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New power steering pump is in as of last night. Has made a massive difference, the perpetual groaning it was making has vanished and the whole thing feels a lot better. Makes the car far more civilised. I also replaced the ignition coils for some reason. No idea if it made a difference or not probably a waste of money but meh. PrEveNtaTivE mAiNteNanCe. Pretty obvious where the new door is. It honestly is a lot less noticeable in person than photos for some reason. Still, better than the creaky door with the dent. Can always get it repainted if I really wanted. Hopefully someone drives into this door at some point so I can get another respray lol. Still have those glossy window trim things to go on but I can finish that off later if need be. Not the most mint E46 wagon out there but still looking pretty good I reckon.

bought a daily driver so I don't have to daily drive my M3 while I'm building my E46 compact daily driver, so I don't have to daily drive my M3. Boston green manual E36 318is coupe. It's rough but I don't really care, I got it for cheap. My dads been wanting to build a M42/44 with throttle bodies and a lightweight flywheel so he'll likely start tinkering on it once it's not needed for daily duty.

Oh I forgot to add that the Forum is hosted privately by James. Who is another OG to the forum. Most of mods came from just hanging around long enough. Jon and myself from the early involvement in the BMW race series. Ollie and Andrew both ran in the BMW series too. You are not going to find useful car info via dumpster fires like TikTok. So lets hope people bring their knowledge back to the forums where it can be stored.

Before I post up pics and a bit more detail, here's a summary of what we've done so far... M62B44 engine from donor E39 540i 5hp24 gearbox from donor E39 540i E36 oil cooler and E39 hoses DME and EGS from donor E39 540i ASC from 99 B 318ti Front brake calipers E46 330i Rear calipers E46 328i Coilovers E36 M3 steering rack M62 power steering pump + reservoir Frankenstein E36/39 PS hoses E9x M3 steering wheel Steering shaft - PG Hydraulics Driveshaft- Driveshaft Specialists Custom driveshaft hoops Sump and subframe - Cybul E30 sway bar custom mounts Strut-mounted tie rods E28 OEM engine mounts Modified E38 headers Stock exhaust E38 alloy wheels E36 M3 alloy radiator 320d viscous fan (E39 clutch) E38 AC compressor, E36 condensor, E36 and custom hoses DME 5.2 (pre-97 E39) EGS 8.55 (96-97 E39) Nissan Dualis expansion tank Interior swap (beige to black) with microsuede headlining Started out with this lump. 135K kms on the clock and ran really well. Had been used as a farm vehicle then sat for a while so I got it for a song. Spent the first couple of months stripping everything I would need and getting the motor ready. It's a dirty job... The motor turned out to be in really good nick so really only needed a good clean. I replaced the valley pan, coolant hose o-rings, valve cover gaskets etc whilst the engine was out and stripped and powdercoated the typically sh*t valve covers. After a bit of research I settled on a sump kit from a Polish company called Cybul. Build quality is great and came with modified sub-frame, engine mounts, custom sump (to fit over the steering rack) and a modified oil pump - though the latter is relatively straightforward to do yourself - though it's not quite the plug and play solution promised in a RHD car. Turns out this swap is a great deal easier LHD which is why BMW never did a production V8 and Alpina only did a LHD B8. Anyway, more on that later. The sump was super easy to swap and the subframe and engine mounts all bolt up with no problems. Subsequently had to modify the driver's side mount to accommodate the A/C compressor - and I now understand the Adamat kit is a better fit if you intend to keep A/C, although I don't think the build quality is quite as good. It was about this point that Josh (hybrid) came to see how it was progressing so I pretended I wasn't going to clean it anymore. Since he can't stand things not being clean he attacked it with a bottle of degreaser and a toothbrush. The results were very satisfying (to be fair, I didn't leave him to do it alone!!). < More to come...

Funnily enough neither could he. Usually it would start off ok then end up with here is 26 reasons why I'm right and your wrong

Totally. That's why we should slam big red STOP 3 WATERS stickers all over the backs of our Ford Rangers and continue to let cows sh*t directly into the rivers...

Have been busy finishing off cleaning the engine, now that ive removed everything, all bolts in labeled bags. Also been ordering parts for the new engine. All new gaskets for the motor, everything from oil pan to oil filter housing, font and rear main seals, vanos solenoid seals, valve cover gasket, complete turbo install kit (all manifold studs, nuts oil/coolant feed and drain gaskets/o rings, intake and exhaust manifold gaskets etc, basically everything except the head gasket. Rod bearings and rod bolts on the way also as well as a new drive belt. New solid UHMW engine and gearbox mounts ordered from Condor speedshop also as well as a oil pan baffle from VAC motorsport. Now just a matter of waiting for parts to arrive... In the meantime I have also purchased walnut blasting tools, managed find the official bmw service tools for sale locally, so will be cleaning the intake valves soon. Got bored waiting for parts so I decided to take the oil pan off, oil pump out and pull a rod cap off, rod bearings looks in good shape, but will be getting replaced regardless, just wanted to see their condition as an indication of main bearing condition. In the meantime will order new oil cooler cores as I don't want to risk reusing ones that have metal in them from the old motor, and one I pull the old motor out I will be sending turbos off for a rebuild too. Car should be absolutely mint once its back together, tempted to try make a stainless exhaust from the downpipes back...

Bloody christ dude, of all the things to whinge about... "the youths are showering too much"!? 😂 Get a grip, seriously.

It boils my piss how short-sighted and surface level the whole "sustainability" discourse is nowadays. All blame and finger-pointing at the out-group without any deep and systematic analysis. Both sides in this anecdote look to be misdirecting their frustration and missing the greater point. The old fella in this article accusing the youths of hypocrisy, due to them supposedly "demanding" and not being able to live without all these products and services that were introduced to market whilst these youths were literal children and had no influence on anything. The young cashier is misguided in seemingly believing that purely consumer decisions have the power to change anything. As if "green capitalism" is, ever was or ever will be, a thing. If every single person in society owned a tote bag and drank slurpies through a metal straw instead of plastic, we would still be not even an inch further from being completely and utterly f**ked. Bottom line is - the capitalist system is built upon ever-increasing consumption. More consumption = economic growth = good. Less consumption = recession = BAD. You cannot produce anything without creating waste and pollution. By gearing everything towards higher consumption and economic growth the system literally fuels pollution. To at the same time preach any notion of sustainability is extremely disingenuous. So long as the economy needs infinite growth to function, any notion of sustainability is pie in the sky. Either work towards fundamentally changing the fabric of society and decouple the economy from its cancerous addiction to infinite growth, or shut the f**k up about sustainability. You can't have both.

TBH there was nearly a complaint every time he posted something. And he was doing it on purpose much of the time. The founders Ollie and Andrew drop by every now and then. Ollie has just listed his Bimmersport E30 Series car for sale on the forum. Even comes with keys to the forum. There are still many old members lurking around. But Facebook did harm the forum space. Only now are forums starting to make a come back as people are hunting for info on classic cars. Facebook is a black hole for anything older than about 12 hours. Searching is non existent and near on useless. The only thing it is good for is meet ups. Many of the younger kids (18-25) at work don't even have Facebook. As that is for their parents. Many of my friends and family are quitting it as current social media takes it's toll on their lives. There is so much info on this forum and others that are similar. I do still get angry at the great Photobucket purge. So many lost important images.

Got the new gauge face today, well packaged and overall I'm really impressed with the quality !! I got the face fitted today but not after some drama, which I could have probably avoided if I'd read a bit more before starting. Minor issue: I'd got some chrome bezels from a 330 cluster some time back and was waiting for this job to install them. Didn't realise they were only held in with some mastic it seems so need to source some to fit them permanently. No biggie. Major issue: Managed to break 3 out of the 5 stepper motors when removing / installing the needles 😭 After much researching it seemed this was a common issue and I just needed to be more careful with the removal / install. Conveniently I have 2 spare clusters (one from the bezels and one for my CAN development) to rob parts from !! I tested the one which was still complete and all motors worked well ... considered using that whole cluster and doing the EEPROM plus coding thing, but that seemed like another layer of drama I'd prefer to avoid, and I still needed to remove / install the needles. What I ended up doing was removing all 5 stepper motors from the good cluster and swapping them into my otherwise good board. Turned out to be incredibly easy and everything is working perfectly again !!! Top tip was to use compressed air to blast out the liquid solder instead of using a wick or sucker. General & pics: As I'm driving the tacho via my Arduino it was relatively simple to re-calibrate this to suit the new RPM range. I also fixed up the left hand stalk which has never clicked 👍

Always trolls i guess not that he was really a troll , more always right your an idiot, it did get a bit tiring I remember during lockdown the board posts swelled as everyone had spare time. the topic of lockdowns went pair shaped and I remember getting pretty annoyed with a few lets say jacinda fans but I realise I'm in a minority in alot of my views but it was eye opening to see how much hatred appeared pretty quickly so get why general topics just don't work I would never consider contacting a mod though, to actually complain seems too much like cancel culture to me, But nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to the general public

I found this site while searching for e30 info about 20 years ago - pretty sure I bought an e30 door from Driftit. Some great build threads at the time... Tony (I think?) merging an e30 and an e46. Red with flared arches. A 4 door e30 with a super charger - think it was a sc14? Was a guy ( Crunchy?) with a boasted e34 Hybrid's lovely e30 with a S52 swap.

8 speed fom N55 are the same price.

Appreciate the offer, but unfortunately don't have the time or space to break a car

Lossless audio? Disc space is now very cheap, stick with uncompressed WAV - still the best sounding file format (and - coincidentally - lowest processing overhead) for people that listen to music!

Raced the car at a Hampton downs single car sprint where it performed flawlessly ad managed to take home 9th place. Was a big day for the car, literally melting tires on track. Oil temps were perfect, not getting hot at all, cooling upgrades working well. Then this past weekend, drove down to Ngutunui for the 9km long hillclimb. Raced the fist run, and as I was rolling back down the hill the car stated making some very bad noises. Didnt want to hold up the event but eventually had to pull over and stop because the noise kept getting worse. Inspected the car and couldnt see anything. Tried starting it again, slow crank, turned over and made the most horrible metal clanking noise ive ever heard. Got towed down the hill by the race control ute. The trailered it home, was a long day. Havent had a chance to open it up yet but 99% sure it has a spun rod bearing, and judging by the noises the crank is beyond fcked. So its time for a new engine. Waiting for garage rennovations to be done (about a month or two) then i will start tearing the car/engine down and hopefully source a new one, swap everything over and slap it in. Planning on doing a baffled sump, and fresh rod bearings for the replacement engine. Pretty gutted that it died, but still came 10th on the day with only 1 run, so clearly the car's potential is there to do well.