Cement

Doing the sunroof delete shortly(ish) and got the new black headliner plus A/B/C pillars all in black to replace the existing grey interior. Might take the opportunity to recover everything before it goes in but would like a perfect match if possible for the OEM fabric. Anybody had good experiences and can recommend where to get such things ? Looking at you @Sammo

Super cool !! Everybody getting their feature on the 'tube lately

Got the new Orange Pi and cables etc, completed the mounting of the screen into the console and its all looking good. The Pi with NVMe SSD and 8 faster cores is so much faster than the Raspberry Pi ... loads quickly and the dashboarding is really responsive now. Might even need to slow up the update frequency or apply some moving average to chill it out a bit. Still plenty to do in this space: Make some filler panels for the sides of the screen Wire up the back lighting brightness to the OEM cable that used to go to the auto trans indicator lighting Connect up the screens touch feedback so I can switch dashboards with a touch or swipe (overview, detailed, performance etc) Configure a button or switch to tell Arduino if it should be polling the ECU for metrics over CAN or not (only needed for some dash types)

So satisfying to see you got absolutely maximum value out of that clutch 😂

Pretty happy with the steering wheel overall, great product I have to say !! Only issues were my own making ... the top section is 2 stitches out of alignment front to back 😫 Where I started on the left came out mint however never checked the alignment until I got to the centre mark, which is now on the piss haha.

Very cool to have the car represented on the 'tube ... watched a few of this guys videos just now and the intro has startled me every time 🤣

Something else that's been on the list to get sorted ... steering wheel with controls on it for a future head unit (really want the Blaupunkt Frankfurt) and the cruise buttons for my ECU map changing (will need some K line to resistance ladder magic I think !?). So I got a wheel from Ebay and to add a little spice I got a Mewant genuine leather cover for it also. I think this will be the very first cosmetic thing done to the car !! 🤪 Keeping it pretty simple, perforated and solid leather with a grey centre marker.

Not a whole lot to report on this project of late in terms of pictures but have been chipping away: Simplified the dash to not include the CAN derived metrics so I get faster updates Ordered an Orange Pi 5 to replace the Raspberry as its not grunty enough to update more frequently Ordered some right angle plug ribbon cables so I can get the screen mounted in the console https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071G7P33P Ordered some really neat power control modules designed for automotive use, this will signal the Pi to shutdown cleanly and then remove power when ignition goes off https://www.tindie.com/products/picotouch/raspberry-pi-automatic-onoff-v30-new-version/

Got the wiring all sorted now and there is no more dummy data going to the screen ... just have to sort out the vacuum sensor I have on the crank case as its readings are bogus. Used 1500 ohm resistors to make voltage dividers for the two temperature sensors. This selection is based on wanting a fairly linear relationship (resistance to temperature) around the 90 degree mark. The pressure / vacuum sensors all output a voltage which I can happily read with the Arduino so no issues there. I took the standard sensor wiring that was previously going to the gauges and added a separate 5V supply so things are more self contained where the wiring terminates and to reduce the load on the Arduino itself. Working on the screen mounting also and it should work fairly well. Need to order some slim line right angle HDMI and USB cables from Amazon to make it functional. Will 3D print some end caps so the screen has a flush look once finally installed. The update frequency is a little sluggish (maybe 2 or 3 Hz ?) due to the Raspberry Pi not having enough juice to drive the Grafana dashboard in the browser. I will likely look to switch to something with more spice like the Orange Pi 5 which should be multiple times faster. Also still have to integrate the screens touch capability so I can switch between multiple dash views. Maybe throw a backup camera in the mix ? Who knows ...

Have given the go-ahead to make the roof and will be able to help out over a weekend in 2-4 weeks time ... exciting !!

Awesome, any details to share on how one gets a hold of, manufacturing technique and price etc ?

Should pool our resources Although I suspect everybody wants the same parts off it hah ... would love the rear end, rear fenders, front fenders, bonnet etc

It's NZ new but sunroof was not part of the priority list when I purchased... Just a good straight car for project base was the order of the day.

Ahhhh yes another side hustle project is gathering steam ... looking to do a sunroof delete consisting of a carbon roof 😬

General Bla I've been researching whats required to do a carbon roof on the E46 coupe and might document here in case others want to follow the same path including the required LVVTA certification etc. One or two might think this is over capitalising somewhat on the ex 318 so will also document my reasoning 🧐 Got sunroof, don't want sunroof Weight savings (mostly in the sunroof delete) Want black interior so would need to do a new head liner anyhoo ... yes, the tail wags the dog It's within the realm of the DIY'er Have the opportunity to help manufacture the roof itself via vacuum infusion Just looks cool !!! On Certification I'm always keen to do things properly so I got in touch with the LVVTA to see if there is any certification interest in replacing the skin. As there is no definitive information for this procedure they took it to their Technical Working Group (TWG) for consideration. After a bit of back and forth the below statement was arrived at which provides the framework for doing the job. "Based on the information provided, assuming that the procedure involves removing only the sunroof cassette and single layer of roof skin, that any spot-welded areas (particularly along the roof seams and apron areas) are either unaltered or restored to OEM specification using a compatible repair process, that the central roof bow is attached in a way that replicates the OE method of attachment, TWG are happy with the principle of this idea. However, the final approval must come from an LVV Certifier, and in addition to the above, they must be satisfied that the structure of the vehicle has not been altered by this modification beyond a safe tolerance of OE. They must also be satisfied that the bonding agents used to reattach the new roof skin are appropriate for the intended use." I've been in touch with my certifier and he has outlined the inspections he would need for this: After the steel skin has been removed and the hood bow fitted After the new roof goes on but before glass installed Once everything is completed The Process There are many videos on YouTube of people doing the procedure, some of the better ones are linked below. Showing the roof skin being a single layer coming off the structural members: https://youtu.be/GhTOA7Cl9fk?t=140 Showing a bit more of the overall process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmC-gooNM0M The official procedure from BMW for replacement of the M3 CSL roof can be found here, which will be the process of installation for me: https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e46-m3-csl-cou/repair-manuals/41-body/41-31-roof/4K9opCv What Next Need final confirmation the mold is indeed to suit the E46 coupe then I need to locate some spare cash. May take a little while until the next update but that's where things are at currently.

Got all of the data on screen now, just with fake readings for the soon to be converted gauge sensors. Got to get a bit of wire and related items to get the sensors supplied with 5V and then plumbed in to the Arduino. Have the console apart again to start looking at the screen mounting also.

Not a major thing, but a major impact when I've been starting the car with a jump pack for the last month !!! Soooooo good having a new battery

Nice one @LsBeema got to be happy with that ... did they do any tuning work or just the power runs ?

Made quite a bit of progress this weekend and now have the first 'polled' metrics displaying nicely. These are things that are not broadcast on the CAN network as they are not needed to be consumed by other modules in the car. Examples are oil temp, gas pedal position, air fuel ratios, intake air temp and injector duration. All of these thing in my case are coming from the Nissan ECM but there is no reason you can't do the same for the BMW or any other car for that matter. Have also tweaked some visuals on the temp graphs to display blue when 'too cold' then green for normal and red when cooked. Plenty of easy mucking about left to do here when frustrated with the harder work. For those curious, the rough process of reverse engineering has been: Set up some light weight Arduino code to listen on the Nissan CAN bus and setup basic filtration to NOT show messages destined to known ID's (the things broadcast under normal conditions like coolant temp). For me these are ID's 0x160, 0x180, 0x1f9, 0x182, 0x580, 0x551 and 0x6e2. Connect the ELM32 Bluetooth adapter to the diagnostic (OBD) port which I know works with the Android software on my phone which talks Nissan Consult 3 protocol ... no easy suite of OBD2 for me unfortunately. Go about connecting via the Android application to the dongle and ECM whilst 'sniffing' the CAN network via the Arduino. Turns out there are commands that need to be sent before you can query the parameters successfully, annoying. Go about logging data for a specific metric one at a time if possible via a custom 'dashboard' in the Android app. For example I setup a dash with ONLY the gas pedal position ... in the Arduino serial debug I can see the CAN messages that are being sent by the Android app as well as the reply from the ECM. Make note of the request payload and all of the responses plus what real world value they correspond with. For example to get the gas pedal position I know the request is sent to the ECM diagnostic ID of 0x7DF and the payload is {0x03, 0x22, 0x12, 0x0D, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00}. For this Nissan generation the ECM replies to ID 0x7E8 with the requested info. An example of the data recorded which allows a formula to be worked out is as below ... you will see the actual values are represented in the bytes that change ... for this metric its bytes 4 and 5 (starting at 0, from the left): 0.67v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x00,0x86,0x00,0x00} 1.05v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x00,0xD2,0x00,0x00} 1.50v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x01,0x2C,0x00,0x00} 2.23v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x01,0xBE,0x00,0x00} 2.81v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x02,0x32,0x00,0x00} 3.06v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x02,0x63,0x00,0x00} 3.70v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x02,0xE3,0x00,0x00} 4.03v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x03,0x26,0x00,0x00} 4.26v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x03,0x54,0x00,0x00} 4.42v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x03,0x75,0x00,0x00} 4.82v is represented by {0x05,0x62,0x12,0x0D,0x03,0xC3,0x00,0x00} So from there you can try and work out how its representing the 'real' value in the data. This is quite the ball ache to be fair !! I used Chat GPT like any good geek to try and avoid fully understanding what I am doing and it got fairly close. In the end the learning from trying to get Chat GPT to do it allowed me to manually muck around with the data and come up with the formula. Good job if you are still reading I won't keep you in suspense any longer, the calculation is (the cool shades guy is an 8 then a right bracket hah): int raw_value = (buf[4] << 😎 | buf[5]; float voltage = raw_value / 200.0; If we take our value of 4.26v buf[4] is 0x03 and buf[5] is 0x54 this would be effectively concatenating the hex values to get 0x0354 (in hex) which is 852 in decimal ... 852 / 200 = 4.26 ta daaaaaaaaa !! Anyhooooo some pictures are below and my source code can be had at the link below also ... its starting to get pretty wild, needs a big refactor at some stage !! https://github.com/david-morton/BMW_E46_Gauge_Cluster_Control

Dang i thought it was all done as there were no dates for this year last time I looked. Is it going to be regular through summer ? My car is definitely more an April fools kinda machine 🤣

I'm in the lower North Shore and would come to Orewa for a tootle 👍🚗

Got a great condition console (shout out to @Dogballs !!) to mount the screen in when the time is right. Good progress also after the ethernet shield arrived. Got things all connected and real data is now populating on the screen ... had some teething issues which have all been resolved now. Not sure if folks are interested in the technical aspects or just keen to see pretty pictures ? Let me know if there is interest else i'll just keep a high level speel going. Next up will be back to trying to request the more interesting data from the ECM which is not streamed by default. On to the pics ... Raspberry Pi mounted to the back of the screen with HDMI jumper installed (comes with screen). Arduino and 3x shields now plus power distribution to the side. Getting things up and running USB power adapters for screen and Pi

This is indeed what I seek Mr Balls ... what do you want for it ?

Nothing of any great news here ... ordered an ethernet shield for the Arduino as it dawned on me that I probably don't need anything more powerful once I remove the existing display which is in the glove box. So as a first cut I'll simply link the Arduino to the Pi directly via ethernet and send forth the information 🤓 The other benefit of using the Arduino over ESP32 will be it works at 5v already (instead of 3.3v) so I can wire up the sensors more easily. Might be a challenge getting some of the more fun information (A/F ratios say) from the Nissan ECU as its not published onto the CAN bus and instead I may have to try and get it into diagnostic mode and query the params instead or some such black magic. Good news is once I crack that nut I can also get any DTC codes and check light status. On the physical front I'm trying to get a hold of another console so I can look to get the screen mounted.

Looking for the console / trim in front of the shifter. Assume every model has the cigarette lighter in there ? If not prefer one which is a generic storage compartment. Only need one switch cubby for the ASC (which I likely remove anyhow since its non functional) ... so fewer switch compartments the better really. I will be mounting my wizzy 7.9" screen into the upper of this thing so no need for the sun glasses holder or what ever may be in that location.