handgrenade

There are some people who care about the authenticity of their semi classic or rare cars and some who just want the driving experience. Each to their own. That all being said .. When it comes to m series BMWs or cars in general in that price range .. Most buyers would be true enthusiasts and prefer a genuine m5. Of course if the price reflects the reshell then I don't see any problem with it if the swap was done right. If I really wanted an e39 m5 and this car was the only one in my price range then I wouldn't have a problem with the authenticity! That's just me.

Well done. The rb30 is a great engine and the e46 is a great chassis. I have similar in the garage but probably won't go to the extent you have to put them together!! Definitely will be rewarding when you get to have the power and performance of the race car and the comfort and interior of a euro. I went back and forth between having a single car to do both jobs of a daily and a race car .. At the moment have two cars for the job .. Would be great to have one! But its not cheap! Awesome that you are doing all the work yourself and doing it right!! How are you going to tackle the wiring? I'm assuming the 30 has a standalone ecu?

How much did a new set cost you?

errr .. for those TLDR if its good quality, wrap the damn thing. if you're wrapping welds, make sure the welds are good and done right (full penetration, proper materials) and just watch out for your critical failure points, flanges, welds etc. periodic checks once in a while is a good idea.

on a street car application (or even a moderately run track car) the material properties of a decent AISI 304 stainless should not come into play. You would have to be running a dedicated race car, high out put, constant high heat cycling etc before you really have to even cast a thought towards stainless 304. all that being said is under the proviso that the parts you are using are of the proper good material grade, and well made components, especially when it comes to welds and joints (hoping that any welded joints are done with 314) and also dependent on whether low or high content stainless 304 (L/H) is used. Fatigue is something which comes into mind, but cyclic loading (fatigue) is measured with very high numbers - hundreds of thousands to hundreds of million cycles. when it comes to exhausts .. you're looking at relatively low loads, but potentially high cycles due to vibration being counted as a cycle. even still, it is something which is to be only worried about if you have sub par welds and joints (those would be your critical failure points first). Heat treatment or changes to the material strength and properties due to thermal cyclic loads are also mentioned by some .. but with 304 being an austenitic steel, it can not be hardened by heat treatment. Now there is more to be said about martensitic transformation of austenitic steel but that requires high temperature rapid quenching which you probably wont see unless you decide to drive your race car after 500 laps into a lake. Now corrosion of 304 .. at sustained temperatures of 850c-950c, for 50+ hours, you're looking at oxidation rates in the ball park of 0.2mg^2/cm^2. Not many people are going to be running those temps for those times. The transition colours (glowing red) of stainless and other metals during heat are well below the temperatures required to induce any sort of material property change. You would have to hit a much higher spectrum into the high 10,000k range before your metal is in a stage where its physical properties become unstable. excuse me if I got any of this wrong.. been a while since I looked into this area lol

downpipes don't get AS hot as pre turbo manifolds. The point of the turbo is to convert heat energy into kinetic energy, so if you have an efficient turbo exhaust side, then a lot of the heat/energy should have been converted to kinetic energy to spool the turbo. that being said, once the desired boost pressure has been reached, the wastegates open and you get a tonne of very hot, highly energetic gases released into the downpipes. I suppose the temperatures you'd see in the downpipes would depend on how much time spent at full boost and gates open. race cars will build up a lot of heat being on boost (likely full boost for extended periods of time), but street cars are likely just to see spikes in temperature which the mass of the pipes and rest of the system will be able to absorb and distribute before reaching any sort of critical temp... even if you wrap your downpipes, most/all metals are fairly good conductors of heat and the heat will dissipate into the rest of the exhaust system which would have a lot of air running past to cool it. tbh, heat wrapping is only performance productive on pre-turbo pipes. everything else after .. doesnt matter. the only reason to wrap pipes after the turbo is if post-turbo pipes are able to conduct heat back into the engine bay etc. proper aero development should help find the low pressure zones and high pressure zones etc and set it up to bring cold air in to the ehxaust side manifold area and out the bottom of the car.

Stainless 304 is fine for standard exhaust manifold (na) applications .. Which can be up to 750c but not sure how hot it would get with wrap. 321 grade is used for higher temp uses such as turbo manifolds. However will your car really be seeing such high sustained temps?

As long as its priced accordingly .. The seller should have mentioned it though

can get you a genuine drop in replacement from K&N for $80 Otherwise if you wanted an intake kit, there are only generic ones for the e30 at 200+

Is it bent pipe or cut and welded sections? 304 should be fine unless your wrap is very abrasive. If you are really worried bolt on a sacrificial zinc plate. If you have cut and weld sections then did they use 316? Also look at your flanges and joints .. Make sure you've used plated bolts etc.

would be much easier if I had a euro plate, the standard nz plates dont have much extra room on there (without obscuring numbers etc). The boot lid also is a much nicer flat mounting surface .. at the moment i just have some electrical tape and it looks like a hack job. i have some seriously strong aircraft grade carpet tape on my desk .. I could use that, but would have to stick it to the plate and not paint ..... would ordinary doublesided tape ruin paint? I suppose its not too much of a big deal, the position of the camera is to the side of the plate right now, so if the paint does get ruined, I can just get a euro plate and that would cover it up. still .. might as wlel do it right.

has anyone in NZ modified the factory turbos to run an external gate (or two?) haha! But back on your original topic, what material are your aftermarket dump pipes made from? also what grade? There are plenty of ways to prevent corrosion .. one which I don't see being used as often is using the galvanic table and dissimilar metals approach (by adding to the assembly a sacrificial metal lower on the galvanic scale which will be the anode which will corrode and save the cathode - your downpipes).

hrmm looks like the front turbo would be an issue due to accessibility. I'm sure it can be done, but not without dropping both manifolds and associated plumbing. Seems to be a common problem .. google has lots of info.

are you able to secure the wastegate actuator arm .. some sort of bushing or a hard mount from the vacuum actuator to the wastegate flap? Seems to be logical to address that first if the noise you're trying to remedy is the rattle... no rattle = no amplification of rattle from aftermarket pipes.

What is rattling??

hey everyone, I want to mount my rear camera and don't want to damage the paint, what sort of double sided tape should I use? Or should I use some sort of mechanical fastening (seems a lot of hassle, and the camera is tiny and light). Thanks!

Cheers Dave, well chuffed at how it sounds etc .. sorting the fitment was a bit of a nuisance, but worth it in the end. It is a bit loud at WOT, and holding 100kmh up that steep sh20 hill going north west, it does get loud! happy with it! fun to have it completely sedate and then nek minit vrooom! throttle or load controls the noise! after 3 months and a lot of messing around! Finally! and as far as I know, the only rsc36 in the country

haha .. dave, mike, so what were your opinions on the noise? possibly sounds like other tuned exhausts, but there is ZERO drone at cruise. can't even hear it. flat road maintaining 60kmh, no noise. 100kmh flat road, a little bit of hum, nothing compared to air noise. but any load or more throttle and you can hear it!

Cut. Weld. Done. Didn't mess with the manifold .. Only the centre section cat. Cut the smaller diameter pipes to remove the restriction and then the rest of the Corsa system is an appropriate size for the euro m3

google mentions that the euro system is double walled so even though external diameter looks 2.5" or so, the internal diameter is around 2". the aftermarket corsa exhaust is single walled stainless at 2.25". seems to be doing fine! great sound 3pedals, sorry about the imperial numbers .. I only have an imperial scale.

yikes! I am at 287

haha dash cam footage uploading now...

drove to work this morning with open pipes ... interesting. updates to follow.

Hi everyone. So today was a happy day. After 3 months, my Corsa UUC exhaust rsc36 arrived! I promptly dropped everything and went to install it, super excited, waiting to hear some sweet aftermarket exhaust goodness. However after pulling the standard exhaust off (1997 M3 Evo Sedan S50B32), I found that the method that the front (cat etc) system fits into the rear system (cat back) is by the front section slipping into the rear section, and then flanges being tightened. Now after wiggling the stock system loose, I was left with two pipes to slip into the new system. I lined up the new cat back system (which seemed to fit in the right spaces, right exhaust hangars etc) but then it turns out that the front stock section was TOO LARGE to fit INTO the UUC Corsa system. Approximately the stock system is 0.25" wider in diameter than the UUC Corsa system. Which means that the stock front system would not slip into the Corsa system. The total diameters are similar (outside diameters) however the fitment won't work like the stock system. QUESTION: Are the US Domestic Market exhaust systems designed for their lower spec M3s (especially e36s?) and therefore did I purchase the wrong system? Or is it just a matter of having to cut and weld the exhaust to fit? Does anyone have experience with using aftermarket cat back systems from the USA made for US M3s E36 on Euro/NZ spec M3s??? Thanks! /sad /happy /sad /happy /sad/

Thanks Jamez !!