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Been ages since I last updated this so I'll definitely miss a few things that I've done. Most notably, had a problem with the ohlins dampers on the front sticking slightly on rebound. I was worried they might be bent or something but after removing them and sending them off to get rebuilt at KiwiSuspensionSolutions it turned out to just be some toasted internal bushings. I did really want to play around with getting some lower spring rate springs for the front while it was all disassembled and put a CSL front sway on to get the bounce frequencies closer to a flat ride setup, unfortunately cost just got in the way this time so I'll add it to the list of wants. Also finally updated the MAP sensor to the Kassel Performance unit to replace the old GM MAP sensor that had the wrong scaling for the OEM CSL engine management. Pretty easy swap over. Finally got around to grabbing some facelift tail lights for a pretty reasonable price. Visually they were mint, unfortunately a couple of the LEDs in the left hand unit were dead though. Luckily the place I got them from was a wrecker in the states and has already shipped a replacement unit so I'm not too upset. Currently in the midst of gearing the car up for a track day and one of the items on that checklist was sorting the diff fluid which hasn't been changed since I owned the car. While I was there I decided to replace the side seals on the output flanges since the left side was weeping a small amount. It should have been a straight forward job but for whatever reason I was having a nightmare doing it. Problem after problem. All went back together eventually though. Went with castrol fluid available from FCP and buying the friction modifier separately. Most people say to add 4.6%, I figured better to have too little than too much so I started with just under 4%. Went for the mandatory 'test drive' out to an empty paddock to make sure the diff still locked up and sure enough. No diff noise and the lockup feels sharp too, significant savings over the OE fluid so I'm satisfied. One day I'll get Kayne to build me a proper clutched diff since the fluid LSD's in these have a limited lifespan. Couple more things to do this week before the track day, flush brake fluid, new wheel studs etc. Really looking forward to going out on track in this, although the weather is making it look like I might spend a good amount of the day sideways...

Common misconception 1570kg - 1385kg it’s 185kg weight savings. The M4 CSL is merely one via marketing, I am more interested when the real deal CSL Hommage is released with all of its genuine weight saving strategy and manual gearbox and rear wheel drive. Just a shame it’s so limited and so expensive. And when you have to resort to this type of marketing to sell a car a manufacturer really has lost the plot on what Motorsport stands for🤷🏻‍♂️ IMG_3012.MOV

Thanks. I think ive spent close to what i paid for it on parts now haha.

Got to be one of the best non Ms going around

Mostly back together. Very easy to get the box in compared to that horrible SSG. Even the clutch line wasn't as bad as i expected. Quick start to check coding, gearbox and clutch which appear working well. Just need to get the driveshaft re-balanced with the new front half and CV joint before i can drive. The guy didn't include the shifter foam and boot so will have to wait for him to find one a boot or get new. Looks like of those done on the cheap conversions but at least i can still use it. Long 1\2" extension and wobble extension recommended. Makes the job much easier and less likely to round heads off (24" and 10" pictured)

New little project, give them a good clean and birthday step 1. Lucked out and the drivers side is the rocking horse sh*t SP-DC top of the line electric everything version.

Pulled the tardme pin on these, look to have recaro mounting brackets etc from what I could see, dont look too out of place in an E87, plus air lumbar, heating, and ass cooling fans. Oddball JDM recaros, look to be aftermarket only - SP-JC. Cert to install them doesnt look too tricky, removing airbags being the main hurdle. Rest looks fairly legit. The car they are installed in is a bog standard poverty pack prelci 120 wreck.

An interesting move in the UK, as from 30 June 2022, all home EV chargers must be smart chargers. Separately metered and able to be controlled remotely. Why? Recovery of road tax that is normally recovered via the purchase of petrol Control of the electricity grid peak load It will be interesting to see how the N.Z. Govt handles these issues? Road User Charges for EV's? Currently free. But watch this space when the penetration of EV's start to impact the Govt Coffers. Electricity Network owners are all struggling with the future high impact of the EV charging load. Effectively doubling there peak load on a network the has little or no future EV growth room due to the "Optimised Deprival Value" methodology they are forced by the Govt to use when building major improvements. There is no fat in the system and they simply can't build the network fast enough for electric car charging loads. Will you have enough charge for that urgent trip when the Network Owner has drained your battery to support their network peaks? Do I want to buy an electric car? Not at the moment. They are too expensive, battery life is a concern and the playing field on operating costs is a shifting muddy quagmire. Roll on Green Hydrogen and Green synthetic petrol. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/motorists-warned-as-new-driving-law-may-lead-to-sinister-implications-for-car-tax-costs/ar-AAXLcPw?li=AAnZ9Ug https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/driving-law-changes-all-home-ev-chargepoints-will-need-smart-chargers-from-next-month/ar-AAXIfdT?li=AAnZ9Ug

Mine doesn’t do that no matter where it’s set. Top image would drive me nuts.

Didn’t Martin go through this? Get a 30d, use less fuel, more than quick enough and great mid range shove. Do it now and load up on cheap RUCs.

E46 coupe on 18” Mpars

Had an F25 X3 35i xDrive, absolutely loved it. As you said very similar to the M135i since same N55. Performance is amazing despite the weight. The one I drove for a few months was not M Sport so suspension/body roll was the biggest letdown in corners but for normal daily use it was comfortable and very adequate. You will enjoy it if you liked the m135.

cut and pasted, has some interesting figures on NZ current power generation and usage The investigation report on Lake Onslow is supposed to be released soon. This will be touted by the incompetent Minister as a real game changer but needs more taxpayer money to be wasted. Yet they won’t release the economic analysis to justify it. In any sensible world, this would be the first thing done. But in the Kiwibuild era, that type of report would just be decried as naysaying and the old paradigm. So for benefit of Kiwiblog readers, if you indulge me, here is the condensed version. Remember it when the Minister’s PR comes out about how good Onslow is and the puff pieces about it being a real game changer. I haven’t included links as it would make this post too long. However, the info is factual so easily checked with public domain data – look for numbers and units, not words. A good place to start is here: https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator Read their reports. Electrical energy is in Watt hours, Power is Watts – they measure different things, though many ignorant commentators confuse them, Nomenclature and units are a good way of quickly sorting the parrots out to disregard their twitterings. And remember, get units correct; kilo(k), mega(M), giga (G) and Tera(T). NZ uses about 45TWh of electricity a year ~125GWh a day; more in winter, less in summer. It needs to generate significantly more than this to allow for losses (heat) on overloaded equipment. However, during a day, the power varies greatly. It is about 3GW at 4am and the peak about 6.5GW. Usually, absolute peak is about 6pm but the demand is high 7am to 9am and 5pm to 8pm. The generation has to match the demand within 1% at all times. If it doesn’t, then demand response is needed (a euphemism for turning your power off). Biggest single unit on the grid is about 400MW (a gas burner) at full load. Most are less than 100MW – lots of littleuns. For operational and maintenance reasons, hydro units don’t like being at part load. Most are either flat out or off. An average 21TWh p.a. is generated by hydro, but this can vary from 16-24TWh depending on rainfall in hydro catchments. Typical thermal generation is around 10TWh a year, but half this is the make up for hydro/ wind shortfalls on a day to day basis. Onslow is supposed to replace a lot of this thermal – nominal 5TWh in dry years. It was going to store the mythical hydro spill (where water goes down the spillway, rather than through unused units) This last happened in 12 years ago when we had a lot more gas burning power stations. There is no surplus to spill there now. Solar and wind are really good at generating power when it isn’t needed. We can hold back some water, running hydros less when the unreliables are generating, but that ability is very close to already being maxed out. That means the shortfall has to be covered by ramping up and down thermals – in $/MWh terms, about 10% of the cost of getting the electricity from batteries. The typical electricity price on the spot market over the course of the year is around $150/ MWh. This is 15c a unit (kWh) of your power bill, rest is distribution and administration charges, plus the increasing costs of bad debts. Winter, it is higher prices and summer lower. When the thermals are running, a major part of their costs are carbon charges. For Huntly, it is around 10c a unit. At that wholesale $150 price, many new power stations are still not economic to build and operate. Even just getting consents (they are front end charges ) is a significant cost on future power. The above sets the scene. If we take Onslow sells a full lake of power at $200/MWh once every 5 years, that is an income of $1B. The other 4 years they have to buy power off the grid to fill the lake. They need to buy 20% more to allow for losses and inefficiencies. So that is an average 1.5TWh a year. If this is bought at say $100/MWh, then that is an expenditure over the 5 year cycle of $600M. So gross income averaged over that cycle is $80M a year. Then one has to subtract finance, administration and operating costs of say $20M. So there would be a net income of $60M a year. That “profit” has to pay for the cost of construction. For a long life asset for this, the nominal capital payback should be maybe 20 years. So anything more than $1.2B to build is losing money. And note all my assumptions were on the optimistic side for the government analysis. Nor have I added interest. Now look up the cost quoted for Onslow and remember hydros usually cost twice as much as original budget price. The consents, which will be opposed, will add big delays and increase the costs further. I haven’t even factored in all the transmission upgrades needed which would more than double the overall costs. To get the “cheap” wet year power, they will have to buy off a surplus generated by power stations yet to be built. There isn’t any there from existing stations unless we burn more coal. However, at that cheap buying price, the companies won’t build new stations as they would lose money. So building Onslow would guarantee no new stations would be built unless the power price to consumer went up by maybe 20c a unit in real terms. Think what this will do to cost of living, inflation and the economy. That simple economic analysis above is why the generation companies are not interested in it at all. They can do the sums – it is a massive white elephant that will drag their balance sheets negative. Though the Labour appointees on the company boards might force bad commercial decisions – it has happened before. The only current support for it is from sycophants to give a vanity project to a Minister who wants to be seen to be doing something but is out of her depth in a puddle. If they were to do day to day energy trading, like Dinorwig does, Onslow could replace thermal and cover the unreliability of overbuilt wind and solar. The lake could be smaller, but the power station would need to be bigger. Basic economics are better, though not positive, but still no new stations would be built and there would be no dry year reserve.

Looks like a nice manual one. Ive never heard of a N52 headgasket failing before (other than the ones running boost) https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/130i/listing/3615173923

so, the problem is not the amount of power we generate as a country. it is the delivery infrastructure we have a family member who works as a grid manager for Orion, and have had several in depth conversations with them about the difficulties they are facing with the governments mind numbing blindness to all the other issues and infrastructure challenges that EV's cause. Our current supply network in the majority of the country is not not capable of delivering a solution to a mass adoption of EV vehicles. for an example, There has just been a multi million dollar sub station placed out the back of Rolleston to power the majority of Rolleston, this was finished early last year and was expected to last for a further 5-7 years of development out that way. HOWEVER, only 18 months later and this substation is at its peak capability due to the mass expanse of Rolleston and the surrounding areas. yes, they can pull another line down from the HV lines running down the south island and build another substation but the cost is monumental when they have to start doing this to literally cater for EV's. This is only 1 example, there are literally hundreds of other examples like this. not only is the supply grid not upto standard, the supply lines to older houses are also not upto standard when you start looking at households that end up with multiple EV's. these are all issues that Orion are already facing with the small uptake we have currently. Our current network can not support what people (the gubberment) are looking to achieve, the amount of money that needs to be spend to deliver infrastructure to support it is truly mind blowing further comments above were trying to say that electric vehicles will be remarkedly cheaper to run than a traditional vehicle, this is simply not going to be true. you look at normal service items (tires, brakes, cv's that sort of stuff) and the maintenance cost will be about the same as a dinosaur burning monster. yet, you have a stupid amount of $$$ required every 10 years ish (if you are lucky it will be that long) for replacement battery packs. if you actually look at it, on the grand scheme of things it will be much of a muchness in regards to running costs. I would be very surprised if we don't see something along the lines of a independent electricity rate for EV chargers. now speaking of battery packs, are EV's really "cleaner" than current solutions? absolutely not. the footprint of a modern EV can arguably be pointed as being the same, if not bigger than a traditional vehicle over its lifetime. where do the batteries go, sure, they can be recycled... sent to the other side of the world on ughhhhh dinosaur burning ships. oooo the irony, what about the pollutants released when we start having mass amounts of fires both caused from the EV itself and overloading of infrastructure Call me a cynic or whatever you want but on so many levels this proposed mass adoption seems wrong for so many reasons... as with anything on this planet, it's not what we are doing but the amount in which we are doing it. If suddenly you could click your fingers and every.single.vehicle was electric there would be other issues based on the numbers..... still comes down to the plain and simple fact that the world id overpopulated! bring back natural selection hahaha to be clear, I am not against the implementation of the EV at all, however trying to push for a mass adoption is the worst idea. but it's a catch 22 as no vehicle manufacturer is really coming out with a "better" alternative at this point! Bit of a rant! enjoy!

It changes the car and I would buy another SMG car with no hesitation because of it. Enjoy!

Sounds like a lot - but I sold a 1973 Mazda rx3 steering wheel last year (great condition - original) for just over $2.5k. It had a lot less buttons on it, too.

Ha I just sold my Milwaukee Electric line trimmer I purchased nearly 1 year back. I was too cheap to buy the big batteries for it. Which in NZD are over $300 each. So I just used my drill batteries 10mins at a time. I sold it for $10 more than I purchased it for. $410. Went straight down to the Stihl shop and used that $410 to buy the best non commercial 2 stroke for the same price. Which is a far superior machine so far.

My grille is bigger than your grille

Was just confronted by a dude who misheard my enthusiastic banter about my car with my sibling for something gang related. never been more afraid to be in this part of Auckland, please can I go home now.