Vass

Fixed it for you.

It's all video games' fault...

Honestly, I was shocked by the driving culture when I first came to New Zealand. Or not even so much the culture as just piss poor driving skills, basic knowledge of road rules and borderline criminal lack of attention. In one instance, I had to slam on the brakes three times within barely half an hour. One person straight drove out of a driveway onto the main road right in front of me; second was driving in front of me, randomly started pulling over to the left side of the road, without indicating, then proceeded to turn straight around by chucking a hard right, cutting me off as well as a car in the opposite lane; third I was standing at an intersection, going straight, lights go green, I accelerate and the dude in the opposite lane obliviously proceeds to turn right straight in front of me, with a cop car right in the front row of the side road, who just sat there like a muppet and did nothing. To me the whole licensing system seems idiotic. There's nowhere near enough oversight when it comes to actual driving education. You could very easily turn up to a driving test with absolutely zero prior driving experience, then luck out with passing a test and be set to drive for the next 50+ years. After what, barely an hour of actual supervision? Short of police intervention, that's literally all the oversight you get. How low a bar is that? No wonder so many clowns with decades of driving under their belts still struggle to grasp the proper use of indicators or a f**king roundabout. In my native Estonia, it's mandatory you do a minimum of 40 hours of driving with a licensed driving instructor before you're even allowed to sit a theory test. Then within 2 years of getting a license, you have to do a "Slippery Driving Course" before you get your full license. That involves doing an obstacle evasion drive on a skid track. It's wild how difficult it is to keep even a tiny front-wheel drive car pointing straight doing as little as 30km/h. Humbles you right up. There's still hordes of idiots on the roads, but at least they've been given a set of basic skills and knowledge by a competent operator prior, so you don't see as nearly as much stupidity on the roads. All the dedicated exam cars are manuals as well. It's an annoying and expensive process when you're in it, but damn it, looking back, I'm very glad I had to go through it. I got lucky with my teacher as well who used to be both a police man and a rally driver. He was very harsh at times but was a great teacher and really knew his sh*t. Similarly to what @Jacko touched upon above, there was also a great sense of professional pride and even competition amongst the instructors. The main criteria they were aiming for is to get the highest percentage of students passing the state exam on the first go. My instructor was sitting at something like 96%. All that meant that there was a high bar of entry to even be allowed to register for a state exam. It wasn't unusual for people to rack up as much as 80 hours of driving before the instructor deeming them ready. As opposed to here where all the driving education you could easily get away with is a quick sesh with your dodgy uncle in a New World parking lot. Makes me cringe every time I hear of another speed limit getting lowered or all this crap about millions being "invested" into Mission Zero or whatever the f**k. How about investing in proper education instead? You won't legislate away stupidity, but what it would do is instil at least some basic tenets of a driving culture in new drivers before they're allowed to independently hit the road for the first time. Wouldn't make much of a difference for a number of years or even decades due to the sheer number of cretins already grandfathered in, but it'd be a start. Either that or make every single road 40km/h I guess...

At it again those parasites. The absolute bloody guile of these people... Never even mind the convertible was in far better condition with a third of the mileage.

Interesting that they still kept the original gearbox. Wonder how it works, clutch and all. Did they bolt the flywheel up to the electric motor?

I found the Karcher snow foam bottle thing a bit faff. Doesn't make the foam nearly thick enough to do its job, way too watery and the foam runs straight off. A proper foam lance would definitely make a difference but a good one is something like $150+ compared to $40-50 for the Karcher...

Yeah will know better for if there's ever a next time. The Beisan stuff did already arrive yesterday so at least the turnaround was quick. Wouldn't think S50 ones are the same, I took the screenshot of the shipping details at the bottom of the page and those just crept into the picture. Also received the stuff from Bruce Perkinson today. Much more complete kit for a fraction of the cost, minus the rattle rings. Not sure of the quality but seems legit, he claims to have tested quite a few different suppliers and settled on these. Would recommend. The DISA unit with the aluminium flap looks mighty fine too.

Good stuff! Where'd you source those for lights? Looking awesome.

Absolute porn this. That car has a better life than most people. Top effort mate!

Yeah will be giving X8R a go if I ever need to do it again in the future. Seems significantly cheaper as well. I actually ordered a set of seals (as well as a rebuilt DISA) from this fella called Bruce Perkinson up north. Not sure what supplier he uses. Unfortunately he didn't have any rattle rings, hence me going with Beisan. Figured I'd get an extra set of seals as well whilst I'm at it and maybe do the ones on the daily as well.

Hit them up about it. Could have maybe started with that and offered it as an alternative option instead painting it as if it's that or nothing? Not impressed.

Ordered a set of VANOS seals and rattle rings from Beisan Systems yesterday, 2 x $60 + $39 shipping. Wake up to this. f**king seriously?

I've seen quite a few. Here's one. What the hell is that front bumper even?

The 323's came with a 3.15 iirc? Will keep an eye out on those being parted out. Are you throwing the LSD into the 2.93?

Got a few missions ticked off on the daily 330. Ditched the old clutch and AC fans for an electric one and wired up the fog lights that the PO had cut off. Retrofit a multifunction steering wheel panel I'd gotten a few months back, all working and functional. Handy having cruise control in time for a local club outing next weekend. Never going to be a show car this thing but great to finally get it to where I want it - all major oil leaks taken care of, no obvious bits missing and overall clean and functional. Also hooked up and tried out the old laptop I'd set up for INPA, NCS etc. Reading all the data as it should so will be a suitable setup for when I'll need to code and flash the touring post the engine-gearbox swap.

Hot damn! What did that LSD cost you? Looks a decent bit of kit.

Few more things to add to the list, before I forget. Really keen to switch the cluster displays from the silly km/L to L/100km that I'm more used to. Have already got the physical backing sheet/plate, will need to figure out how to code the digital display to reflect the same, whether I need to dig around the DME or the cluster itself to get there and if it's even possible. Got a tired 12-year old laptop last weekend and finally went through the trouble of setting up all the BMW standard tools on it, the INPAs & NCS Experts of the world, will start acquainting myself with the ins and outs of it in the coming weeks. Possible LSD conversion - will first throw in the 2.93 diff I got with the manual conversion to see whether it's as sluggish as some reports suggest. Further down the line might give this RacingDiffs conversion a go on the 3.38 auto diff in case if I ever feel brave enough to take on some track days. Reviews look pretty good and for the money seems pretty good value. I suspect it's fine with the speed sensors being in the wheel hubs but just to make sure - going from an auto box with a 3.38 to a manual with a 2.93, I won't need to muck about with recalibrating the speedo, will I? Might just play around and get it to show the actual, non-exaggerated speed.

Damn, I wish you weren't so on the fence on this still. Tell us how you really feel Point taken, will look into it further. A bit ways down the line this still. Yeah I reckon regular OE hoses will feel much better than 20-year old rubber as well, braided lines might only make a very marginal difference for what I'm doing. Cheers

Damn. Unless you're in a real hurry, I'd honestly just hold out. Don't see any manuals go for less than $12-15k lately. I'd be all over it if I didn't have my hands full with the current shitbucket.

$4000 is almost an insult. Good luck with the sale, looks good value for $10k.

Another few points I forgot about earlier. This is basically turning into a to-do list of sorts: Braided brake lines - will be refurbing the calipers so might as well throw on new brake lines as well. Can get stock ATE rubber hoses for $75 or go with SS braided lines for around $200. Kinda leaning towards the OE rubber ones as I don't see this car as a track day regular and reading up about steel lines being prone to breaking off at connection points. Again, would depend on the degree of improvement in brake pedal feel which I can't really chime in on. Thoughts? ARP head studs - still fretting a bit over re-torqueing the head so low-key considering a stud conversion, which I've read distributes the load on the threads in the block more evenly and reduces the risk of them pulling. Not cheap but cheaper / less hassle than pulling the engine back apart and getting helicoils / timeserts in case a thread does pull. Have checked the ARP website but it doesn't have an M54-specific head stud set listed. Have seen other vendors offer them though. Unsure whether it's not listed due to being out of stock or if they've never offered it. Have emailed them with a query. Have read some reports of people using M52 sets on M54's and the studs pulling due to a shallower thread depth so not keen to go down that route. Touring Msport springs - struggling to find the right springs for my model. As far as I know, the US market never got a Touring in ZHP / Msport variant so having no luck with recommendations on FCP. Have also tried looking up RealOEM for the correct part numbers but it's blanking out on springs for some reason... The topic was touched upon elsewhere I believe but are Touring springs actually different from Sedan/Coupe ones? You'd assume so but FCP, RockAuto, Schmiedmann etc don't seem to make any distinction, at least not a very clear one, so I'm well confused as to what to get.

Thanks for the replies guys! Some good points there. Dropping the box is not really a job I'd want to undertake again in the near future. I've already ordered all the detents and shifter pins anyway (minus those bloody covers) so would rather address all that in one go and be done with it. The engine came spec'd with an LF-30 though, and that's definitely in better nick than the LF-20 I have. Plus if it is a stronger unit, I'd go with that instead. One of the pressure hoses is actually identical between the two so I'd be able to reuse that and would just need to get the other one. I think money wise getting a new hose for the LF-30 or getting a new LF-20 to match the hoses would cost roughly the same so I'd rather make sure the unit I'm going with is the better one of the two. I've read reports of the LF-30 running higher pressure and the steering being a bit easier. Prior to dismantling I did notice the steering being a bit heavy, as well as a mate of mine commenting the same after borrowing the car for a while, so the LF-30 would assumedly make that better. Although it may have been down to the LF-20 being on its way out anyway. Interesting. A point to consider. Do the post-cats really not influence anything else beyond emissions? I'm blessed by the absence of a SAP, luckily. Cheapest I found just now is around $500 before shipping from Spareto for all four. Not sure I'd call it cheap but yeah, fair point, worth doing now as it's a bastard to get to later on. Might look into omitting the post-cats though as alluded above. Add on another $300 for crank sensor, two cam sensors and ignition knock sensors. Actually not as bad as I'd feared. Too far down the rabbit hole to start skimping now. Fair point on the lack of bite, will take that on board. The clean freak in me is still a bit stubborn and refuses to be swayed by that though. How big a difference is it actually? Like is it something you just get used to over time and learn to press the pedal harder, or did you genuinely feel unsafe in certain situations / have had a few close calls? Definitely don't want to be compromising safety but if it's 10-20% difference I could probably live with that. Don't see myself pushing the limits too hard anyway. Just read up some reviews on the HPS. Quite a few people reporting terrible noise and squealing, not even too long after installing. Plus they look to be twice the price. Will do a bit more digging. Fair point. All those alternatives would seemingly work out to less than $300 though so worth a consideration. Again it's a give and take as to what degree would they harshen up the steering feedback...

Probably showing my age but I've never even heard or seen one of these before. What an absolute ugly duckling! Can't be many/any of these on NZ roads ey? https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/3689239009?tm=email&et=45&mt=53E77B08-ED47-4D1F-BC56-B57F12F5D728&bof=w48vhFAH

Ohh, a few more I forgot: Brake pads - thinking of giving these Akebono ceramic pads a go (can actually get them cheaper from RockAuto). Ceramics can, admittedly, wear out the rotors quicker and don't grip as well in daily use, I've been discouraged from ceramics for a daily driver but none of the reviews flag those as issues and from what I've read I'm left pretty impressed, especially the low brake dust characteristic. Anyone have experience with these in particular or any other recommendations for pads? Steering coupling - have a few options here: Stock replacement - again, all the usual suspects only stock LHD ones, am yet to properly look into where to get one locally and for how much. Ireland Engineering urethane coupler - stiffer than stock but not sure if it's a great option still being so close to the exhaust. CMP solid coupler - might be a bit overkill for a street car? Not sure how much harsher it would make the feedback, but an option to consider anyway. Max Parts Shop solid U-joint - similar to above? More for track use rather than daily driver? The column spacer thing is an interesting option though.

G'day team, Sat down to do a bit of further research and fill in some areas I've yet to address, and make a list of parts I still need to order. Ran into a few areas I'm frustrated with / unsure on and would appreciate any sort of input some of the more experienced folk might be able to offer. Stuff I'm still yet do address / am grappling with: Transmission detent repair tools - about to put an order in for this set of custom punches to do the shifter pins and detents, unless someone has a lead on where I could borrow/buy one on these shores? Quite a specialised tool so unlikely that I'll need in more than once but then again, could be able to resell / borrow out / do some cashies if I do buy it. Transmission detent repair kit - have ordered every single bit in the kit except for the bloody covers for the shifter pins that have been on backorder / no longer available for months from every shop I could think to check. Only ones I could find were from this seller on eBay that are custom made and not an original part, which looks a bit different from the photos and I'm not too keen to trust. From having hooked the shifter linkage up, the lever does seem to lean to the right and the shift into reverse is far from smooth so definitely worth doing the detents. Shifter pins might be fine but figured I might as well do everything in one go and not have to drop the gearbox later on. To be held up by some tidy metal plug is damn frustrating. Timing & oil pump chains - leaning towards replacing all three. At under $150 I figure I might as well. Have read and followed a few rebuilds though where those were just reused without any issues. How much of a waste of money would it be or sensible to replace regardless? Power steering pumps - the donor car came with an LF-30, the wagon had an LF-20. The shaft on the LF-20 has a bit of play in and out with a wee clunk so not too keen to use that. When it comes to those two, I've read that the LF-30 is the beefier of the two, so supposedly more reliable, but then again was discontinued after only a year in production... What's the deal? Power steering pressure hoses - the silly thing is, the pressure hoses on the LF-20 actually look in good nick without even a bit of weeping (not yet anyway) and the ones on the LF-30 were so bad that I chucked them out straight away, thinking I'll get new ones anyway. That was before I checked their prices... FCP, ECS, Spareto etc only stock LHD ones, and BMParts quoted me $545 for one and $254 for the other... Brilliant. Will probably go the custom route as recommended in another thread. So I'm at a bit of a conundrum - do I use the LF-30 and make up custom hoses OR use the current hoses and get a new LF-20? Sensors sensors sensors - which ones are worth replacing preventatively and which ones should be left in the "as needed" category? I'm mainly thinking about the ones attached to the engine itself. Access to some of them is an absolute bastard with the engine in the car so I'm thinking I'll preventatively replace some of the most hard-to-get-to ones. But also would appreciate if people could chime in on which ones hardly ever give issues / are good with just a check over and a clean / definitely worth replacing. Rough list of ones I'm considering: O2 sensors x 4; Cam position sensors x 2; Crank position sensors x 1; Ignition knock sensor x 1; Intake air temp sensor x 1 - cheap enough to replace; Temperature sensor (OFH & cylinder head) - cheap enough to replace; Oil pressure switch (OFH) - cheap enough to replace; Oil level sensor - easy enough to replace during oil change, won't bother for now. Sensor brands - bit of a controversial topic, I know. Obviously best to stick with genuine / OE ones but then again, you could easily spend more than a grand on just the sensors I listed above. I also know there's reports of FCP falsely marking some brands as OE when they were not. Currently, they're listing VNE as the OE maker of cam sensors and VDO for crankshaft and knock sensors for example, both brands I'm not at all familiar with. A lot of these are also offered by other reputable OEM brands such as Hella at less than half the price. Hella is the OE maker of the oil level sensor for example so you'd assume they know their sh*t when it comes to sensors. I obviously don't want to skimp and get some dodgy crap but at the same time, maybe some of those sensors are simple enough that going for OEM over OE you wouldn't really be risking much? Or am I just overthinking it?