glen.riley.1990

Its been a little while, but split between 2 cars progress has been a little slow, there has been progress though. The 328I has been driving around as a manual for 3 odd months now with no dramas! success! i have also got a few new bits for the interior, #1 gear shift boot as my conversion came without one #2 handbrake boot to match (maybe a little cheesy, but hey a like it and its mine) and #3 some new front seats also with ///M stripes matching the handbrake and shift boots. so yes, the love it or hate is e36 seats... VADERS FIT A SEDAN. it was one long wait to find some black leather ones in good condition, but it was defiantly worth it. and as a plus the leather stitched door cards from the offending M3 have replaced the haddit ones in my M3, Stoked! also better camera this time around.

I have the same in my 328i, its fine when its cold, revs drop like a stone. when it gets warm revs hang between shifts, worst when driving lightly and shifting between 2.5k-3.25k. i notice it a lot less when giving it a bit of a boot up the guts. TCU still plugged in, i haven't got around to removing it yet. NZ new so ZF auto box FWIW. have you noticed anything like that Dion ? first drive of mine after converting it i hit a 3m x 5m patch of ice... talk about exhilarating... I would look into ebay, i landed my center for under $400 nz inc air freight, freight was a killer though as they are quite a hefty little unit. if you had time to kill you could do it cheaper by using sea freight through kiwi shipping or the like. all exchange rate dependant though, the dollar was pretty good when i got mine. have seen medium case centres in nz go for $500-750, full diffs from $750-1000. http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/car-parts-accessories/bmw/diffs-axles/auction-950494648.htm%C2'> this looks like your best bet at the moment given the current price, pull the centre out and drop it into yours, done deal.

'Onya Dion! makes a massive improvement to the car for sure. (im still short a reverse plug, shhh) it seems you must have a 3.23ish ratio diff in there then. the M3 is spot on 3k at 110, 2850+- at 100. the 328i with a 3.07 is a 2700+- at 100k. No Diff swap FTW!

Try Supercheap ? they had them on special for $99 last week

It might pay to double check the compatibility of E46 M3 headers, i might be wrong but i thought the 3 bolt exhaust manifold flange was specific to the S54. The M54 is a 4 bolt flange, a set of S50 headers might fit?

As per the title i'm looking for a shift boot frame, if it comes with a shift boot all the better! Cheers - Glen

If only they were black! i have been waiting so long for a set of Vaders. almost worth converting the M3 to white interior for :S somone is going to luck out on these big time!

Right been a bit of a delay in posting, mostly because i've been working on the car! its all done and dusted now. well nearly, i need to get a hold of a shift boot, but baring that its all good! so since the last post: -Got the 'box torqued to the engine -Shifter installed -Clutch hard line installed and flexi to the slave -Drive shaft in -Heat shield back on -Exhaust on -Bleed brakes and clutch with new fluid -wire neutral safety switch -wire reverse light -Drive! Wow its really a different car with the manual box, there is alot more urge in any gear, especially pulling from low revs The clutch was quite grabby and picked up close to the floor so i re-bled it and got a few small bubbles out. it might have improved a little or maybe i'm just getting used to it ? i took the chance while it was up on stands again to do a quick oil and filter change as well. Besides the fact it looks like your taking photos with a phone from 1999 this is awesome. Always good to see a nice example made even better and great to see it done at home! Nice work Glen, looking forward to hearing about the results. Yeah my Phone camera really didnt cope with the light under the car :s not my greatest work. Thanks! Its really not too bad, theres a bit of stuff to get out of the way. having a helping hand and a few of the right tools would defiantly go a long way towards speeding things up. a rattle gun is ace for the flywheel and any decent sized bolts, a decent power bar / breaker bar should you find any really tight bolts (read 12mm bell housing ones, two of the big bell housing bolts are longer for the manual btw, 90mm vs 75mm) a can on penetrant works wonders on exhaust studs, guibo bolts, diff bolts ect. if all went to plan i think it could be done inside a day. Thanks! It always seemed right to me to use the gear box that would have come in the car. (also if fits better with some of the future aspirations i have for it compared to the smaller getrag).

Havent tried to upload a PDF before but here is the graph, hopefully it goes up! DynoChart_FGE469 #3.pdf I must be lucky M3an, i hear in some cases it can be as extreem as 10%! KWS you don't still have a copy of your chart do you ?

Well its been on the dyno! 160 wKw and 534Nm at the wheels in 4th gear which corrects to 137 Nm ( divide by diff ratio and gear ratio) - this seems wrong if factory torque is 320nm at the flywheel? Apparently the dyno was reading 6% low so im allowed to say 170Kw but ill take that with a grain of salt. I was stoked with the result anyway, nice smooth power delivery, a very flat torque curve and a good looking AFR! And it was the most powerful 3.0 on the day by half a Kw Excuse the lack of side skirts, trust me i got my fair share of stick for that one already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly9fFo3U0Ew Ill post up a copy of the Dyno sheet when its emailed to me, or if i find where i've hidden the original Sorry Rob i didnt make it out of auckland till sunday night, i hope the BMW club day went well for you!

Hi Rob I've sent you a PM, I'm actually up in Auckland this weekend but if i get the chance ill be coming back down as early as i can on Sunday. Dave; yeah the jaycar LEDs weren't cheap, but i was in there over a weekend and needed something to do! i've seen a couple of electronic like stores in Auckland selling LEDs for quite a bit cheaper too. not totally sure on the quality though.

I'm halfway! i now have a BMW thats neither an automatic or manual! Some of the bell housing bolts were insanely tight, mostly the hard to get at ones!

How much would you be after for the diff ?

Hey Guys As i sit here trying to sum up the motivation to go and do some work work on this i though it was about time to start a thread on the 328i. A bit of background on the car, when i was 20 i sold my 318IS manual as i started to want something with a bit more oomph, i still liked the E36 and couldn't quite afford an E39 540. so I decided that a 328I would be the ideal car for me. i was keen on a manual but couldn't find a tidy one within my budget after a few months of looking. i did find a nz new 4 door auto with decent spec, full leather ect for a decent price and in really good nick so i picked it up. Since then i have done quite a bit of the usual maintenance improving on it where i could. The suspension has just about been completely rebuilt with solid rubber bushings, the standard springs, sway bars and shocks have been replaced with factory M-Sport springs and sway bars and Koni Adjusatble shocks. The brakes now sport Brembo blank rotors and EBC red pads. Crank and Cam position sensors have been replaced with genuine new ones. The plugs have just been replaced with the OEM Bosch ones. On the inside i have re-coloured the parcel tray back to black from the purple they all trend to, swapped out the interior lights for LEDs and found an M3 Evo steering wheel for it. The hood linging is falling off more and more by the day now, so will soon be pulled out and re-covered although i am un-decided on something close to the current grey, or to go dark like the M-sport cars. i would love a set of vaders for the front seats too but have not yet found any one willing to part with a set! Now the big one! MANUAL! This weekends mission is the manual conversion. i have been sitting on a ZF box for almost a year and have finaly decided its time to do the swap. at this moment the car is up on axel stands with the interior pulled out and the exhaust and drive shaft spread over the garage! with any luck ill be driving it to work as a manual on monday! but realistically i think ill be done mid next week. once the manual conversion is all done and dusted i have a custom 4 plate LSD center to fit to the current diff. i will likely replace all the diff bearings while i'm at it. ill get some photos of the car once its back on the road, and if there is any thing you want to see while its in pieces ill do my best to get a photo for you!

Dave, it was not too bad, i just though i could get away with pulling the drive shaft back to get the guibo out. as it turns out the spigot on the gearbox is too long which means you have to drop the exhaust, heat shield and drive shaft center bearing to drop the driveshaft far enough to disengage the spigot. Knowing this i would say i could do it in a couple of hours by my self now. i also found it helpful to support the 'box on a jack and remove the 'box cross member to get decent access the the guibo bolts. The LEDs i used were just jay car jobs. They are very white and Quite bright so i have turned them around so the LEDs are not facing directly out of the light otherwise they are almost blinding. At night though when you unlock the car i think it looks great, very crisp light and almost erie as you walk up to the car. On the whole im glad i did it, in fact i have done my 328i as well... ill get a photo tonight if you like ? Kyu, yes i would be more than keen for a photo shoot! i'll actually be up in auckland next weekend for the ECC dyno meet in the M3. but an E36 meet up / photo shoot would be cool! cheers Glen

ok its been a while, but after some faffing about, some holiday and some purchasing of the appropriate tools i have done the Guibo! old one came out looking a bit average with a few cracks but not totally rooted. jeez there is a lot of stuff you need to pull off the get it out! I would defiantly be keen Rob, when is the speed way season ? excuse my ignorance! Cheers Glen

Do you need em ? how is running without them going to affect things ? would the car have needed a re-flash to run without them? it seems to have been running ok, and pulls as hard as other 3.0s i have driven crawling around under the car today starting replacing the guibo and i noticed a couple plugs on the g'box x-member with no wires coming from them. looked further down the line and the wires coming from the oxy sensors have been clipped and ziptied out of the way.

and the noise it makes;

Oh and the major... funny clicking on and off accleration turned out to be a busted front cross member, a few members on here (M3an, Jayden and Reid) gave me a hand to sort this one...

I also have an ehaust clip ill try upload, it has a schnitzer exhaust on it and really sings when you open it up!

Ok! i had a thread up a while ago in the general forum about re-shelling vs restoring an M3, and well the consensus was restore so here it is; introducing brutus, my 1994 NZ new e36 m3 coupe. he is a dark individual, black on black to be exact. a few photos will follow but first the story of brutus.... i picked up the above car in pretty average condition thinking i was getting the deal of the century, all things considered now its probably going to cost me just as much as buying an m3 i good nick to start with by the time i get this one to the level of tidiness i intend. there were a few things i didn't see when looking at it first time round, lust must have taken over! but hey at 23 i was the owner of an M3! bucket list item achieved! 1st order of business - out with the black oil, in with 6l for 300km for a flush, then the full castrol edge - TWS 10-60 treatment, 3000 ks later its still amber! i also treated decidedly scungy intake filter to a K&N panel filter in the stock box and 6 new OEM spark plugs. when i first got it the head lining resembles a curtain more than the roof of a car, so first duty was to whip the head lining out. boom done, fabric and rotting foam striped off. i wanted the A and c pillars to match so out they came and got the same treatment. there was a wee pause in progress here in terms of the roof lining and the next problem reared its head. Enter the sunroof, well exit the sunroof... there was a knocking noise coming from the sunroof when the car un-weighted, and it was not tilting properly, the shuttle was not behaving 100% either but the roof portion was O.K. . until it too stuck in the open position on a drizzly day. great... out came the sunroof casset. picked up on a few broken clips in here so ordered a few from the us of a. jimmied the roof into the close position and re-installed it waiting for the bits to arrive. goodies in the mail! back in biz! or not... turns out one more clip was broken having removed the roof again causing the shuttle not to function. i have tilt now though! another order for the last clip and a tarp over the car. a few more goodies made it over with this order, a new rattle clip for the front right brake caliper that had been driving me nuts and a set of brass caliper bushings to replace the shot flexi and cracked stock ones. time to have the roof lining re-done, well thought having a matching parcel shelf would look better than the faded one in there, so out it came. there was absolutely nothing wrong with the adhesive on the parcel shelf! i must have removed about 3 layers of knuckle skin stripping the fabric off this one! Onehunga marine and auto upholstery did re-cover of these bits in an Audi RS4 esq material. black textured, and once re-installed looks really good. the finish of the job around the edges was not perfect which i was not too happy about originally, but is 100% now the head lining has been installed. next embarasing issue. the drivers door had been increasingly hard to open, until it would no longer open from the outside. slighly less than dignified effort to get into the car in westfeild carpark ended up with a passenger side entry... que replacing the drivers door handle mechanism. brand new rubbers and surrounds for both doors handles here! now the bit that had been really aggravating me. body work.... new guards, drivers door, nose cone, belly pan/under tray, wheel arch liners and radiator shrouding later the front was looking a little more like and m3 and a little less like a prats yard special! although i could not sort the light alignment out for a free beer... disassembly found 1 of the lenses not installed correctly, reassemble and we have aligned lights! PHEW. - i am still after an m3 oil cooler duct though... a few cosmetic bits here and there, LED parking lights, LED interior light conversion, ZHP shift knob and (pick-a-part score of the month) some blau-punked 6*9 including adaptors for the parcel shelf and an M-spec 3 steering wheel (this one currently residing in my 328I though) pretty much brings it up to date! And because every one loves pictures;

Bit of an update here, not much progress recently, but a ZHP shift knob has found its way onto the stick. mmmmmmm... if only the shift boot leather looked so good.... headlights pulled out yesterday and disassembled as i could not for the life of me get the alignment right for a WOF, looks like one of them had been assembled wrong. 1 mounting point for the lenses to the housing was not connected! any how back in and light alignment looks much better!

I think it has something to do with the steering lock on the cars, i recently had the same thing on my e36, the wheel i put on was locked when i installed it where the one i had taken off was not. as soon as i turned the ignition on the wheel freed up again.

Yeah for sure! Give me a couple of weeks after Easter and i should have the M3 down here by then. Ill put a post up in meets.

OK its been a while and progress has been a little slow, ive been away for work for the last 6 odd months and relocated to Rotorua, BUT we have progress! I am defiantly going the resto route, since the last post i have finished a few things off; -Roof lining A pillars Cpillars and parcel shelf all recovered! massive improvement over the roof sail i had before! -Sunroof cassette removed, broken clips and bits replaced, it doesn't leave the shuttle in the roof and jam now, it also tilts and slides like it should! -Drivers door handel replaced, it stopped working, its really not cool looking like your breaking into your own car in westfeild carpark... -Door Handel surrounds replaced -Drivers window reg, missing bushings replaced, window clips replced <-- these, you can just push the reg into the clip with the split pin installed, saved me hours once i figured this out! -Drivers door, front guards replaced, front bumper plastic welded -Front inner guard liners installed (missing) -Front belly pan installed(missing) -misc panel work, rust cut out of tail light by battery, few other bits tidied up. -And the big one for now, Front cross member replaced. cracked and pulled through engine mounts! Up next; door cards, Guibo, brake pads + rotors + bleed, G'box flush, Diff flush (possible center re-build to 3 or 4 clutch setup, i've already done a 4 clutch 1 of these to go into my 328i, feel free to shoot any questions regarding this) and more bits of perished trim. ill endevour to keep this up to date as i go photos included. As the car is in auckland ill upload some general photos and some photos of the work i've done next time i make it back to the big smoke! Cheers and Take it easy Glen PS any members in the Rotorua/Taupo/BOP area ? PPS Thanks goes out to dave (M3AN), Jayden and Reid for helping out with the front cross member issue!