adro

I got mine from Weitz Industries. Have you given him a call? 

I love these wagons. That timing chain issue looks hectic, I looked up a DIY and the first minute was like “drop the trans to get access” ummm what!? Lolz 

1 hour ago, Sammo said:

FYI - I appear to have resolved my intermittent ABS light (although probably jinxed myself).

Removed and cleaned the sensors - still occurring, but I purchased a service / inspection reset tool and the light has gone and has not come back for a week and a half (was every other drive previously).

So hoping it was a stored fault code (not sure if E30's work like that) that the cleaning resolved but had to be reset.

Anyway, hoping it stays away.

Cool! Last long trip it didn’t come on, however my inspection light has been on for a while so no harm in clearing it. Thanks. 

I have a 15mm spring pad in the rear of my E46 touring with eibach springs and 2 x 5mm (stacked with a bit of cutting) in the rear of my E30 with H&R sport springs. Gets rid of the saggy bum nicely. I think lengthening spring height would adjust the spring rate? I’m no engineer but iv had the pads in both cars for over a year now and they seem to work nicely. If anything I would like a 15mm pad in the E30 too. 

10 minutes ago, Sammo said:

@adro your ride height looks basically perfect, nice and even side to side?

Mine is almost 10mm lower on the driver side - after I put my 16's on I'll measure my hub to arch on four corners then add spring pads to raise a little / even out (have 3mm and 9mm front shims and some 6mm rear pads to try).

Hmmm think I might be higher on one side too. I’ll measure too. With 16’s maybe it’s just a bit more noticeable with less profile? 
 

this was my side profile on 16’s 

I spoke to early for my cert! NZTA think they have tagged my car with their own vin number, but there is no sign of this tag on the car. Has anyone else had this before? I have the factory VIN plate which matches the stamped number under the windscreen, but no sign of the NZTA number, or any evidence of where it was once riveted to the vehicle. 
 

i put the mudguards back on but quickly decided that the scraping on the driveway is annoying and with the car being low it looks a lot cleaner with out them . 

Throw back to when I first bought it.

Locally iv used:

BM parts (ATE, Lemforder) 

Gavin @euroitalian

Speedfactor (Sachs, H&R) 

International:

FCPeuro

Pelican

Rockauto 

Demon Tweeks 

Schmiedmann 

 I got these off ebay 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-Late-Hella-Style-Fog-Lights-Covers-Caps-BMW-E30-/143664781018?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

But they don’t fit my fog lights as I have a gasket in the way. 

asking $50 + $5 for postage

I'm after 1 x rear clamp for an E30 mudgaurd. the part number is 72608103010 and it looks like this:

Anyone have a spare kicking round?

Cheers

A.

From Aliexpress 

gloss black, ordered PFL instead of FL so never fitted. $10 + $5 posted anywhere (non RD addresses) 

Few more little things ticked off the list.

serpentine belt tensioner pulley replaced. Old one looked a bit wobbly and since the other one had gone dry figured might be worth doing it preventatively. 

Replaced the o ring in the power steering reservoir and it’s been dry for over a week now.
 

New tailgate struts. Little thing but now the boot Swings open. What a luxury. Before it was going 3/4 so wasn’t awful but one of those things that makes your car feel old. 

I have been driving it pretty softly with these expensive gas prices but it has enough torque that it plods around quite effortlessly. 

M3 and 530i on my buggy walk this arvo 🤤

My experience was the manual swap is straight forward if all factory parts are used. Like Nick said. No repower and a factory driveshaft/cross member should negate the need for hoops. The guy I used has done lots of race cars and E30’s. He did pick that my clutch line to slave cylinder should be clipped to the bulk head noting the vibrations over time could fatigue the fitting. 

I also had to do a brake test. 100-0 x3 stopping within 4 secs. So make sure your brake system maintenance is up to date. My swap was done 5 years ago so have had 10 WOFs since and never had any issues either but it does feel good to have the car ‘legal’ now and not have that WOF anxiety like I have in the past. Good luck, car looks great! 
 

45 minutes ago, Sammo said:

From memory, need to be within 0.5 of OEM camber spec for the car for cert.

Makes sense. E30 zone states OEM camber for E30 is -1.10 - 0.10. Certifier didn’t care for rear camber. 

2 hours ago, 325iRod said:

Quick question, was this a requirement of the cert process? Guessing it was due to the car being lowered? 

Yes.  Not sure why that figure but that was the figure he gave me after doing his calculations. 
 

Cert obtained. Well it's still going through the process of paper work but it's passed it's inspection with the final piece of the puzzle being a wheel alignment showing no more than -1.5 camber up front which I got today. Thanks to @Autoglym for the use of the hoist and @Olaf for assisting.

Before the cert I met up with a mate who was dropping his recently sold Golf off to the freight depot.

2 hours ago, hqstu said:

On its first decent drive, the biarritz 540 held up in 3rd gear, and would not shift higher until I had stopped "spirited" driving and cruised for a while...

Upon getting home I read the trans ecu with INPA and "temp sensor fault" was up.  I suspect that the trans temp reached a point where the sensor faulted/spiked and the trans went into a protector mode to keep revs high thus oil flow high?

It looks like I may need a new electrical harness for the trans as the temp sensor is integrated into the loom. 

Trying to get a trans shop to advise or look at it is difficult as everyone is getting sick... FCP and maybe DIY here I come...

Good on ya Stu, love the positive attitude. 

it's been a weird week. Went about trouble shooting the cold idle, back tracked what I had done and started again. Everything checked out. Ran like a champ warm but was like it had lost it's cold start functionality. Since motronic 1.3 has no manual adjustment for idle speed and all the inputs seemed to be working i swapped out an ECU for another one I got off Bimmersport a while back. Last time I used this ECU i had this bucking/lurching in every gear around 2500 rpm (which lead me to rebuild the driveshaft..which was good to do regardless). This ECU has a fuel map tuned for "Marks Rally Car" which i understand had a nice set of headers on it, my car has no 02 sensor and no cats so i guess is reasonably unrestricted. Swapped ECU's and its fired up perfectly. Hot run out to the hut has yielded the best fuel economy yet of 10.1L/100km (according to the OBC anyway) car feels strong, and I think that lean condition/stumble was probably because I was running 91 octane last  time this chip was in the car, now I'm on 95 it's purring. After idling for a while it does have a little 50rpm stumble but it's very minor and seems to correct itself. It's still got the old VCG on it but once I'm happy with the valve adjustment I'll put on the Victor Reinz one i got off Gavin @euroitalian. Great service and prices as always from Gavin. I got the power steering reservoir o ring for the E46 off him too.

Cert tomorrow for the gearbox swap.

16 hours ago, _ethrty-Andy_ said:

hey @adro, best to text or call me these days, as i sporadically come on here now. oh twentyseven, 30793 too too.

But like Troy, both my cabby and my tech2 that had sport autos originally are both running the 6 pin circle TPS switch with no issues. 

i cant see why no continuity at WOT would cause an idle issue.

Thanks mate, will give you a bell. 

Spoke to soon. Can barely hold idle at cold start,  surging until it’s warm then once warm it idles fine. Guessing I still have a vac leak….no abs light today though 😝

Fuel filter is a lot easier on the E30 than E46 as it’s not as far under. Definitely want to replace the rubber hose on each end of it as well, but guessing you were already going to do that. 

26 minutes ago, Sammo said:

Looking great, very jealous of those pristine manifold heatshields - mine are all flaky.

I have an intermittent ABS light as well - thought I had fixed it by removing and cleaning sensors last weekend but popped up again 

I’m really hoping it’s a wheel speed sensor and not the module 😬 

Just now, E28E30 said:

Defo PM me @adro nearer the time (but sort out all the niggles first :)))) hehe).  Would be keen to have a chat about it depending on how the current fleet looks then, got the R53 GP back from the painters yesterday having sorted out cosmetic work and it is looking good.  Few more minor niggles to address then to the market it goes!  

Ok sure will. We need to do a photo shoot regardless. Good luck with the R53 sale, looks like a fun car! 

6 minutes ago, KwS said:

IIRC you dont need hoops if there isnt a power increase, and you can prove all OEM parts were used in the conversion (not a custom drive shaft).

Car looks amazing.Sort of thing i'd love to own, but know its way out of any realistic price range i'd pay.

Yeah that’s what the cert guy has said on the phone. I was holding off thinking I would do a steering rack swap to Z3 or purple tag but don’t see me getting that done anytime soon, or getting any value out of it if I did get it done. The 370mm steering wheel actually makes the rack feel a tad faster anyway. Having it running properly does give me cold feet on the sale front but iv got abit of time up my sleeve to make that decision, might be one of those situations where if I get my asking price it goes and if i don’t then I’ll store it…as opposed to fire selling it. I’ll be keeping an eye on what that white 4 door goes for though. 🧐

Having thoughts of moving the E30 on as it’s not getting much use and we are heading overseas at the end of the year. So figured I should probably cert the manual swap and try sort a few things in case I do end up actioning that train of thought. 
 

Ever since iv owned this car it’s had a low idle surge and really bad fuel economy, as it was a weekend warrior most of the time (setup for daily duties if needed; aircon, cup holders) it didn’t really bother me too much, but I did replace a bunch of parts hoping to fix it….a reasonably big list of parts. It always pulled well, just fuel economy and the 650rpm-500rpm surge when hot. With the E39 and the E46 needing love i put the e30 issues on the back burner. 
 

i had the throttle body apart last weekend and the ICV was measuring the correct ohms, reset the throttle stop and reset TPS. Tightened the valve cover and things got a bit better for a little while then the surge came back. (Previous to this I had done all the multi metering of ECU pins, changed the coolant temp sensor twice…thermostat twice, gone through every trouble shooting thread on E30 Zone) 
 

this week I adjusted the valves, as I’ve now done 15,000km over the 6 years of ownership😢 and iv always wanted to do it, seems like a key part of M20 maintenance. I also bodged up a fairly agricultural intake adapter for the DIY smoke machine, but it turns out it could shove move pressure in, unlike the ghetto glove method previously used and I found smoke teaming out of the valve cover, just under the intake manifold section, it actually looked like it was coming from the injector rail but it was actually rebounding off it. New VCG (elring) and boom. Idle steady….you are kidding me!  I did a poor adjustment though and the thing was ticking like a Subaru Leone, so second adjustment and being a lot more careful I believe it’s correct now, still ticks abit but a lot quieter than the first. I did notice the new VCG already looks to be wet, so I’m guessing either I have a slightly warped cover or these Elring gaskets are a one time use thing.

iv only done one hot run out to the hut which the idle was steady and the car felt great (I also finally put a tank of 95 in it) but I haven’t managed to smoke test it again since the second valve adjustment and not sure if the fuel economy has changed.

ironically on the way home the ABS light started coming on intermittently so that’s next on the list of things to sort. Certs booked for early next month. Since is just a gearbox swap with no re-power it doesn’t require hoops. Pretty happy about that. Some photos…

It’s pretty clean in here 

You can see the new gasket looks like it’s already leaking here

My ghetto intake adapter for smoke machine 

(pod filter adapter that came on a 2nd hand AFM, VC bolt washer from M54 & RTV)