_ethrty-Andy_

i have the BBS 16s off the 328i with windyfire tyres. hmmmmm

oh wow 8000th post. its a wonder i build any cars being on here all the time lol. yep ash just a car to have fun in. Not serious by any means. i dont have the means to run or maintain a serious race car. drove it with the 3.4 today, its a hell of a lot better than the 4.5! i am doing Manfeild next weekend, and if it doesnt break then Pukekohe test day on the 5th (yall should bring your cars too). after than should get a feel for how the gears feel to me and can always make it a bit shorter! James, did you have to modify the floor in the compact to fit the medium case? it fits but its fkn close! i should really put the M50 manifold/throttle body etc on and swap all that over before tracking it but probably wont have time, was planning to do it tomorrow but tied up now. will just use the M52 one as it is now for the mean time i guess ---- also was going to post an update today anyways Spent all day on the car today, i woke up at 7.30 for some reason, surprisingly chirpy for that time but anyways got into it. had the 3.4 Z3 diff in by about 1030 or so. new Penrite oil in the back, and also since the back was in the air, finally swapped the unknown age brake fluid for Penrite raceing brake fluid. possible to do the front while the car is on the ground. nice to know all fluids in the car all all new now, and pedal has a bit of feed back behind it. ABS is still installed and will stay that way. cant see any reason to delete it. took it for a drive over the wainuiomata hill road (good test road about 3 minutes from my house). Pulled very well, but i will admit was hoping it would pull a bit harder. brakes are very good, probably the best stopping car i have had, has the 328i brakes in the front, standard compact in the back. came back over the hill via work had to pick some stuff up and then called in at Macaulay Metals on the way back home. Car weighs 1090kg, again bit of a dissapointment as i was hoping it would be sub 1Tonne, but i really had no idea what it would be. Fuel tank is very nearly completely full, have only done about 15km in the car from full, and me out of the car. Came back, looked for more stuff to pull out. found a speaker i had missed, sun roof drains, some more airbag stuff, rear seat mountings, etc so probably 1080 now. Then decided i needed some happyness from the car today, so i sanded back the peeling clear coat above both right hand wheels and dealt with that. You may have noticed all my photos above are of the left side of the vehicle. the car was parked with the left side against the wall for 6 years or so, so that side is very good, the other side all sun faded. anyway, simple, used 80 grit sand paper to get the worst off, and then 320 grit to smooth it out. Colour matched rattle cans 2 coats and 2 coats of clear, did a sort of colour blend. Hey its a racecar doesnt need to be perfect, and is a dam site better than peeling clear coat. Also colour matched a passengers side mirror off my parts car and put that on so i have mirrors again. Still not into my second can of calypso paint, so sanded back the roof and re did that. Also painted the side skirts so they are colour matched, and also the B pillars of the doors. got to the bottom of my second can of paint, but now the bonnet is letting the car down, i have tried cutting and polishing that in the past to no avail, so will get another calypso red can at some stage and respray the bonnet too. Method is very ameteur hour i know, but its better than it was, and it needs to look tidy enough. $5k on a respray job or $80 on some rattle cans. no brainer. Then finished tidying up all the wiring in the interior from all the various things unplugged etc, everything all nicely pinned back. have moved the hazard switch into the stereo hole, just waiting on a stereo delete panel to arrive and will get that mounted correctly. could loose more weight by stripping out all the wiring for all the features of the cars but as yet the car still has 100% of its factory wiring. just cant be bothered pulling it out. maybe later. So current things left to go are - make a drivers door card - move drivers seat more toward middle of the car - sticky tyres (ball is rolling in two places on that) - M50 manifold swap if i can find the time. need to do some more research first - most importantly, Have fun and enjoy my sub $2k track hack oh buy the way to answer question above, rough count the car owes me $1700 there abouts currently, couldnt have got thier without people on here being very generous donating all sorts of bits to the cause, others selling me bits very cheap etc to help build the sub $2k car also doing it the more labour intensive way by buying parts cars and selling stuff off helps to offset a lot too. you need the space to do that of course. but will post a total build price later on.

is this the car sitting in Marcus's garage?

water trickels down into all sorts of places, its connected onto the side of the car underneath, have a look if the insulation is cracked and yuk could be your issue. if you have a pair of jump leads connect one to somewhere convenient on the engine and the other to the shock tower or similar (leave the red one connected to nothing) and crank and see what happens. (if it doesnt solve but the ground strap is all cracked, worth getting one replicated at auto sparky anyways, same way you did the main power feed in your V12 (i hope!!)

Brent has an X brace for the E36 that sits over the sump and protects that if you want an easy route.

i use photo bucket, has a very good iphone app, i presume one for android too, upload them using that on the phone, type out a post on bimmersport and by the time i have finished what i want to say the pictures are ready to link into the comment. can see how some people that arent good on the computer would struggle with this though, there are a few steps. would be good if a later update did alow for direct posting of photos to here though.

sounds good must make your 1st and 2nd pretty useless tho? also isnt yours 2L not 2.8? Will see how it feels with the 3.4 for now, thats another advantage to not building it into a LSD just yet, can always sell the 3.4 and pick up a 3.6 or 3.7 later on, also much easier to find them already built up as LSDs.

can do what sides/pieces do you need, will have it all, possibly missing drivers door trim, but may have a drivers door out the back with trim on it. Cheers, Andy. 0273079322

i only really brought the 190E so i could see how the other half lived. everything about Merc ownership just wasnt for me. did take it on one trip to Hastings and it was comfy, but seriously lacked balls and could never find the right gear, from memory only a 3 speed on the 2.0L?? my E30 316i coupe i had at the time would have out paced it but gave engine troubles the day before i had to go and had to take the Merc. Did look the biz, had the full AMG body kit etc was one of those jap import examples like you get with BMW, dressed up to look flash but nothing to back it up.

Dave, what Jon and BMW are saying is that a new 2.0L turbo engine (whatever the designation is N something something) is far more powerfull than say an M54B30 in an E46 330i. for someone who wants to buy a BMW but doesnt understand them, why would they trade thier E46 330i in on a F whatever 320i? when they know the old 320i was a pile. BMW need to subliminally get the message across the newer car is better and more power full as much as we might not like to admit it, BMW is a company that sells new cars. keeping enthusiests with 20 year old "obsolete" cars happy doesnt pay the bills. getting people to trade in thier old one and buy a new one does, and I can see why they need a "better" badge to do so.

id argue if similar price, the rebuild is the way to go, another used could be 6 months away from failure it self. at least a rebuild is under warrenty

So whys is it "X5 M50d" following the X and Z convention, but when comes to the normal cars follow a different convention, a M135i or M235i should be 1 M35i and 2 M35i

nothing wrong with plastic adaptor rings in themself, however will usually mean they are a nasty FWD et30 or et40 offset

catch up with you on Sunday??

check the main ground strap for the engine also.

my 190E 2.0 i had 3 or 4 years back was a more comfortable car to drive in than an E30, but every other way it was worse. Build your 5.0 190E so you can convince me otherwise.

no some crowd in the US that make them. there are plenty of people on various US BMW sites that seem to be happy with them. you are probably right i need to suck it up and go OEM, but $700 for a worn out 250 mile diff that is little more than an open anyways is hard to wear.

X440i done.

not a major update really, have spent some time away from the car had new years eve at the beach plus a few days to recover back home then been in Tuaranga for a week. all driving in the E38, done over 3000 kms in it now, very pleased with it. Anyways, while i was away, left it with a mate of mine to build the rear section of the exhaust. Made up a plan of what to do and brought some parts. It is just merged after stock front section and runs single the rest of the way to keep cost and complexity down. will go back and spend a bit of coin here later down the line and make it a proper dual system. We found we needed to heat up the X pipe of the front section and bend it down so its pointing underneath the rear subframe instead of at it. has worked well, have to put heaps of heat on it so that it bends nicely. No picture as i wasnt there when he did it. supplies finished rear this picture shows the tips, there is a very poor selection available from places without importing. will make sure i get something nicer when i build another exhaust later down the line. Also a picture of the factory fitted South African sump garud (from my SA 325i parts car) for anyone interested. you can also see the factory 328i front section of the exhaust. Also picked up the side trim from one of Brents compact parts cars so have nice M trim on it now. Managed to pick up a 3.4:1 ratio open diff for it too. have shopped around to find an LSD center for it, but the various people with them in NZ want far too much for them. I appreciate they are getting rarer by the week and in high demand but seriously silly what some people are asking. there are worn out unknown kms one for only a few hundred less than a brand new aftermarket one from overseas. Rather spend the money on a set of semi slicks for all four wheels, will probably do more for handling than an LSD anyway i would think.

you have asked for a suggestion, youve got it but you want to use it as a last resort?? i agree with nathan

I disagree with the impact many say on the media on the effects to hospitality. My best mate runs a pub and worked at many over the years and agrees with me. Gone are the days of two or three beers after work, I agree. But those people havent stopped drinking and gone home at 5pm, but have stayed at work or gone to the pub up the road till 8pm or more and had 7 or 8 beers instead of the two or three hey if you going to pay for a taxi might as well let your hair down a little more

if it is the trans cooler built into radiator like some earlier cars then can happen to any automatic BMW, not necessarily caused by being an N46 engine....

^wow taking up that much room would drive me up the wall

welcome Mitchel, if you feel like coming for a drive this weekend we are having a meet up on Sunday, check the meets subforum

^^ really what about when you take your car for a WOF and leave kids push chair, drink bottles etc in the car