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Took care of some under the hood aesthetics to finish things off. The sagging fabric insulation was becoming an eye sore having shrunk to the point where the sides began to sag as the tabs wouldn't clip in anymore. Not sure if it serves much of a functional purpose, a lot of people seem to remove them altogether. Didn't want to leave it completely exposed as it looked a bit untidy so grabbed a foam one that the 4-cylinder cars came with. Also noticed the hood latches rusted up beyond the point that I could clean up so swapped those out for a couple of tidy ones as well. The release hook/handle had also been annoying me as every time you opened the hood it would press up against the grille and push it out so realigned it properly. I tacked on a pair of cheapo Maxgear xenon bulbs onto my latest order and now threw those in. The old bulbs were mismatched so just wanted something matching and at that price was worth a shot. Made quite a massive difference, straight away being noticeably brighter and of an even tone. Mint.

Continued on with the 'gentrification' by dropping in a new brake booster & master cylinder. Not that it necessarily needed it worth replacing after 20+ years of service since it was the last untouched component that could have been responsible for a suspected slight vacuum leak. Went with an OE ATE booster with a Febi master cylinder. Would have loved an ATE unit for the latter as well but unfortunately it was backordered, as were all other variants apart from the Febi one on Spareto and I wasn't keen on a 28 day wait. Febi obviously used a different casting method than the original but didn't look too bad quality wise. I guess time will tell as to its longevity. Transferred over the sensors, hoses and reservoir. I flushed the brake fluid when doing the engine swap and it still looked fresh up top, until I removed the strainer tube that revealed a puddle of black sludge sitting at the bottom of the reservoir. Glad to have all that washed out. With the booster disconnected I used the opportunity to easily take out the pedal box and change out the plastic pedal bushes. I hadn't thought of getting new ones at the time of the swap but did get a fresh set in the meantime, was just waiting for a chance to drop them in. I hadn't noticed any issues during normal operation but did notice the clutch pedal having some excessive side-to-side play when removing it, something that the new bushes tightened right up. The bleeding procedure was made infinitely easier by the cheapo pressure bleeder kit I picked up recently. Best $100 ever spent! Made the whole process an absolute breeze even as a one-man-band. Got the major bubbles out on all 4 corners, then ran the ABS bleeding procedure through INPA by routing my dedicated scanning laptop under the car using a bunch of USB cable extensions and bleeding the brakes through thoroughly once more. Then did the clutch and job's a good 'un. Whilst under there, I also drained the ATF from the gearbox and replaced it with some Redline MTL that @Sammo had generously given away. Absolute legend, owe you one mate. Threw on a new set of drain plugs along with it. Having driven it a few times since, naturally the MTL alone didn't make a night and day difference but feels like it added that little bit more weight to the shifts, making it feel a tad more solid and robust. I'm sure it also offers a bit more protection than the ATF so definitely glad to have the proper stuff in there now. Might be placebo but it also seems to have made it less prone to lurching when taking off in 1st gear. A bunch of effort for some slight 1% gains, all to get it closer to the point where I can just take the car out and enjoy driving it without fretting over something or another needing worked on. Finally getting there.

I dont know why they exist personally, looks fast, but is slower than a 1st gen nissan leaf, whilst using the same amount of gas as what should be the base model, the 325.... and on top of that the engine is a complete lemon. So you really got to ask yourself - Why?

Time for another update 😊 Some progress has been made on fabricating coolant lines. The current intention is to use an E39 diesel coolant reservoir mounted on the intake side of the engine bay, freeing up room on the exhaust side for the DSC module and vacuum reservoirs. Two aluminium pipes run atop the intake side chassis rail, one for the coolant reservoir to the heater core and thermostat, and another from the radiator to the heater control valve. The next step is to fabricate a hard line to connect these up to the thermostat. In other news, the final exhaust-side engine mount arm has arrived from manufacturing. Test fitting looks good, with only a small shim required on top of the engine mount to raise the mount up slightly, due to there being more compression in the engine mount than anticipated. With that in place, the gearbox mount design was finalised, propshaft angles were checked and the design sent off to be manufactured.

Maybe try these guys down in Archers Road: Wheel Balancing and Puncture Repairs in New Zealand (tyretech.co.nz) Did the alignment in the Audi for me. No complaints so far. Gave some good (advice on a technical issue I was having as well as discussing some of the finer points of camber on older BMWs.

Worthwhile improvements.

Playing in the snow

Get the N52 6 cylinder instead.

Good looking car, but the 4-cylinder engines in these are not BMWs best work. The car has reasonably low kms and a warranty would be good (check what it covers though) so you could be lucky?

How much HP will it add to the car?

The bigger the sticker the more hrsprs

Their "M Certified Technicians" didn't know how to remove the camber adjustment pin in my brand new OE front shock mounts (literally a hex bit to unscrew the bolt) and rather than asking someone or bothering to look in TIS they took to my (also brand new) front shock with a hammer in an attempt to get it in alignment. Their service department manager was entirely squirrelly and disingenuous about my complaint (I had to escalate to BMW NZ before I got any meaningful engagement with him at all) so as a result Continental will never receive so much as a 10 cent piece from me.