sonic_attack

Euro-Italian is your local in Albany. They're open till 5:30 weekdays too. I haven't actually bought from them yet but dropped in a couple times. Nice helpful people so likely I will at some stage.

Mixed results there, some claim increased MPG and others less. I'll assume the decrease is likely mostly due to folk planting their foot taking advantage of the improvement in performance. I would! It's marginal from what I've read anyway.

Anyone dropped one of these into their vehicle? There's a few around but the 'general' consensus reading forum posts and topics I've researched is the EAT chip, the DUDMD chip, and the WOKKE chip giving significant gain or advantage at least over stock. The Wokke chip suggests quite an increase in general power/torque, so much in fact it pretty much reads to good to be true, though everyone who's installed it practically worships it. However figures are presented in whatever various form, the claimed increase at peak HP is +40HP, and torque a staggering 80NM over stock. Here's a link to an Ebay sale. http://www.ebay.com/itm/320635918206?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Are these engines detuned or factory retarded that much that those figures can be genuine? It seems unlikely but I don't know any better really. I've been aware of these chips for a long time but just getting serious on it. For the cost I don't imagine there would be a better dollar spent anywhere than that tiny little component. Even if the claimed figures were halved.

So just to be clear, you're organising your own shipping via a freight forwarder? Is there any room for items to be compiled in the shipment from another US supplier? Probably a dumb question I know. Good opportunity to get a bunch of folk in it together to spread shipping cost though.

Golly, this is brutal, overkill, and awesome!

1800cc allegedly? Drives like a sack of spuds would, quite tidy though. I replaced the bonnet/grill a couple months back after he stacked it which ended up being a pretty straight forward bolt on from some spares sourced on Trademe.Surprised me because I'd figured there was to be a lot more bent than just the bonnet looking at it. Obviously quite solid and a lot of car for that lil engine to push around.

$1700 is another whole Diamante. lol!

That must be a fairly imaginative description to move away from "under powered". If we're talking the same car. I drove my neighbors one the other week and I turned around at the end of the street to ask him if something was wrong with it it was so gutless.. lol! Nice looking car but.

You're right. I just find it odd. Sneaking a couple years in there, I've never noticed that before or thought to notice. The year written on the rego has always been correct to the year of manufacture for cars I've owned.

Oh OK. I was about to question whether you were stepping into the realms of OCD madness. I guess if you're only air-drying the car to eliminate the need to touch it that's all cool... LOL!

Having your tyres vacuumed?

Found a pretty tidy e34 leather interior for practically pocket change, and picked up a 370mm Mtech 2 steering wheel score on TM, slightly more than pocket change but nowhere near what I was humming and harring over on ebay.

Kinda odd how Carjam lists it as a 1997 e39 and so does the rego sticker though. Vin throws it up as mid 1995 (obviously). That can't be a genuine error surely?

I think he's meaning Wagon in generic vehicular terms. I think I'll drop by Huntly sometime for you to take me for a stonk around in the 6-speed manual variant to convince me I should take the same route with mine. From what I read and the youtube vids i've watched it makes a lively car into something of an entirely different beast. I think this Turners car would be well worth a look over. If it could be got for around $3500 and it shows signs of enthusiastic ownership it'd be a fairly reasonable bargain. It certainly looks tidy enough to warrant investigation. Spend $2K-$2.5K on springs wheels and tyres and at $6K it'd be a minter to hang onto. I don't think it'll take long for these particular cars to see a reversal in affordability from where they're at are now.

Seems absurd BMW would build a 3 liter V8 when they'd already done pretty well producing 3.5 liter sixes... I'll assume there's a valid reason google will throw up at me when I go look. Incredible to see what the liter of displacement does in basically the same container when comparing power stats though. You'll be well prepped when you get bored of it and an S62B50 turns up..

At the time I got this there was quite a tidy looking black 540i in Wellington. Black with a charcoal looking tone through the lower doors. Nice Ali wheels etc. Sold on TM for $3000. I only saw the TM pics of it but it probably wasn't far off or near to the overall condition of mine 200K KM too. I'd actually seen quite a few here and there. One I had just refreshed the browser and was the latest listing and someone hit the Buynow at $3500 while I was on the phone to the guy! He'd had it listed for maybe 2 minutes? You'll see one or two of these bargain deals a month on Trademe. Just constantly look and look and look and jump on it when it pops up.

How many people need a new dipstick? Oddly, I actually want one, from an M60 though..

Yeah I was always drawn to the singular round headlights and the "squareness" of the BMW body shape, lost after the e34, maybe the e38 is borderline-ish. I waited and waited till the right one came up for me to pounce on. I practically stole it at $2500, but right now these e34's are the time to buy. Right on the cusp of all being trashed and disappearing from the roads as they get older and handed on, passed in. There's still some gems around if you've $3K-ish in your pocket for one. It's a hell of a lot of car for the same cost as a Toyota Corolla.

105K on the white one? You'd think there would be a lot of life left in it. It's barely broken in yet. I dunno about $7K though, for that sort of money I'd be looking at the e39 540i's. I don't mind the blue leather, a bit dated but I kinda like that funky 90's executive cheese styling. I'm seriously considering dyeing my silver leather red and replacing all the grey fabric interior some type of black/white plaid..lol! even bought a full replacement leather interior last night to get it underway.

Looks amazing. What was the result of the thinning/scuffed/worn leather? I can't see any detail in the after pics. Did they come up awesome too?

No sense of adventure in this thread. I can see you all sitting around with your supper of cucumber sandwiches and lemon/pomegranate herbal tea shaking your heads and muttering "Oh no, that just won't do, at all".. ;-)

Looks unmolested and maintained. 5.5K is some fairly extreme optimism though.

Kerbed my right rear rim. Dumbass..

Fussy f#@ker aren't ya! That place is awesome, for the size of it anyway. They always seem to have a selection of everything, even the weirdo items like the full range of San Pellegrino (for example). Other supermarkets I'm walking around with my list saying oh FFS they don't have it. Outside of Remmers NW every supermarket is a big warehouse full of Eta crisps and bugger all else. Try countdown Britomart, which by rights for turnover and the folk they're serving should be about the best around. Utter crap though.

I didn't find much locally when looking. I guess I didn't try too hard, several phone calls but turned up nothing. mrnut.co.uk is the supplier that sent a couple of ali sets in the size I needed at a great price. They don't have much listed on their website but an email would be best bet. I actually bought from them through ebay. The stock arrived in under 7 days.