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PO had fitted one of the MAFs backwards and I was running on 98. Have switched to 95 (the M70 is pretty low compression so should run fine on 91 too) and correctly installed the MAF and it's running better already! Fuel consumption from city to BM Workshop Botany 11.9L/100 in free flowing highway traffic. Much better but still running on 8-10 cylinders, I reckon.

Thanks again! Fortunately, there are a lot of good resources online and the M70 so far has been pretty simple to work on. If I could have afforded an M62 840ci with motorsport kit, that would be my preference. Better engine IMO and the m-sport kit really adds to the looks, but I still love the car I've got and the issues are all part of the fun of restoring an old car! To buy a mint Msport 840ci I reckon you'd need $30K+ so you've got to take what you can get! Beautiful cars and so good to drive when they're working properly... If I achieve my goal of S62 and manual conversion I think it would be hard to find a better car.

I have now! Thanks, Glenn, that's awesome!

Nah... Love the car. So beautiful to look at but the motor's not running right at the moment and comms are down, once I can restore comms and get to the bottom of the engine issues (my guess is it's running on 8-10 cylinders at the moment) it will be great.

Good point! Me too... Comms are down though so no point doing anything until I can find out why comms aren't working. BM Workshop said they would basically have to start the clock then unplug every module starting with the easiest, until the find the one that's causing the issue... Bugger! But better sorting that than throwing cash at parts on the off chance they are faulty.

Worse.... 14-15L/100 on a trip and 25L+ around town. Because that will solve all the problems, Josh!

I was going to do the same and follow an online DIY but will take your advice. Would love to try the known good ones to see if that is the issue... When are you up in Auckland?! If you can PM me the UK crowd that do the refurbs that would be great.

Thanks Andy. I pulled the cabin filter assembly out yesterday to eyeball those 3 coolant sensors and they're all plugged in so I'm still in the dark but thinking more and more it's just a superfluous plug. Failing DME coolant sensor seems to be a common cause of over-fuelling (according to Google) and is a cheap replacement so might do that... Trouble is, I'm not entirely sure which of the 3 at the back is the DME one! PS All the space is at the front in the E31!! The frickin' sensors are all at the back!!

Oooo ooo! All of it! haha To be honest not sure... Really need to scan it and find out exactly what's wrong. BM Workshop were unable to yesterday. Wish you were local - it would be very handy swapping known working parts from your 750 with mine to try and identify what's wrong such as MAFs and coolant temp sensors. Going to pull the DK motors this weekend and give them a good clean too.

Mostly Meguiar's stuff... Pretty straightforward: Spray on Meguiar's wheel cleaner and leave for 15-20 seconds Waterblast all the dirt off (starting with the wheels) so you're not scratching the paint with loose dirt when you hit it with the mitt. Wash with clean, soft mitt (I use a microfibre one) rinsing in a bucket of clean water, so you don't dump any dirt/grit in the bucket with suds (I just use a cheap CRC suds) Blast again with water and dry it with clean microfibre towels Clay bar if necessary using Meguiar's Quick Detailer as lubricant Hand polish with Meguiar's Polishing Compound Buff (I use a $30 plug in job from Supercheap - it's good enough to get a nice shine and sh*t enough that you'd have to be an idiot to damage the paint with it) A couple of times a year I'll wax with Meguiar's Tech 2.0 wax it after the hand polish and before the buff. I usually treat the wheels the same way I do the rest of the paint but these need a refurb so they just got a wash today!

So far my attempts to get the car running better have been to little avail so today I opted to do something I know I'm good at... Clean the f*cker:

True.

Have to admit, I think the silver wheels in the pic above look better than the black will... But then I'm not a huge fan of black wheels in general.

^ Buy that!

Yep 5W-40 full synthetic for NZ climate for the M62TUB44. Not sure what the recommended is for the non-vanos M62

Have unused diff oil for an E39 540i. PM me if interested. I also used Shell Helix Ultra 5W-40 full synthetic - quite pricey but very good and often on special at Supercheap.

That spoiler looks excellent.

My son's got a complete collection (thanks to his nana who went to several swap meets!!) and a tonne of spares (I think we have spares for most cards. Just PM me the ones you're missing and I can probably help out.

That's a fine collection of cars, Adam.

DME temp sensor on the water coolant crossover pipe seems to be a common cause of rich running M70. If this plug is meant to connect to that sensor... Wherever it is, could explain shite fuel consumption. Will investigate further in daylight.

You're probably both right but I'm just suspicious when the car is running super rich and there's a sensor-type plug not attached to anything!

Exactly what I'm thinking, Jon. Looking at that PDF Martin posted on p.19 an obvious culprit (and well hidden) is the temp sensor at the rear of the manifold. You can't see it without removing stuff so could easily have been pulled out and then the PO have not known where to put it. EDIT: Hmmnnn... No joy with that one. Just can't see anywhere it could come from, will have to check wire colours as Jon suggests and see what that turns up.

Some codes cannot be seen and I haven't scanned it yet.

Page 9 is a negative but am thinking p.19 is a definite possibility. Would make sense with the cable's location and would make sense why I can't see where it's supposed to go... Now to work out how to get at it to have a proper look. Another job to add to the list.

That's very useful (for many things)! Cheers