Vass

Also, I keep seeing a slight damp patch at the bottom of the gearbox that feels a bit oily to the touch. It's never properly dripping so not an obvious massive leak but seems to be slowly weeping from somewhere. Almost looks like it's coming out from the bottom two casing bolts. The drain plug threads also seemingly look shiny at all times so could also be that. Then again those are the bottom most parts of the gearbox and it could just be accumulating down there from above. The plugs themselves were brand new so shouldn't really be leaking. Would it be a good idea to wrap some teflon tape around them next time I do a gearbox flush? At this point all the seals apart from the output shaft seal have been replaced. I do have one sitting on the shelf but they're not known to be particularly failure prone and I didn't feel confident enough to mess with pre-loading the output flange so left it alone for the time being. Not a big enough leak to start getting concerned about just yet but would be good to know if it's a common occurrence and whether there's an obvious remedy.

In a more sombre development, I stumbled upon whatever THIS is. Still struggling to figure out the rich running condition and with the beauty covers off messing around with the headers, I decided to swap out the spark plugs. The current ones were put in when rebuilding the engine and had only done around 12k km's since brand new but that did include the full break in period so, clutching at straws, I figured that might have gunked them up somehow. Easy enough item to tick off so might as well. Whilst at it, I decided to stick my cheapo Aliexpress endoscope dongle down into the cylinders and have a gander. Almost wish I didn't. Whilst 5 of the 6 cylinders/pistons looked pretty much spotless, cylinder 2 looked like it had a crater in the top of the piston. The camera resolution/quality of course didn't help and probably made it look like worse than it was. It was nearly midnight when I discovered it, which set my mind spiralling and I went to bed thinking the engine was toast. The next day I borrowed a better quality endoscope off a mate and had a second look which cleared it up a bit. What I originally thought was a hole was just some nasty carbon buildup but nevertheless the silver, shiny blob still looked like something burnt to the top of the piston. I ended up sticking a piece of wire down the spark plug tube and started picking away at it. Was pretty hard work getting any control and leverage on it but you can see chunks breaking off at around 50 seconds into the video. I taped the endoscope to the piece of wire and went at it some more. You can see a bunch of those chunks littered around, still no idea what it might have been or how whatever it is got there but hopefully not enough of it to do any real damage. I taped a rubber hose to the end of the shop vac, stuck that down the cylinder and tried to suck out the debris, then turned the engine over to get the exhaust valves open on that cylinder and blew it out with compressed air to hopefully clear out any remaining loose stuff. I also had a look at the exhaust valves themselves which didn't reveal any obvious defects. Full video investigation catalogue if anyone cares. The spark plugs themselves actually looked fine, not overly sooty and no obvious bits missing so no smoking gun there. Did a compression test just to be safe which showed around 170 psi but at that point the car had been sitting for close to a month so wouldn't have been an accurate result. Will recheck on a warm engine sometime. I reinstalled the old spark plugs for now. Once the headers got bolted up, I poured a bottle of Techron fuel system cleaner into the tank and topped it off with some BP 98 to hopefully clear out some gunk that might have accumulated and caused this. Need to go on a few more longer runs and give it some spanking to help burn off the remnants. Once that tank is up and the cleaner's worked its way through the system I'll do a proper compression test and install the fresh spark plugs. Bit of a nerve wracking episode that but the car is still seemingly running fine so seem to have gotten away with just a scare. Bit weird still that only one cylinder looked as bad whilst nothing of the like in any of the rest of them. Cars are pain.

Happy to vouch for a good product mate. Thanks for making these! I would've been left in a right pickle without it. Feel free to use the photos for reference or promo if that's something that would be of use to you.

I did also swap out the amber indicators for a fresh set of clears as some eagle-eyed folk might have noticed from those videos. TYC brand corners and fender indicators are good quality and still pretty cheap from Spareto so got sets of both ambers and clears last year. Paired them up with chrome bulbs from LEDPerf since they were the only ones I found (other than Aliexpress) that carried the smaller chrome fender indicator bulbs. Pricing seemed reasonable but did find dealing with them quite annoying so probably wouldn't bother again. Despite a .co.nz website and NZ flag plastered all over the place, they ship their stuff out from France which in my case took over 3 weeks to arrive with little to no tracking updates along the way. The bulbs look to be random brand and probably Chinese-made anyway so would just go direct to Aliexpress next time. Chrome bulbs do make quite a difference though and give a nice clean finish instead of the egg-yolk look you get with amber bulbs. With the fender indicators I somehow ended up with slightly different ones with one having a pearly white edge and the other more of a beige. Might tack on another pair with the next order to have a matching set since they cost the equivalent of a pack of chips. I've also taken up the practice of super-gluing in those metal tabs after having 3 of them shoot out one after another into the fender cavity when reinstalling them after a polish. Don't need the hassle of trying to fish those out again. Did enjoy the amber look but wanted to switch it up a bit after a a year and a bit on that setup and the car does look way more modern with the clears. Need to take her out for a scenic photoshoot up in the hills on a cloudy day sometime.

Have now put a few hundred km on with the headers installed and they've developed a nice bronze-ish tinge. Looks pretty cool. Performance wise, can't say I notice much of a difference. The engine does rev quite freely but then again I wasn't really complaining beforehand either. My butt dyno isn't awfully well calibrated and I wouldn't have realized it was 30hp below stock power numbers until we put it on the dyno. Gonna try address a few more things and do another power run at some point to compare. Having driven a bit monitoring fuel trims the LTFT's still keep jumping between 5.6 - 6.3 - 7.8 - 8.6 for both banks so doesn't looks like it's made a difference there. Would have been wishful thinking to expect it to have done though. Didn't notice a massive difference in sound either. It did make the tone somewhat deeper but the difference is very marginal and it still sounds quite subdued to my ear. At idle there is no difference at all, at around 4-5k RPM and above you do hear it more but not as much as I would have expected. I was hoping for a more throatier tone but with the rest of the exhaust remaining stock I guess the muffler does what mufflers do. I want to retain the secondary cats so as to not smell like a bag of rotten eggs so might look into getting an aftermarket muffler at some point instead, but that will be sometime in the distant future. Video #1 Video #2 Should have really made the comparison a bit more scientific and taken some 'before' videos and maybe a dB reading but of course only thought of it after the exhaust was already off the car. Here's a brief summary of my experience with the Malian Exhaust RHD headers: The flanges at the engine head end are perfectly straight, fitment is good and they bolt up nice and straight. The flanges on the exhaust side are horrible, it's like they never fitted them onto an actual car before rushing them into production - the angles are wrong, the lengths aren't even and the whole slotted bolt hole design is baffling - even if they did line up and weren't hitting each other when bolted up to the head, I have no idea what guarantees that the tubes remain in proper alignment. They had a previous version of these with stock-style flanges that apparently worked fine, why they moved away from it is beyond me. They've even kept photos of the original ones bolted up on an actual car on their website, yet sell a 'revised' kit that doesn't work. Again to reiterate - these will not bolt up to the stock exhaust without extensive modification. The position of the O2 sensor bungs is way off. Even cut down the Bank 2 O2 sensor is hitting the chassis, even with the heat shields bashed in. Could have clocked them differently since there's heaps of room to facilitate it but guess they never bothered test fitting. They could have omitted the secondary O2 bungs entirely since they're so tight against the chassis they're unusable anyway. I don't believe the stock steering linkage would have cleared even with brand new engine mounts so be prepared to fork out for a slim one. The supplied gaskets are garbage and went straight in the bin. As far as RHD alternatives go, there doesn't appear to be much choice out there. There's Gravity Performance, who don't ship to NZ, and there's Supersprint that are eye-wateringly expensive. There's also Coby ones that look to be mild steel and would still need some welding to mate up to the rest of the M54 exhaust. All in all, with the purchase price, paying for having these re-welded, the slim steering linkage and new gaskets, this exercise cost me around $1.2k, which is still pretty reasonable in my eyes, with @Eagle also taking a bit of a loss on the initial purchase. Despite not quite getting the sound gains I was hoping for, I feel it was still a worthwhile thing to do and a step in the right direction and I'd still do it again if I had to. Just would have been good to know what to expect before jumping into it so hopefully this might help someone else out there.

Cheers! I'm getting to it, just breaking the spiel up into parts as the posts are getting pretty long.

The next issue I ran into was the steering linkage. Having initially hooked up my stock one with the CMP coupler, there looked to be plenty of clearance... until I turned the wheel and the bolt holding the coupling to the main shaft started hitting on the headers. Video They claim that the clearance is there but might become a problem if your engine mounts are worn. Mine are barely 12k km's old and the bolt is not even close to clearing so I doubt it'd be any better with brand new engine mounts. Luckily, I anticipated this being a potential issue or that the clearance would be tight at the very least so I pre-emptively ordered a slim linkage from @modz. Great bit of kit, arrived quickly and well packaged with handy instructions, would definitely recommend. Glad I had it on hand by the time the headers came back from the shop so it didn't hold me up. Compared to the stock linkage the ends are clocked slightly differently so all I had to do was reposition the plastic alignment sleeve at the steering rack end. It does end up being slightly shorter than stock so the steering column does extend out of the firewall a bit further. Mine seems to have a lot of play in the column so might look to replace some bushes or the whole column at some stage. Heaps of clearance now so I'm happy as Larry.

With the catless headers being significantly more compact, bolting them on was a fair bit easier since they slid through easily enough so that the engine arm didn't need to come out again. I also replaced the stock studs with new ones from the N-series engines that are slightly shorter and have an E-torx head, making installation a lot easier than the double-nut method. I thought about reusing the manifold gaskets with the heat shields, mostly to retain the clips for the O2 sensor wiring but due to the different positioning of the bungs those wouldn't have worked anyway. The new headers are angled straight down, are quite a way away from the valve cover so keeping the heat shields probably wouldn't have had much effect apart from making access to the bolts a lot more tedious. Opted for brand new M52 gaskets that are pretty much identical to the M54 ones, minus the heat shields. The bank 2 O2 sensor (990mm) had enough length in it to fit into the factory clips, bank 1 however (570mm) was now considerably further away and wouldn't reach at all. The options were to order in a new longer bank 2 sensor (which might still have been too short) or make up an extension which I decided to have a go at. Not the first time the spare wiring loom has come in handy. Hacked it up a bit more, as well as a spare old O2 sensor and made up a nice factory-looking extension that blends right in. I only recently discovered these heat shrink + solder butt connectors and now swear by them. So easy to use and seem to create a nice, solid connection. 10/10 recommend. The additional new connection didn't fit under the beauty cover but slotted in between the valve cover and the fire wall and sits there quite securely. The other issue with these headers was that the bank 2 O2 sensor bung is positioned so that the top of the sensor pretty much sits right up against the fire wall heat shield. I bashed them in at that spot as much as I could but it's still mighty close. Not ideal but it is what it is. The exhaust was a bit tight going on but the flanges bolted up fine in the end. The bank 1 flange must still have ended up angled slightly wrong with a slight gap over top of it but luckily the edge of the inner opening looks to be slightly bulged and the gasket looks to be sealing fine.

Somewhat impulsively jumped into another side project in the form of RHD headers from Malian Exhaust / Kage Trading. tl;dr of it is - THESE ARE NOT A STRAIGHT BOLT ON. They will require (quite extensive) modification to bolt up to the rest of the exhaust, nor will they clear the steering linkage, contrary to their claims. Unless you have the welding equipment & experience, or are prepared to shell out another 1-1.5x the purchase price in paying someone to have these reshaped, my recommendation would be to AVOID. I knew some of the downsides prior to diving into it so had time to emotionally/financially prepare. These were originally purchased by @Eagle who discovered the fitment issues and subsequently abandoned them in favor of an M52 setup. I then took over the baton knowing that at the very least they'll need new flanges welded on in place of their stupid '2024 revision' slotted bolt hole design. Eagle also kindly provided the new flanges. I took off the stock manifolds (bit of a mission having to support the engine & taking out the exhaust side engine arm & mount to gain enough clearance to slide them out) and dropped both sets off at Flame Performance. They used the stock manifolds to make up a jig to accurately position and weld up the new flanges. Bank 1 was fairly straightforward and just needed a bit of extending and a bit of an angle adjustment. Bank 2 however was angled completely incorrectly and needed a lot of work. Also have them weld on the supplied bolts to turn them into studs and make installing the rest of the exhaust a bit less of a hassle. The initial test fit revealed that bank 1 needed to be extended by another 4mm so got dropped off back at the shop to get redone. With that done the angle between the two flanges was still slightly off but close enough for the gaskets to eat up the slack. I gave both headers a quick polish to get rid of the discoloration from welding and wiped them down to avoid having any fingerprints permanently burnt on. Came out looking pretty flash.

This topic pops up regularly on all sorts of forums and FB groups and I genuinely don't get why it's still a debate. BMW genuine blue coolant concentrate still works out to roughly the same price as any quality aftermarket equivalents, so why would you bother/gamble with anything else? I guess this green Penrite stuff is the closest equivalent that you'd get off the shelf from SCA - $57 / 5L = $11.40 / L I picked up 4 bottles of BMW concentrate from the dealership the other week, I believe I paid around $120 so is $30 / 1.5L of concentrate. Add to that 5L of demineralized water for $10. Typical fill would be around 6L so you're looking at 2 x $30 + $10 / 6L = $11.60 / L Supposedly, the genuine coolant is made to a specific formulation that works well with the alloy used in the engine block/head and the plastic/rubber parts comprising the cooling system. There's all sorts of debate as to whether that's true, whether other aftermarket coolants made to the required specification do the same thing etc etc. I could understand the inclination to take a chance on that stuff if genuine cost twice as much but there's literally next to no difference in price. If you care about your car, just go genuine. This is the one rare instance when it doesn't cost you anything extra.

Genuine question: wtf is a social media nepotist?

Good heads up! Looks to be a universal Black Friday deal. Never knew they even sold it. https://www.mitre10.co.nz/shop/castrol-edge-5w-30-engine-oil-5-litre/p/374696

Bloody Christ, what an utterly loathsome pack of individuals. Peak capitalism brain, hyper fixated on badges and the intricacies of coat hangers. How is this not a parody?

This fine specimen has popped up again, now through Sunday Drive. I do love me a touring probably more than the average person but this seems a bit bonkers for a 4-cylinder with close to half a mill on the clock. https://www.trademe.co.nz/5023124739

Check out Hyperdrive, seems to be plenty of options for that size. Alternatively, you could go 245/40R17 whilst retaining much of the tyre width. I wouldn't go 225 on a RWD car, not sure if they would work on a wider rim but hey, I'm not gonna tell you off either.

Oh great news! Price drop on the blue one in Chch, now available at a bargain $77k. Let's gooo

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of E60's and given a straight choice I'll take the E39 any day of the week, but at that price point... I know it's a silly comparison but the reason I mention an E60 (and not an F10 that are also available at around the $40k mark) is that there's a much wider choice of V8's out there, both older and modern, whilst an NA V10 is much more of a unique proposition and likely one of the last mass-market ones ever made. If I had to spend $60k on a super sedan I'd take the best E60 out there at $40k and have $20k left over in a maintenance fund, or hell... throw it at a manual conversion before I spend it all on a lazily presented E39.

Was wondering when a thread about this one would pop up... Pretty disgusting state of affairs when dealers are asking $20+k above market value without even wanting to spend a few hundred on a new shift knob or getting the steering wheel, leather seats properly treated. Close to zero effort and investment yet are asking a premium. Probably looked at that blue one listed at $90k and figured this one is a bargain at 60, not realizing the first one is horrifically overpriced by 2x. Pretty sure there have been much better examples listed for less very much recently. Not sure who would in their right mind would fork out $60k for it when there's a like 5 E60 M5's to choose from all at under $40k.

Old BMW's are a tough proposition unless you're doing all the work yourself. Even a cheap part like an oil pan gasket will cost 10x of the part itself to replace because of the sheer amount of labor involved. Generally, people that have deep enough pockets to pay to have their BMW's worked on move up to newer models anyway, so as the cars age they either end up with enthusiasts or at wreckers. Honestly, unless you plan on getting on the DIY bandwagon, you're probably best to move it on. Upshot is, the E87 platform belonged to one of the last BMW eras that were generally easy to work on and have heaps of documentation online for any type of job you could ever think to take on, so would be a great platform to start on. But yeah, if you're not that way inclined it's unlikely to make economic sense.

Same (apart from the M3 bit). Yeah that's what I'd do. I'm looking to chuck catless headers in mine shortly, currently have a CMP coupler in there but clearance might be tight so got myself one of those slim linkages off @modz just to have on hand. The CMP one got picked up at cert so I'm fine to run that but no idea what would happen at wof if I do end up going with the slim one. No way I'm re-certing it just for that.

To test out the faulty fuel sender unit theory, I did a couple of trips to the servo with a jerry can and poured some 20L of diesel into the tank. Having had the old battery on charge for a few days, I hooked it up and turned on the ignition, to which the car proceeded to have a full on seizure - cluster flashing on and off, relays clicking, alarm beeping etc. Not knowing how old the battery was and the little peep hole staying black even at full charge, I picked up a brand new Century DIN85LHX MF as a replacement. Before I could hook it up, I discovered the clamp on the negative cable had somehow seized so you couldn't tighten it properly. Took some vice grips and an impact wrench set to full blast to break the stubborn stud in half. Luckily I still had a few spare ones on hand. Battery hooked up, you could hear the fuel pump priming as you turned the ignition, although there seemed to be all sorts of modules coming back to life and there was all sorts of sounds coming from all directions all at the same time. Gave it a couple of 10-second cranks, on the third one she fired right up! Happy days. Fuel injection system error still lit up the cluster but seemed to idle fine. Took it for a quick lap around the block, didn't really give it beans but didn't feel like it was in any sort of limp mode. Hooked it up to the scanner, still had the old list as well as a few more errors this time around. It now takes a second or two of cranking but then fires up fine. Cleared all the codes, took it for another quick lap and none of the codes are yet to come back. Great success. Too soon to jump to conclusions but seeing it run and drive really made my day. Heaps of preventative maintenance to do before she goes into full on daily duties but the beginning looks well promising.

Managed to stumble my way into another problem project. With an addition to the family imminent, I started looking at options to upgrade the wife's mode of transportation. Her trusty Subaru Outback is getting rather tired and is not a car I particularly enjoy working on so was keen to lure her over into the wonderful world of German engineering. With her enthusiasm for eventually getting back into riding and owning horses, the criteria was a 4wd with enough ground clearance to at least not get stuck in a paddock, and something capable of towing a horse float. Easy enough. I wanted to keep it in the familiar era of the early 2000's so quickly narrowed the search down to E83 X3's & E53 X5's. The V8 was never an option and despite my love for the M54, I felt that in a big lump of an SUV (SAV?) it might be a bit underpowered and too thirsty, so the legendary M57 became the preference. Not an awful lot of them around as it turns out, and all close to or above 300k on the clock. One 306k example had popped up, went to check it out and although I was impressed with the drive and feel, I decided against it due to the shoddy aesthetics - passenger door handle was missing, a bunch of interior trims were quite worn, the steering wheel was sticky and disgusting and some underbody plastics being held in place with self tappers and wood screws. The condition was reflected in the price but since the car is meant to be for the better half, I'd have wanted it to be a bit nicer. I then went back to a FB Marketplace listing I had saved a while earlier. The ad had been up for a good number of months, the asking price was essentially double that of the car I test drove but was well presented and looked heaps tidier. Before I got around to texting the owner though, the exact same car popped up on a TM $1 reserve auction with a "FUEL INJECT. SYSTEM" error on the dash and a crank no start condition. Despite numerous messages and requests for a viewing, the seller never replied so I was left bidding blind. Not ideal but it is what it is. I figured I'd go low enough that I could recoup the investment through parting it out if need be, and after brief bidding war I emerged victorious at a price I was happy enough to gamble. The next day, I recruited a mate to help out with towing duties, hooked up our rally car trailer that was barely big enough for the job, huffed and puffed pushing the 2 tonne beast onto it and carted the new family member home. And there she is - 2004 E53 X5 3.0d with 288,600 km's on the clock. Overall looks really tidy, the body is straight with a few paint imperfections here and there but still presents really well. I do love the facelift design, doesn't look at all dated even at 20 years old, in my eyes anyway. Interior is in great condition too with the only blemish that stands out is the passenger door arm rest leather coming apart. Even comes with an Android headunit, which is pretty handy. The biggest drawback, for the wife in any case, is the lack of heated seats, although that's something I can try and rectify at a later date. All of that counts for nothing though unless I can get her up and running again. The car had sat since July, the battery had gone completely flat to the point even the gear indicator light wouldn't come on. Took 2 days of charging to get the battery back to full charge but I suspect it might be too far gone anyway and a replacement will be the first item on the shopping list. Ran out of weekend before I could start properly digging into it but did get the battery charged up enough to pull some codes. Definitely something to do with fuel delivery. Whether the code for fuel pressure regulating points to the regulator being faulty I'm not entirely sure. I've learned that these cars have a total of 3 fuel pumps - a low pressure in-tank pump; an inline pump and a high pressure pump - and it could be either one of the 3. Will need to do more research on whether any of the codes might help pinpoint the culprit more accurately. The glow plugs should be easy enough to replace and definitely on the list of preventative maintenance I'm aiming to take care of. Whether the glow control unit is also a common failure point I'll need to also look into. Another suggestion I found was that the fuel sender unit may have gone bad, the gauge would still show there being fuel in the tank but it wouldn't be making its way over to the pump side from the opposite side of the "saddle", causing a fuelling issue. The fuel needle did indicate barely a fifth of a tank so could be plausible. I'll try pour some 20L of diesel in it and see what happens. Would be pretty funny if that's the cause of the issue but I don't dare hope to be so lucky. On the running gear side, a few codes could be a cause for concern, namely the transfer case code for oil abrasion and gearbox shutdown code due to overtemperature. Will see how she feels once she's running and driving but servicing those two will definitely be on the list. Will take some time on the weekend to dig into it proper, see how far I get with the diagnosis and start putting together a shopping list of parts. Pretty excited for my first diesel experience. Time will tell how much of a bargain it turns out to be. Long live the Family Tractor.

From what I gather, it's not ethanol that's problematic. NPD 100 supposedly doesn't include ethanol anyway... The problematic bit is the additive N-Methylaniline. To quote from the report linked below, it “promoted soot formation in cylinders, injection and exhaust valves leading to mechanical abrasion when applied in concentrations above 1.5%.” According to the NPD 100 data sheet it makes up 2-3%. https://www.sustainablefuels.eu/assets/uploads/2018/10/Harmful_Chemicals-2.pdf I don't doubt it will perform better, but it might come at the cost of increased engine wear.

Well, nevermind. Started doing victory laps way too soon. Took a detour on my way home from work along the motorway. All was looking well until all of a sudden... Back to square 1.

Haven't seen an update on the ol' compact in a while. Guessing you've gotten it all certified by now? Ohh damn, I do remember reading that thread a while ago but wasn't considering using it at the time so my brain didn't retain any specifics. N-methyl aniline seems to be the problematic substance, supposedly causing carbon deposits and swelling of rubber seals. There's this disclaimer on the NPD website claiming discoloration of plastics to be the main side effect (if exposed to UV light). Had a skim through the BP 98 datasheet and sure enough it doesn't have it as an ingredient. NPD 100 BP 98 No idea if any of that other stuff is good or not. Would have assumed there's be lawsuits piling up if engines were exploding left and right. Then again that disclaimer is probably enough to shield them from liability. That thread probably deserves a revival. It's been 3 years since its introduction to the NI, assuming there's a good number of people out there using it in BMW's, keen to hear of any actual long term, real world repercussions. FWIW, we've exclusively used NPD 100 in our Subaru rally car for a good few years now without any issues... But then again it only ever sees off road use, has a metal fuel tank and the engine is dyno tuned specifically for use with that fuel so not really applicable to the use case at hand.