Jacko

Id admire your work ethic in dealing with such a cluster fudge, I cant stand fixing other peoples messes... drives me balmy.

Landsail tyres, and chewed out rotors.. awesome.

I set up my garage door (old dominator) to be smart the during the weekend, pretty cool driving in the driveway and "open sesame" and the door opens On the ubiquiti stuff, I very recently looked at it and it does look good, and well priced. Some of the cameras output looked a little bit iffy though... in the end I went with an Arlo 3 Pro system with 3 pro and 4K cameras due to not feeling to inspired to run more cat 6 around the house! Works well, integrates with google ("show me the shed video camera" etc). If I did it again Id use more 4k cameras and less of the 3 pros, the difference between the 2.7k 3 pro and 4k is more than just the resolution, the 4ks image looks better, has a wider field of view, and the microphone is better.

Those little bissells are awesome, Ive made a few cups of coffee out of various cars

Chip tune on the diesels, thats it.

Did BMW NZ keep record of what cars had the fix carried out? I have nothing in the service history, so wonder if mine has the metal rings or not (not that its ever thrown an oil pressure/vanos issue) and I have the full service history.

Considered tweaking mine into an ACS1 awhile back, but then decided I didnt like the look of the ACS wing or rear valance.. kinda dig the eurotrash vinyl though... maybe after a respray to fix the 300,000km of stone chips.

I really dig the optional bmw performance stripe that runs along the crease, but its only in black/grey

I dunno if can really say all Bilstein shocks have flawed valving from a sample size of X(5). Ive run Bilsteins on probably 6 cars, have never jumped in and thought "damn that bad', Ive run konis on a few cars too, and again Ive never had a badly matched set.

Anyone know for sure if the early cam ledge seals were a recall item, or if it was just fixed under warranty when they failed? Looking into replacing them when doing an N52B30 rebuild later in the year, kinda confusing what the actual state of play is with the metal Vs teflon change over point, and if the box that supports the intake cam changed at the same time. Looking at realoem, the parts catalog, its all identical on N52s between 2004-2011... which doesnt make a whole lot of sense. Or was it as simple as the metal rings being totally killed off by the teflon units?

Front indicators look nice!

Pics and VIN, or doesnt exist There are only 13 of em, so spotters will be googling furiously for this info in 20 years.

Theres a couple of reasonable looking blue ones on faceballs for around 8k at the moment, might be able to twist an arm.

What makes it slightly more confusing is there is a B1 V1 and B1 V2, mines the V2 with the thinner rear swaybar and higher spring rates (still much larger rear sway, and lower rates, than stock). Be really curious to see what the difference is back to back with the V1 (which is what the Tyrant ran), it sounds like Birds/Harvey Bailey took the community feedback from the V1 and tweaked em.

How is getting custom valved shocks and spring rates developed by a suspension engineer/works driver marketing bollocks? Proof is in the pudding, and its good pudding Read some more, the BMWCar mag article is a good one. It was developed for the road, hence why most dont like it on the track as the spring rates are too low. Id place money on BMW not putting LSDs in em to be more down to cost cutting than anything.

Stock Msport shocks on E87s are sachs, which are just crashy, the Birds/Eibach/Bilsteins are softer springs than stock but have stiffer swaybars. Its a hard supension is "sporty" thing that BMW do https://www.birdsauto.com/product-information/b1-dynamics-package-upgrade-bmw-e87-130i-and-e82-135i

I just went tardme-ing, its weird, its like 130 prices have jumped back up to where they should be after it went stupid a few months ago and people couldnt give them away. FWIW, my manual 130 (pre lci so no fancy black top efficiency bollocks) sits at around 6.7l/100km at ~100 on open road, average is currently at 9.5l/100km. Pretty respectable for the level of go on tap. Uses less than my old 1.6 corolla.

On the shocks question, My 330 is on the bilstein B4 kit, its essentially the same as OEM in the E91.. I dont know if the valving is different to the Msport E87 setup or not in the B4 E87 config.. if it isnt Id try something else personally as the stock Msport suspension isnt very nice on NZ roads, its overly sprung and crashy, and it likes to skip across bumps etc on your average NZ B road. I cant really say whats the best option, due to not having tried them all, however I have the birds custom valved B12 kit and really rate it when combined with birds spec eibach springs. I think you'd struggle to find anything better matched to NZ B roads, its probably too soft for the track though.

123Ds are rocking horse teeth, and then an NZ new one? Hard to put a value on it, even in poverty pack 6.6k seems cheap to me. They have a good rep of going forever, and with a map are 130 levels of go fast. Edit - actually not as rare as I thought, 57 E87 123s NZ new, like 138 123Ds of hatch/coupes in total in NZ.

123D NZ new is a rare beast, would be worth looking at. Odd options, not many Msports are not leather interior.

PU bushes replace rubber bushes that are designed to move primarily in one axis, some of the suspension joints do more than one axis, so you cant replace spherical bush with a PU one.

It depends on what you are after. I have superpro bushes in mine, the full kit, everything is a PU bush. I think its fine for road use, and it did wonders for tightening up the suspension (even on 35 profile 19" tyres). However I have friends who think its was to harsh for a road car. If you do want to go PU bushes, Superpros design and quality are way above anything else Ive seen. Bumpstops - OEM unless your shock kit includes them. The rear shock mounts (top and bottom) are also wear items, and again, OEM is the best bet. There are also a number of spherical bushes in the ass end suspension, which are often the first to go, replace them with OEM.

The answer to life, the universe, and everything - 42, and 130i

The same is true with anything mechanical though, I do have a can of tyre foam in the boot, never used it though. Statistically, Id be much better off with spare waterpumps (2 of them, statistically), a spare starter motor, and spare brake caliper bolts to prevent strandings rather than a spare tyre.