. No coil on plug, no Vanos, no Valvetronic, no E-throttle, just an iron block with an alloy head and two cams. It has a sticker on the windscreen showing it's been serviced in the past, which is a good start, albeit it's due for another service by time (not KM). It also looks like it may have had a replacement radiator at some point as it and the coolant cap look quite new. Everything else is filthy though (and damn I hate people that write on the engine like that). As the previous owner mentioned, yes, it does leak oil. I have narrowed down two of the leaks, to the valve cover gasket and the oil filter housing gasket, so have ordered replacements for those (along with service items). Both are super common E36 leaks. I haven't looked under the car yet, so hopefully it's not the sump gasket too. One thing that wasn't mentioned was the brake shudder coming down from speed, so as soon as I can I will check the runout on the rotors and see which ones need replacing. It's not bad enough to fail a WOF, but it's annoying. Same with the rough idle the car has when warm, also annoying, but harmless. Overall, I'm chuffed with the car. It drives well, I like driving it, and the more I drive it the more it's freeing up and not being so sluggish. Once I empty the tank down enough to fill it with 98 and reset adaptations hopefully it will open up a bit more power again. I've quite enjoyed being back in an E36 platform car again, even if it is bottom of the rung powertrain wise (well, let's not even talk about the 316... ugh). The day after picking the car up I was even brave enough to drive the car the 60 odd KM round trip to work. Other than the speakers all being shite, the car performed flawlessly. Yes, that's the ding in the guard. A shame. Check out the tinted windows though. Being the tinkerer I am, I tinkered with a few things on my lunch break. First was to retrieve the passengers window switch, which had been pushed into the center console. With the surround popped off, the switch was found and pulled out. Thankfully both the window and the switch work perfectly, all that was needed was to refit the surround and clip the switch in. Pity the surround is cracked so it doesn't hold the switch securely. It does still work, you just have to be gentle pressing the buttons. I either need to glue this back together or find a replacement. Both switches refitted. The drivers switch needs replacement too as it's damaged on the down button. It still works, but isn't nice to touch. No electric pop out rear windows on this one, unfortunately, hence the blanks. I took a bit of time to check some other things too, such as the first aid kit that was kicking around in the back seat. This is complete and unused. This is meant to slip down into one of the two pockets at the side of the boot floor, but the one it fits into currently has the Japanese owners manuals, and a wheel chock (both of which will come out at some point) so after finding the two straps with the tools in the boot, I strapped it to the boot floor for now. Speaking of tools, this car has the complete tool kit, including the weird tools for lowering the underslung spare wheel The red cap in the above photo is covering a hole in the boot floor, which if the spare wheel has been stowed correctly should line up with the tyre valve, so you can check the pressure easily. Sadly this one wasn't stowed correctly and doesn't line up. Another weird little Compact thing is that the gauge cluster doesn't have an economy meter (or oil temp for the M3) below the tacho, as all other E36 models have. It's just a solid blank. Pretty good Ks It's not quite as good looking as my co-workers new F30, but it's charming in its own right. Another fix I have done to the car is to replace one of the center vents as all the vertical vanes were missing so the direction could not be changed, which was a pain as this was the vent for the driver. I picked up a whole vent cluster from Pick A Part, but only replaced the actual vent as it's quite easy. You tip the vent right down, and then push further until it clicks. And then using a thin trim tool I gently levered the LH side of the vent against where the dial is, to pop the pin out of the clip and then the vent can be removed. Once the vent is removed you can see how it works; there is a little track on the side leading to a clip that a pin clips into for the tilt function. This is why I was replacing it. Empty. No sign of the missing parts, so they probably fell into the heater box. Doesn't seem to rattle, thankfully. And the replacement To fit the replacement you slide the pins on the track and push the vent into place until it clips in, and then tilt it back up again. Because I can't help myself, I chucked an LED into the interior light too. I tried to fit one to the boot light (Which wasn't working) but it seems the switch is at fault on that one, and it's a Compact specific part. That brings us up to date. I have had the car a week today, and have been driving it as much as I can. Various parts are on the way to fix a couple of things and to give the car a good service. This will not become a project though. I swear.

@Jacko cheers bro, appreciate you. btw i have booked myself a PPI at pandsauto this thursday! told the fellas you mentioned me to them and was stoked to have me onboard

95/96 when thats all thats around and stuck in the wopwops, 98 otherwise... mines at 290,000km now (170,000 of them me) I forced DME adaptations on 98, it definitely runs better on it than 96 now (I seem to get cat check errors regularly if fed it 96, if reset DME adaptation on 96 that might go away.. but meh) Walk away from one thats been fed 91, owners a tool

Thanks, must have been a mistake on shipping i reckon, no customs charges either which I was expecting, yea painted myself, its not hard, just have to slightly rough up clean and degrease , 3 coats of paint, 2 clear and have patience to let it all dry before handling

Nostalgia'd back to my old one. Didn't really appreciate it at the time, I am far too picky. Looking back at the pics makes it look so solid.

Thanks M3AN - I must say I have read a few of your posts all over but mostly on m3cutters to get through a fair bit of this work particularly the rack / tie rod build.

After four weeks installing all the parts plus another order from the states I’ve updated my auction so bumping this thread. I’ve upped the price to cover some of my parts and zero of my time…… Will still knock 2k off the listed price for Bimmersport members $42k. Added some parts pictures because well who doesn’t like shiny car parts right?

Starting bid of $40k, not buy now price. Reserve is higher than the 40k start. Just looks lower, might not be.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/353658929712425/ another one

Looks great - and amazing shipping price! Did you paint yourself?

You're welcome to try ours out. Pretty similar functionality to the IS There's very very little real world use of the touch screen system in a GS, push one button and adjust the fan speed on screen. Push another to see how bad the fuel economy is. Stereo and calling is separate. I'll find what brand bluetooth adapter Katie fitted to ours, it's got canbus support, so all works like OEM We have a drive-pro unit

Ah damn, the reliable second car became slightly less than reliable. To be fair, it was probably my own fault for leaving the car for a couple of weeks without driving it, outside, in all weather... I needed to swing by the hardware store to grab some things, and had my choice of cars. Of course, I took the Tomcat for a spin (because after spending all that money, who wouldn't?) and it performed flawlessly Upon returning home I realised I had forgotten the one thing I went there to buy That could only mean one thing, I had to make another trip. Since it was a hot day, and the Tomcat lives outside now, the last trip was a hot one. This time, I chose to jump into the Compact instead. It fired up straight away and settled immediately into its usual slightly rough idle. All seemed good. I set off down the road and within a few meters, it misfires. Just for a second, but it was there. It clears as quickly as it came on, and the car returned to driving normally. Pulling away from the next intersection I give it a boot full, and it is running like clockwork. Weird, maybe it just needs the plugs I bought a while back, fitted. I get to the store, do my shopping and jump back in the car. I turn the key. The engine cranks, and cranks, and cranks. I try a couple more times, you know, just in case it decides it wants to be nice. Nope, just cranks. Occasionally I can get the engine to start, but it runs super rough and shuts off immediately. 1 in 20 tries, if I give it a boot full of throttle it will rev up, super rough and then stop dead. Interestingly, the transmission warning light is on. I think nothing of this at the time though. I pop the hood, wiggle some stuff, which makes no difference. I try unplugging the AFM, no change. My wife is at the supermarket in the Honda, so I send her a text letting her know I appear to have broken down, and that I'm going to walk home and come back for the car later, once the store had closed. Looks alright, sitting there. No one would suspect a thing. Thankfully my wife was awesome enough to come find me on my walk home and gave me a lift. Googling the fault came up with many many common issues; crank sensors, fuel pumps, etc etc. If it has it, it can break. Later that evening, once the store had closed, we drove back and checked the car. Sure enough, on the first try, the engine started, and as long as I kept the revs up it would run, albeit rough. After getting some heat into the engine, the roughness cleared and it would idle, so I wanted to try a lap around the carpark to see if it would make it home. It takes off in second gear, since the trans is in limp mode (warning light on) and proceeds to die on the other side of the carpark. Stopped dead mid turn, like the ignition had been cut. It wouldn't start again, just lots more cranking. A (not so) quick phone call to the AA, and a technician was on the way. In the meantime, we did some window shopping, and my wife took a couple of photos of the car. The BMW where it rolled to a stop, and the ever reliable Honda Fit lurking in the distance. The Compact is a decent looking little car; I quite like it. When it goes. After about half an hour, the technician arrives in their tow truck. Sure enough, the car starts, misfires a couple of times and then idles like nothing happened. I give it a couple of laps of the carpark and it drives perfectly fine. I ask him to follow me home and we drive off in convoy. The car acts perfectly on the drive home. Not so much as a stutter. I thank and wave off the towie. I couldn't be bothered with the car at the time, so it sat out on the street on the naughty step for the night. The next day, after work, I pulled the car into the garage and had a look at what was going on. My leading theory based on the symptoms was a soggy DME (ECU). It's quite cool that with the removal of one 10mm bolt, you can set the bonnet into service mode, where the hinges kinda flip over and the bonnet opens vertical. The car is nose down in the photo, otherwise it would be straight up and down. Ugh, that dent. The DME is behind the battery, so that has to come out first. Once the battery is out, this cover is held in with those two round clips. You're meant to pry the centers out and then remove them, but I just pulled the whole clip out by hand, in one go. Removing this allows you access to the actual sealed cover, held in with a bunch of little screws Once that cover is removed, it can be unhooked from the main loom. In this car, there are also a pair of relays attached to the inside of the cover. I left these attached and just set the cover aside. The DME is sitting right on the bottom of the stack (with the trans controller above it). You can remove the DME connector by unclipping and lifting up on the silver locking tab, which will push one side of the connector away from the DME. Continue to gently rotate the connector, and remove the hook in the other end. This will allow you to grab the DME and just slide it forward and out of its bracket. It's not held in with any screws, just friction. To actually remove the DME I had to turn it 90 degrees so it would slip past the fuse box. The above images pinched from doing the same check on the M328i as I forgot to take any of the compact. This left me with an empty space Hmm, that black bracket looks damp. Oh damn, so does the underside of the DME. It's soaked. I removed all the screws in the bottom of the housing, bent back/broke off the tabs, and opened it up. It was dry inside, but immediately I noticed the corrosion on the circuit board. It wasn't terrible, but there were a few patches of obvious corrosion. Thankfully no obvious damage to the traces or any components, but the water must've been shorting it out. I gave both sides of the board a good scrub with contact cleaner and a toothbrush until I was confident the corrosion was cleared off. I then reassembled the DME ready to refit. The water had to come from somewhere, so I needed to do some digging. E36 are known for blocking the cowl drains, but I could find very little information about these on the compact (as they have a different firewall/cowl set up to the other E36s). These next steps are also, coincidentally, the steps to remove and replace the cabin filters. I did this with the battery removed, and I'm not sure if you have the space with it installed or not. The first step is to remove the little grate above the engine. This is the inlet for the fresh air. This plastic mesh has a series of (probably broken) clips along the top edge. Mine just pulled up, along with the rubber. This will leave you with a metal tray, with a plastic insert. To remove either, you need to remove the two screws in the tray, which hold the wiring loom to the bottom of it The wiring loom can then be pulled forward off its clips. There are now two screws on the firewall, one on either side, that need to be removed to free the tray With them removed, the tray is just wedged into place. You can pull it forward and remove the plastic insert. This is a deflector to direct air and water to where it needs to be. It is held in place by the big tray, and by hooking over the metal edge at the top. Now pull the tray completely out and marvel at the stupidly placed/designed cabin filters that have never been changed, and how disgusting they are. On this car, there are two curved panel filters, as opposed to some that had a pair of round filters, one either side of the blower motor. Both of mine were PACKED solid with grime, and jet black. I don't have spares on hand, so have removed them for the time being. Now, if you look down into that cavity the blower motor is in you will see two rubber grommets on the front, down the bottom. One is in the RH corner, and the other is on the left but closer to the center. These are the two drains. Both of mine were 100% clear, and free flowing. Damn. For further investigation, I removed the main cowling under the windscreen. On other E36s this covers the drains, but on this, it covers nothing but steel. I marked the wiper placement, removed the caps over the nuts And removed the wipers completely Now the trim can come off. The LH side is held in with two plastic screws on the far left, and then a series of clips on the underside. The RH is just held with clips on the underside. It was super manky under these A real good cleaning, and I put it all back together again. No real obvious sources of water ingress, other than just so much dirt under the trims that maybe the water couldn't drain away as it should've. I feel like due to the design there is a perfect storm that can result in the DME getting drowned, no matter what. There is a drain in the front corner of the DME housing; just a small gap (red line) between the base and the dividing wall (black lines) that I guess is meant to allow any water that gets into the DME enclosure to drain next door and go out the cowl drains. The problem is that if the car is leaning to the left, as it does when parked at the side of the road, any water would pool on the other side of the enclosure, where there is no drain. In theory, if it had rained hard overnight, with the car parked on the street, there could be water pooled there. Now, if you drove a very short distance (a couple of blocks) and then park nose up (as I did), there is the potential that water could run towards the back of the car and drown the DME, instead of running forward and down out the drain. Without blocking the drain and potentially causing more issues, I can't see any way to remedy it. It's just a bad design. If the DME was raised up a couple of mm off the bottom, it would be fine. It's just something I will need to keep in mind. But if it happens again, at least I know what it is, and there is nothing actually wrong with the car, it's just an E36 thing.

I can't resist. Right.... a 32 year old car with 111k kms on it.... I'm sure it's been driving in the winter..... NOT! Also, it's very, very cold in Alberta, so cold they don't use salt on the roads, just sand, so even if it was driven it hasn't been exposed to salt.

The electric range jumps up on the G20 330e due to the later generation of battery pack, real world I’m getting 45kms in stop start around town driving. In another thread I mentioned I did a long trip - Akl to Napier - in the holidays, total of 415kms of which 75 was electric (not fully charged at the start only about 28km range) and average of 5.9ltr/100kms. Wasn’t an economy run either.

While awaiting the electrical bits 'n bobs to arrive I've been chipping away at my trans mount and drive shaft loop ... which I need to get sorted before the tail end of the headers can be done. Just sent my proposal to the certifier to see what his thoughts are. REALLY hoping he is ok with it so I don't have to do the super lame but usual route of mounting through the floor with doubler plates etc.

Are these a straight fit for an e46 or is there a difference in bore size or something? Staggered set is it?

So a fun part of the project tonight, got a square wave signal generator off Trademe and plumbed into my development gauge cluster. Now I can dial up and down the speed and have the fuel economy gauge function (it needs about 5km/h minimum to work). All good learnings but it does mean that the economy gauge is only semi useful for displaying something random ... my hope was to use it for crank case vacuum / pressure. The other down side is that to drive this gauge properly from the Arduino / CAN payload your calculations for 'economy' would be relative to the vehicle speed (once moving) which is fairly annoying as you'd then have to plumb the speed signal (from ABS computer in my case) into the Arduino. I'm thinking it would likely be a better result if you took the cluster apart and either replaced the existing gauge motor or maybe jigged it up to be controlled by the Arduino directly. Would then function all the time and you could avoid the speed relative dumpster fire. Fun little sideline anyhow ps: for anybody interested that's 1.3kHz at 50% duty cycle giving about 190km/h