Mike

couldnt have said it better myself. Putting tint over the existing factory tint is fine, even with the factory tint and 35% you'll still be fine. worst case is probably what antony had to do.

HB dude

'nutha dunny road- the little road up to lanarch (sp) castle. tight hairpins up the hill and you can see if anything is coming. Heaps of other sweet roads round that peninsula too. Also wainui coast road in welly, barely any traffic.

good to hear, you made the whole job so much easier by not stuffing around with the control arm bushing, those things are nasty

dam, where were you a month ago? My 3mm MLS head gasket just arrived. I was going to plonk my 1.8i head on my 2L block but gave up due to piston/combustion chamber differences. Guess these still would have been to low c/r with the 1.8i head though? Mind if i get in touch about a proper M10 low comp build sometime?

overseas forums? I was in a similar situation with ACS 16x7.5. Managed to find a gu who had 2, then bought a full set, he sold me one and still had a spare. cost $50US to ship it over from memory?

ah wicked, cheers. mine went bung using search function too

the thermostat isn't an electrical device, its a mechanical valve which operates based on the temp of water flowing through it. A temp sender is basically a temperature dependent resistor, its resistance changes based on temp, the uce and gauge simply read this resistance. have any luck with my forum prob btw?

It wouldn't park up in Taita during the week would it? looks amazing if it is that one.

quiet noob the thermostat controls the flow of water to the radiator. your thermostat obviously wasn't closing like it should have, so the engine was being cooled too much at higher speeds

depends on the year, 95 was variable while the 96 on was constant. (90% sure its that way around) Seems to be a few internet myths about steering racks, with things regarding lock to lock turns, steering ratios, variable racks etc. I'm not exactly 100% on the subject, each time I read something about bmw racks it adds to the confusion.

the ball joints may be directional, i can't remember if the outers are. Easy enough to check though. Also, take the boots off before you press them in. You'll probably tear them otherwise. Just unbolt the lollipop arms that hold the bushings, easiest way to deal with those. Lastly, you may have some trouble removing the inner joints from the subframe, BFH should help here.

and your 185whp or something? was yours lsd? would that make a difference to durability?

haha gus your confusing the poor guy. Just swap the whole unit over. It will work fine. I have done the same thing with my car. I'd only start to worry about a small case over 200hp

yip, you might need to adjust the driveshaft length though. There is a large nut on the driveshaft about halfway along. You'll need to take exhaust and heatshields off to see it. Loosen that nut, fit the diff then tighten everything back up.

in an ideal world you would replace everything but you can get away with just replaceing the outer joint. Its the large rubber ones that make the job a pain

no, but any size case will go into any e30. what are you trying to achieve?

Heat. Lots of it. Only way I could separate my turbo housins from the center section.

meh, ignorance is bliss. I'd rather not know what features I could have, and waste more money on. 500txt and a few calls is all I need (want?) a phone for. Besides, I reckon a nice phone would last me about 2 weeks before it gets lost/broken/stolen. so a telecom POS it is for me. FWIW my current phone has been left on roof of my car. I found it in bits 500m down the road, pieced it together and aside from the fact I have have to use loudspeaker to hear someone its fine. nokia bricks FTW

I'm assuming its the inner ball joint that your talking about? If so, the ball joints can be replaced but you will need access to a press. Should point out that they do have to be installed in the right direction. Less hassle to get new arms with new ball joints all round but does cost a bit more. I think I paid around $30 for an inner ball joint? No idea on what new arms cost. You wont need a press if you decide to change the whole arms, just a gear puller or something to get the bushings off. Can also be a PITA to put the things back on.

use 245/35/18 in the back so the rolling diameter is the same. Are the rims staggered?

offset probs definatly. when the wheels are that wide it does need to be pretty spot on. AFAIK e30m3 use a similar offset to e28/e34 which is much lower (numericaly) than e36/e46. spacers will fix the probs but I can't tell you how thick to get. People run 9" wide on normal e30 so you should have no worries running them on the m3.

I looked into all this and by the time you have the FMU and a BTM your most of the way to a Link ECU (Less tuning costs of course) Also, it pretty hard to resist turning up the boost, I'm in the process of upgrades for more grunt, its bloody addictive.

Cheers, easiest way to do it would just be to make a cardboard template with the side profile that your after. make sense? I've no regrets changing to the smaller sub, I was a bit worried I'd find it too quiet after the 12's but it acually has the same power rating. Any more q's just ask.

you'll need oil and water lines, oil feed line alone is in the region of $90, some gauges as well are pretty necessary. waste pipe to exhaust will need to be fabbed up. Bigger injectors definatly needed. How you going to control fuel and spark? Even silicon joiners for charge pipes add up pretty quickly. And then theres all the gaskets you'll need to replace after you pull half the motor apart to fit the thing. Also things like catch tanks are needed so you don't pressurise the crank case, I also had to make a new windscreen washer bottle, etc etc. Can you weld, or know someone who will help you out? Makes it much cheaper/easier. I spent ages planning and researching my base setup and I came in pretty close to budget without too many surprises.