KwS

Likely it'd be an E46 if i went M3 again. Would love an M5 but they are still mental dollars.

looks good, really like the height and wheels, suits it well. Welcome.

started craving M3 ownership again. im f**ked.

i did wonder when i did mine, why BMW chose to use that wee circuit board on the solenoids rather than just hard wiring them. Seemed a bit redundant really.

id be inclined to disassemble it as per the link you posted earlier, and reassemble and see if the tensioner operates better then. Could be something as simple as that circlip being slightly out of place. http://www.bayareamotorsport.com/tensioner.html

actually, does anyone have another B32 tensioner you could try? Plenty of googling has revealed a couple of other people with whine after doing tensioner (albeit on different BMW engines, but same theory). One of them said it went away after a drive (eek, risky) and the other said it went away when they tried another replacement tensioner. is it possible yours is faulty and is creating too much tension? Alternatively if you havent already, try taking your B32 tension apart, thoroughly cleaning everything and reassembling? might now be complete together correctly?

as you know i did the B32 tensioner to mine. Replaced the 210,000km original one. Silent as a dead mouse. how much wear/scoring is there on the end of the old tensioner piston?

Bump. Theres a few rebuilds going around at the moment, hope this helps.

not to blow my own whistle, but theres info in my thread on how i tested and cleaned my solenoids. http://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/49996-diy-s50b30-vanos-rebuild-info/

it seems it was used a lot way back in the day by BMW, its very prevalent in the UK on the evos. Some owners went in for vanos issue, and came out with the stuff installed. It couldve also been fitted from factory later on in production, im not sure, but a couple of people have reported that official "new/refurb" units from BMW have come with that goo pre-installed. The general consensus is that if your seals are good, and your covers are tightened correctly, its not needed.

looking good. Hate that orange crap that some of the evos had. Apparently it was to reduce chances of leaks, and aligns well with BMWs official stance of vanos not being serviceable. Dont forget to use the M5 O-Rings on the solenoids. PS. My vanos rebuild thread discusses the solenoids being the same as the S62 M5 engine

Looks great, very tidy. Wonderful color combo too. Retrimmed wheel?

yeah thatll do it. IIRC that should be able to be resoldered?

Thats some strangely specific criteria....

You should make note the plates are germanplates, not euro plates (they arent legal). Wouldnt be a hard car to tidy up and have as a daily or something.

The Evo had style 39, 24 and 23

No Ron, you will find the early 3L M3 all had the Style 22 (Dual Spoke 1) wheels. 17x7.5 square. These are the wheels the OP is referring to.

The Evos had different wheel and tyre sizes. Wish i still had a photo of my M3 plate to shut everyone up. Anyone of the S50B30 owners care to chime in?

If a couple of members here can get the v12 in their E34s, im sure it cant be that much harder to drop it into the E38 SWB. iirc they all use the same steering, unlike the e39 that used rack and pinion on the sixes, so fitting the v12 setup shouldnt be too hard. a SWB 750i would be lush. The LWB is just too much car for around town here, the SWB is just much more manageable.

Cool. Still heaps of good parts on that!

DS1s are not staggered. Square 7.5". Id rather go with some slightly cheaper tyres of the correct size, than high end tyres in the wrong size (as i just did, Replaced a pair of Continentals that were too wide on the front of my new car with some Nexens of the correct size. Fixed a whole bunch of issues, drives much better).

If its the black one on TM, i'd take a good condition MSport one over that anyday. That is really just a dressed up boring spec one. It has factory sport suspension and thats really about it.

Exactly, and so what? doesnt look like a hell of a lot of user serviceable bits under there anyway. At the end of the day, the car will be under warranty and service plan for a few years, so no one other than a BMW tech will need to touch it. After that, im sure the aftermarket will come to the party and make life easier for the second/third owners. Its likely anyone that can afford a brand new i8 wont care much for messing around with it.

And just forget about the potential damage and excess wear caused by running it dumped on its arse? I think there are better ones out there, especially for that money.

my opinion? Mods ruin the car, but NZ new is good. I wouldnt pay anywhere near that for it, they are starting to drop into the high 20s now.