charles28

The Japanese imported E36's with the M50 and M52 engines + 5 speed auto have a JATCO transmission, basically its rubbish and made for Nissans, I used to have one of these cars, the car ended up having a nasty jerk when changing from 1st to 2nd and sometimes the tranmission went into fail safe mode on me also. If you get one in auto it needs to have the ZF transmission. I now have 2x E30's instead of the E36, so it looks like we are total opposites Driving wise, the E36 is of course a more refined car, its also alot heavier, I found mine rather boat like to be honest, however it had 130,000ks on the clock and original suspension, the M SPEC ones have harder suspension and should handle better, they also have nicer more supportive seats in them. from memory the 318IS has the normal 4 speed ZF auto, even in Jap import form, its not a super fast car or anything, but in 2dr Coupe motorsport trim form they might be nice to drive handling wise.

2.7 conversion, ETA bottom end, 731 Head,323 Cam, 325 inlet manifold ported to match, running later engine management ,new cam belt, water pump, tensioner, spark plugs, - 5 speed conversion - Recaro seats just been retrimmed in BMW fabric - Retrimmed headlining in black fabric - 15" Cross spoke alloys - lowered - new clutch, lightened flywheel - K & N filter - extractors - Nolathane engine mounts - Alpina badges - M gear knob - chrome dumpy exhaust Drives well, smokes under very hard acceleration, new rings would improve, but still goes hard, Compression test all 190 -195 psi, NO cracks in dash, slight kerbing to mags, recent paint touch up. Note; Speedo in MILES Found this old ad on trademe for the car when it was for sale November 08. so I have some more info on it.. shows that its had "manual conversion" was hoping it was a factory manual one, ohwell.. hopefully its still got the Getrag 260 box

Does anyone know the part number for the Rings i'll need? from what I can tell its Part Number: 06106004292. Actually.. this part number is probably meaningless and refers to one brand of parts only. So can I just get standard M20B25 Piston Rings? But can anyone confirm/back this up for me? Also looking at somethine like this for Headgasket Set, i'm not good at knowing which parts I need to order, especially when the Car has been modified previously, I guess all I need to know is, is this suitable for use with the 731 Head? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-E30-325...s#ht_1426wt_849 Cheers

Nice car, mmmm but 12k, i'd still be tempted if I didn't already have 2x E30's lol

yeah, its that one from Blenhiem, I offered $3000 and he accepted, probably doesn't seem like a good price for a car that needs work, but alot of those manual 325i's are $4500 + and alot of those are in need of attention also. from what I can see a really good one is $7000 or so. I am having to wait 2 weeks to get the car due to going on Holiday down to Milford Sound. For me 1/2 the fun of buying it is the "project" factor of having to fix it up.

Have purchased site unseen basically, am collecting it in 2 weeks. Its a 4dr in White with the Recaro Style Seats, seats have been recovered and hoodlining re-done, is a 1989 Facelift looking one. The car has some engine mods of sorts, all I know so far is: (below comment from seller) the engine is a m20b27 looks exactly the same as the 2.5 version but has a bigger crank and I have put the 731 casting head on it which has double valve springs He tells me the compressions a little low at 190psi and that it will smoke if thrashed, i'm not too worried as this car is going to be a project of sorts. Since I will likely be rebuilding this engine, what other mods could I do while getting this done? maybe some kind of race cam? Cheers

One other problem with the car i've recently noticed: When driving along, if I take your foot off the Accelerator pedal you can hear a clunk from what sounds like the rear of the car.. and you can hear the noise again if you put foot back down on the pedal.. anyone know what this could be?

Its in KM's, has no MPH stuff on it at all, is a Jap Import one also. The Temp gauge never goes over 1/2, so I assumed that big Overheat warning light on the OBD was for something else, as it seems strange that it would have a Light up there for Water Temp when there is already a temp guage. Have been in an NZNEW Bmw like mine and it didn't have that Overheat warning on the OBD, so I assumed it was for something else. the only differnce I could think of was that his had no Cat converter and mine did.

My E30's going well.. had it for 2 months now.. have fixed some small faults with it, ie Coolant Level Sensor, I replaced it with a new one from Ebay, purchased a Service light reset tool also. I installed some good audio, DLS Component Speakers, Infinity Amp, Image Dynamics Ported Sub. The only things left to sort are: 1. The Speedometer shows the correct speed and works fine, however the ODO is only recording some of the km's I have drivin, ie, drive 10kms and it records about 3.6kms of the trip (for both the odo and trip meter), the numbers seem to move rather slowly.. this would be a nice fault to have if the car was diesel, could it be the cable from tranny to odo? I have no idea. 2. On that display near the rear vision mirror theres a light that says "overheat" my assumption is that this is a warning for the cat converter in the exhaust? If i drive the car around town it doesn't come on, however if I floor it on the open road and pass a few cars it comes on. this is telling me that the cat converter is stuffed right? Cheers

They look pretty good to me, but he's a new trader and has no feedback, no pickups, not sure if I would want to pay $ into his account..

I'm thinking about getting some of these, I like the sound of them fitting straight in, the current speakers sound muddy and horrid, I just changed my headunit, but its just a cheapo Panasonic 4x50w thing with USB input. Where abouts did you install the Tweeters?

Cool, I did that, accessed it from the glove compartment, found that there were pieces of metal jammed down the side, someone had done a real dodgy install thats for sure. but its sorted now, mp3 headunit is now fitted at working. Now I need some decent front speakers, they sound muddy and crap.

Hi Guys, Today I purhased a new headunit with USB/MP3 Support. I got a El Cheapo Panasonic one as the car already has a Panasonic Head Unit Fitted (old ish one, with tape Deck, but has CD Stacker controller). The problem I have is that I can't remove the old headunit, have made a real mess of the thing trying to get it out. even tried using the thin metal keys that came with new headunit. but theres no where to put them, the metal cage doesn't seem to have the usual part where you can put these. I did have the faceplate removed when i was trying to take the Headunit out. All i have suceeded in doing is munting up the metal around the headunit. I've installed plenty of headunits in my time, amps, subs, speakers etc.. so i'm not trying to be a total noob or anything.. Usually the thin metal keys can slide down the left and right side of the cage where the headunit sits, then it should be able to slide out..

I found a front lip for $85 + GST, seems cheap enough. Yeah I know what you mean about those headlight covers.. lol but I am an old man pretty much, 30 years old..

I got the BMW last night, wasn't able to take any pics yet. but heres a pic from when it was for sale. Its a tidy old beast, came with alot of receipts, incl full head rebuild etc worth $2500 17,000kms ago

Awesome, aslong as 3k @100k is normal all good, am purchasing the car tomorrow.. will post pics once i get it

I have looked at a very tidy 1990 BMW 320i, everything about the car seemed to be good. However I noticed at 100km an hour that it was a 3000rpm, is this normal RPM at 100k for a E30 320i in automatic? its a Facelift 1990 model with the motronic injection. Most auto cars i've owned sit at 2500rpm at 100k, just though I better check it out before I hand over the cash

Guys, I havn't been on here in a while, i sold my E36 320i over 1 year ago, I got sick of the Jatco auto transmission. I have been thinking about buying an old E34 535i, but did any of these come with the Jatco trans? i want to avoid getting another BMW with that type of gearbox. It seems that a 535i E34 in Auto tranny form can be picked up for a good price nowdays, I realise they are an older model, but according to wikipedia the E34 is one of the most reliable models right? This car will be used as a daily driver/cruiser. I don't care about fuel economy, but I like some low down pulling power (torque), i trust a 535i will do the job. Currently I have a 2001 WRX Wagon (tiptronic) that goes well when you put your put down hard, but off the mark it takes a bit to get moving..

Since installing an aftermarket headunit into my E36 the radio reception has been pretty bad. From what I can tell the back window heater is the aerial.. its almost like it needs some kind of signal booster.. When i disconnected the factory headunit there was a thin wire connecting to the back of the headunit that was labelled 'AMP'. I am thinking this is something to do with powering the factory signal booster, however if this is the case, where can i connect it to? could I wire it upto the 12v from the headunit perhaps? surely someone else has had this problem. Thanks

I took the car in to get diagnosed, the error code related to "SPEED SENSOR" or something.. they reset the trans computer and said to see how it goes and that the error may never come back, but that if it did, that i may need the trans replaced.

Thanks for that, that would be appreciated

They put 8 litres of fluid into it, any ideas what the actual capacity is? (seems to be a hard thing to find on the net).

I just went out and tried to get the error codes, couldn't do it(don't know what i'm doing), (warning light was still on of course) moved car through all gears, didn't matter what was selected, still started in high gear.. switched car to power/econ/snow modes, all lit up as usual.. so switched car off. went back inside. 20mins later I went to take a pic of the error light on the dash, but it didn't come back on? then I tested the gearbox, car was now starting in 1st gear as normal. took car for a 30min drive, didn't miss a beat. So my question is.. what should I do now? ok, so its working at the moment.. but will this happen again? or maybe its a glitch that won't .. who knows.. am doing a big road trip in 2 weeks, so don't want the elervated risk of breakdown.

Mmmm I went back out and started the car, the warning light is still on, the Sport/Economy switch appears to be working though.. as far as it lights up on sports mode when selected.. etc.. Being stuck in 1:1 seems to be the issue, but I guess Limp mode could be caused because of another type of fault. Being a Jap Import it has the JATCO transmission, 2 weeks ago i got the Transmission fluid changed.. so i'm a bit worried that its something to do with that.. I got it done at oil changers, but they do some kinda reverse flush method of changing the trans fluid..maybe thats stuffed it. doh

Tonight I was driving home from Rolleston to CHCH, all was well, until a warning light on the dash came on, i noticed the car was revving higher than normal (was on the open road), eventually when i stopped at traffic lights, i found that the car seemed to be starting off in 3rd or 4th and didn't seem to change gear at all.. could also hear a whirring/wine constantly at 50km per hour.. I guess the trans is stuffed?