Michael.

Hehe, why do you think I like your BBS?? I always wanted them having first found www.planetsoarer.com in 2004, but now I'd go for the more RS mesh style with a bit more dish, but $$$

I loved the 90s BMW individual options, they were quite cool, although some colours were a bit questionable!

I'd run Penrite Premium 5w-50 or 10w-60. The 5w is probably best for start up, I've always felt 10w is too thick for NZ conditions. I've come to find Penrite is a better marketed product with actual data & figures of what additives it contains. It's CAMs approved and of course LL-98 BMW rated. IMO, Castrol seems to have superficial marketing, that is over-hyped to appeal to brand fanboys, as is the Shell Helix Ultra / Ferrari thing.

Oh wow 8.8:1 from a 90s performance engine... no wonder they were a bit low on the performance figures! If it was an American V12 I could forgive them but thats quite surprising for a German product. Most engines of a sporting nature by the early 90s were pushing high 9s or early 10s, if not higher.

Beauty, it's no wonder they are so well liked.

Good question! Meanwhile I finally picked up a 2003 copy of the HPI Aussie mag, issue #31, featuring an excelent write up on the UZZ32 active Soarer! Woo, Article can be read here. http://planetsoarer.com/HPIUZZ32/hpiuzz32.htm

Those F1 V12s must also have a different crank / firing arrangement as they sound pretty hot compared to the standard V12

Awesome, hehe what a good guess! Funny to think at 3,500rpm it matches what my E36 1UZ did at 5,500rpm peak. What software are you running to pull up the diagnostics, is that just plugged into the OBDII port?

Only thing to consider is with the steel welded M52 ones, how did they do the port to main runner join? From what I've seen the hole in the side of the main runner is smaller than the pipe diameter welded around it, causing an internal lip / pressure point.

I suspect there wouldn't be much difference between the two. It appears they both have their design flaws. For the hassle of changing them I wouldn't bother unless it was a guaranteed improvement.

The silly thing with dynamic control systems & tricky diffs is they can't do in phase or out of phase rear steering, tight cornering and lane changes are always going to be practically possible with 4ws. It's interesting to find some new cars for 201X have returned to having an electric 4ws for such reasons.

227.5rkw is my guess.

Quite hard to pin point which manufacture started it. Seems various makers were doing it by the late 80s The difference is however, which ones were a passive and active system as that makes all the difference to the resulting performance. Mine works with the TRC system so if slip is detected, and the yaw sensor picks up motion it articulates the rear wheels to keep the car straighter, particularly for when taking off on wet roads.

An interesting one. Maybe the Nissan version wasn't active and a bit agricultural in its operation? Seems crazy to delete what is a well proven system, if done right.

Oh right 4 wheel steering haha. My Soarer also has active 4 wheel steering. I love it, night and day between my one that doesn't. I would have tried to find an E31 with 4ws, its worth it on bigger cars like that. In all consideration from what I've seen such systems are very reliable, at the end of the day its a less stressed steering rack that only moves a few degrees. Probably more likely to blow a headgasket!

Lovely E30! Now what about this boring Toyota you also have??

Agreed, he said he gave one of the guys a kick up the pants for doing what he did on the car. The boss is a good guy, just busy and has his eye on 1000s other things so it's his workshop manager that let him down. He said today "it wasn't to my kind of acceptable standard"

Moral of the story, buy an active suspension car for the best of both worlds when it comes to shock & suspension control / damping on various surfaces

What is AHK steering?

Finally got the car back after the shop having it for another week. MUCH better. Three main issues sorted. They even gave the car a decent valet. I can sleep at night now. All I need to do is a bit of minor adjusting and fit the lower trim panel off the old guard.

While the quality of the parts is one aspect. The major difference between conventional Macpherson struts like the E36s use and coil overs is the size of the springs and their respective spring rates. For NZ roads, BMW Motorsport springs that sit a bit lower are all you really need, anything stiffer, especially in E36s can get pretty jarring.

Should be looking at $300-450 for front shocks, $300 ish for rears each. Bilstiens are one of the best makes in the game and will last for years and years and years, and then they can be rebuilt. Cheap Chinese coil overs should be avoided at all costs. Keep in mind proper brand coil overs cost thousands and should only be used on the track IMO.

Awesome. Should be fun.

What a waste of time haha. Give me a well maintained example with 250,000kms on the clock. Theres little to like about a neglected car thats been sitting around for years, low kms, big whoop.