Leaderboard

Sold.

At least it will make your E34 look like a Corolla in maintenance costs

It went good on the dyno!, So nerve wracking with a new build hoping everything will go smoothly One issue that bit me was a cheap tm fuel pressure reg……..should know better It made 348 hp atw at 14psi Super happy with the result , Now onto the cert process

Yeap, I just ordered one through CHC BMW (Same part NO.), 211 +gst will be here Monday morning ex AKL.

Thought I would do an update on how the manual W8 Passat is going so far. In the month and a half I have had it, I've already done over 2500km! Since I am yet to find an undercover spot for it, I've been parking it at my house which has been bad for my wallet as I've been taking it out every other night for a cruise from the shore to Auckland CBD and back. It's really surprised me on how nice it is to drive. So far, not a ton of issues, but not trouble free either. My intermittent check engine light has become a permanent one and its fuel intake issue seems to be getting worse. W8 Passats have a highly sophisticated (over complicated) fuel tank setup. Volkswagen, in their wisdom, decided that because the Passat was getting a 4.0L W8 engine, it should have a bigger fuel tank capacity. Instead of making the fuel tank bigger, they decided it would be better to add a second 20L tank in the spare tyre well to compliment the standard 60L tank, and then have an internal fuel pump to pump fuel from the 20L tank to the 60L tank when required. This means the car has no less than 4 fuel level senders! The fuel tank also has its own control module which figures out combined fuel level of the two tanks which is then shown on the fuel gauge. The fuel gauge in my car does not work, most likely as a result of the fuel tank control module being faulty, or one or more of the fuel level senders not working. However, this wouldn't bother me if I could at least fill the car up. If I could fill it up I would just go 400-500km and then refuel. When I first got the car, if you didn't hold the pump at an angle, the pump would click off every litre. But if you had it at the right angle, fuel would go in just fine. However, over the last few weeks, unless you have the pump at an absolute dribble, the pump will click off every 30 cents or so, which means putting as little as $20 worth in takes about 5 minutes. Very, very annoying. It means I don't know how full my tank is because I can't just fill it up as the pump clicks off every second so I have no idea where the "top" is, and of course, my fuel gauge doesn't work! I stuck a borescope camera down the filler neck and it showed fuel seems to be sitting at the first bend which is in line with the top of the 60L tank. This would show that the car appears to be overfilled with fuel, yet I'll drive 200+km, and then still have trouble getting fuel into the car. Doing some reading online, I hypothesise the charcoal canister in my car is damaged. The charcoal canister breathes the fuel tank. What I think has happened is when the fuel gauge broke, one of the previous owners thought it would be a clever idea to fill the tank right to the top of the filler neck to hold as much fuel as possible. However, what this does is allow fuel to get into the breather line and turn the charcoal canister into a concrete-like substance, which means it won't be doing any breathing. In a normal Passat the charcoal canister is easy to get to, but of course, in a W8 it is sandwiched by the additional 20L tank, meaning you have to drop the whole fuel tank just to get to it! Currently I just go to the petrol station at night so I don't annoy too many people by being slow, put some music on and stand there for 15 minutes to put a bit of fuel in, and then work out how far I can go. My current plan to sort this is to try find the charcoal canister line so that I can vent the tank to atmosphere, and bypass VWs complicated system of sending the gases to the engine. Anyway, on to things that have been done, so far: A few days after my last post about the car I had it serviced. The oil looked alright but the previous owner couldn't remember when he had last changed it, and what oil he had put in it. The coolant looked pretty grotty so I was keen to have that flushed out. I took the car to Weissach Motors on the North Shore who are Porsche and VAG specialists, after my parents recommended it to me as they had done rear shock replacements on my mother's 911. The car got some Liqui Moly 5W-40 and had the cooling system flushed. Apparently, the reason the coolant looked grotty is Volkswagen used a material in the cooling system that does not like regular tap water, which over time makes coolant look bad as it degrades. Weissach Motors have a very slick email system which sent me a detailed inspection they had carried out on my car while it was there for service including photos of issues. A few things came up which I wanted to sort. Front CV boots were both split, with one leaking grease. Brake hoses had some cracking and there were some perished bushings in the front end. Hopefully next week the car will go in to have all this stuff sorted. I also had a nail in my front left tyre, so tyres jumped closer to the top of my "to-do" list, especially since the rears had un-even wear and pretty low tread anyway. The battery was also terrible so I replaced that with a Century one. One thing that I felt let down my Passat were the wheels. The factory BBS wheels are a cool looking wheel, but mine were in very, very bad shape. I took them to Wheel-Fix It, and since the centres were oxidising and all the lips were very curbed, to have them properly sorted they would need to be chemically stripped, which would cost close to $3K. They were so bad in fact, the guy said it would be best to find a new set and refurbish them instead. Considering I also needed new tyres, I started looking at a more affordable way to sort the wheels. I began searching for another set of W8 wheels, however seeing as W8s are quite rare, and to my knowledge the BBS wheels on W8s didn't go on any other Volkswagen, I couldn't find anything. I then thought about buying another W8 just for the wheels. I looked on Facebook Marketplace, hoping to find a very cheap W8 with somewhat decent wheels, however I couldn't find anything. I then had a look on trademe, and to my surprise I found a silver, NZ New auto W8 Passat, also with the rare Recaro interior, and with much tidier wheels wrapped in Bridgestone RE003s for sale at a dealer in Hamilton. It had been for sale for over 5 months so I drove to Hamilton with a mate and offered the dealer a fair amount (only about $1200 under asking price). I now had two silver NZ new W8s. We drove the cars home in tandem which must have confused other motorists seeing two; largely identical W8 Passats driving together. We swapped the wheels that night, and I was pretty happy with how it improved the look of the car. Driving both cars also made me realise how special the manual one is. They feel very different to each other. The auto is a nice cruiser but is way too laid back especially around town and very boring compared with the manual. The auto one went back on trademe that evening. Now that I had two W8s, I set about sorting a few things on my manual car, using bits from the auto one. My manual one was missing its boot gas struts, and had a faulty boot lock actuator, meaning you could only open the boot by putting the key in the lock. I swapped the gas struts and then the actuator. Of course the screws holding the actuator in place are located face up to the boot skin so you have to take the entire bracket holding the lock and plate lights off, and then squeeze the screw bit and a small ratchet in to get the actuator off. Got there in the end, and now I have a boot that opens by holding the button on the key. The button inside the car and the handle seem to intermittently work now when they feel like it. That night I took the car out to get some petrol as I was so pleased with how it was going, and was proud of how tidy the car was starting to look. Of course 3 minutes out from my house a tree branch fell down onto the car, leaving a nice dent in the bonnet which I will have to have pulled out. The bonnet is double skinned so will be a bit of a pain to sort as you can't get it from the inside. Was pretty pissed off. To cheer myself up a bit, I had my headlights polished and coated at Renew Car as they were yellowing and were faded in some areas. Car looks a bit fresher with polished headlights now. I also continued cleaning the interior. Did a wet-vac of the carpets which has helped remove the cigarette smell from the car, and I sorted out the peeling wood veneer trim with some 3M Outdoor Mounting Tape. So that just about covers what I have done to the W8 so far. Took it out for a few photos over the past couple days:

Picked up the new sensible car / wifes daily - 2014 F31 320d MSport in Alpinweiss III. I've always thought BMW do the best looking wagons, so stoked to have one in the fleet in a great looking, low maintenance colour. Fresh import 76km and in absolutely fantastic condition - I don't know how the Japanese manage to keep their cars in such amazing shape?! Early days, but really loving the look and the M Sport interior. Powertrain is plenty in the real world, definitely sounds like a diesel at idle but meh - seems pretty damn efficient! 'Modern' cars are bloody nice with all the fruit for sure. Comfort access / electric tailgate etc. Came on new staggered 19" BMW replica wheels of some sort (anyone know what style?) and some cheapo tyres, but the fitment is excellent and it looks good - may upgrade the tyres in due course but they are brand new and already overspent a little on the car. Plans for it so far (most parts en-route) are: Euro Plate Black Kidneys Black Mirror Caps Paint or wrap the M Performance style front splitter black (AKA sacrificial bumper) Floor mats (didn't come with any) Tints(?) wanting the black and white look and seems to have very light factory tints - look dark in the shade but very light in daylight Wireless Carplay Bimmercode to do all the custom options / disclaimer deletes etc Looking forward to doing some road trips in this!

Hi there This is my e30 project bought as a rolling shell in 2020 Fitted Nissan engine, EFR turbo,forged fj20made engine loom,link ecu,made exhaust manifold,engine mounts,sump,fitted big fuel pump put brake booster assembly in the cabin,driveshaft hoops , 3 inch exhaust ,mishimoto radiator and inter cooler,lsd with e36 rear hat,widened steelies,panel and paint,and finally ready for the dyno and hunting for interior parts to finish off.Most of the e30s I’ve ever worked on have been race cars so we would bin the interiors so it’s ironic that is now the stuff I need to find Hope to post car on the Dyno if all goes ok. Cheers Mike Getting close……

Hi I use to have an old log in years ago to bimmersport. I have just acquired this car and I recall that a member on here owned it the number plate just rings a bell. It has the old euro plate frame Olly organised back in the day as well. Does anyone recognize it?

Maybe FORGED is the wheel brand?. I would think there should be manufacturers markings on the backsides (looks like something by the valve?) to help ID the wheels. Not that easy to tell forged vs cast apart from looking at them unless they have been so poorly cast it makes it obvious.

I think you can “restyle” your standard plate at KiwiPlates, fees vary but should be a goer?

I've recently done the valve stem seals on my E61 and must have looked at this thread at least ten times over the last year or so while deciding whether to send it somewhere or do it myself. There was a lot of umming and ahhing over the outlay of tools vs the cost for a garage to do the work. In the end I went DIY so I thought I'd just put it out there for anyone else that's thinking about it, I got the job done for somewhere around the $1700 mark plus a week of my time, which is a big discount assuming you have the time to spare of course. Parts were around $650, shipping and exchange rate dependent of course. I got my parts for this project from FCP. On top of the valve stem seals that also included all the gaskets & o-rings etc for the valve covers, upper timing covers, spark plug tubes (I used Febi as they were much cheaper but I think I'd use BMW original next time), and spark plugs because it's so much easier to do them with the spark plug tubes out that I think every time you have the valve cover off you should change them. Tools ~$1k I had a tool up a little. Its a bit of an outlay but relative to the spend to get someone else to do it I thought it was worth it. I already had an air compressor and decided to go the air method (vs rope method). I ended up getting A N62 valve spring compression tool kit from Aus (not the AGA one) A really long (650mm I think) 1/2" drive ratchet to turn the engine over with - long enough it poked out the top of the engine bay. A cheap leak down tester to hold the air pressure in the cylinders. And I splashed out on some AGA Valve Stem Seal plyers It's worth noting that Tony's AGA Tool Rental Service delivers worldwide now, but I don't know what the cost would be for rental + return shipping but may be worth a look into too. In terms of difficulty, I agree with other peoples opinions I've seen that if you can do the valve covers you can do the valve stem seals. And I guess the final test is - would I do it again if I had to? Yes I would, especially now I have the tools.

a bit of a mixed bag, but net life is choice. Getting the Pug back from the mechanic/panel beater on monday. going to cost me 1.5 times what i bought the car for, but it will be worth it. purring in winter will be so good.

https://consumer.licensys.co.nz/plate-vehicle-details Dropdown box gives options for replacement reason - 'damaged' etc

Aha Kees! @Kees that’s the one, two number plates ago. I have found that article online before too, seems to have been a cherished car. Makes you cry about that 993 price!

Is the duplicate plates option on the LicenSys website a remake of my current plate combination? Definitely don't want to lose the original combination! I'm very OCD about NZ New cars having original plates. Was one of the things that attracted me to my 540i and my W8 in the first place, as well as my daily driver 207 GTI.

As per title, after some cheap chrome headlights and tail lights to suit a coupe, closer to free the better since all the Facebook offers have been more than what they are new!

#winning! pretty sure I paid about $220 landed - so barely cheaper

$23.15 for a new pair of plates @Kees - that's probably the equivalent of driving 40k in the W8 🤔

330D needed it's thermostat replacing, was getting DPF codes as regen not able to do it's thing. As I mentioned in another thread, I hadn't encountered stretch fit belts before. I decided to replace the drive belts while I as in there and had been supplied a non stretch belt. I ripped the PS pulley clean off the pump 🤐 Not easy to track down on this side of the globe, I got a proper gates stretch fit belt and my old man spun up a pulley out of aluminium (what a legend) put it all back together and took it for a blast over transmission gulley to get the temps up. All seems happy, gave it death and nothing flew off or broke. Temps are now reaching up to 92c where as before couldn't get it over 70c. The 335d we've bought to replace it doesn't seem to hit the mark with us the same as the 330d so wondering whether we just keep the 330d after all! The 335D pulls like a freight train but we miss sports seats, radar cruise and comfort access 😢

In Wellington diesel is nearly the same price as petrol now - ~2.60 vs ~2.75 then RUC's on top. I assume this is refining related rather than oil co's applying differential markup I guess it's working to control demand - last tank was my best economy since started recording (50L for 748k of mixed driving)

The neighbours all rolled their eyes when the second one turned up 🤣 Ended up having a chat to the guy who lives opposite me. Turns out he owned a manual W8 back in the day. Crazy coincidence since I think there were only ever about 10 in NZ, with roughly 4 left now!

That’s the one! Loving it - wouldn’t want to go much more shorter either, it’s great IMo

Real easy to swap the E46 display from miles to kms or back again, so I think Kees has got it spot on. I don’t think you can change the units in the MVR for a vehicle that easily so the car and the records have gone out of whack. Personally, whether it’s kms or miles I would be looking at the condition of the car and the service work done. Biggest question for me would be the new wheels and non-brand tyres that have been put on. Is this the usual Pearce Bros showroom tidy up or was it the previous owner..? Nice price for an E46 M3 in manual, very interesting that as a vert it is cheaper than most coupes.

I have seen at least two sets burnt on FB posts, the tail lights at least. It's a shrinking pool of availability.

Looks fantastic! Got to love when you end up with two 😂

Again, oddly sensible for a dealer. Convertibles seem to be the least valuable M cars and the season is over.

So last night I got round to doing something I’ve been meaning to for a long time - flashed the GDSMG2 module with the ‘255’ CSL binary using WinKFP. I also flashed the DME with the CSL SMG shifting and rev matching parameters and the clutch inertia parameters using BMW Flash and the ECUWorx MSS5X Binary Modification Tool. To provide stable supply to the battery I hooked the car up to our Subaru with jumper leads during the flashing process to minimise the bricking risk. I then flashed the GDSMG2 module first with WinKFP: Followed by taking a partial copy of the DME user data area, modifying it with the ECUWorx tool, and then flashing the modified binary back to the DME: The MSS5X Binary Modification Tool is great. So easy to use and such a time saver. I am completely confident in my ability to modify the binary by hand, but I spend a fair chunk of my time in the depths of software, so when it comes to extra-curricular car activities I was more than happy to spend $40 to save the time and mental effort that would be required. The flashing process went flawlessly for me, and I was all done in about 45 mins. For anyone doing it my advice is as follows: 1: Ensure that your programming platform is stable and working. I gave my hardware, OS cable, etc a good work out with INPA and ISTA first to get as much confidence as I could that the connection to the car seemed reliable. 2: Make sure you have a stable power supply. Either jumper to another (running) car, Or fork out for a supply mode charger. 3: Read up carefully on the process, make sure you know the steps and that you have everything in place, you don’t want to be messing around figuring stuff out when you’re in the middle of doing it. 4: Make sure you understand that flashing modules over OBDII is inherently risky, and that you can’t eliminate all risk. Make sure you can live with it going bad, and that you have a plan for how to resolve if you end up with a bricked module. So onto the CSL binary and DME updates themselves… Everyone says how much better the CSL binary is. I’ve heard lots about how it’s faster. To be honest I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. The standard SMG software has always seemed pretty decent to me, and it’s plenty fast to begin with, so I wasn’t sure I wanted more speed and harshness. Oh how wrong I was. The CSL flash is a bit faster, but the real benefits are how much smoother it is shifting under acceleration, and how wonderful the rev matching is on downshifting. It’s a revelation. It significantly improves the SMG function, without taking away any of the character that makes the SMG special to begin with. Suffice to say this change will be sticking round on my car!

Now you need a new plate ^^

Drove it to Christchurch and back over the weekend. First decent drive with the mods and tune. I was pleasantly surprised at no drone at all on the open road, the cheap tyres are definitely louder. Far too easy to lose your license when passing people though, just floor it past one car and you're easily at 150 😟

Made a bit of progress this weekend. A couple of weeks ago I took the car for its WOF, which it failed for the first time in my ownership, due to the weeping high pressure power steering line. This was annoying but not unsurprising given it’s been weeping since 2017 and I’ve been intentionally avoiding it for as long as possible (given the new ones start to weep again fairly quickly anyway). Anyhow, needs must, so I placed an order with Schmiedmann for the power steering line and associated bits and new wiper blades (which also needed doing) as well as a bunch of other stuff that fit in the box without increasing shipping cost. That arrived this Friday just been: So on Saturday I took the car round to Dad’s to swap it over (Dad’s driveway is a more advantageous angle than mine, so with that as the excuse I snaffled a few hours of his time as well). I was thankful for a second pair of hands as although swapping the line is very straightforward, it was super annoying getting tools in to undo the vibration dampening brackets and put the new ones on. The offending item: It was good to actually do something on the car. Last time I really did any work on it was in 2019 before my son’s operation. It was pretty cool this time to have him helping me as well 😍 With the power steering fluid topped up and new wiper blades fitted the car is ready to pass it’s WOF recheck this coming week. The other items will remain on the shelf for now (except perhaps for the rear boot lid struts because the honking noise annoys me). The other thing I’ve been doing this week is setting up an old MacBook as my workshop PC (this involved barbaric things such as using a flash drive to install Windows 10 on it, manually installing drivers, and other such horrors that I thought belonged in the 2000’s). Anyway it’s all setup nicely now. Currently using it with my K+D CAN cable but will probably purchase an ICOM interface at some point so that I can hopefully retire my DIS VM for good! Will be making another order from Schmiedmann this week - I have a fairly lengthy list of parts to get through, so biting the list off in chunks for now. Till next time!

I do have a bit of hate for the Ute down these ways. Every 2nd vehicle is a Ute here. They are the fastest, best handling and most capable vehicle in the world. We call it Ranger Danger. Because you just know the one sitting 2m off your bumper in a school zone is going to pass you in a dangerous spot using all of their 1500hp and F1esk handling. It's funny because it is the behaviour that BMW drivers usually get blamed for.