M3AN

I picked up the cleaning products I'll need to tackle the interior, all on special at Supercheap so that wasn't too painful. Cleaning it will be painful. I also fluked a rear wiper motor in what looks to be near new condition from Zebra for $20. I took it apart onsite to check it before I paid for it. I might swap the BMW one into my black car and the pattern part into the blue one... not sure why but it's only a handful of clips and some bolts. It was nearly empty of fuel when I got it and I have no idea what was in there so I filled it up with 98 today to give it a breath of fresh air. I've been driving it all day and it's really, really nice to drive. Now waiting for a good oil to be available at a good price at Repco or SCA.

Swing past mine at some stage James if you want to plug it in.

I have one, but it's wrapped in a car that you'd have to take at the same time... it's strong, and you wouldn't need a trailer to get it home. ?

What's up?

Forgive the crappy phone pic but this thing, parked around the corner from my office, is seriously mint, possibly the nicest I've seen. Great plate too.

Apparently... was news to me too. They dropped it from the LCI 130i Motorsport but kept it (I understand) on the rest.

Welcome, and it will be on the sidewall of the tyre somewhere. But it may not be obvious because the tyre manufacturers seem incapable of defining a standard, you may need to check the web for info on your specific tyre.

Interestingly I've just discovered they've been doing it since at least 2005. The E8x's had radiator flaps for the same purpose. The seem to fail regularly... you might yet experience that. ?

It seems so, which is news to me. I'm afraid I don't think you're going to get any meaningful drop from rotation given this new information.

Wow ? I'm glad I qualified my knowledge as e36 only. That's the first time I've ever seen that info, nice one, cheers.

Working upward, there's a step in the perch, the step in the pad should align to this, then the end of the spring should rest against this step. Since you're reusing your spring pads and they will be deformed it may not be immediately obvious how they should be positioned so pay extra attention. Yeah, if you can get spring compressors in there, no harm done and less faffing around. It's probably not the BMW way but it's been done before without trouble. Remember that the top hat is (usually) keyed to the spring so make sure that rotates also and you triple check that the spring is properly located at the top before you slowly release the compressors. When the car is jacked up and the front shock is at max extension you won't need a lot of compression on the spring to twist it around.

Yeah, have you adjusted them since your first pics? As @3pedals says, they now both look almost right whereas pic #2 in your first post is way off. I don't think the springs are handed and you have the shocks on the correct side because of the swaybar link tabs. See if you can compress and twist those spring around a bit (to the steps by the tabs) to seat perfectly then wait a week and see what happens. The springs themselves may compress a little under sustained load and settle lower than what you have. Based on your most recent pics I wouldn't be taking anything apart.

And now, for the sublime ride, I wiped off the shocks and spied this through the spokes: They appear to be Bilstein JDM shocks (e.g. 1, e.g. 2) and valved specifically for the E81/7 Motosport 130 and I call them winners. It's difficult to know how many km's they've done but a reasonable assumption is they're younger than the life of the car. Bonus.

Some progress pics. Cleaned up the engine bay, forgot to take a before, it was thick with years of dust and grime. Polished up the headlights with some headlight compound and a random orbital polisher, they were terrible, now they're quite alright (although still showing their age). Before: After:

I suspect you're right on the tyres. As for the price, well I'll market it for what I think is an honest price but the price I paid for it will have little bearing on that. I won't be making thousands, that's for sure. I forgot to mention... this one is almost pleasant because it isn't so violent. But the sport mode in this has nothing on mine, it's left in the dust. The black one is clearly a more focused car and I like that but this one is sublime (and probably a much more economical daily ?).

This may become a list of things I've done or need to do. So far: Plugged it into ISTA and checked all the modules and faults, a bunch of stored faults from ages ago were cleared and didn't come back. The radiator flap which is of no concern, I might remove it (as they did with the LCI motorsport 130i), was the only persistent fault. The headlights were terribly yellow, I've given them a polish. Fluids (oil, brake, power steering) checked and nothing concerning, I will do an oil change I've coded in and out a few convenience features and annoyances using Carly and crosschecked codes, no problems. I've checked the suspension (only with the wheels on) and noted aftermarket shocks. I replaced the missing ashtray and socket plug from spares. Given the engine bay a once over to remove the worst of the dust and crap. I checked the air and cabin filter and they will be changed. It's on a battery conditioner at the moment just in case it's had recent abuse. That's all I can remember at the moment.

No credit needed (but thanks), I'm a man of my word. I had no intention of pushing the bidding up to be honest, I put in an auto bid close to the current bidding but nowhere near what I thought it would go for and walked away. Came back to a car. I actually think I can make it better (and much lower risk) for a prospective buyer anyway and the two on here that were bidding (I don't recognise either) that have PM'd me already have my assurance they'll be amongst the first considered when I move it on.

I picked it up on Saturday and first impressions were that it was well used on the outside and absolutely filthy (disgusting) on the inside. But it did come with two keys and a luggage compartment cover, miracles! ? The seller (wholesale dealer) wasn't dishonest in the ad but also wasn't fully honest. As somebody who trades in cars he should have been more honest and complete in his description but hey, it was my choice to buy it sight unseen. I'm pretty glad in some respects that I got it rather than somebody who would have to pay to bring it up to spec. He also said he has always referred to the "roof/head liner" as the "hood liner" and I call BS on that since he's in the industry. So I jumped in and took it for a drive. Well damn, it's absolute bliss, way better than I expected. It hums along, has loads of poke and and rides amazingly well. I took it for a real hard drive around a lot of tight bends and uneven surfaces (the main areas the poor stock suspension and open diff show their faults) and it was planted. It has new rear tyres (Neuton) and I'm stunned with their grip which I imagine falls off really quickly once wear sets in (if not they're amazing tyres). Still, it's filthy and disgusting. But, mechanically it's an $8k car every day and the cosmetics don't add up to $1,250 off so I still got a good deal. I drove back and paid the man.

What's your view on the springs appearing to be the same Glenn?

This was a Trademe $1 reserve auction that I put an auto-bid on that I presumed would be too low to win it. And then I won it. So I ended up with another M130iA that I really don't need for $6,750. I'm going to do what I can with it to tidy it up then flip it. I saw nothing but the TM pictures, description and Q&A before I bid and would never normally throw money at something sight-unseen, especially nearly $7k but, as I say, I didn't expect to win it. It's docile compared to my black one but surprisingly agile and compliant. As collected:

Cheers and no, not 20mm+. The perches don't rotate do they? Or are removable? I wondered that but if you look at the link Sammo provided both front springs are the same. I'm not saying you're wrong, or that the picture is accurate, but it does create some confusion (in my mind at least).

@Sammo NP. Don't get to hung up on the writing... it took twice as long as it should have to install the Eibach springs on my M3 because I was convinced the writing should be the "correct" way up... it's isn't, the writing is "upside down" and they're installed correctly. Can you link to the shocks you got? The only AP's I can find (here) have an integrated lower (captive) spring perch, painted the same colour as the shock, yours (the silver bits) look like they're added on... can you confirm?

With my rather uneducated eye, I've only replaced e36 suspension, I can offer: Use the same endlinks and no preload required on the swaybar. You will get a clunk if your endlinks are stuffed or not bolted up real tight. Bumpstops look fine, you'd only need to trim them if you hit them too often, regardless they won't cause a noise. I don't think those springs look seated properly. In pic 1 the spring needs to rotated clockwise until the end of the coil (bottom) rests up against the step in the perch. On pic 2 it almost looks like the spring or perch is installed upside down because you can't rotate the spring to sit against that step... are the springs asymmetrical, is it even possible to install them upside down? FWIW.

My AVIN unit actually gets better as I get more used to it. The only less-than-perfect use case is if you listen to the radio a lot (as I do) because the AVIN unit can't control the (non-digital) radio. If we had DAB that problem wouldn't exist. 10" touch screen is utterly amazing, surprisingly so. You 100% absolutely MUST get the 4GB unit, ideally Android 9 or above. I had a 2GB unit and it really sucked, Android kept closing background apps (like the Bluetooth stack, or the phone, or the music app) because it kept running out of memory so it was useless. They're all clones but AVIN provides pretty good after-sales service and I certainly needed it.

It's cosmetically less than perfect but mechanically sound and drives like a dream! Only code is radiator flap which is nothing.