Quinn

Wow, thats a beautiful little car. Only thing I'd change immediately would be the exhaust, it looks like its about 1 3/4". A twin 2" or single 3" would let that motor breath a whole lot better. Other than that, its Perfect!!

Just out of curiosity do you know what the volume of the plenum is? I met an awesome guy on a photo shoot who had engineered pretty much everything little on his car by himself, studying every aspect as he went (he was an engineer by trade). The car was a Mitzi Mirage rally car (N/A) and it was an absolute work of art. He said he looked at motorbike engineering a lot for info and inspiration on N/A motors and he said he discovered an important aspect was the size of the plenum/cold air box in front of the throttle bodies. He said that having a minimum of twice the capacity of the motor (i.e 2000cc would need a 4000cc plenum) meant there was always a cold charge of air ready to go into the motor, therefore the motor wasn't having to "pull" air in. Obviously this gets harder to achieve with larger motors as you quickly run out of room in the engine bay but it makes sense and if you can squeeze out any more room for the plenum/air box you should give it a go. Probably to late for this build but I think it's an interesting concept. P.S Love what you are doing on this build, I'll be following this as you progress!!

Yea Chris is a good guy, I've had him build two complete setups for my race cars and more than that for my road cars over the years, plus he's built setups for about 4 of my mates. Never had any complaints and any small issues he's been more than happy to sort out. Highly recommended in my books. Happy to help. Quinn

Try Chris at SuspensionTech he'll be able to do anything from welding the front struts to building the complete package and he should be cheeper than Autolign (tell him Quinn said he'd be cheeper ). His number is 027 214 5325. He's based in Auckland. He specializes in Bilsteins so you'll be getting the good stuff.

Canceled reg isn't that bad, especially if you have the original plates or even a pic of it with the original plates on it. With that info you can prove it's been reg'd in NZ before then you just need to re-register it. I've been there with a 70s Datusn which had no reg for over 12 years but I had both the plates and a pic of it from back in the day. I'd say keep it and one day repower it (or sell it to me when I'm back in the country).

That's the one I was thinking of, love 'em!! How bad is it? Not that I'm in the market as im not in nz at the moment...

By "hatch" do you mean the touring hatchback/ fastback? Aren't they super rare? How bad is it that you are thinking of turning it into a parts car? If it is what I think it is DONT DO IT!!! They are one of my favorite BMWs of all time!

Yep! I've been living in Munich for the past two months and I'm amazed at how many BMW models didn't make it to NZ. I know it makes sense because it's such a small market so far away but its cool seeing Z1's, Z8's around the place. Plus all the brand new models. I've seen three test cars (with all the black plastic-rap on them) including the new 5 series wagon since being here.

Seeing as it came as a complete kit from the manufacture, and looking at the quality of the workshop I'd say they didn't have many problems. God I'd love to build a project like that! No rust, no 20 year old dirt and grime. Everything fitting properly and having all the right tools.... *sigh*.... one day...

Found this clip on youtube last night, thought you guys might like it:

Good old HDR always helps on shitty days if you can be bothered. If you don't have one yet (couldn't tell from your pics because of the weather) grab a reflector. They're cheep and they really help (on sunny days). The compositions were wicked and the post you've done looks good. Everyone's their own biggest critic, they're good shots. Plus how can you go wrong with a E28?...

Great pics, but I have to agree with Mark, tire tread in pics never looks good (I should know, I was a automotive photographer for 4 years). Nice to see some more pics of E28's on here!!! Don't get me wrong, I like E30's, but E28's are THE classic 80's BMW for me. Keep the pics coming!

Ha ha it looks like you guys know more about Germany than I do, ie I didn't know DHL is owned by Deutsche Post (I just asked my girlfriend and she confirmed it) and I also did not know there was another BMW factory outside of Munich for the 5 series... I've driven past the BMW World park and I was planning on checking it out, but now I'll have to google this other factory. A one hour tour sounds awesome. I'm also going to check out some of the other manufacturing tours in Italy like Ducati, Farrari etc as I have a friend living in there. In the past I have checked out getting stuff from Germany/Europe and there's always been two issues: 1) People not being willing to send overseas/ fear of being ripped off because of the whole international time delay. 2) the cost of shipping/postage. I unfortunately can only help with the first of these issues. The crazy thing about shipping is it gets exponentially cheaper the more you send, so much so that you might as well organise a container and find people to full it. The idea of a shipping container has always appealed to me (partly because it creates a great excuse to buy more crap) but the logistics have always been such an issue. Helping you guys out will have to be done on a case by case basis (I'm not going to run around organising shipping etc for you) but it would make sense to band together if you want something bigger. I have a 3x4mtr basement I "could" store "some stuff" in until there's enough to send a big box. To give you an idea of costs my girlfriend sent a 2.5m3 box (quite large) to NZ from Hamburg for €900 a year or so ago. Weight is not an issue when it comes to shipping buy the way...

I'm here for at least the next two years studying and then hopefully finding a job. Things like tools will be no worries, as for bigger parts such as wheels (or gear boxes Brent?...) that would be a little harder but not impossible. The best thing would be to PM me if you find something you seriously want. As long as it's near where I live I can organise postage etc for you. I'm not going to inspect mechanical parts for people (I'm not a mechanic) or make decisions on quality, thats up to you. I remember finding it hard to get anyone to send parts overseas on ebay (unless its a company) so I'm happy for parts to be sent to me and I can send them on (upon payment for postage). I'm happy to help you guys as long as people are reasonable. Cheers Quinn

Hey guys, Im not sure how smart this is (I don't really want to get bombarded with thousands of requests for BBS wheels of ebay)...BUT if there is anything really tasty anyone wants from Germany I am happy to help (up to a point). Just thought I'd let you know as I really could have used an option like this when I was in NZ... Cheers Quinn

Put me down as very interested, fitment needs to be suitable for a E28 though...

DO IT!!!! They look tough as all hell!

I have just completed upgrading the front lower arms, front control arms and rear (early model) subframe so I have all the standard old stuff to get rid of. Along the way I purchased E24 728 front and rear brakes thinking they were the big brake upgrade, which they weren't (they are bigger but not the 28mm thick fronts and they are solid rears, all are 302mm). I also have the standard E28 brakes. Suspension: bushes in the rear subframe look good and there were no issues when I drove the car with them in. Comes complete with arms etc. Front left had a shimmy at 80km but it turned out it was the plastic spacer in the wheel hub, so I think the front bushes are ok but no promises. Brakes: E24 brakes have good disks and heaps of pad left. E28 brakes are warn, need new disks and pads but calipers are good. I will be taking the lot to the scrappies to get cash for metal so if you want them let me know before then. Cheers Quinn

Ah sorry, yea its the E34 setup.

I have finally replaced the rear bushes in my E28 and upgraded to the later model subframe with the dog bone links. Now my car is very very stiff in the rear. It doesn't feel like anything is binding, it actually feels like the shocks have bottomed out and are no longer working. Nothing has changed in the suspension geometry and the ride height is the same. The car has become very bouncy in the back and now, instead of squatting in the corners like a BMW should, it bounces in the back mid corner and feels very unsettled. I figured the shocks must have been valved to stiff and I didn't notice before due to the bushes being so flogged out but my suspension guy recons the dog bone links are fighting the lower arms and I should try removing them... Its becoming F&$%ing frustrating as I just spent all this time and money UPGRADING to the latter model rear end to get those extra links to eliminate the toe in I was getting under acceleration. Has anyone had any similar issues? At this point I'm thinking of letting every thing settle for a bit and if it doesn't bed in properly then I'll be taking it to someone else from now on.

I finally go around to putting the new rear disks and calipers on so I now have E39 540 brakes all round and I have no problems with the brake peddle feel. I'm not sure what you guys have experienced but I don't feel any of the brake peddle travel or sponginess that others have talked about so I'm not going to upgrade the master cylinder just yet. One question though, is the brake bias set inside of the master cylinder or remotely? Will the E28 master cylinder have the wrong bias setup? Cheers

Ok, I got the parts about two weeks ago and they look like they are all very good quality, plus all up I think they took about 5 days to get here so big ups to the guys at FCP Groton. You can find them on ebay or email Mike at [email protected], he's the sales manager and if you say your from the bimmersport car club he'll look after you. So enough with the plug... The alloy lower arms are very very nice and weigh in at 1.1kg each instead of the 1.6kg standard parts so if your into racing they are worth getting. The shudder has gone (the reason I brought the kit in the first place) and it has made the whole front end feel tighter and more responsive. The only issue at the moment is it has induced a whole bunch of toe in. I'm assuming it is because of how warn the old parts were but it might also have something to do with the lower arms having keyed faces to bind with the body mounts and create torsion... I might have to take a pic to help explain. When I took the old lower arms off their neutral position was about 50mm below horizontal and when I put the new ones on I left them loose until the car was back on its wheels and tightened them so their neutral position was the same as the cars static height (the lower arms are perfectly horizontal at static height) as I figured they'd probably fight the springs otherwise. Anyway I'll be booking the car in for a full alignment next week once the new rear end is in so I should be able to give a better account of the improvement it has made, so far it feels like $400 well spent.

IMO I think the thinner gold or maybe a dark gray (slightly darker than your paint) creating a shadow effect would look great. I think is you could find a large enough pick a sign writer could make you up a set.

Ok so I finally ordered the complete set. For $400nz delivered I think its pretty bloody good, it includes alloy control arms and "M5" uprated bushes in the rest of the kit so it should be a vast improvement on the 20+ year old crap in the car right now. If anyone is interested in a kit let me know and I can send you a link etc as the guy I found was cheaper than many others and very easy to deal with and in a few days or week(ish) I should be able to confirm quality.

Yea I'm waiting for their reply, it was 20us to ship anywhere inside of the states so I'm expecting it will be a bit more.