Cement

The front caliper brackets finally arrived, look great ... definitely won't be breaking any time soon !! On the down side, fairly heavy as expected. Completed the drilling of the front rotor hat bolts ... lucky I got the drills for $1 each as I was only brave enough to use each drill for two holes. It was pretty sketchy and slow going but got there in the end with 'only' three broken drills and written off bolts.

Looks like you just need to keep going !! Possibly previous clear coat on one part and not the other giving different hardness ?

I went for the Toolshed own branded 1/2" and will be getting the 1/4" this week. Not flashy but the selling points for me were: Nice Nm only scale Legible 0-9 units around the twist barrel Comes calibrated, with certificate https://www.thetoolshed.co.nz/product/15319-toolshed-torque-wrench-1-2in-dr-30-210-nm <--- Pretty sure i didn't pay $219, would have gotten on a special 👍

So I got the aluminium hats on Friday as promised about ten minutes before having to leave for a weekend away. The brackets are still hung up with UPS locally for some obscure reason, which I need to sort on Monday. The hats look really good and fit up nicely Also had time to get one of the rear corners assembled ... the brackets did not centre the caliper spot on so I have spaced it over using some washers for now. Just need to adjust the parking brake and wire up the pad wear sensor and that corner is complete (bar bleeding). Fitted up with the too short bolts temporarily while I wait for the drills to finish up the proper fasteners.

Have been at the mercy of UPS India since the 25th of October when they got a hold of my brackets and hats from Protolabs !! Absolute sh*t show, with nothing but what I suspect are 'fake news' scans and updates (requesting more info from sender) while they sand bag and prioritise planes loaded full of plastic nonsense from Temu Anyhoooo it seems the parts have left at last and ETA is Friday but I'll believe that when I see it. In other news I got the fancy NAS fasteners I needed out of Australia (ones supplied with the bobbins were too short), have ordered 20x cobalt drills which were $1 each on clearance from Paykels (!!!) and the rear discs are at the engineers getting the retaining screw holes moved.

Damn it !! That really blows ... chart here says the 3.91 was in the 2.5l N52 model. http://tomic.ba/fs/cjenik/E83 Technik 0307.pdf

So I got my 3.91 ratio diff (https://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/69192-wtb-e46-mid-case-diff-or-ring-pinion-373-or-391/) and disassembled it, but the crown wheel looks to not actually measure 188mm as expected 😞It measures more like 168mm which would mean it's actually a small case. Does anybody know if the 188k should actually measure 188mm where I am measuring as pictured ? Stamped code on the ring gear is HK2V PE1 951 0615 which I can't seem to link much back to. @HELLBM are you able to link this item back to the vehicle it came out of or offer any guidance here ?

Essentially as subject says, looking to offload to a good home my sunroof which was removed when I replaced the roof. Pickup from the North Shore in Auckland 👍 Happy to take a box of Pal's

On the Raptor, what is the deal there ... they seem to have some type of 'exhaust' on them to highlight the fact they are auto and just sound like complete ass ? Twin pipes out the back looks like it can take some extensions to make it into a wheel barrow ? Then there is the alternate (unsure which pile of sh*t it is) which has a massive plastic cheese grater on the bonnet for ... well I'm not sure actually why, but it looks terrible when new I'd hate to see how it ages !!

Yuuuuur love it, very jelly !!

Received the rotors ahead of schedule which was a nice surprise !! The hats and brackets are ordered and being produced, should be here in a couple of weeks ... then I only need fluid to get everything assembled up

Yea when I spoke to the chap and I mentioned that an off-shore vendor had the particular lines to match my caliper swap situation and he was able to look it up on some Hel database for the 'recipe' essentially and manufacture off that 👍 Pretty sweet they share their knowledge like that internally.

I got my brake lines, supplied locally via https://nz.helperformance.com/ ... if you're in need of tasty braided lines I recommend 👍 Last week also got the misc items from Spareto (front caliper pin kit, basic pads and M3 parking brake shoes). Have yet to pull the trigger on the custom brackets and hats due to cost ... hopefully will order on pay day 😬 Then only need to arrange the remaining cross over pipe for rear caliper I stuffed up.

If you want to check out a repair option I'd start here: https://www.carbotec.co.nz/ Have had some friends go there with foiling gear and have been very satisfied, really nice guy etc apparently.

So much fun getting all those little baggies of just the right parts in the post 👍 Looks like some fun times ahead !!

You could try https://shop.usprocurements.co.nz/. Pretty sure they will have all of the seals but unsure on the pistons 🤔

I used these folks on K Road: https://www.makeshop.co.nz and was $42 for the 8 I got cut. Supplied my own DXF artwork so they didn't have to mess about too much. DXF attached 👍 Brembo Logos.DXF

Got the vinyl cut stickers today and popped the rear ones on. They look pretty good, probably could have gone a little lower but job done all the same ... got some spares cut so I can move them next time if that ever comes around.

I got a hold of the floating hat bobbins today from https://braketechnz.com/ and measured them all up. They are very consistent and look to be of great quality. Made the final design tweaks (Dave from Brake Tech NZ recommended aiming for 0.2mm float on a street car) so I'm happy the bracket and hats are now ready to be made. Not quite sure when I'll be pulling the trigger on that just yet 😬

Got the front rotors ordered and should be here in ... November Validated the fitment with all the printed parts and all looks well. Happy to press ahead with the manufacturing from a fitment perspective ... just not a budget perspective. Yet another project that's really stacking up far more than expected. Got my rear caliper seals installed. Supplied by US Procurements if anybody else is in need of Brembo seals. Also installed the new bleed nipples and the cross over pipe which I have (need to get the other side still).

Looks like from realoem that 316, 318 and 320 had the small case / 168K diffs, 325, 328 and 330 had mid case / 188K and M3 large case. Probably some weird diesel variants etc in the mix also. ssss Thanks Ray, do you happen to know if the ring and pinion can be swapped into my existing diff ? I understand they switched to ball bearings from roller with the E83 items so I'd rather avoid swapping in the entire diff.

Did they have a mid case diff ? I found this really good X3 chart this morning ... looks like the manuals are what i am after which must be very rare in NZ ? Maybe have to go full race car with the auto diff ratio at 4.44 http://tomic.ba/fs/cjenik/E83 Technik 0307.pdf

Looking to change out the 3.38 ratio on my existing mid case E46 diff. Unsure which models the 3.73 and 3.91 came from ... I believe some X3 internals can be swapped in also which might provide additional options ? I'd prefer the 3.91 👍

Yuuuuur from the research I've done: My OEM 318 is 22.2 / 20.6 330 is 23.8 / 22.2 E46 M3 is 25 / 20 with MK20 ABS and 25 / 22 with the MK60 (these look like approximate sizes, likely 1" in reality etc) So I'll likely have a look around once I know what sort of front to rear size ratio will work best for my setup. Have located TRW M3 for a non insane price Printed off a rotor hat so i can do more fitment mockups / validation, only just fit on my printer bed and took about 16 hours !! I then added a portion of the rotor and glued them together ... too keen to get it glued up and neglected to ensure it was nice an square so may turn out to be of limited use 😕 Might do another one for the other side over the weekend and ensure i do it properly. Picked up the result of my thinking cap time also and am really pleased with how these worked. This was to validate more accurately (than my 3D printed 'jig') what i had measured with my laser level. What I'm measuring here are the offset front to back as well as depth of the caliper mounting holes in the knuckle vs the centre. Attached is my high tech engineering drawing if anybody wants to replicate 😆 Worked out really well, and proved the 3D printed jig was only about 0.2mm out front to back !! From memory there was a previous 1mm variation between the laser measurements and the 3D printed jig also. Shout out to James Simpson Engineering who turned these for a very reasonable in 2024 $40. I should point out that while the 3D printed jig was a good fit when on the car it was essentially impossible to measure the 'as built' dimensions of the plastic part. I'm being pretty particular here as I'm in no hurry.

Doing plenty of things lately in the background: Design work and validation of some aspects via 3D printed prototype parts Looking at the technicalities of brake bias and where my combination will sit Got a book which is well regarded "High Performance Brake Systems" Messed about a little with some online calculators and a Google sheet based one Trying to work out if the bimmers have a tandem, stepped or tandem stepped master cylinder and if that really has any bearing on the line pressure / bias etc etc ... bit of a mine field, need to read more of the book !! Same goes with proportioning valve and my E46 in particular which is ASC only. Looking at disc mounting options, might try and do a fully floating system instead of a rigidly bolted hat Trying to knock some cost out of having to get custom parts machined Anybody want the same kit for their non-M ? This is what 7 hours of printing looks like !! Had to do it with enough resolution that the printed threads are functional. I have more clearance than my measurements said I would which is good news !! Also made this wacky little part to validate my laser level based measurements of the mounting holes relative to the hub. I was about 1mm out, this is the mk2 design. I'd still like something more accurate and have my thinking cap on 🤔