Leaderboard

Front csl splitters on!

Date: 09 Dec 2024 Distance: 216,059 kms 1. Groundhog day. Another left bulb Got another telltale over the weekend that left rear bulb was out. Brake light bulb had gone intermittant. P21W 32CP. E46 Touring tail light cluster as Xmas lights Meanwhile in the DHL van are my new headlamp mainbeam bulbs...

Today I cleaned up the top front RACP points and sprayed with the e-coat matched enamel I have. First up I masked the area around the mount (photo taken prior to clean up). Then I used a ziploc bag as a miniature spray booth by taping it to both the RACP and the spray can. I also made sure to cover/block every other hole/exit point in the RACP so I didn't get any over spray wafting out anywhere. This approach worked really well, the whole thing only took about 15 minutes to do. And the end result (paint is still wet here): I have some clean up to do on a few rust spots on the seat bench, but will do this once I have the A08 in hand and can touch it up properly. At this point though the front mounts are ready for the installation of the brace (drilling and tapping will be done at the time of installation of the brace as I need to take the subframe off to tap the threads.

Anyone want a manual 130i? I bought Jamez's on behalf of a friend who wanted something interesting for his NZ holiday...72 hours after I picked it up, my mate broke his clutch foot 🤦. So it has sat in my garage on a battery tender since September. I figure I should attempt to sell it before buying it myself and turning it into another project I don't need 😬

Hah, it's a deal, and if I win, I'll give it to you!

Drivers Review - 140i War Hammer Last week I pick up the phone at work to Ray on the other end for our once a month catch-up. He enthusiastically said 'waddya doing this weekend'. My reply, not tons planned but bout time for a visit. He said, good cause I have something for you to try out. The 140i is on the road. Not batting and eye lid I said good ill be there with bells on. Roll on Saturday and a 45min commute from green lane up to silver dale. We arrive and sitting in the driveway was a stout little 1 series. Only hint of what is going on is the quad exhaust sneaking through the rear valance. After some chit chat .. He handed me the keys, the missus and I jumped into the car and prepared the usual check mirrors / belts / anything loose that would end up on the floor etc. Fired the little thing into life, which soon made me realise with the s65 shoe horned under the hood and modified pipes that this aint no 1 series any more. I locked the DCT transmission into reverse and eased the car back onto the road. Checking all the normal stuff I popped it into first and moved away ... with a quick pop of the paddles I was in second and gave it a medium sqeeze on the throttle, immediately we were both pushed back into our seats and I realized we were over the speed limit with the car showing small hint it was tapping at the tranction control. Giving the car a bit of a warm up I took it easy up to the open road and drove it down to my favourite testing ground run .. the sprint to stillwater. I pulled over to let the car finish its warm up of the oil and water to operational temp. Looking down I pushed the 'Power' button and changed the DTC settings to '6'. Now lets stop here for a second to look at its spec. Here we have a 120i Motorsport shell with e92 m3 sub frame components, DTC 7 speed gear box, e92 M3 diff and suspension, Mperformance brakes, newly refreshed s65, free flow stainless exhaust, Tuned MSS60 ECU and m3 GTS software loaded onto the gearbox computer and Mdynamics DSC traction and stability control. Back to the drive, I stomped on the loud pedal and plucked 2nd, 3rd , 4th, 5th redlining all the way. The sound was ammmmmmazing. But what trumped that was the amount of time it took me to break the legal and beyond. I see our first corner coming up at a great rate of knots. Look down and see a 2 with a couple of zeros .. hit the picks and dive into the first corner. It just soaked up the corner and the bumps. Accelerating out of the corner I pop the paddles and within a blink of an eye im through some more gears. The GTS gearbox software has come a long was since the SMGII days. Dual clutch transmission are the playstation generation. You cant get it wrong and it just builds confidence as the car isn't un-settled between gear changes. Up comes the next corner which is the start of a set of s bends. Complete with Rodney Council's finest b road bumps can throw at me. The car didn't flinch. I hit the down change and in comes the rev matching and throttle blips. holy crap I say that sounds awesome. At this stage Im giggling like a little girl while punching it out of the corners ... traction control is letting me know that its keeping the rear end in check. We get down to Still Water and take pause to figure out what the combination is and how something so potent can be so solid on the road with this power to weight combination. I jump out and the missus jumps in. She gives it the potatoes on the way back and reminds me I dont make a good passenger. We get to the open highway, and I jump back in the seat. And do the airfield run. I get a real chance to open it up. Pulling a big over taking manoeuvre past a local tourist. Up pops the stop sign to local highway .. The speedo is well past what would be considered sane. In come some braking performance .. bang bang bang down through the gears .. it pulls up with a face ripping gforce to the local highway. I get a honk honk and thumbs up from the tourist haha .. We complete our cool down run and return to HellBM. I get out of the car and walk up to ray, Ray: 'Whaddya think" Josh "Well that wasn't sh*t" Its given me the big hurry up on my plans for my next car. I own a e30 s50b32. I take on a car that was to put great power into something that I though needed it, at the time it was ground breaking.' This 1 series hatch with the s65b40 and DTC just brings into perspective what the new level is in badassness. This hatch is king. I have driven a lot of builds, with power and handling. Including some amazing factory cars. This takes the cake on all of it. Its really that good. Well done HellBM, this is the future of modding and its bright.