E30 325i Rag-Top

Great thread idea Dan-o. Here's my 3 in no particular order... 1) My mate Jim's family hand me down mid-70s Orange Allegro apart from the colour this car truly lived up to the all-aggro nickname. When still at school you just wanted to drive, any time, any place and if your mate offered you the keys to his car you jumped at the chance.... except Jim's Allegro after you had tried it once! The choke (remember those?) had three settings: two clothes pegs holding it out, one peg holding it or off. The main beam headlights, which were dim at the best of times, had a habit of not working, or worse still all the lights going out. Worst of all were the brakes, which seemed to have a mind of their own, sometimes the pedal going to the floor and not slowing at all, other times locking all four wheels by just looking at the pedal??? 2) The same mate Jim's family hand me down mid-70s yellow Vauxhall Viva Estate, a bit more room and a bit more go than the Allegro, but let down in other areas. Used to randomly conk out and refuse to start, needing to be bump started to get going - always used to impress the girls that one, especially when they were pushing! Once failed an MoT (UK WoF equivalent) so badly the tester had filled in an extra sheet of paper to list all the faults found. I also got pulled over by the Police while driving this car, in response to the standard question "Is this your car sir?" I was relieved to say "Good god no, it belongs to him!" and pointed to the passenger seat 3) Kia Pride 1.0l, courtesy car while wife's car was being fixed. No go, no handling, sounded like it was going to blow up over 50mph, seats that turned you into a cripple after only 10 minutes. Tape player didn't work to drown out the engine noise, fan vents only blew hot air even when set to fully cold. The slightest of cross winds would have you wandering over the road like a drunken uni-cyclist due to the incredibly vague steering.

Looks like an interesting project, I am keen to see it on the track in the flesh.From the addition of the intercooler I am pretty safe in saying you are going to run a turbo (or possibly supercharger), have you had the OK from the committee to run one, as I don't think they were standard on any model at the time?

A quick price check on Piston Heads reveals the price range in the UK to be from GBP37,000 for an '04 with 10,000kms through to GBP24,000 for an '03 SMG with 39,000kms (at todays exchange rate thats $85k to $55k).This car would have to be right up the top of any comparison, if not above all the others, so $85k+ spares package would push it into the six figures easy IMHO.

Yay to... brembo brakes, K&N intakeNay to.. all that carbon fibre, the wheels and WTF rear wing!

Thought I recognised a couple of the TradeMe user names ! Up to 9k now and not within 15% of reserve yet, so a ways to go.

Mr Farmer why are you spending all that time looking at an M3 when you have a race car to fix?? Are you planning on swapping a few bits from the M3 onto the E30 in the rebuild ?? Or is this a plan to move into the Open class? Please DON'T send me the gory details, or I'm likely to get all silly and buy it! Or this one in CHCH... http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/C...n-267667291.htm Not sure what the reserve is yet though..

It's black, old and annoyingly slow. But it does have a cool blue light on the front to look at while it takes 10mins to boot up....

Glenn, I have only just spotted your thread - sorry! The problem is at my end, I forgot the inbox size for the account I gave you is very small, only about 10mb which is only enough for one of the files. I didn't appreciate quite how high your hi-res files are either!! I have PM'd you my work address as well which has a much larger inbox and should be able to cope with the files. Thanks for all your hard work on sending these pics through to me - it is much appreciated, +100points to the *Glenn* feedback score!!

Cheers, I didn't even think of that as an option - I will check it out and fingers crossed you are right!

Driving the race car to and from Hampton at the week-end (more of that in another thread) I noticed a new rattle coming from either behind the dash or worst case, the engine. The rattle is gradually getting worse, louder and happening more. I know trying to diagnose an E30 rattle is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack but I have a couple of ideas. The noise doesn't happen all the time, only under part throttle and happens around 3 - 3.5k rpm, and it is a fairly high pitched "ticking" type rattle, definately NOT a deep knocking. Under no load or full throttle there is no noise, even at those rpm. My thoughts are, that it might be a bracket or something getting loose in the dash which is vibrating at a certain frequency, hence the rpm being a factor, OR it might be a little end bearing on the way out, the load on the piston determining whether there is a rattle or not. Any easy way to find out which it is, don't really want to start pulling the engine apart or swapping short engines at this stage if I don't have to?

Do you have a non-TradeMe, cash, bimmersport discount price for the PFL rear bumper? Pick up this week-end?

It's not just doing business with the general public these days, even big companies treat their suppliers like dirt and walk all over them.The lack of respect, as Glenn so correctly put it, now exists in many areas of business, even with companies that spend millions of dollars on PR campaigns to tell the world what a caring, responsible company they are!! Customer - supplier relationships should be mutually benficial whatever the line of business, the "Customer Is King" idea has been taken too far by many people and companies IMHO. My view point is to give what you receive and know who the "good" customers are, if they go out of their way to work with you do the same in return. Not always easy in a recession, but its at times like these that you realise who the customers are you want to keep, and those you would rather went elsewhere.

Which is quite funny, because you would look like a real **** driving that thing

Excuse my ignorance, but is the ECU 'programmable' , ie can you change the maps on it (via laptop or whatever), or does it just run the maps already set up on it? If it is programmable does it come with the software? Cheers, JTP

On my stag do I got asked by a Hen do to complete one of their challenges (no - not kiss the ugly bloke!) and do "a native dance", so I did the Haka, very loudly with lots of actions, in a packed bar. Then had to do it again so they could get photos. THEN got asked to do it again by another two hen-dos.... was knackered by the end, but got a few drinks out of it and started lots of conversations with the hens. You could turn it around and get your brother to ask a lady of your choice to do a lap dance for / on him??

...yeah, she's really only 25. The 100 on the cake refers to the number of ciggies per day !!

I admire your patience and tenacity in sorting all these issues out Jamez, hopefully you have found and cured the last of the gremlins. Will we get to see the beast running at the Tasman Meeting in the Open Class??

Jono51 might have one from the Motorsport he is breaking. I would be interested to know how much the cable weighs to make this swap?

Have posted some of these up before, but this is a summary of the before / during / after for the race car: As bought from Mosen's April '08 Cause of re-build project, Pukekohe May '09, photo courtesy of Stevo During the rebuild, with _BRS_'s donor welded in... And as the car is running now.. few finishing touches still to go...(photo courtesy of GroundSky)

I've not seen this car at Manfield in my time over there, although the listing is now in CHCH so may have moved down there a while back. If there are timing sheets or records to back up the 1min 21 seconds time, then that is a pretty good time for an E30 around Manfield, so it must go alright!

Got the usual useful but boring stuff, socks, pants, money, etc. plus some cool stuff, inflatable boat, new cordless drill, subscription to Classic Car. From Santa the family got a Wii - kids love it and it is very entertaining. Plus No. 1 Son got a skateboard and loads of Lego

I admire the engineering in this car, and respect the technology that they have developed, especially in the engine, however the styling just turns me off the overall product. The outside I can understand, aerodynamics and ground effect requirements. The interior though, and the dash, etc... what were they thinking??

Have a good one Blair - party time in the 'Naki!!

eBay has a few E30s on it, but not many. The best site I have found for these sort of cars is the classifieds on www.pistonheads.co.uk usually has 20+ E30 M3s and 100+ E30s of all other shapes and sizes.

The 20 years old is based on the date of first registration of the car, not build date, so watch out for that one. It is also the date it arrives in NZ that counts, you can't even hold on to it here for a bit and then say it's 20 years old. Any early E30s will be Ok now.In terms of the returning to NZ bit the big difference is that you can say it is your own personal vehicle, sign a disclaimer saying it's for your personal use, and pay no import duties or GST on the car which can make a big difference dollars wise. If you sell the vehicle within 2 years then you have to pay Customs and Excise the duties at that point. Check out the info on the LTNZ website, it's pretty useful and comprehensive. So funny that every time the UK is mentioned someone has to chip in about rust, not every E30 in the UK is a rust bucket, some people do have garages and look after their cars in the UK you know, just something to look out for, as you would on any E30 even NZ new! There is loads more choice of cars, at very attractive prices, just take your time to find the right one. Most shipping companies let you fill the car with stuff as well, so you can cram spares or other person items in to save freight costs. From personal experience I wouldn't put anything too small and valuable in there though as it may well get "lost" on the way.