Neal

Score, Decent poly capacitor on the tweeter and good power handling, tweeter on a gimbal so you can align them better in relation to front. .Looks like a quality coaxial speaker.

Tidied rear armrest wiring and put all trim back into place. Tested USB C adapter with iPhone 16 which is USB C. Charging came up straight away . Phone also came up as USB entry on snapin adapter. Turned off CarPlay and tested , USB audio and Spotify app via USB c adapter , all working correctly. Charging is faster too via USB c adapter. 15 watts so more useful. So now I can run my 256gig thumb drive with quite a few lossless encoded albums off the usb b , Anything lossless audio wise on the iPhone can be played via usb c, handy for Apple Music lossless. Otherwise wifi CarPlay for anything else. Parts used. Fusebox leaf connectors for fuse Area 124-129 2x 61131378906 Double leaf spring contact 0,5-1,0 MM² Earth Comb connectors 2x Socket terminal 61131387142 0,75-1,0MM² F30/F80 larger Earth Comb and Cover 1x BMW Insulation Housing, Fan Conn - 61138364551 1x BMW Comb Type Connector - 61138353739 USB C adaptor and Lighting connector socket pins 4x 61131393724 Socket terminal MQS 0,5-0,75MM² Connectors , the secondhand USB C adapter came with connectors and USB and power connectors. Wire , 0.5mm2 for Power and ground needed. 0.3mm2 for lighting wire.

Ran loom through car using factory route. Was out of earth points behind left rear seat bolster so added the larger earth comb that is used in BMW F3x and F8x . Suspect it’s for models with more factory option. I found the earth sockets seem to be a one way item so rather than taking them off a sandwiched the two combs together and added two earth connections after crimping on BMW connectors. Routed two 12 +ve cables to fuse box. Turned fuse box over and removed lock tab and pulled connector for fuse area 124 - 129. This section is associated with Idrive items such as hk amp fan , dvd stacker , tv module , telephone cradle , usb hub ( fuse 129 ) . Crimped on two new leaf contacts and click inserted into positions 124 & 129. Put connector and fuse box back into place. Ironically those fuse positions had fuses even though the car didnt those options. This fuse block run off terminal 30b so is power runs when the car is occupied. Power is tuned off when car is locked or after 8-20 mins if car is left unlocked such as when left in garage. So no worries about parasitic draw. The USB C has a backlight on pin 3 of its connector. The closest source for a light circuit is the rear console armrest led bunker light. The connector for it is behind the rear seat air vent trim. Used a pin removal tool on mqs socket. Crimped a new one with positive feed to USB c adapter.

G20 USB C retrofit. Adding power to G20 USB c charger retrofit. This involves running power from rear fuse box to centre console. Also replacing the primary earth point comb behind rear left seat bolster with a larger one with more connection points. Ill also take the opportunity to run a power and earth feed for a factory usb hub. Undecided on the retrofit at this stage. But will make it easy should I go that way. Ordered connector parts via BMW dealer. Roughly $40 for comb / earth pin connectors and battery box insert connectors. Found some red / black 0.5mm2 cable ( correct colour ) via Repco. Used 0.75mm2 for brown earth because handy gauge to have size and had to buy a 20m reel. Both single g20 USB c adapter and usb hub only need 0.5mm2 cable for power and earth. The wire for the backlight of the USBc is a 0.3mm cable and I had the correct colour from a spare second door loom that I had during the door speaker part of this project.

Decided not to put in a rear console / back seat USB BMW port. But I did put in a universal pd / usb charger. This one has up to 65 watts for USB c and 18 watts on usb b. Handy for rear passenger for charging devices and also will charge work laptop if needed. Was going through BMW TIS wiring diagrams and this is what I’ve learnt. Terminal 30b feeds all 12 volt outlets. 30b is enabled when the car is considered occupied and will run until car is either locked or will stay active for 8 -20 mins if the car is left unlocked after parked. After that it powers down. Was thinking about this as don’t want parasitic power draw from usb charger. For the rear console charger my car didn’t have a rear 12 volt outlet. In the factory wiring the rear outlet ifs piggybacked off the front hidden 12volt outlet. However with the f30 / f80 wiring looms there is almost no provisioning of wiring for accessories that went in the cars original build sheet. I needed to run wires for this. So , got some 1.5mm2 wire left over from adding the boot 12 volt outlet. Wrapped it in Tesa tape and rather than pull console apart to route I just used curtain wire to feed it from rear of console to dashboard. I popped the rear console trim down, drilled a 30 mm hole and mounted the charger. Works well for quicker charging of phone / tablets / laptop.

I wonder if the conversion it would detract the driving experience a bit. DCT is a bit more refined from SMG so you don’t get those brutal power shifts when you’re fanging it or the ability to manually blip throttle on down shift. Noticed this going from e46 M3 smg to f80 m3 dct. I thought the smg was a bit more fun.

Mate brought one of these. Best part of $240k . Remember getting a drive. These hide their weight and amazingly quick. 550 plus hp for that price ! GLWS.

Welcome Have a turbo six, although probably can’t offer any advice on the mod front. Have a cheater exhaust system which makes more noise when the exhaust flaps bypass part of the rear muffler. But to me it doesn’t sound great from the drivers seat in that mode. Owned a few of these over the years . Might be 37 years or so with BMWs. Roughly 800,000 kms of smiles ( mainly ) .Guessing this is a long way towards addiction.

Have a look at MHD or BM3 apps for tuning and have a read though on how they work. The initial flash is done via phone / wifi dongle and these ones are a bit more reputable than others. https://mhdtuning.com/products/mhd-super-license-for-n13 https://bootmod3tuning.com/f2x-f3x

Used mainly factory oil change intervals for the last 38 years of BMW ownership.When sold the engines had done anything from 180,000 , couple in the 220,000 and one was still going strong at 330,000 kms. Must be other things going on with that article. Just saying. https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/25/bmw-325-million-mile-motor

NZ launch happening soon. Looking forward to seeing it soon. I guess the approach does help BMW with EU co2 reduction and main target audience gets a tax offset for lease due to it being a phev. I guess it’s just a finger in the air by BMW with green washing a petrol performance vehicle. 1000 nm isn’t going to notice the weight 😀.

On the usb front a moved the car cradle usb connection and replaced the keyed blue plastic with a black one. Tried the USB C adapter off the back of idrive USB 2 . But not working. I haven’t added the +12 Ve and ground connector yet, need to run a power feed from the rear fuse box by the look of it. I also tried the passive white USB adapter and the USB audio came up on iPhone 13. But couldn’t get the iPhone 16 to work via it. I’ll run the power and earth wires for the USBc adapter and try again , but suspect there’s something up with idrive and usb c based iPhones.

The app is hosted out of Florida apparently, Might be in DR mode at the moment.

That should be a nice sounding solution. Would give an amazing front stage. Only thing to check on crossover point is how low they would go in a sealed pod. Looking like they are well suited to IB mounts going by the QTS value ( stiffer cone suspension) in a sealed enclosure they may peak higher hz spl wise , but struggle a bit to get down to 200 hertz. See is you’ve got an option to vent the back into the front pillar trim. Otherwise you can model the response of the wide bands using this software. https://www.subwoofer-builder.com/WinISD.htm

Well, you’re started with setting a high bar 😀. We’ll expect nothing less than excellence !