Vass

I remember seeing this car around the internets quite a bit, used to be owned by an enthusiast for quite a few years, looked really well sorted and tastefully modified - was manual, lowered, had nice wheels, bucket seats, fully certified etc. At one point the owner got a chance to buy a cheap M3 so decided to let it go, couldn't find a buyer at the price he was happy with so made more financial sense to part out, which he did through Weitz who I guess put it back together with what they had. Some nice bits on it still but does have a bit of history. The cert probably works against it at this stage.

Thanks! Had to restrain myself from making some crude joke there. Because I'm an aDuLt now.

Being the hoarder that I am, I had managed to acquire a couple of spare sets of black cube trims over the years and finally got around to doing something with them. All of the pieces, including the ones installed in the car, had varying degrees of wear and scratches so I've been meaning to do a mini-restoration for a while. Could always just redo it in semi-gloss black but fancied a bit of a colour change and went for a silver tone to sort of emulate the clubsport silver trims. Went to Spraystore, showed them what I was after and instead of custom-mixing something they recommended the off-the-shelf silver wheel paint, which was pretty close to the tone I wanted. Gave the pieced a light sand with 600/2000 grit, masked off the inner edges on a few pieces, wiped down with alcohol and gave them 3-4 light coats (10 minutes between coats), followed by 2 coats of matte clear for a bit of protection. The coats were light enough to retain the cube texture and not look too dull. Might have turned out a tad brighter than I would have liked but on the whole I do quite like it. Will see how I feel about it in a few months' time but so far I'm pleased with the outcome. The wife said she liked it better all black. I guess haters gonna hate.

I take that as a personal insult An engine rebuild isn't cheap. An engine swap, unless like for like, is multiples of that.

I mean it looks really impressive, great deal of work that's gone in, you'd probably be hard pressed to recreate the same thing for less than what he's asking but reaaaallly niche thing to try and sell. One thing I don't get is... rebuilt engine, manual conversion, partial repaint, interior reupholstery, sound system, wheels, tires, suspension, cert etc. You go through all that effort, supposedly drop $50k getting it up to standard and... try and sell it for $28k after only putting 1,000km's on it? What was the point of it all?

Free listing days always bring out a horde of dreamers on TM but this one takes the cake for me - 2000 330i - 88,000km @ $15.5k buy now "Super barn find"; "appreciating classic"; "ready for the value to continue to appreciate for the new next owner". Non-Msport, assumedly automatic, Japanese import, last WoF'd in 2015, no doubt flat spotted & dry rotted tyres plus whatever other myriad of issues that'll crop up from not having run in 10 years. If I were asking 3-4x the market value I'd have at least given it a wash. Comes with a flag holder though so that's worth a few grand. Bloody hell.

I could come up with another dozen fresh ads that are worthy of the same title. Free listing days bring out all sorts of loons.

I've no idea what these people are playing at with their deluded price expectations. Just because a car is "low mileage" doesn't negate the fact it's riddled with 20+ year old crusty rubber and plastic that'll need significant investment to overhaul. Let alone it's not even that well spec'd - cloth non-heated seats, no steering wheel controls, no auto lights-wipers, automatic, plus it has spent 20 years of its life in Japan so could be more susceptible to rust. Who in their right mind pays 3 x the market price for this? Still, probably better value than these two grandpa spec specimens: 2001 325i - 7,500km @ $19.5k & 1998 328i - 23,500km @ $13k Do these people know we're in a recession?

The FR bumper mount/chassis rail looks to be pushed in. Not economical from an insurance point of view but I'm guessing it wouldn't be awfully difficult to repair if you wanted a tidy coupe shell.

Look like magnetic phone holders. Weird placement tho.

I'm sure some of you fellas might be interested - 1988 Coupe 320i coming up on Manheim auction. Looks real tidy apart from some front end damage, which doesn't even look too terrible. Those seats alone will be worth a fair bit. Happy hunting!

How good does this thing look! Seeing it gives me serious second thoughts about parting out our little ugly duckling of a ti I've still got sitting in a mate's paddock every time. Would be cool to chuck an M54 in it, if only I had the time... Have you thought about getting some nice chrome exhaust tips for it? Part no. 18107500194 (different to 330i ones). Only real thing that sticks out to my eye.

Damn you work quick! It's barely been out 24h 😄 I'm on episode 4

I thought the font on those looked a bit off. I'm assuming they're not NZ-issued? Just a word of warning, I had a colleague that got himself a set made overseas for his E36, looked to use a similar font and had German colors on the side. Soon after got pulled over and got slapped with a fine for running illegal plates, $200-300 iirc. Yours don't stick out as obviously as his did but just takes one picky cop to land you in trouble.

About that... it's actually Toto

Ohh nevermind, just looked up the procedure on the Beisan website, looks like it is different - the whole cup comes out of the camshaft with the unit. The timing tool looks to be the same between M52, M52TU & M54 though so hopefully makes the search a bit easier.

If it's anything like the M54, you don't actually need any timing tools to do the VANOS - just remove the VANOS unit and don't turn the engine over with it unbolted, don't try rotate the camshaft or push the cups in and out. Easy off-on job.

I imagine that intake would have been cleaned before, that looks veeeery clean. Does it still have EGR? With uploading photos, I've found that for some reason the website runs into trouble with images above 2MB so I've started bumping down the resolution to get it under that.

I've driven a couple of my mates' E46's that run that exact SMF kit. It's pretty good overall, no real noticeable chatter and really quite enjoyed it. The only real thing that would prevent me from having it in my own car is the pressure plate, I believe it's running the E36 M3 one which makes the clutch pedal reaaaaaally hard. The fellas whose cars those were say they've gotten used to it and don't mind it but I imagine it would get real tedious daily driving like that. Definitely not ideal for a daily driver. Maybe worth asking if he's got other options for pressure plates to go with the kit.

Welding must be his area of expertise, I imagine 98% of certifiers wouldn't know enough about it to even think to ask such questions. Probably overcomplicating things a bit though, in all the research I've done when reinforcing my chassis I can't remember seeing any mention of steel grades or any special procedures. Most reinforcement plates out there don't even mention steel grades and ones that do are mild steel. I imagine they they would be made to match the rest of the chassis they're being welded to. Might not be much help but here's a full manual for the CMP reinforcement plates that go over the prep and welding procedure. It doesn't have recommended weld settings but I asked for advice on that front directly from them at the time and got the following response. Someone with more welding knowledge might be able to deduce the steel grade from the voltages mentioned? I've no idea how that works. These guys have developed the kit, have installed it on numerous cars so do know what they're doing. Doesn't answer the certifier's question directly but if you have no luck in your search for information, maybe he'd be satisfied enough for you to follow the tried and tested procedure laid out in the manual?

My certifier told me it's not even something that needs to be certified per se but could get picked up in the process if certifying for something else. Unless you're moving the suspension mounting points (you're not) and the welds are done to a "tradesman-like standard" you should sail straight through. Visual inspection and no further questions. Sounds like your guy is being difficult just for the hell of it, quite a weird question to ask and request proof for. Of course it's mild steel, what else would it be? Carbon fibre honeycomb?

Probably not the right place for it but was posted the other day as well

Had a similar experience recently doing the water pump on the new-to-us X5 3.0d, which by the looks of it runs an identical pump. 290k km's on it and honestly felt brand new, not even slight play in the shaft or anything. No wonder these engines are so revered to this day.

Sounds like an awesome project, great chassis-engine combo, best of luck with it and real keen to follow your progress. I've got a mate that's gone down the same route with his sedan, absolute banger of a car, pretty crazy seeing it today compared to what he started off with. Would be happy to put you in touch for some tips and advice if needed, he's a great down to earth fella. Haven't looked into it but have wondered for a while why people prefer to go M52 for these swaps as opposed to M54? Is it the cable throttle vs fly-by-wire of it all?

Great to have another touring afficionado on board. Love it! Did see this car for sale a wee while back, did look like a mighty fine package. Congrats on picking it up, the turbo diesels in those are absolute beasts. Love the wheels & body kit too.