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Stretched the legs earlier this morning and gave her a fair bit of jandal over a solid 4-5 hours seat time down to Karioitahi beach then up the Āwhitu peninsula - such a stunning rural / coastal setting and the roads are sufficiently twisty and deserted too. Got some good pics with the E46 up here 3 years ago and essentially recreated half of them with the E30 😂 Great way to start another perfect summers day, off to the beach now and then time to clean the car again for a meet tomorrow.

Been watching a whole bunch of tuning videos on phase alignment for the sub and mid bass. More work to do in the dsp. In the meantime I got around to installing more sound damping / deadener. When with Dynamat in the end . They have a new version of Dynamat extreme in flat sheets.A bit tidier to install as the sheets aren’t folded over and crinkled. Product is 2mm which means boot trip and carpets go back in without issue. I treated the boot floor and storage area as it’s a high resonance area. A quick tap and the response is like a metal drum. After treatment it was more of a thud. Should help with cleaner sub bass and a quick unscientific test track ( Gotyee “ why worry” ) has a very heavy bass line and drum kick, sound seem cleaner. Will check the group delay later as the graphs a good for showing resonance. I left the fuse box area without treatment as wanted this area to look OEM. The panel under it is curved and nice and strong so not really worth treating as well. Trim and carpet went back into place with good fit and no issues.

I am now true to my username with the car. (PLATE) but also I upgraded the interior to a set I had reupholstered about 5 yeara ago. I love the contrast between the dark exterior and bright interior. It looks different in different lighting but it is blood red with black stitching.

I think a bloke has to have hobbies and do things that we enjoy. Had a health scare a couple of years back which changed my outlook to an extent. Make a point of doing enjoyable things. This hobby was has been a good one where I’ve been able to chunk down the work in smaller lots as I’ve gone through recovery. I enjoy the learning process that goes into doing this as I did with the e46 stereo system. Hopefully I haven’t become OCD on this one 😀 Cost wise it has been accumulating but probably only 10% of the purchase price of the car. I’ve got the stereo mentioned with a value of $6k for the equipment in my insurance policy, but time wise if the worst happens I’d probably enjoy building another one ( eyeing up the wife’s SUV as this project comes to a finish 🤣) With this car I’m not at that point of constant worry that I see mates get into with custom cars that they have 1000s of hours of time and are of a high value and never let the vehicle out of their sight. I do daily it and lease carpark which has plenty of parking room and good neighbours, but can break out a sweat if parking in a busy supermarket carpark as many of us BMW drivers do 😀.

Every time I see photos of your car I start second guessing my decision to go with the E46!

Yuuuur great pics !!

It looks fantastic!

Recieved rear driveshaft back, both UJs replaced, looks schmiko. Fitted brand new center support bearing, and front half back on, taking note of the paint marks i put on it as it came out. guibo shows no signs of wear so no need to replace, and all back in. also replaced the transmission mounts with some 335i ones inhad lying about while in there. one was a bluetooth mount, the other held up coming up but as soon as on ground and In disturbed it it broke. Have never seen so perished, and they have an ‘01 stamp on them so they have been there right from the start took for a wee drive around the block, its still a diesel so still a tiny hint of vibration, but huge improvement, and no vibration at all under boost any more, so a job well done! Milage update 313950 miles (505254km)

Dropped the M5 off for a WOF and hello.... probably only the second time I've seen one!

DSP tuning / time alignment again. I've been around this a couple of times over the last few months. I've gone a step further with time alignment of the individual speakers. Doing two DSP maps. One with time alignment done to drivers set and a second map one for front and rear passengers where the alignment point will be ear level between the driver and passenger seats. For the drivers seat map the fader is set so the rear speakers are just on to provide a bit of rear fill. The idea is to get the image to sit forward above the dash. Process for tuning Time alignment using a pulse for tweeters and mid range using the initial response method. Under seat woofers will be phase aligned , but initial response will be used and then altered for phase. Subwoofer will be phase aligned with under seat woofers. Individual appropriate frequency sweeps for each of the speakers Select a target curve to tune speakers to follow Equalizer each speaker to a target curve ( there are a few to choose from so I'm picking Audiofrogs variation of the Harman curve) Check left and then right sides of car Retune or tweak final response

Probably the spot of the year for me, an early 2wd Sapphire Cossie... But completely stock standard and unmolested with all the patina you'd expect (including the bird sh*t on the bonnet, and random detritus on the recaros). Stunning.