bradgalbraith

Coilovers and E46 330i BBK now in! Totally different car handling wise but I will definitely need to do further work on the brakes. I'm also currently running some electric vaders that I got in a trade for the NOS setup. Someone buy them, they're becoming rare and collectible! I'm eyeing up a pair of Racetechs.

Electric 'M-rain' M3 interior including the following: -Front seats -Rear bench -LHS and RHS fold-down sections The rear side bolsters aren't included unfortunately. Please note the drivers seat has a couple of rips as per photos.. Not uncommon for 23 year old seats (minimum!) Looking for a quick sale as I'm trying to get my hands on some Racetechs. I think the price is pretty fair. $750 for BS members

BMW sure does love to throw a spanner in the works! ? BMW- lets create a variation of the 325i with a less powerful 2.5 litre and call it the 323i so that nothing makes sense anymore!

Nope- As dirtygoogle said, all coupes are an IS but I've personally owned a Calyso red 318is in the same poverty spec and non M-sport.

Alright thanks for the suggestions, I'll be looking into my options.

Hold the phone.. I wasn’t aware that Fenix radiators are so bad? I thought they were decent? Any other suggestions? And as far as BC golds go, I’ve never heard anything bad about them. For my purposes, anything better would be excessive.

Another small update: Changed the spark plugs last night (the old ones were pretty shot) and pulled a whole lot more of the interior out. I've pulled out pretty much everything from the front seats backwards including radio, wiring, speakers and door cards so I guesstimate that the car is ~ 60kg lighter now. A compression test was done a few weeks ago and I'm pleased to say the 266,000km engine is at 180psi across all 6. . A set of BC gold coilovers will be going in shortly along with a set of E46 330 brakes which are on their way. Progress has been a bit slow but I plan to have it suitably equipped for the Eurohaus track day at the end of October.. The plan is to install braided brake lines, new brakepads, rear trailing arm bushes, a 3.64 diff, Fenix radiator, fit the semi-slicks and find at least one new bucket seat for a decent price. *Apologies for the poor quality photos. Will be taking a bunch more on a decent camera soon.

Saw this last night. Very good deal indeed.

Since I couldn't find someone to refill the NOS, I figured I'd be better off pulling it out and selling it to put the money into more important things. @qube I definitely took what you said into consideration and ended up selling the Bride reps. I sold them for the same price that I bought them for, minus the rails and frames-winning! I'm looking at Racetech RT1000s or something similar to replace them with..suggestions?. I also managed to pull the rest of the speakers (Pretty heavy!)+ wiring and rear boot linings out for ultimate weight saving. ?

It’s a non sunroof so should be fine. I’d like to sit in one before buying though

Hi all, Looking into the Racetech RT1000 seat and from what I can see its a good option for me however at 185cm, I'm 5cm above the recommended height for the seat. Will this be an issue with a harness? Would be good to hear reviews. https://www.racetech.co.nz/shop/seats/club/RT1000-motorsport-seats Cheers

Another little update: Changed the transmission fluid. Much to my annoyance the fluid that came out appeared to be pretty much brand new but oh well, fresh new ATF nonetheless. I also installed the X-brace which I've had lying around for a while. My thinking was that you had to have a rivnut gun but as it turns out, a bolt (or threaded rod as I used), washer and nut is all you need for installation. Oh and you'll have to drill out those holes to be a little bigger. See the photos for close ups. I'm pretty stoked to have finally have it installed! So far I can't comment on whether the handling has been stiffened up or not- too difficult to tell when your car still handles like a boat. Not sure if it's worth mentioning or not but I also cut the kick panel along the joint so that it no longer dangles dangerously above the pedals.. on a number of occasions I briefly had difficulty hitting the brake/clutch. (Best mod for $0). I also rerouted the NOS switches and added an M3 oil cap since I had some spare change in my PayPal account Making progress slowly but surely.

The seat belt stalks are connected to the brackets currently. Not able to cert like that but I will install the 50x50mm square plates to the tunnel before cert.

The weight reduction process has officially begun. Back seats, spare wheel, rear mud flaps, radio and sub-woofer have all been removed. I have also replaced the heavy electric front seats with some replica Bride seats on NZKW subframes. They seem to be pretty good quality for the most part but I may replace them in the near future with something else if anyone has a strong opinion on the safety of rep seats.. opinions welcome. I will be tracking how much weight I pull out of the car, just need to find something better than a bathroom scale..

https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/auction-1673717387.htm?rsqid=02a838f145db4ea89ab1fc4ecb369135 Holy craaaaaaaaaap this is nothing short of perfection! If only I had a spare 200k lying around.

Yep! I’ll take some photos soon.

Yesterday I managed to get out and do a long overdue oil change. Usually when I buy I car I change the oil within the first few weeks of buying it... I used Penrite full synthetic 10W-40 racing oil (not cheap!) Yes, the filter is a nasty Repco filter but I’ll do another oil change in about 7000km to clear any crap out that gets dislodged. Will do trans oil soon. Some pics below:

With those control arms you just need to whack them with a hammer and they pop right out, no need to heat up etc. Even if you try get a pry bar between them and the subframe a hammer always does the trick. It does have to be directly on top of the ball boint itself though, makes a massive difference.

Could you post up some photos of the car?

Thanks Dave, your build thread is a really good read. Good that you've got all the pictures back!

So I managed to finally find some time to get underneath the belly of the beast and whip the old worn out clutch kit over the weekend. With the help of a friend and my father-in-law, it's all running mint with already 100km on it. At first it felt pretty rugged but its easing up with time. See below photos:

I'm going with the single mass flywheel with kevlar disc from Speedfactor in Tauranga. I bought it off someone at a reduced price but still new. Looks like this:

Looking pretty good Dave! The car will feel heaps better once that all goes in.

Cheers mate. Yeah I haven't decided on what I'll do with the intake yet. I might revert to factory until I do a K&N intake or something.

So last night I decided to fit my new '230hp' (coupled with M50 manifold) DME. As you can see from the writing, it features EWS delete, ABS fix, 7k rpm limiter and the dreaded rev-hang fix. The job was really easy and straight forward, not much to it. Drove to work this morning and WOW! At first I thought it may be a placebo but it is actually a vast improvement. The car seems to be a fair bit more responsive and not as lazy. Definitely pulls harder than before from 2500rpm. The best part though would have to be how the car revs more freely and doesn't 'hang' like it did before- feels mint where you're flying through the gears. I thought the rev hang issue was only with auto-manual converted cars but its definitely factory manual cars like mine also, though not as bad. Overall a very nice and cheap mod.