Cement

I've ordered some also from AliExpress .... the boot letters that is 🤣

This may be a long shot but I'm trying to get a hold of some E46 style boot numbers (like 318 / 325 etc) and I need a 3 and a 7 Anyone have any ideas ? Maybe the 7 series of the same era had the same lettering and I can locate a 730 or some such ?

Still stuck in header fab land ... now 4 out of 6 tubes assembled however. Onto the most complicated one of the lot, the dreaded cylinder 4 ... or as I call it 'hell tube' At least I have cut all of the segments on my day off today and can start assembly tomorrow. Will be 3D printing some 'helper jigs' tonight where I have bends that meet other bends at an angle etc.

Thanks for the input @Sammo ... nothing is a direct fitment with my engine swap 😂 So will be manufacturing (likely in Australia) no matter what I do but just need to decide on the spec. I might go with the M3 sizing as a safe option and considering I'm no suspension guru !! Where did you get the ST gear from ? I was looking at that as its not that much more than Koni Yellow's plus springs ... does it feel like a good matchup with the M3 bar ?

Thanks for the reply @M3AN ... rear will be unchanged for the time being as focus is on simply getting it out of the garage and mobile !! Its an open diff (3.38 ratio) from a 330 at present but will need some sort of LSD for sure so that will be addressed once mobile. Engine is a Nissan VQ37, call it 250kW give or take. Unsure on what suspension will end up in it ultimately but I'm happy to take recommendation on this also if there are known great combinations people go to for street use, good looks / height and ok capability at a track day once or twice a year say.

Anybody have recommendations on front sway bar size / stiffness for an E46 ? Will be street duties primarily. This will be getting made custom for my engine swapped 318Ci so don't need specific brands etc, more interested in the spec / sizing for a performance orientated street car. Suspension is standard for now but will likely change to a good spring / shock combo with a slight lower in the future.

I did mine at home by myself, can't recall specifics of what I did but don't remember it being a drama. I have this picture ... looks like i just wrestled the old one off with a hammer / punch or similar then popped the new one on with a socket or something Edit: Take note of the direction when taking the old one off ... they are not reversible.

A milestone today, one side of the headers completely tacked up and ready for finish welding !! So much work ... can't wait until they are completely done. Onto some pics ... pretty self explanatory, the first is all of the pieces for the last tube on this side.

Thanks @adro, just had a quick look at mine and as it was a 318 with cable throttle M43 it never had any cruise ... or any steering wheel controls for that matter so its just a plain 3 spoke wheel. Will investigate later what might take its place. Hopefully the airbag itself is the same just with a different cover etc 👍

Very nice wheel, I would love one for me 318Ci !! Have not researched them as yet but are they hard to come by ? I have no control buttons currently and will need some shortly plus maybe the airbag is different so not sure how that works.

Finally completed my little benchtop power supply project !! Will be using this to power the spare gauge cluster I'm using for Arduino development. Its based on a spare ATX PC power supply I had ... a pretty useful up-cycling project !!

Thanks @aramoana , for me its a case of replacing experience with things I am familiar with to (hopefully) get a reasonable result Started getting my purge setup sorted, another learning curve !! Not quite ready for Instagram but did the first tube weld to the flange ... by far working around the curve and establishing a rhythm is the hardest. Two tubes done now (tacked), cylinders 1 and 3. Cylinder 5 has a lot of small donut sections so will be a taste of bank 2 😕 In search of insta bling bling welds I got a monster sized pyrex cup to see how it works. Absolutely makes a difference but gas usage about triples to get there so not sure I will stick at it since it will all look the same colour in the end

Not sure what it is about your car, it always looks great ... maybe I'm just not used to looking at cars that are kept clean and shiny

Headers are a lot of work it turns out, who would have thought First tube is complete apart from being finish welded at least ... I'm 'ok' with the result. The major learning is that next time I'd probably go with pie cuts instead of the tight 1D donuts. The donuts are only welded one side and if you close the gap you end up with an under sized diameter. So I will have a whole lot of little gaps to fill in at the end 😕 When i get to the tubes for bank 2 it will get a lot harder as the tubes are almost completely made of 1D sections 😭 Anyhow I will be cutting segments for pipe 3 today and hopefully getting some bits tacked together. Pics of where things are at ...

And we're off and cutting !!! Got my first 90 cut out and the others ready for cutting tomorrow. The funky one in the middle is for the merge collectors ... hopefully I can get all 6 out of the same plastic as it took about 20h to print. The printer will be on night shifts again making more 'molds' for other segments. In other news and projects started but not finished, I am turning an old ATX power supply into a useful benchtop unit to power the gauge cluster etc while I work on that angle. No pics as its just a bag of parts from Jaycar at the moment

Yea that was my first thought also, i have an external gauge that i could tap into the signal for and use the Arduino to drive the gauge 🤔Would like to have maybe crank case vacuum also to monitor the dry sump setup but hopefully won't need that through it being an open breathing design. @Michael. It certainly was for me using stainless. Primarily the donuts went from over $200 NZD each to $68 AUD and all of the other bends were cheaper also. Freight was just under $200 AUD and I luckily managed to dodge GST etc when it came in. The other big plus was they did a wider range of bends so I didn't have to get custom work done locally (more expensive) ... I needed some 15deg bends for the collectors and these were a standard stocked item.

Oh happy days ... the bends finally arrived from 'stray-ya !! Pretty impressed with the service, pricing and packaging from https://www.ecsexhaust.com.au/. A++ would trade again. Will get some bits cut and tacked up before the weekend woo woooo !!! Also got a 2nd hand E46 cluster so I can start developing my Arduino code without going back and forth to the car, connecting the battery etc etc. Will also allow me to make a custom tacho background with extended RPM scale etc Might try to also magic the economy gauge into something more useful while I am at it.

I'm trying !! My header bends are still missing in action ... sitting at a depot in Auckland for over a week without moving. Has been nice to have a change and do some electrical but I'm ready to get the headers done at this point !! Thanks I really want to thin out the OEM engine wiring significantly but I might just run as is before I start introducing changes that might be tough to troubleshoot later with a lot of other things going on.

After an E46 instrument cluster simply for CAN bus / engine swap development ... so not looking to spend a fortune, can have a smashed face or pixel defects etc. Would also need to have the connectors with a usable length of wire I'm thinking.

Still waiting for the header bends to arrive so have been planning out the power distribution for running the VQ and starting to look at what needs to tie in to the BMW wiring / cluster to get things as close to OEM as possible. A vital part of the swap will be using an Arduino to run the OEM cluster functions missing by removing the DME ... there is a fair bit of material on the net about this but no really good one stop shop resource so this will no doubt sink a lot of time ! Luckily it can wait until the car is mobile but its a fun one to start experimenting with now. The Arduino Leonardo I was using turned out to be garbage when it came to putting CAN messages on the bus so a quick trip to Jaycar to get an Arduino Mega r3 clone resolved this and I can now happily put messages on the bus. Yay !! Managed to get the tacho moving which is a good first step. The CANHacker v2 software I think is a bit junk at transmitting messages so I've ordered another CAN bus shield so I can have a pair of them to play with on the desktop. This will be easier to see what is sent over the wire when writing the required code etc without trying to look for activity on the cluster itself in the car. Shrunken.mp4

A loose wiring plan is taking shape, turns out there is a lovely big removable port hole from engine bay electronics box to the cabin !! Rugged plan (likely my initial one) is to just stuff it all through said hole. Ideally I'd tackle making a new loom and terminate into a nice bulkhead connector where the LHD steering wheel would come through. Then in this magical future state I'd also locate the dry sump oil reservoir where the electronics box currently is. In any case there is a path forward to get mobile without too much drama.

Its been a while between updates ... that's because, I had the bends !!! Mandrel bends that is It all turned into a bit of a saga to be honest, I'd switched to mild steel in order to make the cost closer to something realistic which was all good. What was not all good was the tight (1D) 90 deg bends I received, which were all pretty sub-standard with over 3mm of necking through the bend ... so not fancying trying to weld circles to ovals I arranged to have these replaced with donuts and straight tube (this would nearly double the number of welds needed without the straight legs the bends have). Alas the donuts were also average and measured about 2-3mm under size across one side also !!! Shocking. So ... I've not got stainless bends and donuts on the way from Australia which are hopefully actually round. Switched back to stainless as they only had a single steel donut in stock and their prices were far better than the locals for stainless. The chap measured some while i was on the phone and they sound pretty good ... the donuts are imported from China and everything else is made locally. Crossing fingers for their arrival this week. Anyhow, onto some pictures of what I have been doing other than scouring the internet for tight bends. Completed both header jigs now and re-matched the stainless flanges to the engine, which I'd somehow managed to mix up the first time ?! Started making a few cutting jigs ahead of the new bends arriving ... the idea is to cut with a thin cutoff wheel then sand to perfection on a disc sander to match what was designed with the plastic mockup tubes. This one is a 30 degree bend with 30mm straight from memory. FINALLY into something that isn't header related. So refreshing I can tell you !!! Getting the head back into the wiring space and starting with mating the BMW accelerator pedal plug with new wiring to go to the Nissan ECU. The original M43 was cable throttle so this is a new run of cable and second hand pedal. Stitched together a full ECU wiring plan from the Infinity G37 service manual and printed on the wide format printer at work ... should be rather handy !! Severe brain strain trying to marry up the 6 wires for the pedal, seems so simply but took AGES

I'm having a wiring tidy up as part of my VQ engine swap to see if I can keep the OEM relays and maybe fuse module etc. Have been struggling to match up online images / descriptions and many various configs and layouts form newtis etc. If somebody could confirm my current thoughts and fill in the blanks that would be great !!! Car is an E46 NZ new 318Ci (M43 i believe) with auto trans (swapping to manual). DME is a Bosch BMS46 as far as i can see. Current thinking and questions (please confirm or correct): - Light blue relay is DME - Light green relay is ignition coil - Dark blue relay I'm not sure ... looks to switch 12v when key is 'on' (via DME relay) to blue/yellow on the 4 pin connector within the connector shown in the picture. This is marked as a ground currently but this may not be right ? Will need to trace - Is there an unloader relay anywhere !?

Nice car, good luck. I'm just really here to say how much I appreciate that firewood stacking in the shed in the background

Consider me learned !!