BreakMyWindow

Slapped in a set of front pads. Nothing fancy but better than what was in there. Also got some 7.6Kg BBS RK001’s in 17x8 et35 flavour. Might be a touch too much tyre so will try 225/45/17.

For redundancy there are a couple of bungs below the Taillight gaskets you can put some holes in to let water drain out, there's probably a piece of moulded polystyrene covering them. The vents in that area can also leak from the gaskets.

Nothing conclusive to what the ticking noise is at idle. Cylinder leakdown was all in the “Green” showing 20% leakage on all 6. Re-did the comp test, this time with throttle plate open.. Cyl 1 - 260 Cyl 2 - 260 Cyl 3 - 260 Cyl 4 - 240 Cyl 5 - 240 Cyl 6 - 250 All within spec. Calling this a healthy engine, just with a bit of a tick on idle.

Ah k, the solid one I got from a 330 was manufactured in late 2004. I was thinking maybe hollow cams were exclusive to 130i N52’s. Who knows…I’ve seen alot of cross-over of parts changing over the years messing with bimmers.

Keen.

Finally got the lci cluster working in this car and the pre-lci cluster working in the white 130i. Somehow the pre-lci cluster fitted to the white car went corrupt after disconnecting the battery so needed a new chip and re-programming. Track day next Sunday on re003’s, road pads and rooted shocks so not expecting it to go around the HD national circuit as well as my old Primera did, but with this being correct wheel drive it should be fun nonetheless.

Bought this one back in May to swap the interior in to my Black 130i. I’ve got 2 other bimmers that are black on black so wanted a nice contrast for the 3rd one. Plan is to tidy it up, fix engine and sell. Cosmetically it’s pretty tidy but the reason why it’s posted here is because the engine is turning out to be a bit of a headache to sort out. It has a persistent tick/rattle at idle coming from the exhaust side of the valvetrain, on the rear bank of cylinders. Like my black 130i I thought this would be a fairly straightforward fix with a decent cam, bearing ledge (tried 3 different ones) and set of 12 new lifters. Nope! I’m a bit poor on time with 2 young kids these days, but after finding nothing really conclusive taking the valve cover off 3 f**kn times I went back to basics and checked compression. Cyl’s 4&5 are about 24-26psi down on others so although not terrible, it leads me to believe the lower readings on those cyl’s correlate to the noise I’ve verified with a stethoscope coming from the valvetrain for those cyl’s. Aside from the tick at idle it drives nicely, has some trick Bilstein “Executive tuning” shocks. Pretty low kms at 135k. Not a fan of the auto but the auto blip on downshift is somewhat sporty. Have since done a full interior swapout including dashboard and centre console with my black 130, cut and polish and a general tidy up. Here’s a few pics of progress. Made 1 decent iDrive monitor out of 2 that had different issues A bit of a going over of the paintwork Little bit of wear on the original bearing ledges, but now I know that wasn’t the issue. The 3rd set I installed was pretty mint and from a car with around 100k kms on it. It seems the 130i n52’s have hollow exhaust camshafts, where as other n52’s have solid ones despite all being the same pn. The cam I fitted in my black 130 was from a 330 and was solid, and the others I pulled from a 323 and 2x 325’s were solid too. Bit of an oopsy with the tensioner. Must’ve put the dummy tensioner (hardened steel) in crooked when I did the timing and chewed out the alu threads. Tightened the tensioner to strip (was pretty f’d off and not thinking straight) then removed it and managed to fix the head side by running a tap in the hole and replaced with a new tensioner. Whew! As for Compression results… I got the engine up to operating temp then pulled the coils and plugs out followed by adjusting the vtronic motor to the position ista calls for. Then my sh*t comp tester blew out the hose after testing 2 cyl’s. I got another tester and by the time I got home, proceeded to test with the engine luke warm. Wasn’t fussed about outright numbers, just deviation between cylinders. Let’s see what leakdown testing finds…..

Mainly the older folk pick them up probably to pay homage to the original MG’s, probably end up just as disappointed if they keep them past warranty period.

The 130i's are great bang for buck, for well under 10k you've got a great handling rwd manual with 190kw so it's very attractive as a base for a project.

Ah bugger. Looks like they've jacked the prices up too! Am with AA classic cover for the M5, no mention of kms restrictions, not that it matters as it does maybe 4000kms/year now.

Give these fullas a try. Been using their service for years for my M5. [email protected]

Long gone.

Decent bit of weight savings, at least with the style 207’s. What’s your experience with temps on the track? Just fitted an LCI cluster to mine so i can back off when it gets to north of 130.

Awesome car! How much do those wheels weigh?

Anyone know what the camshaft bearing ledge journal tolerance specs are? Can’t seem to find anything on the internet or ista.