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its been a while The e30 has changed a lot since my last update. Ill try to keep everything in order.. We'll start with my 1st ever drift day on the track which was the 28th of May last year at Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park . Tragic. With no real prior experience and not really having a clue about what I was doing, it wasn't until the last lap of the last session I linked the drift section. (Again, tragic) But sure enough I left the day with a chip on my shoulder thinking I was the absolute sh*t, next drift prodigy. I immediately signed up for the next drift day that I could afford, which was in July last year. Boy, the humble pie came swift, and still no power-steering. As I said. I thought I was doing great and going into the next drift day at hampton downs club circuit I was super excited to show off my skills. But then I drove with some people that had a clue. The skill gap was YUGE. I found my self pushing harder and harder to keep up with them, but I still didn't really know what I was doing. Rather than being in control of the car, I was just reactive after the initiation. Basically the car was driving me. And of course the e30 took a bit of a beating. I lie. It took a f*cking hiding. sh*t video for lols Yep, I drove it to Hampton Downs, did an entire drift day. As I was exiting the pit for the last session of the day... BOOM! Rear wheels lock up and I couldn't find any gears, the getrag 260 had enough. No trailer, no way of getting back. Thankfully Sam from Hellbm didn't break his car, so we put my e30 on his trailer. Again, my friends save my ass. Not much went on for a while. It was a rough time for me. But my wife graduated! YAY! Will update in a bit. Need food.

Nothing more expensive than a cheap BMW as the saying goes.

Did a trial fitment of a set of Ergen Headers which are fabricated for M60/62 or S62 E30. The intention is to fit them to 8M3 in place of the restrictive factory headers. Our spare S62 had the privilege of posing next to 8M3 with the Ergen headers on.

So being a gearbox down I needed something that would stand up to a little bit of a hiding. So off I went. To Silverdale. Straight to Hellbm haha. Ray sorted me out with a zf 5 speed and I went to work to install it. We ran into a few hiccups along the way. Between the m50 and the gearbox sit a lightweight M20 flywheel and m20 6 puk clutch. So using the m20 release bearing resulted in multiple slave cylinder failures (because I didn't know what I was doing wrong). A simple measure up and sure enough the combo was too short, causing the slave to "over extend" and burst the slave. I then did a little research on the issue i was having and the answer was on the internet 1x BMW e21 323i release bearing 21 51 1 204 525 was ordered from Gavin @ euroItalian (great place to shop), and that was it. Driving once again. Seems simple and quick when i'm typing this up, but it took a while... I had other stuff on the go while this whole gearbox drama was happening... good stuff! Making sure i can fit big tires at the ride height i want the e30 to sit things were done to make it fit Oh and I moved house sometime between all of this So of course my mates had free reign in my garage (Blasphemy warning) I had a deadline given to me. There was a E30 meet being organised in Taupo and I was super keen to attend but I wanted to be a little different, so I started hunting for flares. I looked at the options from the states but they didn't really do it for me. I wanted something a little more "JDM" but my wife being the great person she is had bought me a birthday present... the flares I had on my eBay watch-list. And with the magic of the internet, THEY'RE ON! (255/40R17 all round, Photo credit : Sam Boucher Photography) I met some fantastic people and their cars at the meet. It was really heaps of fun! (some stolen photos from Facebook) More soon

Probably a poorly skilled driver, on wet wintery roads, driving beyond the condition on bingobong tyres.

At this price you can afford to have a spare one!

I am up to about 7 months on mine. Not a cent spent. YMMV.

Hi Folks Bit of a break from the E21 Group 5 to give the old 6 Series a long overdue birthday and have decided to make some headers for her. Bought a couple of M30 header flanges from Autobend (incorrectly supplied in MS rather than the requested SS 304) but they are a bloody awful fit - the bolt holes are off and the ports are not in quite the right place no matter how they are turned around. Plan is to squash and smack the 1.5" primaries to fit through the flange and weld both sides. Whilst they have reordered the flanges correctly in SS 304, there is so much work to make them right that I think I will start from scratch and get them waterjetted just down the road. Does anybody happen to have a CAD drawing file for the M30 headers that I could have a copy of please? I have a PDF with a couple of dimensions, but really need a DFX file or similar. Many thanks - beer available or a hot lap or two in the Group 5 once done and sorted. Cheers, Richard

Hey guys, finally back in a BMW after 5 or so years. Used to own a e30 325i which i had a little progress thread for somewhere on here. Have since owned a variety of japanese cars, mainly Hondas. But have just picked up a 2010 135i this morning. Have been looking for one for a while now. Got extremely lucky with finding this one, got it for a steal as a last minute deal from an old friend who was leaving the country for good today. Only found out about it last night and promptly secured it. It's got the n55 motor and DCT trans which I'd really wanted. Plans aren't too big for it at this stage, maybe a stage 1 reflash to start with and a few subtle cosmetic changes but mainly just a weekend car, drives amazing and the gearbox is brilliant. Here's an average photo of it with the wife's gti: And the track toy: Will get some better ones up shortly

I just posted about this. Smith and Smith seemed to be the worst leading option, Novus not far behind, and you have to go to their workshops! I thought about who to go for and went with AA Autoglass Got a really nice guy from London, Steve it was. He did a good job without any drama. I pre-removed some trims to make it easier for him. Interestingly he said he first worked for Smith and Smith when he moved here, but left finding it not the best company to work for and also mentioned they use the cheapest Chinese glass, XYG or something - he said it wasn't uncommon to find finger prints inside the glass done at the factory! AA autoglass uses FUYAO glass which seems to be a decent OE rated quality compared to other makes.

Used Smith and Smith recently, dude made a mess and BSd me about screws being missing from the cabin Air filter before he got there, when I knew they were there as I installed em... Id try novus next time.

same diff since! hasn't broken but holy zombie man its whiny AF. haha I've got a spare 3.64 med case but with the gearbox change I want something taller.

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Keeping this thread up to date: Today at 158460kms my trans service was completed New pan/filter, bolts, mechatronic sleeve, fill plug; Fuchs synthetic Dex VI (as above), plus Diff service (new drain and fill plugs, Fuchs synthetic oil) Replaced left front door seal Page European did the work, very pleased. I may get to change the engine oil and filter this weekend, if it's not raining too much. EDIT: here's the link to the thread where I investigated what approach and ATF were most appropriate. If you have a ZF 6HP trans, you should find this useful

Nice bro. I hear your car more than I see it lol. Need to catch up

Keen to hear your views of how the s62 responds to the new pipes........it remains an itch for me...... Cost benefit views would be good when ready......

You're tempted because they are epic. PPIs are like house inspections. Not a guarantee, but you don't want to NOT do one - and best to find the fussiest nitpicker and stick with them. It would be interesting to compare notes on the approaches taken by different places/people. How low? Hmmm. The 'value' is all to do with how much you want a crazy V10 supercar. This will never be a sensible car and you do need to be up for running costs. I've plenty of stuff about RS6s being $1/mile (or km) in running costs. Who knows if they will ever appreciate in price ... wouldn't bet on it but I do think this will be considered a classic in the fullness of time.

Comes down to how much you can or want to do yourself. If it can sit in the garage and be a weekend car and out of action while you wait for parts from overseas then more power to you. Sending it to a mechanic will probably have you living in a bus shelter in fairly short order!

Say it again, for the people in the back... and yet... i'm still tempted. Local PPI's are for sh*t though, i had Jeff Gray give an E39 M5 a PPI for me, and i specifically requested they be thorough under the body for rust as it was ex UK, they just didn't bother, gave it the standard once over instead, so i popped it up on a mates hoist and removed the side skirts... rust city... This auction leaves me wondering... how low can they go? Will they eventually populate scrap yards due to an imbalance of running cost and value, i heard these things are a good 5K a year to keep road worthy, without even looking at the always excessive fuel consumption.

Video Up http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2017/06/new-alpina-b5-biturbo-promo-video-makes-us-really-jealous.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=M5Board.com_breaking&utm_source=M5Board.com20170628 https://youtu.be/J5OXQy6UHso

Re. a quicker rack we have a good supply of purple tag sport racks (3 turns lock to lock) and Z3 racks 2.7 turns.

Yeah those roads are so bad these days. Really notice it on cars with firmer suspension. Regardless would have been a fun drive! Interesting you mentioned the rack ratio, I've noticed the somewhat lazy steering rack on the M3s too, it's just not sharp enough stock. Maybe they designed it to suit the EU market more? My rare Soarers rack is very quick, just makes it so good in the corners, 2.6 turns lock to lock I recall, so I certainly notice a lack of sharpness when hoping into other cars.

The ultimate machine if you had time to go track racing regularly! Haha, never sell your road going M collection for one track car! Would be a bitter sweet day! I nearly made something up similar for my E36 that would have tied into the subframe floor with longer 10.9 tensile rod sticking up through the floor. Unfortunately I never got around to it and sold the car.

Had a couple of hours to kill between jobs, managed to make it to Whanga and back. Its been a few years since i did this road, didn't recall it being so bumpy. Great test of the car and highlighted how much i don't like the M3 steering, its improved a lot with the new coupler but its simply too slack, need a quicker ratio rack, more on that later.

You're pretty much ruining the car doing that, nobody will want to buy an LPG X5... If you want more economy you should get a different car. X5 is not the right choice at all for an economical town car....

Looks like Brent / BM World will be getting more E90 parts in stock.

sell it and buy a diesel one , lpg tank will tank up heaps of room . I don't think any one really bothers with lpg on these modern engines etc

Cheers dude, they worked pretty damn well, i think version two will have a little less castor in them, aim around 10-11 degrees and i think the car will be even better. I have to admitt i did bend one of them on the friday in taupo. Took them both to a friends dads place and straightend it to match the other and put gussests on.. bet you cant pick where it bent tho!!. Some sweet pictures coming through now tho, had a bit of time on the track with jery in his e30 which is 1jz powered so now im on the hunt for more power. Stay tuned!

Yeah i've run the re-003 and eagle f1's previously and personally preferred the re-003's in terms of dry performance. Will definitely be looking at other options as all rounders

very nice fleet you got there. thats a tidy looking dc2 too! they really are amazing on the track. standard b18c? any mods? (i got a set of nice work japan or bbs wheels for your 135i if you are interested )

It's only good looking because it's the face-lift version with the front and rear ends fixed.