Vass

No, I didn't. Not sure if you need to? The guide I followed claimed they would fill right up once you go on a proper drive and the oil pressure builds up. Bit of lifter tick at first is normal.

Not N47 ones but M54 ones, yes. Not sure if they're the same or similar. Just used vise grips to hold the wee bucket and pull it out of the lifter, then disassemble and clean out. Pretty straightforward.

Bummer man, hopefully no damage done to any of the mods you've fitted and easily transferred over to the new(er) motor. Long road ahead but super rewarding no doubt, keen to keep following the journey. Honestly I'm a bit puzzled and impressed by how you've managed to fund and execute such a build whilst still being a uni student? Only car I could (barely) afford to keep going back in my uni days was an old rustbucket Nissan Primera, and even that was a hand-me-down from the parents 😅 How do you do it?

Yeah interesting that. Just looked it up on that page and it gives E2067140_7 as the 6-cylinder touring part number but then any vendor site seems to lists them without that final digit. Demon Tweeks where I ordered mine from listed those springs as compatible to all chassis types (except the compact maybe, didn't pay that much attention). Just lumped 4 passengers into the car for a day trip to Akaroa, looked at how pressed up into the arches the rear tyres looked even before rolling out of the driveway and decided to take the missus' Outback instead. Would not have been a pleasant experience. I think I'll keep the fronts but throw in the old springs in the rear before setting off on the longer road trip down south in the coming week, might then look to try out the H&R's further down the track. Would have to be next year's project though, have well and truly exhausted my toy allowance for a good while.

Thanks mate! That's a solid bit of analysis there and I reckon the right conclusion. When it's time to change tyres 245's is what I'm going with. Still heaps of life left in the current tyres though so will try and get my money's worth out of them before the switch. I believe the Eibach spring were one-size-fits-all solution for the E46 unfortunately so that might be part of the issue. Obviously with E46-specific Style 68's the rubbing is not an issue as @adro can attest to but with different offset rims and wider tyres I really am pushing my luck. Interesting thing is, the original Touring springs I took out (I've referred to them as Msport springs a number of times now but actually still don't know if they even had separate Msport ones or they're just regular Touring-specific, RealOEM doesn't seem to give me part numbers for springs for some reason) are actually shorter than the new Eibach ones. I guess they might just be that much stiffer...? Good news is I took the car for a good run up to Kaikoura today, a round trip of roughly 400km and with -2.5° camber and the trimming-bashing I'd done, the rubbing is now greatly reduced. Had my ~100kg dad sit in the rear left seat and there was only 4-5 instances where any sort of rubbing occurred, those being over really pronounced rough patches in the road, most other situations where rubbing had occurred previously it now handles without issues. I reckon with just myself or 1 other passenger in the car (which is likely to be the scenario 90% of the time going forward) the rubbing will be very minimal. Will take the wheels off in the next few days and check where the remaining rubbing has migrated to. Might be able to trim back or bash in those areas some more. All in all, another awesome road trip with the folks. Went up to Kaikoura through Mt Lyford and back down along the coast. Had never taken that route up before, a good 30 minute detour but well worth it! Encountered very little traffic along the way, awesome views and delightfully twisty roads throughout, got to put her through her paces nice and proper. Also, to revive the Akebono debate somewhat, don't want to jinx it but I'm very much enjoying them. I do get where you were coming from in regards to the reduced initial bite but I feel like I've adjusted pretty well. You do need to press down quite hard if you want to stop in a hurry but overall I've found the pedal feel to be pretty much linear and predictable. They've handled some spirited driving quite well, no squeaking or fading and the wheels are still nice and clean. Feels like an solid upgrade in every way switching from the old rusty rotors and pads anyway.

Spoke too soon on the rattle front, must not have been VANOS related as it re-emerged again at startup this morning. Pretty much out of ideas as to what else it could be at this point. Weirdly, the rattle either isn't there or isn't noticeable when the car's been sitting in the garage overnight or for a few days, only when it's been parked outside for even a short while. Absolutely no clue. It is only mild and very hard to capture on video so can't even convey it properly. Guess I'll just have to live with it and hope it's not terminal. Took the car for an alignment this morning, went with the closest shop to home this time which happens to be a Bridgestone Tyre Centre barely a km down the road. Oh boy... Brought it in having written down the specs to aim for: -2.5° camber at the rear, 0 toe and just a checkup of the front end. Also wrote down the torque spec for the trailing arm bolts to chassis - 77Nm - to save them the hassle of looking those up. Even left 24mm & 27mm wrenches that I had just bought specifically for the camber arms on the passenger seat. Pick the car up a couple of hours later, tech said he got it pretty close to what I wanted and all seemed to be tracking straight during the test drive. Took a short detour on the way home and noticed a feint clunk coming from the right rear when going over imperfections in the road surface so decided to check things over. Good thing I did. Left camber arm outer jam nut completely loose. Right camber arm inner jam nut completely loose. 5 of the trailing arm bolts needed a good 10-20° to get to 77Nm. The remaining one on the right side trailing arm was completely loose and needed a good 2-3 full turns. Don't think I'm ever getting over my trust issues at this rate. Thank f**k I'm mechanically minded and caught onto it having only driven 2-3km. I seriously shudder to think of how many cars might be out there in everyday use that are absolutely unsafe to drive. Aunty Sharon could be out there happily tooting around, oblivious to the very real possibility of one of the wheels on her trusty Corolla all of a sudden deciding to start pointing sideways at any given moment. Seriously, am I stupid or is this borderline criminal negligence? 2 wheel alignments in a row. WTF is going on!? I've now got a theory as to what happened the first time around when it was BMW, in that instance the loose jam nut was the inner one on the left camber arm - the one with the tricky access due to the exhaust pipes being in the way. When I picked the car up, I remember the fuel economy on the cluster display reading something like 17L/100km so they must have left the car idling the whole time they were working on it for some stupid reason. Then when the time came to tighten everything up, the exhaust pipes would have gotten nice and hot, they wouldn't have wanted to go near there so either just left it or forgot to come back to it. This time around it was simply incompetence/inexperience. Still a bit rattled, I tightened everything up and went back for a chat. Didn't really want anything but felt that this was f**ked up enough that I couldn't just leave it be without speaking up. Explained to the guy what I'd discovered and how this could have ended very badly had I not checked. He was genuinely surprised and offered to check it over again if a had a spare hour. I didn't. He said that he nearly refused to take the job on as he'd never worked on BMW's or cars with a similar trailing arm setup before but then got help from a more experienced mechanic who walked him through the process, checked over and approved his work. The trailing arm bolts he had simply tightened with a rattle gun and tightened the jam nuts by putting his whole body weight on the wrench, mimicking how he'd done it, leaning onto the wrench with both hands. He had quite a puzzled expression when I told him he also had to have a wrench holding the rod in place when doing so. I'm no mechanic but you really don't need to be one to figure out how these things work. "Wheel Alignment Specialists" my ass. Got a call back from them a few hours later offering to give me a good deal on tyres and a voucher for a hot drink or something to make up for it. Thanks. Don't even know what the moral of the story is here. Trust no-one...? Short drive going out to dinner with 3 passengers on board later that night, no sign on rubbing so far but don't want to jinx it. Longer test tomorrow with a day trip to Kaikoura on the cards. See how she goes.

Awesome concept but those rear side windows just look all sorts of wrong. Way too big and out of proportion, makes it look like a hearse. Almost need another pillar to break those up.

Thanks but that's not what I want to hear right now I'm at my last throw of the dice as far as making these springs work at this point. Didn't have rubbing issues on the previous setup. The main differences between old and new are the solid subframe bushes that raise the subframe closer to the body somewhat. Not sure by how much but those are staying regardless. The rims & tyres are new but the old Style 194's were exactly the same offset and with 255/40R17's on them were the same width and diameter as the new 255/35R18's to the millimetre. All that leaves is the new Eibach springs. I'm going for another wheel alignment tomorrow morning, will have them tweak the rear camber to -2.5° (-2.0° is BMW spec and you're allowed to be 0.5° beyond that when going for cert). Having now trimmed the bumpers and arches back a little more and bashed in the inner layer of the guards somewhat, will see if the extra bit of camber will remedy the rubbing. Can't say I'm overly optimistic. If that doesn't solve it then will throw in the old Msport springs in time for cert. Would love to keep matching springs front and rear but it is what it is.

Ordered the 15mm spring pads Thursday, got them in the mail last Tuesday, threw them in on Wednesday. Felt nice and beefy the pads which made me hopeful. Just to be safe, also kept the bottom spring pad doubled up and slightly trimmed back the inner side of the rear bumper and guard lip where they looked to be rubbing against the tyres. Whilst underneath the car I gave everything a quick look over and discovered a jam nut on the left rear camber arm completely loose. Obviously wasn't best pleased, having gone on a 900km road trip the weekend just past in a car that was essentially unsafe to drive. Although no harm done, this just isn't good enough from any professional service, especially with what BMW charged me for an alignment. Access to that particular nut is a bit tricky with the exhaust in the way but I easily managed to get to it with an open ended 27mm wrench at a slight angle and tightened it up. Called BMW up the next day to voice my displeasure. The service rep was very attentive and apologetic, he remembered the car and offered to bring it back in for a checkup. I didn't feel like wasting my time at that point as I'd already tightened the nut myself and the car feeling fine driving into work that morning so declined. He asked if there was anything else they could do to help out so I mentioned that I would need another alignment in a month's time before going for cert so he offered to have that done free of charge, so I have that lined up at least. Anyway, the thicker spring pads looked to have raised the rear by more than the 10mm I was expecting, even looks a bit raked now but did even out the arch gaps front and rear. Drove fine and no rubbing at first, but with 4 people in the car, the suspension settled again and the rubbing returned over bumps and slow right turns, although not as severe as before. More tinkering was required. Trimmed back the bumper and inner lip a tad more, gave the top inner edge of the guard a little bash and gave the camber arms 2 full turns (8 x 1/4 turns). Then took on another little side-mission rebuilding another VANOS unit with new seals but leaving the insides of the pistons alone this time. Dropped the housing off at a machine shop for a wash, cleaned up the rest of the bits, gave the insides of the bores a quick polish following Mr. M539's example and resealed the pistons. VANOS unit bolted up, I went to tighten up the solenoids but discovered there's not enough clearance to get the exhaust one without bashing in the radiator so created another custom tool for the collection - a short handle 32mm spanner. Cleared adaptations and went for a lap around the block. First signs seemed promising. Did only have just the one startup thus far but if that was anything to go by then I might be onto the source of the rattle. Must have crushed the needle bearings inside the pistons when installing the anti-rattle rings. The ABS trifecta lights lit up right after setting off though. Pulled over, reset the steering angle calibration but the trifecta came right back as soon as I started moving. Probably due to my tinkering with the camber arms knocking the toe out of whack and the wheel speed sensors reporting contradicting speeds. The axles didn't feel happy either with a a thump from the rear when pressing down clutch. Didn't expect the extra bit of camber to affect the toe that much but it has rendered the car virtually undriveable for the moment so will still need another alignment in the meantime. Will look to get one booked in first thing in the morning. The throttle felt a bit weird with some random surging in revs going on but probably down to having cleared adaptations and the VANOS seals needing some breaking in. Also got a couple of weird codes I hadn't seen before so parked her up for the night. 5E19 - CAN DME/DDE, engine torque not adjustable D3 [211] - Idle speed control valve, mechanical fault, jammed open Not sure what that's about, hopefully a longer drive sorts it out. Will be happy to have the startup rattle resolved though. Fingers crossed.

I ordered a cheap endoscope off Aliexpress for all of $7 US, the USBc type with a phone app. Only used it just once so far but worked surprisingly well for how ridiculously cheap it was. A great little gadget to have on hand. I'm a sucker for a good deal off Aliexpress in general. Not the highest quality stuff obviously but great for small items you'll only use occasionally. Some other notable ones are a fuel pump lock ring tool, hose pliers, little brushes, pry & pick tools, specialty pliers etc, all for around $10/each or less. Oftentimes see the same stuff rebranded and sold for 3x the price locally. Think I paid $200 for mine around 4-5 years ago. Lifetime replacement though. I've only broken a 3/8 one so far, and that was probably my own stupidity, trying to break loose a bolt that was too big and done up too tight for it. Yeah a bit of a clunky one that. Still has its uses though. Was doing the valve cover yesterday, came in very handy and got into places an impact driver wouldn't have. I got a mate an AEG one as a thanks for helping out with some welding just recently, feels more robust and is more compact with a different battery orientation. Pricy though, both skins and batteries are roughly twice the price of Ryobi. Have had 3 x 4Ah & 1 x 9Ah batteries for around 3 years without issues. Your mileage obviously varies though. I've also got a little collection of custom speciality tools going. Thin 18mm spanner for doing up front sway bar links Short handle 32mm spanner for doing up the front VANOS solenoid without bashing in the radiator Deep wall 32mm socket for the rear subframe mounting studs Starter mounting bracket to test run the engine without the gearbox attached

I'm a sucker for an E30. I'm a sucker for a touring I'm a sucker for a black Bimmer. Ticks all my boxes. Barbara could do with an older sibling. It's not even priced that badly. I'm still a good number of years off from being able to justify owning one though. I just hope that something like this (or this exact one) becomes available again when I get there.

Ohhhh lord, this is dreams! https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/4406638080?bof=K62wTdXG

Might not be pro grade of course but most of my arsenal I've bought from Supercheap, almost exclusively when something's on sale. A big toolkit suitcase when it was 50% off has been getting me 90% of the way there for the past 3-4 years now. Most things Toolpro are lifetime replacement warranty. Had a 3/4 ratchet fail on me, walked into the store and came away with a brand new one 3 minutes later, didn't even ask for a receipt or anything. Latest addition is a set of ratchet spanners when they were on sale for sub-$100 a few months ago. They always have a few days around Christmas/Boxing Day where it's 50% off storewide so always worth a punt. Then I have an assortment of random spanners, deep wall & impact sockets, 3/4 & 1/2 extensions & swivel attachments that I've sourced whenever the situation required it. Good to plan ahead and have everything on hand when you need it of course but then you might be spending hundreds of extra monies on kit you never end up using. Power tool wise I've also jumped into the Ryobi universe, found it to be the best bang for the buck with a very extensive selection of tools available. The electric ratchet has been handy to have in many a situation. The impact wrench paired with a 9Ah battery handles most things thrown at it. I've taken off an M54 crank bolt without issues. Only thing it couldn't handle so far was the 46mm front hub nut. Had to borrow the services of my mate's AEG impact - that thing is an absolute brute (1550Nm tightening torque!), and costs accordingly. Otherwise, I've found Ryobi great for hobbyist use. Probably not tradie standard but if you take reasonable care if the tools and not throw them around needlessly then they'll last. Haven't had anything fail on me so far (knock on wood) and also have a whole lawn care suite so get plenty of use out of the battery collection I've got going.

Could be worth it if you get a whole crash damaged 325/525i as a donor and use it to transplant everything over, and do all the work yourself. Would be quite involved so you'd have to be really keen for a project. If you're buying just an engine and paying a shop to do the work then it'll never be worth it. In either case, unless there's anything that's uniquely desirable about the particular body/chassis, it'll be much cheaper & easier to just sell up and buy a ready made 325i, or better yet a 330i if you can find one. But then what's the fun in that...

Are the undertrays just taken off for the picture or you're not running any at all? Won't be looking as clean and shiny for too long without them.

Feel like I'd only be telling a partial story if I didn't spill the beans on an assortment of mishaps I've had during the wrench-a-thon of the past month. Some might be funny, some educational but all due to lack of mental sharpness from a combination of overwork and undersleep. Starting off light, I already mentioned forgetting to prime the front shocks when first assembling them. What I didn't mention is that when I took the springs off, ran the shocks through their full range of motion 3-4 times and reassembled them again, they came out looking like this: Stared at them for a minute comparing shaft thicknesses (...) with the old B6's before noticing the bump stop-dust boot combo laying on the floor next to the toolkit. Apart they came again. Then of course threw on the dust boots upside down on the rear shocks as well - just took them out the package the way they were facing for shipping and on they went. Luckily, caught both of those things before any of the components went onto the car... unlike the previous owner. Front dust boots had crumbled old bump stops crammed into them, causing the boots to crumple up and jam up against the top of the strut mount and doing sweet f**k all to protect the shaft from the elements. Evidently, the B6's have internal bump stops so all they need is a dust boot. The rear shocks were completely shot, dust boots were put on upside down and one of the strut mount bolts was threaded on barely finger tight, which might explain the clunk I'd been experiencing when switching into reverse. Top notch craftsmanship. As a final task one late night I got onto assembling the front hub knuckles. First one came together pretty well: cup ring - dust shield - wheel bearing - lock ring and voila. Having gotten the knack of it and all the tools laid out, I wanted to quickly throw together the second one and call it a night. Cup ring - wheel bearing - dust sh... f**k. I knocked it all the way down to the base of the shaft before realising what I had done. The old wheel bearings had all come off cleanly in one piece so they don't jam on there too tightly. This new one wasn't as loose though. I managed to gently pry it all the way to the tip until the inner race jammed on and refused to come off the rest of the way. Felt like if I put any more force on it then the wheel bearing would separate, leaving the inner race still attached, which could potentially compromise the bearing and mean shelling out a not insignificant amount for a new one straight away. Called it a night and gathered my thoughts the next morning. Tried a few more things before coming up with the idea of putting on a bearing puller tool backwards and using it as a sort of slide hammer against the surface of the inner race. After a few tries it luckily came off still intact. Lucky escape. Having gotten the hubs, brakes and axles assembled, I chucked on the wheels and dropped the car down for the first time. Next thing was to torque up the inner ends of the camber arms and spring perches to the rear subframe but with the suspension yet to settle and sitting quite high up, I recruited a mate to sit in the boot to bring the rear down closer to actual ride height. I crawled under and positioned myself in place, torque wrench in hand and shouted out for the mate to "jump in". Little did I know that he would take the command too literally... Next thing I hear was a thump followed by a loud OOWWWWW. No idea what possessed him to do what he did but from where he was sitting on the hatch sill, he just rolled himself backwards as if he was scuba diving off the side of a boat and plunked himself straight onto the stud holding down the spare wheel. Right to the middle of his spine, taking out a decent chunk of skin and leaving a nasty gash. Bloody hell dude! Didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Took a bit of convincing him to at least put a band aid on it, the trooper. Luckily nothing more than a surface level wound and the stud got bent right back into shape as well. Then onto the dumbest and scariest episode. Late Sunday night, having slaved away the whole day tidying up the last niggly bits - putting on brakes, axles, driveshaft, heat shields, exhaust - I was really excited and keen to finally drive the car home. Dropped her down on her wheels, rechecked the fluids, bled the coolant, power steering and doing some final checks, I brought the car up to temp, loaded up as many boxes of old parts and tools that I could grab in a hurry and proceeded to head home. Having barely gotten past my mate's front gate out onto the street, the ABS trifecta lit up. Figured the sensors must have gone out of whack with everything being disconnected and the steering angle sensor needing recalibrating. Pulled over straight away and grabbed my coding computer to jump onto PA Soft. Whilst that was booting up, I casually glanced at the instrument cluster and nearly shat myself. f**k. After all that... had I just cooked it!? f**k. f**k f**k f**k. Clocked the coolant temperature at 112°. I sat there, head in my hands for a good 10 minutes, not knowing what to do. The clock had ticked past 10:30pm so nothing good was going to come from the rest of the night anymore. With the car somewhat cooled down, I decided that driving the 100 meters back into the garage won't hurt much more beyond the damage already done. Still monitoring the temperatures, as soon as I started the car, the temps dropped down to 90° straight away. By the time I rolled into the garage, they'd dropped again down to 78°. Must be an air pocket! Disheartened but somewhat hopeful, jumped in the trusty Swift and sped off home, still trying to unpack what had happened. By the time I got to bed, I might have figured out why the ABS lights had gone off - I took out the rear wheel speed sensors when installing the axles to avoid potentially damaging them and must have forgotten to slide them back into place. Then, already half asleep, I threw myself into another slight state of panic having all of a sudden remembered that I'd forgotten to properly torque up the wheel nuts after putting the car down from the lift, having only rattled them on with an impact wrench at the lowest setting. Turned out the ABS lights may have saved me a bigger disaster. The next (Monday) morning (hooray for Labour Day) I went back and took a good half a day checking over everything I had touched on the car. Sure enough... Reattached those, torqued down the wheels and rechecked all fluids. Also discovered a hose clamp on one of the power steering hoses to the reservoir was completely loose and slowly weeping fluid onto the alternator. Another reason I was glad I hadn't driven all the way home the previous night. Went for a second go at a test drive, keeping an eye on the temperatures throughout. They jumped up and down for a while, up to 107° then down to 90° before settling nicely between 95-99° after a dozen kilometers. Have been monitoring the temperatures every time I've driven it since - having an Android headunit helps, don't even have to hook up an OBD dongle, instead it takes them through CANBUS. Maximum it's gotten to is 101°, where it sits steadily when cruising at 100kph at just over 2.5k RPM on the motorway, then weirdly drops down to as low as 80° when giving it beans, even going uphill. Must be due to increased airflow and higher RPM's pushing the water pump harder. Thinking back to it, I wonder whether the temperatures jumping around like that is just what happens every time without us being aware of it... The only reason my temp needle started going up was because I had coded the buffer to be more sensitive to temperature changes. The maximum I'd caught the temperature at was 112°. With factory coding, the needle would not have even moved beyond dead center in that instance. Think I'd rather be scared than sorry still.

Yeah the top of the touring bumper is cut back to accommodate the hatch. Not sure if there's much of a market for them so wouldn't imagine replacements are easy to come by. Quite like how the M3 style one fits on sedans/tourings. Saw one in the flesh when I was over in Europe a few months ago, would love that on mine.

Yeah I've gone with 255/35R18 at the rear. Probably should have just stuck with 245's. Figured it'd be fine since the old 17" Style 194's also had 255's at the back but the slight drop from the Eibachs must have taken them just beyond the comfort limit. If the thicker pads don't fix it then I might actually just throw on the old Msport rear springs for the duration on the upcoming road trip and dial it in properly afterwards.

Got up to Nelson for the weekend. Went up along the coast through Kaikoura & Blenheim and back down inland through Lewis Pass. Awesome scenic drive with nice bits of twisties along the way. Ticked over 230,000km along the way. Car behaved really well throughout, held the road really well, tracked nice and straight with no weird clunks or vibrations, an absolute joy to drive. Can't feel any noticeable NHV from the solid subframe bushes and even the monoball trailing arms don't feel too bad going over bumps or sharp edges with the new shocks. Definitely not the sportiest setup with some body roll felt in quicker corners but ride comfort was always going to be prioritised over stiffness and I cannot fault it at all. Forgot to mention before that I also threw in a 25mm Z4 front sway bar that I got off a mate. Don't think I could make out any real difference but I'm sure it also helps. Only real issue throughout was the rubbing from the rear tyres, mostly the left side one for some reason. The rear really does look to droop a wee bit, although the side skirts sit parallel to the ground. Ordered in a pair of 15mm ÜRO spring pads from RockAuto, should arrive during the coming week and will throw them in straight away. Whilst in Nelson, I cut up the old set of pads and threw them in as spacers to make the drive back south a bit less stressful. Seemed to work at first but after a while the suspension settled again or the springs pressed themselves into the pads a bit deeper and the rubbing became as bad as before. Mostly looks to be rubbing at the rear and into the inner edge of the bumper and actually managed to eat away at it quite a bit. Will try and fold the lip in a little bit more towards the rear and trim back the bumper somewhat. Might also leave in an extra spacer pad even after installing the 15mm upper spring pad. Will still probably need to tweak the camber somewhat. I hear that it's allowed to be half a degree beyond spec when going for cert so that's probably where I'll take it. As far as teething issues go, that's pretty mild in my book so cannot complain. Apart from the rubbing, cannot fault the car at the moment, couldn't be happier with how it rides and really pleased to finally have it at a point where I can just enjoy driving it. Will be eating up plenty more km's in the coming month.

In the same boat with my front bumper, all shagged so I'm looking at getting an M3-style bumper from this fella at some point - https://oscardistributors.com/collections/e46-bmw/products/e46-m3-style-bumper-to-suit-coupe-sedan?variant=40105130918022 Currently out of stock but should be more in soon. Claims to both fit coupes and sedans which I thought were different but decent value if true. No idea on the rears. Would be keen to know if there's better options out there ordering from overseas too.

Not sure if the subframe bushes are the same on a ti but I've got a full set of OE subframe bushes as well as RTAB ones + limiters that I haven't gotten round to throwing up for sale yet if you want them. Bought this whole set before deciding to go with solid subframe bushes and monoball RTABs. Not a sales pitch but every bushing in my old subframe had cracks through them to a greater or lesser degree so you'll be glad you've done them.

Hey I just had a thought. Can't remember if you've mentioned it but I'm assuming you're going to be putting this car through the cert process once it's all done. Have you checked with your certifier regarding driveshaft hoops? I just booked myself in for cert today and remembered the conversation I had the guy regarding the topic, was told that hoops are required if you're modifying the driveshaft or if you're increasing power by 50% from stock. I'm dodging the bullet as the power increase from 2.5L to 3.0L doesn't go near the threshold but in your case it might be a requirement. Could be possible to negotiate around it since the same chassis did come with bigger engines and you'll have the driveshaft to match but worth checking anyway. Easier to get the hoops put in if they end up being required during the build process rather than to have to dig back into it later on. You're probably all over it seeing how thorough you are but thought it worth mentioning on the off chance it's a caveat you've missed.

Hahah just called them up. Would have to order them in from Germany, 3+ week wait and, get this - they cost $402+GST. Each. Christ on a bike. Even the guy in the parts department cracked up laughing at the absurdity of it. Just found a set of ÜRO ones for $30/each on RockAuto, $100 for a pair after shipping and taxes. Might just pull the trigger on that, FedEX shipping should be pretty speedy and would be good to have on hand anyway. Don't have any spare new ones but could cut up and stack up the old ones, at least in the meantime, hopefully I haven't thrown them out yet... Thanks guys, looks like I have a couple of options on a solution.

Yeah good shout! I just have a stock set on. Might try that out actually, would be the quickest solution and even out the arch gaps a little bit - the front gap is still noticeable whilst there's barely anything in the rear. What's the best place to get some thicker ones in a hurry without paying exuberant shipping fees? My folks are here next Thursday already, would be great to get it sorted by then but probably pushing my luck unless some are available locally. Edit: bloody hell, that is absolutely mental. 80 EUR for a slab of rubber!?

Hahah will see. Might give them a call closer to the time and lock in a price for just a quick recheck and printout. Bit concerned about the rubbing though. If it's already catching on something with the car empty then what's gonna happen with 4 people and a boot full of luggage in the next few weeks... Can tweak some more camber on but then it'll have to be back within spec for cert hahah. Will see how it behaves on the open road tomorrow. If it's not too bad then might just put up with it for a month and a bit and sort it properly after cert. Could just be something obvious at the rear left like a bit of plastic arch lining protruding so would be an easy fix.