E30 325i Rag-Top

Just go to a car yard that has one for sale and take it for a "test drive"

Tidying up the rear end of the race car, ready for the NZFMR, now that exhaust is fixed and back in the right place (gases were melting the bumper rubber!!). Replaced whole bumper with better, straighter one, sprayed up the rubber to match the body work. Touched up marks on the bodywork and re-sprayed worst areas. Bumper to go back on tonight and then to finally for the decals I got made up about 5 years ago!

Have had so many bad experiences with freight / shipping / courier companies over the years, all around the globe. I think there must be some sort of logistics training course they all go on which includes How To F@%k Things Up 101. Pick and choose your carriers wisely, but even then it often gets subbed-out to local operators in the far flung reaches of the world. No matter how big the outfit, it all comes down to the monkeys on the ground. Great that Amazon came to your rescue, good result. Unfortunately the freight companies rarely do.

If it is your own car, and you are now resident in NZ you may be able to bring it in as an "Immigrants" vehicle, which removes a lot of the need for impact rules, etc. Only downside is it gets logged as an Immigrant with NZTA which may put people off if you try and sell? Check out the info on the NZTA web-site for full details.

Good work, nice to see the work being done thoroughly to keep it all tip-top. Does your car have the "light-weight" CSL wheels, I believed the standard CS wheel was the same style (the best E46 wheel ever) but not made from the same alloy so they weren't so expensive?

Standard motorsport springs will drop it a decent amount (enough to notice and improve the look) without making it undriveable or illegal.

Did the front bumper cover come like that or have you cut the centre section out? Looks a big hole in there. Has it got the mounting points underneath for the front splitter like on the original Evo III?

I would suggest that you could have got a better price for it than what you got, unless there was something wrong with it not shown in the pictures, if you can be prepared to wait for the right buyer to come along (a big if, sometimes it needs to go quick). A good clean of the car, and good pictures - exterior is reasonably easy, but interior / engine shots need a bit more, with a well written advert will pay you back many times over for the effort.

An S14B25 would go well in there, might blow the budget though! I would be interested to know what this ends up weighing as it should end up nice and light.

Maybe because that's the going rate for a good example, especially with the 2.5ltr engine.Comparing the price with your 520i is like comparing lobster with out of date hoki. One is in demand, the other you have to discount to move it. Good luck with finding an E30 Coupe for $2k, if you get one with a warrant for that you're doing well. I get that not everyone likes or wants an E30 (even on Bimmersport) but the prices are where they are for a reason.

Good work! Did you sort out something to fill the extra large sun-roof hole?

Sorry to hear about your brothers car, real downer at this time of year when you want to enjoy your wheels. Totally right that there is no need for this crap in NZ, but unfortunately there are a growing number of dicks out there that believe they are "entitled" to everything on a plate and will just take what they want. Not as bad as many countries granted, but something that needs to be dealt to very soon before it's too late.

Was it an sDrive version? Lots of the Jap imports are the non-xDrive version which makes a big difference to the capabilities of the car. First gen X3 are coming down quite a bit now, but they are not the best styled BMW and they also tend to be the petrol Jap imports, not the much better diesels.

Yeah, they have the RSC symbol on the tyre and the RFT written on them, but when I look online for sizes or prices they are all referenced as just "S001" which I thought was a bit confusing, that's all.

Any particular models / engines you are interested in?

Yeah, I wasn't sure if they did them in both run-flat and non-run-flat. Seems odd to me that they have both types under the same tyre code. FWIW they seem to go all right in the run-flat version

Hey, what is the centre bore on these wheels please?

Just looked at the tyres on my latest car and they are Bridgestone S001s, they are run-flats though. I'd guess you'd be looking at non-RFT though right?

My ideal would be two 2-car garages, one for the projects and the other for the daily drivers. The project one would have space for work benches, tools, storage etc. Got as far as getting plans drawn up for the second garage in Palmy, but then we moved to Akl. Where we are now is a good compromise as the garage has plenty of room for 2 cars plus work-bench, parts, bikes, etc. with enough off-road parking for the two dailies and then some. Noticed the front bumper was hanging off one-side on the wife's E46, and the fog-light had nearly fallen out, all by itself apparently according to Mrs Pom.. so pulled it off to check it out and put it back on properly. Found about half a dead bird and a big F^%k off spider in there plus a few broken clips. A good clean and it'll go back together and then I can get the missing clips on order when I'm back at work next week.

Very technically it will allow greater acceleration due to decreased mass, but won't increase the top speed as the aerodynamics will be unaffected.. Will have much better bragging rights and cool / wank factor though. And it's also another reason for Ash not to get his car on the track any time soon...

As above, it's not a complex job, just difficult to get to. If you have a good socket set with wobble joints and extensions, etc then you have all the tools you need. Room to jack the front to get underneath is also helpful - saves the back strain of keep leaning over the front guard.

It's the Gen-Y problem, can't wait for anything, want it all straight away, not going to work their way up the property ladder, want to go straight to the 4 bed villa in Ponsonby. When the bank manager says they can't have the money they cry any wail because no one has ever said no to them before. And it's not their fault (it never is) so it must be the big bad Property Market to blame.

Cool hobby Dutchy! By the way Ash said he didn't want those anymore, and to give them to me instead

That's how they all dress at the factory in Munich... Allegedly!

Same to you Allan, took me a while to realise you had changed your user name to tim325 though! Thanks for posting up the link to the pelican photo galleries, some damn nice cars in there, especially in the bimmerfest folder.