adro

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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)

I have really enjoyed Frank Stephensons channel on YouTube, more of a design perspective than just a practical car review. https://youtube.com/c/FrankStephensondesign

I wondered if there was suppose to be a gasket in there as I cleaned it up, no sign of an o ring and then it was leaking straight away. Thanks

Few little bits ticked off over the last few weeks. I finally wrapped my steering wheel. Thanks @Sammo for the heads up on Mewant, and @Vass for sharing his version as this motivated me. Added this German Engineering expansion cap. Some heated debate on the forums about this product but my take on it was it's just going to vent some pressure before the 2 bar stock cap would...maybe saving some cooling pipes....pipes are new so also not too sure I'm too worried either way...was more a magpie purchase of a guy in the bimmer club...shiney engine bay thing for M54....take my money...and yes, I need a new power steering reservoir, or cap or something as it's leaking. This modlite module turned up from Bulgaria yesterday. I had one of these in the E39 to give me key fob folding mirrors and I really like it.They have since come down in price so I got one for the E46. https://modbmw.com I'm in no way affiliated with them, but i do think its a cool product. You can do the functions with a newer LCM but i couldn't find any. This gives you welcome/follow me home lights, 3 click courtesy indicators and fold/unfold electric mirrors (providing you have the powerfold function to begin with). There's some other options but these are the ones i care about. I spliced it into where a cd stacker once lived in the back of the touring (ground, 12V and Kbus). Real easy spot and cable ties neatly to a bracket with some foam so it doesn't rattle. These little features make the car feel a touch more modern...and it’s nicer to use the fob to fold the mirrors than having to karate chop them manually.

https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/auction-3480716223.htm Looks like a nice example.

I’ve been digging into my low/rough idle issue again. I have the 6 pin TPS version as it had the sport auto box and it won’t give me continuity for wide open throttle (according to E30 zone it uses the volts to send that info through the TCU to the ECU but obviously the TCU is no longer in use as it’s been manual swapped) . I have a new 3 pin TPS which has continuity at idle and at wide open throttle. I’m wondering if I can splice a 3 pin connector into the exisiting TPS loom and have it talk to the ICV/ECU as it should (providing I get the wire colours correct) im not sure this will solve my idle issue as the ICV is clearly working with the 6 pin TPS at the moment. The ICV is measuring within spec. I found a thread that had @polley , @Etwenty1 , @_ethrty-Andy_ with the same sport boxes doing a manual swap, can you guys offer any help here? Did you ever run into lean running after your manual swaps due to not having the ECU know it was full throttle? Or did you swap to the 3 pin TPS? my car is a E30 325i SE that had the sport auto box and now has a getrag 260 running motronic 1.3 cheers, A.

That’s a nice birthday right there

220,000km I scooped up some power folding mirrors from @Vass This was a pretty simple install, door cards off and a bit of trim removal, modules already there so was a matter of plugging and playing. The last step was to swap the colour caps over.....and of course, to my horror mine had the tabs broken and have been RTV'd in place. wazzup 2 tone. Went to Union Hardware this morning and got a colour matched can of spray paint to return them back to white. These silver ones were in good condition so didn't require a massive amount of prep work. Light scuff and pissht piisshhht. The old mirrors were in bad shape so needed tidying up anyway. Old mirror: The bloke at Union thought i might not need the clear coat (clearly did n't think my car was very shiny 😜) but turns out i think it does. So they are in place for now but will go back and get some clear coat another day. Thanks to @Eagle for a nicely greased idler pulley. No more squeaky engine bay noise for the time being. My pulley was all crusted up with dry old grease. I noted the hydraulic tensioner pulley is spinning very freely and a bit wobbly so that's next on the list.

Thanks @Gaz . Sounds like Union hardware up here off a similar service. I’ll check them out on Tuesday. Cheers.

Hi, I need to paint my wing mirror caps (the coloured cap on the outside of the mirror) on my E46, I'm wondering if anyone has had any success with an off the shelf product like 'Dupli Colour Alpine white touch up' or can you recommend some options? Since they are small items and have some black between the mirror and the car panels i was hoping to not have to go to a bodyshop for such a small job.

Beast mode! Awesome work.

Yeah we need to do that this year!