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My main issue when ordering bulk vehicle parts in NZ(more so as retail customer) is the lack of online ordering systems. Ordering from overseas is so much efficient for anyone accustomed it. Sending big parts lists to the dealership for pricing\availability creates too many issues unless you dont care about pricing and\or delivery schedules, not to mention extra work for the parts guy.

One for you. https://www.e30zone.net/e30wiki/index.php/Converting_to_Motronic_1.3

RayCoolDude172

TunerPro have a bunch of xdf's (definition files for tunes) for the Motronics as well as binary reads of the tunes - might be worth poking in to: https://www.tunerpro.net/downloadBinDefs.htm#BMW

Yeah absolutely. I was going to reply to your thread when I got a chance. The key thing is to figure out what processor your ECU runs - I think you're Motronic 1.0 right which is some derivative of the Intel 8051 I believe. Ghidra has def files for the 8051 I believe so you might be in luck. The second thing which is really needed is some sort of definition file which describes the locations in memory of parameters, etc. so you've got something to start with. From there it's a case of loading in Ghidra, trying to find code blocks, data blocks, etc. In terms of other tools it's pretty much just been Excel, TextEdit, and the like. Do you have a read of the program ROM from your ECU?

@Karter16 If you could share tooling and setup you have for this reverse engineering work that would be appreciated. If I recall correctly you use Ghidra for reverse engineering the code. But what other tools are you using in the process?

Price seems realistic though - or maybe I have just been conditioned 😂

Took out the gap with H&R Springs & BMS Wheel Spacers.

In Auckland, weaving through traffic, speeding, up someone’s arse, generally driving like a c@&t, “Oh, that’ll be a 320i then.” I always presume they’re rushing to the mechanic.

241,000km Had noticed an intermittent fuel smell after giving it some jandel over the last month. Had taken the beauty cover off to expose the fuel rail to keep and eye on the injectors to see if they were the culprit but there was nothing obvious. Then I had a misfire the other morning on cold start which went away pretty quickly but it was enough to motivate me to look abit harder. When it came time to wrestle the fuel rail off it just came right out, I didn’t even touch the quick release connector…thought that was a bit odd. Anyway while I was there I swapped the injectors out for some second hand ones I had blasted some carb cleaner though using an AliExpress ghetto setup and an old 12 Volt battery. I might get my original ones cleaned at some point and put them back in but will see how these other ones go for a while first. Pretty sure my issue was the fuel rail feed line somehow being loose, not the injectors. got a very audible click from the fuel line when I plugged it back in. I did have a rogue vac line that I couldn’t figure out where it had popped off from as it went from the vacuume resovoir into the manifold but the only uncapped port was the little top one and this hose was quite big. Can’t see anything at the back of the manifold so I ended up swapping a few of the hoses over that seemed to fit the hole diameters better, not sure if I’m wreaking havoc here but it all seems to be working ok. The O2 pilot mod is now taking vacuum from the top port and the bottom capped off port is now supplying vac to the resovoir which feeds to the exhaust flap. I didn’t realise but OBD fusion hooks up to the vepeak scanner giving me some live PIDs which is pretty cool. Be even cooler if they were within spec. I also got a bike rack this week which is an older legit BMW one. It’s the same as the Thule 591 models but has this little fin at the back. Had to drive to Eastbourne to pick it up but it was a good chance to do some motorway pulls and check for any fuel leaks, trigger any misfires etc. looking forward to getting out on the bike with the kids now I can take mine too. Might need to trim this tree, although might alert me that i have a bike on the roof and to not try drive into the garage.

I imagine shops get some demanding and unreasonable customers. But I also meticulously research parts and wouldn't expect warranty on my own mistakes. Agree it's a shops choice. I didn't get upset either. Decided to try one more place and then get to the work myself. Luckily I found somewhere that is willing to do the work. Obviously it's a leap of faith for them. It's a risk, they don't know me. But after this they'll gain a long term customer. That's also a smart business decision. But it comes with risk. Obviously they were willing to take that risk here. But no hard feelings against the other shop that turned me away. Agree. It is their choice and they get to decide what risk they want to take.

Yeah, accepted, these are important factors, and often critical to business continuity. I suppose my position is that I meticulously research parts and would never expect a warranty on installation of such, I didn't make that clear and many customers probably don't have those same expectations which makes it tough/impossible for shops to accept that risk. I do want to stress that my opinion is that it's a shop's choice, and no customer should be upset with that. It's just sad that the official parts network make this discussion even necessary, how about just not being obscenely greedy? It's a literal kick in the balls to their customers and supporters, and they smile whilst doing it.

Really interesting question and responses, most of which I agree with. Things have changed over the years! Bellars used to allow customer supplied parts (early/mid 2000's), I know because I did that a lot with the M3. It doesn't surprise me that many no longer support this. As above, if you have a good relationship with a not-too-big shop, they will often accept customer supplied parts... there are a few members here with shops that will. Main reasons for not supporting this are discussed above in this thread but, let's be honest, the bottom line is they make no margin off customer supplied parts and, for better or worse, that's their choice. I have had recent success requesting work at a shop and indicating (with links) what I could land the parts for and advising them, that if they could match that price, I'd get them to order the parts directly (basically from FCP or Spareto). The shop set up a trade account with the vendors, got the parts cheaper than I could and made a little margin, I had to wait a few weeks for the booking (for the parts to arrive - also a challenge with the NZ BMW network because they keep very little in country), but I paid the same as I would have buying the parts directly, the shop made a little margin and was happy with the (genuine or OEM) parts, and we all walked away happy with less money lining BMW NZ's greedy pockets. This problem wouldn't exist of course if dealers didn't want to put a 100% margin (or more), on parts. This is not a problem unique to NZ but BMW NZ really takes the piss.