Sammo

Seems really well sorted and a more realistic price than some recent ones... https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/auction-2613539262.htm?rsqid=c88cc489b91f4e65a3c2c8d31f529c30-001 Beautiful colour combo with the gold LMs / Blue paint and Dove Grey vadars. Edit: Just saw the plate and realised its a Bimmersport car

Looking forward to pics on the new coils and rims!

Hmmm - I'll keep an eye on it, will be back under there next weekend to do tranny and diff fluid.

Got a few bits done this weekend: New fuel filter - old one was original to car so had to cut the hoses off and get new ones. Don't recommend doing this on ramps, lucky I'm skinny ? Cleaned all oil and crap from underneath - having just done the oil filter housing gasket and valve cover gasket, it was a mess down there (car had been leaking a fair amount). Also had black sludge (looks like oil) down as far as gear box, no idea how oil could get that far back though? Clean now so will be able to see if it's something else. Replaced quarter window dry rotted lower rubber - much easier than I thought it would be thanks to an 'eraser wheel' on the drill to get rid of all the glue.

I prefer the Magnaflows i've watched on youtube - this is on M54's though - LS would sound badass with anything I'd imagine ?

I've been eyeing up a Magnaflow from Ebay for my E46 (dual 2.25" in and out) seem like good value and common enough that you can actually get plenty of sound clips on youtube of them...

Stunning car, great score and story. I'm sure it will cause a few headaches but will be 100% worth it.

Love my Orient Blue E46, but favorite colours that feel iconic to me would be: Estoril blue on an E36 M3 Delphin Grey(?) on an E30 mtech 2 coupe

Cheers mate! Yeah, hoping fuel filter plus 98 will make it that little bit stronger again. Then will do some research on MS43 tuning...

Weird, I swear mine does it too, not when i'm driving relaxed or flat out but when I'm accelerating and shifting around 75% pace... could be user error but 6 months later still does it at times. I feel like I have to be very deliberate with taking my foot right off before engaging the clutch. Manual converted when I got it, ZF, assume standard clutch and flywheel but no idea really.

So far, so good, got the Vanos seals, oil line and oil filter housing gasket all done. Not too hard at all really, even I didn't cock it up! Hardest thing was actually getting the old seals out from the vanos pistons without scratching the edges up, but would have been easier with a scalpel. I smoothed out a couple of scratches with 2000grit. Difference in 'tightness' in the cylinders with old vs new seals wasn't as massively different as I expected? Car feels strong, guess I'll take a while to break in the seals with the lockdown in place - definately easier to take off smoothly with less throttle input. Want to say it pulls a little cleaner from down low (placebo?) but car never felt weak with the 3.38 diff. Next step will be fuel filter and a fresh tank of 98 ? (had been using 95 up until now as I have a Z fuel card but have since given it to the wife). Pulleys and tensioners seem to be on the way out as well so another FCP order coming up ? VID_20200425_115911.mp4

Just binged the thread - so good! Looks like you've been through a few different corner lights - are the clears with 'more orange' inside (near bottom of page 3) different to the ones above that seem fully white? If that makes sense. I'm swapping my cracked clears out and have seen a few online that appear to have a bit of orange inside the clear housing (rather than just reflecting the orange bulb)... I like that look as find my clears too much like a blob of white...

Stunning car ? Is it Carbon black? Making me want a euro plate now.....

Got a week off work now (Managers and specialists encouraged to take 4 days AL in April...) so have a few projects to keep me busy. Vanos seals and oil line (Got the X8R kit with all gaskets / bolts etc) Oil filter housing gasket Fuel filter (current one 19 years old) MTF and diff oil change Looking forward to the challenge (to date Valve cover gasket is the 'hardest' thing I've done) and hoping to not break anything else while I'm doing it ? Wish me luck!

I've just finished the two seasons on Netflix of F1 - Drive to survive - I'm an F1 noob but found it really, really good. Gagging to watch some F1 now ?

Nice mate! I have an electric BIAB setup I put together a few years back and a 5 tap Keezer in the dungeon... Sadly, only one beer on tap at the moment but expecting some grain and hops tomorrow from Brewshop to get busy...

That's a no from me, dawg

$28k with 160k is pretty lol worthy. I do like them a lot though with the pop up headlights.

Yeah, can't imagine it's cheap to send a wheel back and forward to the US. Stitching is easy if you take your time - I actually just re-did my one as first time around I was a bit lazy, now its pretty mint. Takes a few hours including pulling the wheel off. I went black on black on purpose however - coloured stitching would show up any imperfection. Extra wheel thickness is great too ?

This Showroom thread mentioned using them - halfway down first page: I've wrapped a few steering wheels myself (with leather, not alcantara) from Ebay sellers (Mewant) and was genuinely surprised at the quality and fit. Pretty impressed, looks and feels pretty much OEM+ (if you do a good job stitching) and 100 x better than 15-20 year old leather. With an M3 however, might be worth going with the pros?

Thanks mate, as per Dogballs, think I'll hit up Ray at Hell BM once I get everything sorted ?

Hmmm... I'm guessing if I wanted a remapped DME while retaining all the security of EWS I would need to get my own DME mapped (as opposed to buying a wiped and rewritten one online to just swap in)? Anyone doing this in AKL? I'm doing my Vanos seals next week and would be interested in remapping afterward - just don't have a windows laptop / want to risk bricking my DME...

Both are reliable engines, cooling system being the achilles heel ?

For an E39 touring I think a 530i would be much better and doubt it would use any more gas. Cooling system Vacuum leaks Oil leaks Vanos seals Spend some money on preventative maintenance before you start dropping cash on stancing it out.

Cheers, much other benefit to a stock M54B30 - i.e. little more power? I'm less interested in the burble / higher redline stuff