Leaderboard

Bought this tonight, will post some better pics tomorrow. Was always curious about 130s so thought might as well buy this one seeing as it seemed to be a pretty decent deal (cheap), hopefully it’s not too unreliable. Not sure what I’ll do with it yet, might drive for a bit and fix the major cosmetic things (front bumper is rooted) and then hopefully sell on for a little profit, which I’ll use to tidy a few things on my E34. Was also thinking of using it as a track/novice competition type car but wondering if that’s a rabbit hole I should avoid going down haha Has Style 216 wheels which are neat. Otherwise just regular 130i things. LCI, M Sport, Le Mans blue, Auto, etc

How big is your parking compound these days @Kees?

Date: 8 Feb 2023 Distance: 206,007 kms 1. Flat tyre and replacement Hmmmm. Friday evening 3 Feb "darling can you take a look at the car, the tyre seems a bit low at the back". "Sure I'll do that in the morning." Figure 1 I found "It's only flat on the bottom". Proceeded to remove the wheel, replace with the space-saver spare. Oh yes, it had been many, many moons since I diligently checked that. Understandably it wasn't up to much, so I didn't drive on it. Do you think I could find a tyre store to do a puncture for me on a Saturday of a long weekend? I had it in the boot of my car. Nope, visited numerous shops and they frankly could not be arsed. I'd have been happy to bring a dozen cold beers for anyone that said 'sure we can take a look at that for you'. Fast forward to Tuesday morning. My usual tyre guy hadn't opened, so I dropped in to one on the way home. They called me later, said there's cords showing inside. Not a surprise, my better half is not particularly sensitive to tyre pressures or what the car's telling her. Considered getting a pair of Michelin PS5's, but with AKL in flood clean-up, uncertainty around supply. I elected to replace like-for-like with an RE003 as they were available locally. Ooooh, cords showing and a super collection of pellets too. "Errr, that'll be f#%ked then". Weds, I collected the wheel with new tyre mounted. Got out my trusty torque wrench and 17mm wheel socket, changed over the spare for the new wheel with daughter in attendance to teach her a bit about changing a tyre, safety etc. We immediately went to the gas station to check all the pressures, including the spare. Gas station could only manage 51psi before their hose was leaking, so we returned to the tyre place for a 60psi fill. Job's a good one, though I usually replace in pairs. Hey ho. Handy blanket to save my knees! Not pictured - Teng torque wrench and socket.

Its a DME flash to do it, I dont think anyone in auckland or NZ actually has the experience to do a proper N52 flash. The oxygen sensors stay, however the DME has a pre and post cat o2 sensor check to keep an eye on the cat efficiency... with no cat efficiency is not so hot There are a few in NZ selling generic nonsense maps downloaded from the net (claiming 200+ kw... bs). .Severn tuning is who Im planning on using, when I actually get to it, lots of Z4 N52 experience https://www.severntuning.com/

Friend got his 318is back for the panel beaters. Brand new OE fender, fender lining, side skirt, trims, side indicator and engine mounts, all repainted with a 2nd hand door. 7k bill (paid 10k for ~14 year ago). Very lucky it was through an unusual insurance outfit and wasn't written off. Getting hard to find tidy ones these days.

After lurking in the shadows for the last two years and checking daily to see if my favorite build threads had any updates I thought id give this a go myself! Now before I start rambling I would like to acknowledge the public hatred towards compact's, Yes they are hideous and this one is defiantly not the coolest one In NZ but its my ugly duckling and it has provided me with connections to the most amazing people in this community and wealth's of knowledge that can not learnt from YouTube..... So we begin How It Began: While Making a quick trip to Weitz industries to grab a few bits for my 130 I noticed a small little compact sitting in the corner waiting to be harvested before turning into a coke can, At the time gas prices were at an all time High and the thought of a small economical German Rear wheel drive sounded like the perfect solution! Despite being warned by Nick that the condition was unknown and it was sold strictly as a parts car I already had my heart set on It and turned a blind eye to all the negatives while convincing my partner with the positives! While not entirely convinced she said yes and I was able to drive it home😀 After making a quick stop at the gas station I drove the short 4km home loving every second of it, Despite owning multiple Bmw's and having the 130i as a daily driver I couldn't help but notice how nimble and zippy it was! For a car that was sold as a entry level 90's Bmw the quality and handling already outdid much more expensive Toyota hatchbacks 10 years Newer! Unfortunately that's pretty much the last time I got to enjoy the Efficient 1.8L. While I was to busy admiring the absolute bargain I had scored the car was pouring white smoke the entire way home, after a quick investigation it was obvious that the 257,000km M44 blew its head gasket while I was gutted this finally gave me the opportunity to do what I had been scheming since I saw the car.. A 328ti

So I've become a bit tired of my 5x regular gauges and I'd like to display a wider range of data (A/F ratios per cylinder bank, maybe speed / rpm, some performance stats etc). Also want to get the space in the console back so I can install a proper Android Auto head unit or similar. As I've already got a micro controller in the car hooking into the BMW and Nissan CAN buses its only a short(ish) jump to displaying things of interest on a screen. I came across Waveshare who make a really amazing range of screens and ordered the 7.9" 1280x400 capacitive touch model. Its about the size of a single DIN unit which should work really well ... will drive this with a Raspberry Pi mounted to the back of it. Will run Grafana on the Pi and stream data to it from the micro ... which I will change from an Arduino to much more capable ESP32 also. Anyhooooo ... a picture is worth a thousand words so here is the display and a simple mock up dash running off the Pi.

Hi all Very pleased to find a NZ Bimmer community. I just purchased my first NZ Bimmer, a 2017 F30 340i M-Sport, after driving my Nissan Skyline 350GT Manual for about ten years. I previously owned a 1989 325i which I loved dearly, then a 1998 523i, then a 2001 530d and now, finally, my now-dream-car. I'm also originally from South Africa, and have lived here for 12+ years, now a Kiwi citizen. Very keen to peel back the layers on this car soon and get some more of the unexposed power brought to the surface. Hope to see you all out there. Riaan

Thought that too - especially when its manually converted, wrong steering wheel and US type TP's. But those M-Pars are cool! Have heard that the manually conversion was done properly though

Powerhaus did more tests on our car. 2nd TK test, mechanic said our car did not even change the color, better than most cars he tested that didn’t even needed head gasket replaced. Overnight pressure test, no leaks. Test drive, etc. I told them not bother with a compression test, too impractical. My amateur fix has been inspected by the pros, we are clear to drive it 😅 I remember talking to Pete during the day while he gave me a ride home. I hope this is just a great story we can tell folks and our grandkids, it’s well worth the cost an expansion tank and some coolant. It seems to be a great story for a movie: me, Pete and Andrew didn’t script this… its a true story. So far it seems to be our car lives on, maybe the next custodian of the car can still bring it on the 100th BMW M anniversary day. Hope they read this story and remember to make the car happy or else it might try to kill itself again.

Date:28/12/2022 First test drive after replacing the expansion tank. So far everything looks good, very stable coolant temp at 79C as spec.

Date: 21/12/2022 Germans always understate their performance including delivery times. This was supposed to be 6 weeks delivery time but got it yesterday (just a bit over a week). Well shops are closed for the Christmas break… so a good excuse to DIY this next week 😅 I have changed the oil and driven it to get a WOF. 30 mins running, 30 mins rest, 30 mins running… even gave it a bit of a kick through terrace tunnel… coolant level is good no leaks, oil looks visually normal no metal shaving… abnormal for M5 🤣. Been monitoring the coolant them via OBD scanner it’s really doing well 80c stable after 5 mins of warm up. Looking promising, so I fix this up and next year I get it pressure tested. I will also change the thermostat (even it’s clearly working) and also use those 10 new injectors on the shelves…. Also got paint custom mixed to fix that scratch near the sunroof

Date: 4/12/2022 Sunday, a day after I went back to Powerhaus they are still closed by I decided to look at the car a bit more as my mind is much more clear after sleeping it off. Did the following checks: ✅ check any leaks underneath from overnight parking. Clean no leaks ✅ check coolant level, same as yesterday ✅ no weird sound after staring the engine, idle looks normal ✅ oil temp 75c after 10 mins, normal increase of temp ✅ 2k rpm sounds normal ✅ oil temp 85-90c 12 mins, still normal expected warm up ✅ 3-4 rpm sounds normal… like a race engine ✅ no new error codes ✅ no leaks underneath or on top under normal pressure It seems the crack on top of the expansion tank can hold pressure for about 15-20 mins

Been following the progress here, very cool. I predict within 6 months its a fully stripped race car for the road 🤣

Update! After attempting to bring back to life another Avus blue e36… I have learned my lesson and realised that god only ever wanted me to have one project and that’s a power I’m not willing to argue with. As a resultant of this I got an absolute Boat load of parts for my compact including a complete standard e36 dashboard with electric modules and OBD computer😁 While I am aware it has been done to a few Ti’s around the country I am also aware that the quality of work on the smaller things were far from factory resulting in a rather unpleasant experience. Once I remove the failed project from the garage I will resume this rather funky conversion with the Ti Including the Dual zone climate conversion. This conversion has been poorly documented from what I can tell so I will do my best to make a decent step by step write up for any of the Ti friends lurking😃

Got the car back, halfcage is all done and looks fantastic, very happy with it. Wasted no time and got straight into installing the doubler plates for the transmission tunnel to mount the seatbelts, to LVV cert standards. Took a while to do, had to remove half the exhaust and then try locate the hole which is tricky to do without any reference points. Got there eventually, used 5mm bolts with spring washers instead of Monel rivets as it was much easier to do and still up to LVV spec. Plates have metal to metal contact, sound deadening was removed and the area was etch primed and painted to prevent rust. Used holes on the diagonal in the direction of seatbelt pull, as described in the LVV handbook. now onto masking the interior and painting the halfcage... slowly getting there

Cheers Kyu - that's great to know... and yeah - some pics...

When you'd actually welcome a fire...

These guys https://www.brintechcustoms.com.au/all-products/n52-headers

Time to reinstall the interior stuff. I was able to retain most of the dashboard innards (including the HVAC system) during the cage build, so this wasn't really that hard. Cut out a template to fit the dashboard pad around the rollcage, measure it again, use the template to cut the edges of the actual dashboard and slide into place. Well that was the theory, but despite measuring twice, once I installed the dashboard pad I found I had cut out far more than necessary to fit the cage. Turns out I measured from the windscreen without realising the dashboard actually finishes 4-5cm before it. The good news is that it fit straight in, the bad news is that there's an ugly gap in the da shboard on both sides. Such is life; I've kept the parts that were cut off and will look at a way of fitting them in a way that can be removed if/when I ever need to remove the dashboard again. I mentioned that I was keeping the HVAC system in the dashboard. Yes it's added weight, but as mentioned previously I'm both heavy and lazy, so removing it and putting in something lighter was never really on my radar. Besides, how would I get the A/C air into the car... yes, this rally car is going to have A/C! I've done too many events on stinking hot summer days to want to get into a hot car wearing double-layer overalls and helmet, and too many cold, wet events in the winter with fogging that the demister and Rainex just can't handle. So given this is just a play car and I'm not serious about results the A/C is staying. The basic dashboard pad fit in easily enough after the cutting dramas, along with the rest of the electronic components (instruments, HVAC controls etc). There was a large hole where the iDrive display was previously and I was tempted to take a trip to Pick-a-Part to look for a base E87 with the storage cubby in that spot but, being cheap, decided to just remove the screen and reinstall the empty plastic surround as a tray. Aside from having a hole in each end it actually works well for holding oddments and is the perfect size for the bluetooth workshop speaker, which will now be the dedicated "rally in-car touring stage entertainment system". Wanting to keep things neat and tidy I needed to fill up the hole under the HVAC controls left by the stereo and heat warmer controls being removed. After a bit of pondering and discussion with various people I went with cutting out some polycarbonate as blanking plates and gluing it onto the original fascia panel, then covering it with a carbon-fibre looking vinyl. For an amateur with no craft skills it came out remarkable okay - just don't look at how messy the hot glue holding it in place is (it's hidden). And once installed, along with a few other pieces of trim, it looked pretty darned good. I also went with putting vinyl on other parts of the dashboard trim to make it look consistent. Eventually this will have things like spotlight switches and the battery isolator switch mounted to it. The steering wheel caused a few headaches, thanks to me making assumptions and not measuring anything. While I was pulling the car apart I ordered a bunch of parts from Demon Tweeks, including a steering wheel and boss kit for fitting it. Of course I didn't consider that the steering wheel had a dish to it; I was planning on keeping the standard steering column which has reach adjustment, so of course I could just push the wheel closer to the dashboard, right? Oh, and because I have stupidly long legs I also bought a quick-release steering kit from Allports. The end result? The boss kit added 60mm of depth and the steering wheel dish was 70mm, added to which was the depth of the boss kit. I installed everything, hopped in and found that the driving position was very similar to that my Nana used to use. Or a NASCAR driver on an oval. Which is to say that it was all far too close to me to be driveable. So I removed the quick release and installed just the wheel and found that, while not perfect, the wheel was now far enough away that I could comfortably drive the car. But I couldn't get in or out properly. So in the end I threw money at the problem and bought a second steering wheel with no dish to it and installed that along with the quick release. Lesson learnt. Finally, I wanted to have some additional instrumentation for the engine - in particular the water temp and (ideally) oil pressure. And because the motor is much more powerful than anything I've driven before (and it's often hard to hear when on the gravel) I decided that a shift light would be worthwhile having too. Buying gauges for each task would be the easy option but would require work to wire into the car and mount, plus would end up being a few hundred dollars all-up for anything of decent quality. But what if I could find something digital to do it all? After a few hours of research I decided to take a punt on an Lufi X1 digital gauge from Ali Express. With shipping it came in at less than $150 so, at worst, it was the equivalent of one decent water temp gauge wasted. Here's how it looks temporarily mounted in the car for a bit of testing before I started stripping everything out of it: A few pros and cons: It connects to the car via OBD2, so is easy enough to install that even I can manage it! It can have multiple screens, each one user-definable. I've just stuck with one with the water temp and voltage, along with revs It has a whole lot of other display items I could add if needed, some of which may be useful if I had a turbo setup. Some of these (intake temperature/pressure etc) I've configured on a second screen but probably won't look at all that often. It doesn't do oil pressure or temperature, because the OBD2 feed on the 130i doesn't include it (which is strange since there is an oil pressure gauge on the instrument cluster) It has programmable shift lights across the top, but in reality it's not that easy to see them when I'm concentrating on the road ahead rather than looking at the dashboard It has programmable alarms, which trigger a separate idiot light. I've set this up with alarms for when water temp goes over a certain point (which sounds an alarm and lights the idiot light permanently) and as a secondary shift light (sounds an alarm and lights up 500rpm from the red line, so I have time to react and grab another gear). From doing some basic testing of it on the road (before stripping out the interior) it seems to work well. The idiot light is mounted on top of the instrument cluster and seems to be visible enough to get my attention, and the main unit is pretty responsive in keeping up with things like changes in the revs. Overall I'm pretty happy with it so far, albeit reserving final judgement on it until I've tried it actually racing. And finally, here's my nearly-finished "office". The Lufi (and the magnetic phone mount, for touring stages) are screwed onto the dashboard for extra safety and I've added some grip tape (same as used on outdoor steps) in front of the pedals to stop the feet from sliding around, rather than spending money on a proper foot plate. Next job up is the suspension. Most of it is sitting waiting to be installed but until I get the windscreen fitted and the seatbelt mounts installed the car isn't going anywhere, so that's going to be a few weeks away yet.

Couple of photos I snapped at my mates wedding of his car

Upgraded the work (and play) from home office as I decided the E30 wasn’t enough of a money pit. As close as I’ll get to driving Group A DTM E30 M3!

sold

Hey all I’ve recently returned to Masterton, NZ after 20 years working for BMW in Europe and Japan. I spent the last eight years at BMW HQ in Munich. Now I have bought and am running a panel and paint shop in Masterton called CE Spray Collision Repairs. I don’t currently have a car but I’m in the hunt for something. Any clean and tidy BMW with 6 cylinders will get my attention. Borrowing my family’s Audi S3 in the interim which is at least Bavarian. Thought I’d put up a few of my favourite company cars that i had in the last few years. There were some stunners and I really miss them. I look forward to participating in this forum. Cheers Andrew

Today: As of today the cars not far from completion, just awaiting a wheel alignment and then will be getting ready for cert! Hopefully I can answer questions for anyone wanting to do this swap or at least bring some reading to kill some time! Please let me know If I've done my thread correctly as Im normally only a reader and have tried my best to make this one as readable as all of yours! A huge thank you to everyone in the community, While there is so much more to this story with so many great people involved that If I had to type it we would all be here for weeks! Cheers Guys!

The Drivetrain: Now I know many of you will be reading this rather confused, The title says 323Ti project but I'm talking about a 328Ti. I was lucky enough that the person who grabbed my old M44 had a few engine laying around, A deal was made was for a b28 however life happened and it turned out the engine was a 2.5. Despite being given the option to grab a refund or let him pull the b28 out of his own vehicle for me (If your reading this your are an absolute legend!) I decided to go with one of these b25's. Initially there was no real reason, Maybe I'm just impatient or maybe the b25 was priced incredibly well however after collecting the engine and opening it up I was incredibly glad I choose this path! The engine was immaculate and quite possibly the best condition I've ever seen! Since I had the engine out it was the perfect opportunity to do some preventive work. The water pump and thermostat housing were both switched for aluminum units, The Sump, Valve cover gasket and oil filter housing gaskets were changed along side of all the intake gaskets and lines. the throttle body warmer was blocked with a customer Part thanks to a fellow member, All Belts and pulleys were replaced as well as the usual plugs, filters and oil. A g220 was selected for the transmission as mated up to the M52 along with a new Single Mass fly Wheel and clutch From NZAD (Good time to replace your rear main!) And to top everything off the shifter was rebuilt. As mentioned before I wasn't certain what to do with the diff as the Ti shares the same style as an e30 and z3 making decent ratios hard to find and when you do they are Very well priced! I was lucky enough to score a diff from a factory manual 318ti and while this isn't perfect it is good enough for what I need! Obviously all fluids were flushed and changed

No, they don't. But who tf needs cc anyway? Does your right foot not work?

Date: 3/12/2022 - Going home time, not sure what time but it was about 2:00 pm Event was winding down, I started the car to warm it up (as these M cars are closer to race engines than normal cars). I then walked up to my friends to say goodbye and leave. I walk back to the car only to see the car locked itself. We then decided to just get my spare keys, as our house is not that far. Andrew Thomas gave me a ride home to get my spare keys. On our way back to the event venue. Our car’s coolant system failed and coolant started to drain, as it was idling more than 30 mins and I guess the cooling system of these older cars was aging. Before I could make it back, it started to smoke. Pete called me told me it was smoking, I thought he was just kidding me. But he was serious and asked me permission to break into the car by breaking the glass. Unable to break the glass, he was a poor criminal. He saw an opening on the sunroof. Pete eventually was successful in using a pole to reach the central lock and unlock the car. I sat there with many thoughts. Fire truck came to see if they needed to put a fire out. Pete told them what has happened, and car has been turned off. It didn’t turn into an emergency incident, but I felt really gutted as I don’t know what to tell Tina (wife/owner) who was home. We managed to tow the car to Powerhaus, but they are now closed for the weekend. Phil Hoyland (MP Vehicle Recovery) was great and very kind, as he really just offered his time and service as a helping hand. Pete and Andrew was great in giving me a lift and talking to me. Pete even called our previous mechanic (Jon Begley) who was far away now, asking for advice on the car. Anyway I got home and went back to Powerhaus where we dropped of our car. I got some of my camera gear and stuff out of the car. As I was leaving it over the weekend. But I couldn’t leave Tina’s car behind not knowing if its the end or not. So I got on to do some quick work on it, put in some water. Moved it, reviewed to the fix the error codes, etc. So far it seems promising, no error codes and the car is seems to be running normally aside from the small crack on the expansion tank. In hindsight I should have not left the car closed window after starting it. We have it set to auto lock after the car moves, it must be buggy as it can auto lock after just idling. I am not used to it, Tina reminded me that the car locked itself before. I forgot about it as it was a long time ago, as Tina was always with me. She would just unlock the car as she was sitting inside the car. However Tina wasn’t feeling well today, she really wanted to come and help the fund raiser. The only time I went to an event where she wasn’t there, the car tried to kill itself literally…. Locking it self, damaging the cooling system. I hope this is not the end of our adventures with our car, that there is an eventual good ending. Although I guess if it’s the last drive, then there is no more fitting day to do it than 50th M car anniversary. We are very stressed at the same time touched by the people who helped us.