elias

15 hours ago, E30 325i Rag-Top said:

There seems to be a few F87 M2s come out of Aussie, as insurance write-offs - I know you said not one of those - but the Aussie ones seem to get written off very easily so the damage isn’t overly bad and can be fixed without too much trouble (if you know what you are doing or have a tame panel beater).

yeah if they are in a state where it is viable to get them back on the road then I would definitely consider that, have got a good panelbeater. Any recommendations on where to look, best to keep an eye on trademe?

Cheers!

Anyone got an f87 m2 with mechanical issues or is in another other way damaged, hence cheap? Long shot I know but looking for a new project, not worried about kms, spec etc etc, just has to be an m2 and pref. not insurance write off.

Update: Will also consider e92 m3s, pref. lowish kms though.

Can offer swap for a modified 135i, or sell the 135 and do cash.

Cheers

Got the car back from the Panelbeater this evening, looks the best it ever has. Both doors and the rear quarter resprayed. If you ever need panelbeating/paint work done in Auckland I can't recommend Neville at Bute Collision Repair Browns Bay enough, absolute legend always does an amazing job and very reasonable prices, this job was 1/5th the cost of what other places had quoted. Safe to say i wont be parking it on that Culdesac anymore.

47 minutes ago, jon dee said:

Any chance that there is a fuse somewhere that can be pulled to disable the injectors ? 

im sure therred be a fuel pump fuse somewhere, but have never looked, easy enough to just pull the injector wires.

Took the car out for a drive and decided to take some photos last night before dropping it off to get the speed stripes fixed today.

On 7/20/2023 at 10:12 PM, euroriffic said:

Penis or genius?

So e39 has sold and gone, so have bought a e90 335i sight unseen for $1000 with no wheels or key. Finally arrived and laid eyes on it last Thursday and whipped the dme and cas out of it to get a new key made, which should all be back tomorrow to see if it’s a runner or not. All I knew was it was black and had 17x,000kms on it. 
wish me luck!

nice! where does one find a deal like this? would love another n54 project

18 minutes ago, gofaster said:

Elias. Out of curiosity how do you prime your engine oil? I have done several oil changes now and just fired her up 😲

Priming your engine oil is only necessary if you interrupt the the oil supply circuit such as removing the oil filter housing, removing the oil cooler or oil cooler lines etc. A normal oil change wont require priming. The easiest way to prime the oil is to disconnect all 6 fuel injector's electrical connectors, then crank the engine for 10 seconds, give it 20 seconds to allow the starter motor to cool off again, then repeat 2 more times. The starter motor will turn over the engine which will run the oil pump and prime your oil. Then plug all the fuel injectors' connectors back in and start the car. 

24 minutes ago, gofaster said:

Ask around your neighbours for any video footage

have asked, nobody has any cameras and nobody saw anything

Glad your car didnt decide to eat the belt, is a fairly common cause for engine failure. The oil causes the belt to swell, it slips off the pulley, due to the design of the crank pulley it can only slip off backwards and gets forced through the crankseal into the sump, and clogs the oil pickup causing loss of oil pressure and in many cases catastrophic failure. Can get crank seal guards to help prevent this for peace of mind, but keeping on top of gaskets and squeaky tensioners/idlers is the best method.

I had my car towed home when i noticed a failed OFHG, just me being extra careful. Oil filter/oil cooler gasket isnt the most fun job, makes one hell of a mess. Make sure to prime your engine oil before you start your car to be safe as well! Have don this job a coupe times now haha

57 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Lots of trash around that obviously gain enjoyment from damaging nice things, if your car average condition common car im guessing it wouldn't have happened. I wouldnt own anything nice if i had to park on the street for reasons like this.

yep, not a single other car on the street has been damaged. Yeah only park it there due to ongoing house renovations which means no garage and a cross lease driveway with an unfriendly neighbour. Once fixed I will find somewhere else to keep it, had enough.

46 minutes ago, M3AN said:

Yeah, that f'ing sucks dude, so sorry to see that, you have my sympathies (although I know they don't really help).

I'm angry for you. 🤬

I appreciate it regardless! Pretty gutted but not much I can do, I will get it repaired and learn my lesson not to park it in public places anymore.

People who key cars, just had both sides of my car keyed, wtf is wrong with you, what makes you think you have the right to f**k up other peoples property.

On 7/3/2023 at 6:00 PM, M3AN said:

Just fabricate or buy one of these:

https://southernbm.com.au/products/kap-industries-fire-extinguisher-bracket-e-series-f-series-g-series-q5gjn

I suspect it will be cheaper to buy one by the time you've cut and powder coated your own.

made my own one of these, cost me effectively $0, had some flatbar lying around and had my brother tig weld it up for me. Thanks for the inspiration, works very well!

Speaking of damage to the car, someone has decided they dont like my car very much and thought it would be a good idea to key it. Not only one side, but both. Absolutely gutted, spend so much time and money on this car just for someone to walk past and decide to f**k it up. Clearly intentional, done both sides, on of which repeatedly with some serious aggression. Occurred on the same culdesac as the previous damage to the front bumper/fender. Honestly don't know why someone would do this, they gain nothing from it. Car is going to the panelbeater on monday, not looking forward to the bill, being a fulltime student money isnt exactly something i have lots of. Spoke to all the neighbors, nobody has a camera or saw anything, and insurance is only 3rd party so will be paying for it myself. Pretty upset and not exactly very encouraging, when people continually find ways to destroy your hard work. Originally the plan was to start racing the car, but that might have to wait a bit now.

3 hours ago, gaijin said:

Elias, looks good. In keeping with how the OEM coolers sit ala 1M and 335iS, leave the frame rails alone, no drilling FTW.

yeah i agree, definitely wouldnt want to drill any holes. I just bolted my bracket onto the end of the frame rail using the some bolts. Didnt drill a single extra hole into the car just made the brackets to suit. Can sort of see it in the photo below if you squint. Main reason for making these brackets was to try place the coolers directly behind the 1m rep bumpers air scoops, which should make the ducting simpler.

 Brakes look awesome!

Awesome work! Did a similar oil cooler setup on my 135i, interested to see how you do the air ducting, yet to do that for my bumper, should provide an improvement in the effectiveness of the coolers. Mounted my coolers onto the frame rail ends, and into the radiator support where the ducting used to attach. (Oem oil cooler has since been removed).

On 7/10/2023 at 8:04 AM, Ooonst said:

Great thread! Very impressive build! Sorry to resurface your bad memories but I just wanted to say I've had 3 similar experiences recently. One of my cars got hit on the rear drivers quarter a few months back and I booked it in for the panel beaters (3 month wait list... ) Finally got it in there, got the work done under insurance ($400 excess, about $2k worth of work?) and had it parked on the street all of 2 days - Friday to Sunday before some other ass hat hit me in EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE! I won't be getting it fixed again until I have a garage.

After this experience I bought a dash cam and hard wired it into my 335i for security duties, sure enough, someone scraped the front drivers quarter a couple of weeks back... I have accumulated quite a bit of damage on this part of the car now (someone also opened like a van door over the top of the quarter/hood causing a massive scratch, clear coat is blistering - black car parked in the direct sun...) so it really needs to get into the panel beaters! I've been through a load of the videos and still not able to locate any solid evidence of when that scratch might have occurred.

Again, reluctant to get this one fixed until I have a safe place to park because where I live is clearly a massive liability for these sorts of parked prangs and it seems that no one leaves notes anymore... 🤬

yeah I feel your pain, very frustrating. I never found out who caused the damage on my car but someone seems to have a problem, they bent the mirror forwards on my other car (e91) when it was parked there, and have snapped the mirror off my brother's vintage land cruiser 4 times, clearly more than coincidence at this point.  But not much you can do.

11 hours ago, Jacko said:

LVVT Rules say if meet the above, doesnt need to be OEM, the rails/seats were designed to be stressed seat. Id rather put factory seats back in than chop up the tunnel. 

I went through a similar process recently getting my Sparco seats certified. Impossible to find an engineers report for the parts I used so I drilled 2 holes into the transmission tunnel and used lvv doubler plates. Bit of a tedious job, but looks very tidy in the end. Only other thing I could think of is to see if maybe you could find an engineering consulting business in NZ that could take a look at the parts you are using and see if they would be willing to write a report attesting to the strength of the rails? Out of curiosity which cert guy are you going through?

On 7/3/2023 at 6:00 PM, M3AN said:

Just fabricate or buy one of these:

https://southernbm.com.au/products/kap-industries-fire-extinguisher-bracket-e-series-f-series-g-series-q5gjn

I suspect it will be cheaper to buy one by the time you've cut and powder coated your own.

cheers for the recomendation, ill take a look!

In other news my logbook arrived today, and ive submitted the paperwork for the homologation so I guess its officially a racecar now?

Got round to working on the car again, really not a whole lot left to do on it at this point.  Hoping to race Superlap next season so decided the next thing to do was to install harness eyebolts. That being said it definitely does need some bigger swaybars, adjustable end links, a baffled sump and potentially a transmission oil cooler later on...

For now i drilled more holes in the car and installed a harness, its an expired one (FIA 2020) that i had lying around but should still be good for MSNZ clubsport events till 2025 and can easily be swapped out for any other 6 point harness. All eyebolts installed with the appropriate MSNZ approved doubler plates.

Also got a MSNZ spec fire extinguisher that ive got to come up with a mounting bracket for.

In other news, car officially has a MSNZ logbook! Still need to submit the paperwork for the Rollbar Homologation, and then get my motorsport license. Then just a matter of emptying my bank account to buy all the safety gear, trying to race your car is not a cheap exercise haha...

2 hours ago, Vass said:

Wait, you actually have to fail a WoF when going for a cert? What if you pass? 

in an ideal world, you wouldnt pass if you had illegal modifications, if you dont, then you dont need a cert

5 hours ago, Jacko said:

I dunno if this is a rant or a win..

But as part of the LVV cert process on 130 was supposed to fail a WOF... and it just passed VTNZ one  

 

Airbags are for pussies. 

 

when i went to get my wof fail sheet for cert, they failed me for the noise level of my exhaust but not the fact that i had relocated seatbelt anchorages to the transmission tunnel, just goes to show how they focus on the wrong things often.

looks like a reasonable price to me, these cars aren't cheap. Depending on service history etc N54 can be a gamble, but if you don't mind getting your hands dirty it would be a great buy imo. If you were in auckland Id give you a hand, have gained a fair bit of knowledge on the n54 over the last couple years. N54+dct is a great combo when working right. But at this price don't expect it to be a flawless car, be prepared to keep a bit of money aside for potential DCT service, gasket replacements (valve cover, oil filter housing, oil cooler, sump being the main ones) and possibly water pump, high pressure fuel pump + injectors.

5 hours ago, Neil McCauley said:

Bumping this, as there's another set of Aragosta coilovers up for sale, how did you get on @elias ?

if its the ones for sale on Facebook market place, being sold by Jason Ganley, its these ones, I sold them and replaced them with BC golds. They installed into the car fine, divorced rear. I replaced all 4 springs with BC springs, 8kg/12kg as per BC spec (vs 12kg/14kg that came with the aragosta) but still found them far too harsh for NZ roads, felt every little bump straight though your spine. Very happy with the BC golds I have in the car now, running the same spring set up, but a much smoother damping and large range of adjustability.

could always try see if a slim plate would work better, you can find the dimensions on kiwi plates

20 hours ago, gaijin said:

Not a BMW photo but looking good as a family car tonight, now its cold itll be time to see/get the dragy times, the TCU tune feels really aggressive with solid larger turbo spool sounds. 0-100 still in 3.1 zone on a warm day on NZ roads, winter and wider front PS4S and semis on the back should/could improve a little, running 255/30/19 fronts with 235/35/19 rear, off square as per RS3 option. Slides around nicely now

is that taken at milford mall? looks familiar haha not far from me