conrod

I think the E36 M3 had a 3.25:1 diff.

The E28 535i that Stephen Mchugh raced was running 14's, and that was a stock engine and suspension that wasn't working too well. Would love to build one of these myself, very underrated car I think. It would be great with a 3.8 S38 tweaked up!

The 3.0 M3 has a medium case (188) diff so plenty of ratios there. Sounds like you have broken a pinion tooth or three off, in which case you will need a new crownwheel and pinion, so may as well change the ratio if you want a bit better acceleration. Bear in mind fuel consumption will probably increase too. Kayne Barrie @ Kayne Barrie motorsports is the best around for diff rebuilds on BMW's. He has all the tools, shims, clutch packs etc. and actually knows what he is doing! He is on the Nth Shore (Auckland) 0274 975 330

I disagree with that. I believe the rule (in the road code) says that you MAY NOT enter an intersection if your path through is blocked by STATIONARY traffic, (not moving traffic) I will be very interested to see how this pans out, as obviously there is a lot of confusion surrounding this part.I could be wrong though! Anyone got a road code handy?

P.S. I have been in this situation several times. If traffic is still approaching from the opposite direction, then I ALWAYS wait for the light to turn red before completing my turn. As I have already entered the intersection, it is not an offence to complete my turn. If another car enters from the opposite direction when the light is RED then they are at fault. In your case the light was probably orange-going-on-red when the other person entered, therefore a hard one to prove who was at fault. Either way, you should be able to get off your ticket, as i don't believe the reason it was issued is an offence in itself. At least the 5'er took it on the chin though, doesn't look too bad!

It is written in the road code somewhere that you may not enter an intersection if your passage through it is blocked by STATIONARY traffic. Meaning that if you are the FIRST in the cue (turning right I am guessing?) then there is NO stationary traffic blocking your exit, therefore you ARE ALLOWED to proceed to the middle of the intersection and wait to turn. If you don't want to pay for a solicitor to fight the ticket, go get a copy of the road code, copy the page with this and send it in with your letter. Police really piss me off when they issue tickets without engaging their brains, and it does happen frequently! As regards getting your car fixed, you will have to claim on your insurance, then INSTRUCT your insurance company that it was not your fault and you will not accept liability/loss of no claims/insurance excess etc. etc. I did this a few years ago when some idiot did a U turn into the back of my car while I was reversing into a parallel park (he was trying to U turn into it!) It ended up costing me nothing and no loss of no claims etc. My car had about $1500 of damage to it. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

M54B30, the 3.0 litre all aluminium 6 cyl engine in the E46. Makes 261hp std, might take some time to find one though. Otherwise, S50B30 or B32,(286 and 321hp respectively) again will take some time to find. Or you could always jam a BMW V8 in there!

sounds good except for the CR, why not 10:1 or 11:1, seems a waste to spend all though dough on a low compression engine! I think the 272 cam is very mild too.

Not sure how much difference removing the AFM makes on an M20, a friend removed the AFM on an M30, mapped it on an Autronic, REFITTED the AFM and Motronic, and it made the same power! It all depends how much of a restriction it is on the intake, on the M30 the throttle body/inlet manifold is restrictive I would guess.I don't know of any exhaust manifolds available in NZ, except custom, and they aren't cheap either! Conrad

They are correct on the injectors, the standard ones flow bugger all. With a Schrick cam, a bit of porting and a custom chip or aftermarket ECU you should be good for 200-220hp and around 200ft.lbs torque. Exhaust manifold and throttle bodies will add even more power.

20-30mm lower would sort the dreaded "arch gap" Ollie! looks good otherwise.

the smg gearbox is the same as the manual one, all of the hydraulic bits are just bolted on.So you will need a gearlever,obviously a pedal box too, not sure how the engine computer will respond to having the trans. disconnected, possibly can get around that though. I would give it a go, worst case scenario is that the fault is in the gearbox causing it to jump out of gear.

Don't lower the rack, you will end up inducing "bump steer" if you do this. If you lower the front crossmember at the same time then okay, but not the rack on its own! Best if you can avoid moving any of these bits, as it does upset geometry, especially if you plan on lowering the car- which I am sure you will!

Don't you mean Conrad and James? Hope you got 'em for the "original" price!!!! Very cool wheels, I couldn't believe there wasn't a bidding war on, I didn't even have a car to put 'em on and I still wanted them!

the "three wheelers" will fetch from $20K upwards, so at $7K this is probably still cheap.

sorry to hijack, there was a 3.25 LSD on TM a few weeks ago, i know the guy who has it. PM me if you still want it and I will enquire for you.conrad

I thought Chris Bangle had knocked out some ugly designs, but the Lex surpasses all of these with ease! And we are still a long way from the day when BMW admits to using a Lexus as the benchmark for a new "M" car!...

Reminds me of the time I sent the new apprentice down to the local petrol station, with a plastic container. Told him to get four litres of CNG. Funny thing was (in hindsight anyway) that the noob on the forecourt tried to fill it up!!!! Had to ring and apologise to my friend who owned the servo for trying to blow the place up. Luckily he saw the funny side of it too.

or Archers Road Glenfield yesterday!..............................

this design still turns the air through 180 degrees to cylinder one! That said, I think it is not necessarily a bad design anyway. If you are concerned about uneven flow across the intakes (and on high boost you SHOULD consider it) then a lambda or EGT in each exhaust primary (the flanges are actually drilled and tapped to put a probe in on the stock S50 manifold) will tell you how each cylinder is running,and individual trimming can be done to "tune" each cylinder properly, as long as your ECU has this facility. This bad boy (pictured) is a Pectel SQ6M, and will drive both vanos (it will actually drive four!) as well as eight ignition coils (internal drivers- so no external modules needed) twelve injectors, as well as pretty much anything thing else you can throw at it. Not exactly cheap though!!!!

I think the trumpets to plenum will be okay. For the elbow you should get away with fabricating a similar shaped elbow out of ali, and welding it directly to the plenum. Not an easy shape to make, but probably a lot less work than the custom plenums which seem fashionable for these conversions,and should work at least as well.

you will probably have problems with the big rubber elbow blowing off the plenum under boost. Even 5lbs boost over such a large area will put a lot of force on that big hoseclip!

boost level will be determined by your engine (compression ratio) not you! Your tuner will (or should) have a microphone attached, which will tell him when it starts detonating, and timing/boost will have to be trimmed back. I would be surprised if you can squeeze in more than 5 or 6 pounds without problems.Even 5 pounds should be good for about 90hp on a standard engine. Keep us posted, it will be interesting!

at 11.? stock compression ratio you will need to keep the boost down low otherwise "blown head gasket" and "melted piston" will become commonly used words in your vocabulary!

A few more Targa BMW pics - how to cross a river WITHOUT using the bridge!......