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Hi guys. . and girls..and...yea... Dony know if this is the right place or even if I can put this here. ... I recently started up my own Workshop called HIGHSPEK in Carr road Mt Roskill Auckland. Just to let everyone know that Im still in setting up stage but I can do servicing and maintenance work, some repairs and Diagnosing with a Launch Scan tool. And yes...that is how we spell "fulids" in SaKiwi standard😉

A small meet up and cruise last weekend with some local fellow BMW enthusiasts.

Digging this old girl out. Has not run since 2015. After living overseas, multiple delays acquiring a property and building a shed, I finally have somewhere to work on it. Goodbye container. Will get an entire new look I think. Though unlikely to race in the BMW series again. More for hill climbs and club events at Manfield.

Had a great little E30 meet in Drury yesterday - some wicked cars on display, especially the V8 Beast @WYZEUP Watching Magnus Walker rip on his vintage Porsches on Youtube motivated me to take her out for a spanking this morning and test out the new shocks and springs. Great fun blasting around the rural roads around Coatsville / Waimauku and Helensville - this old M20 just keeps pulling hard to the redline and loves it - has really been singing since @BMTHUG adjusted the valve clearances. New suspension is good too - firm enough for fun but not too crashy - its never going to ride as well as my E46, but no issues at all. Couldn't resist a little photo shoot of course.

Thats a hell of a deal in this market. So much to go wrong, but it'd be worth it. Its also in the realm of the Ks being too high for most dealers to buy and flip too, which means a genuine owner might get a chance to own it.

I'd rather 200k than 100 without bearings. What interior does it have?

Hello, Thought id start a thread to keep track of the progress on my 2008 bmw 135i. A bit of background, before this car, I had a 2004 e46 330ci m sport that I bought for $1000 with a crash damaged front end. That was my first project car and taught me most of what I know about cars, I fixed the front end, stripped and restored the entire interior after finding water ingress, rebuilt the cooling system and replaced a few gaskets. Once finished, I felt that it was time to sell it as it wasn't a car I felt like should be modified being somewhat of a classic, I sold it to an e46 collector and began the search for my next project, it had to be small, fun and fast, preferably n54 powered for easy performance gains, decided on a 135i. I bought my sapphire black metallic, black leather interior, 135i in late October, 127,000km bone stock leaking oil, overdue a service, cracked 3rd brake light and broken LED in RHS taillight and a dirty interior, and on the drive home it went into limp mode. Great introduction to N54 life. Not really a surprise when you got it at price that makes it the cheapest low(ish) km 135i for sale. However it wasn't all bad, it had extensive service history, used to be under auto sure mechanical insurance, had the water pump and thermostat replaced, and a transmission service done as well as regular oil changes at 10k intervals, that is until the owner I bought it from got it, who only owned it for a few months. Catching up on things ive done so far: First thing I did was address the issues, scanned codes, limp mode was for exhaust Vanos mechanism, most likely just needed a clean from the old oil. Did an oil change, cleaned the Vanos solenoids and that fixed the limp mode. However I found the following issues; leaking sump, valve cover gasket, OFHG, oil cooler gasket, wrong coolant. Time for an FCP euro order, added PCV valve, top radiator hose, expansion tank hose, coolant flange and also a new drive belt to the list. I worked my way through all of the hoses, gaskets one by one, learning as I went and eventually had everything except for sump done. Valve cover took 2 attempts because I couldn't find a tool for the ground lead studs anywhere, eventually I contacted Ray from HellBM who ended up giving me one for free o massive thanks to him. Filled the cooling system with correct bmw coolant and bled it, so easy with the electric water pump. No more leaks. Gave the car a good clean, cleaned the interior, rewired the paddle-shifters for left down right up, and installed silver interior trim in the place of the woodgrain. Now the sump wasn't a job I wanted to do myself, I don't have access to a garage, nor a car lift so dropping the subframe didn't seem like a fun task, decided to let Michael from Euromotive handle this and got him to install catless downpipes and larger high flowing silicone turbo inlets too while he had the subframe out of the way. Next was coils and plugs as it had started to misfire on the way to the workshop, one of the coils in the car was a Chinese one and ripped in half, leaving rubber stuck on the spark plug after removing it, spent an hour in the car park with needle nose pliers puling bits of rubber out. Eventually got the new coils and plugs in and car ran smooth. Next step after fixing all the oil leaks and misfire was replacing the drive belt that had oil all over it from the OFHG leak. Did that, easier than I thought with the inlet in the way. Also installed pcv valve and oil catch can. At this point car was running smooth and no issues, decided it was time to make some more power, bought a bigger intercooler, metal charge pipe and installed them. Angle grinder came in very useful in making room for the intercooler. Flashed MHD stage 2+ and car felt ridiculously quick. And sounded good with the hatless downpipe and inlets. Then installed some dual cone intakes and blanked off inlets so that DV vent to atmosphere for more noise. Decided exhaust wasn't loud enough to match intake noise, so cut off muffler and welded in 2.5inch steel pipe with thin stainless exhaust tips, sounds better now but will go back and change this slightly. Decided that power was more than enough (for now) and time to move on to some handling and aesthetic changes. Bought a set of 18x8 et38 CSL style wheels (in white which is a unique look) from an e46 and they fit rather well. A little bit of rub on the front guards, but nothing a wheel alignment shouldn't fix. Also bought a set of second hand aragosta coilovers with adjustable front camber plates so that I can fit some wider tires and dial in the ride height as well as firm up the suspension. Got 6 well used dunlop direzza 03g 245/40/18 semi slick tires for free so will see if I can get them to fit to gain some traction. White wheels and a nice clean engine bay: That is where the project currently is at, waiting for a new 3rd brake light as it cracked again so I can take it for a WOF and then install my coilovers and try fit the 245 tires and hopefully get the wheels repainted soon, thinking either shadow chrome, gunmetal, or gloss black... More things coming soon

Looking damn good. Amazing what some care and good photos can do, compared to the previous listing.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/eurocarclassifiedsnz/permalink/1802950939895801/?sale_post_id=1802950939895801 Interior is quite nice, is the spec I would want with the aluminium panels.

Dig that interior 👌

Damn. That's a well sharp price. Amazing how poorly these hold value compared to E46 & E30's. Seems a good buy.

And it's up for sale! https://www.trademe.co.nz/3500327266

Just binged this thread - what a build!

Yeah pretty much reinforced my thoughts, thanks peeps. I think I'll give it a miss, I'm willing to do a few mechanical repairs but the paint job and rough interior puts me right off. Wish I saw that M5 before it was withdrawn / sold 😭

It's a trashy colour too. Why spend all that money to downgrade it from it's factory titanium silver?

Pretty cool time lapse of the old V12 going together on BMW Classic insta today..

Yeah i think 5k tops. 3.5k-4k region probably more realistic given most E39 have rooted suspension.