Neal

Had a look at this car on Friday. Without a doubt , it's the cleanest / tidiest M3 I've seen in NZ so far. One lady owner ( has brought an M4 to replace) Found myself thinking long and hard about buying it. Only problem I'd have with it is that it's too good to be a daily driver. ( And I've got almost every option in mine and 18 inch wheels ! )

Entertaining 2 hours. Well worth the listen.

Thanks and shaw thing. I'd do a few things differently if I was to do it again.

Glad you like the Dension , IMO they are the best of the single box Iphone / USB integration solutions for factory intergration. Subwoofer amp wise if your not into payment pounding then a small form factor class D AMP would give plenty of mounting options. No doubt something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/PRECISION-POWER-PPI-A900-1-ATOM-900W-MAX-SPEAKERS-AMP-MOTORCYCLE-MINI-AMPLIFIER-/121378222210?pt=Car_Amplifiers&hash=item1c42b4b082&vxp=mtr it could mount next to the factory amp. It's good for 350 rms into a 4 ohm load which is plenty. In terms of enclosure work out how much room (enclosure volume ) you have and that will help select what subwoofer options you have. Let us know on room and we can suggest some options. Alternatively a small IB setup via your ski hatch will yield excellent results. You'll get the jist from http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=473030 I went a bit further , but can vouch for ski hatch style installs. Give excellent rattle free bass results and helps avoid boot lid rattle. You don't need as much power

Probably because of those dodgy 2002 versions with bearing issues and smg pump failures......... No wait ....... I've got one of those ?

Lux flakes verse Steering wheel. The M stitching looking a lot better now as does the leather.

Didn't the last of these get CSL headers , rotor's , Callipers ? Sat Nav will have the best of the BM tuners with AUX and ID3 track names as well.

I'm a bit biased on this one so shouldn't have any voting rights. (Only if it's a SMG version thought ;-) ) Mind you , the sound of that V8 in the E92. Will be interesting to see if the "GTS" version gets "CSL" status in the future.

Cheers for garage advice. Not quite the room to go up ( car on hoist) due to guest bedroom above without upsetting better half but it did cross my mind. Spent a day reorganising things and got rid of 3-4 cubic meters of clutter. Think I might have some room for roof storage of duplicate car parts for the minis.

Seem to be a common target down this way. Work colleague had his Suv broken into for a set of Recaro fishnet seats. Thought his golf would be next. At least they left the vtec with you brother's car.

Got room for a small voltage gauge as well ? With a kilowatt on tap need to ensure I'm not running the factory electrics into the ground. I did mod a Nokia eject box to fit an iPhone 5s but have changed to a 6 since. ( would have been completely stealth) Need room for a USB device and processor control unit in centre console. Thinking your ashtray mount would be the best way to go now. I'm adding a lightining to VGA adapter to the iPhone so I can display the iPhone screen on the Sat Nav screen.

Garage is a mess ! 2 BM's , 2.5 Mini's and one motorbike and no room to move. Car stereo project coming to an end and need to create some room for 1963 Mk1 turbo mini that's been waiting in the corner for too many years. Need to find a balance of storing stuff that the family never uses, having work bench space with the right tools and the room to assemble the Mini . Been looking at garage Journal for inspiration and came across this. http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25148 Any one else managed to sort there garage our as a balance between car storage and useable workshop ? Need some inspiration !

One part dynamo laundry wash to two parts warm water in squirt bottle. Spray on , leave for 5 mins and rinse off with water. Finish with brake cleaner. I use on my motorcycle frame , wheels and swing arm. Works more effectively than a lot of degreaser products.

Tried both. If you take the outputs from the output of the op amps after the caps on the tuner you'll also see 4.3 volts DC appearing on the output. What concerns me is the number of references to this mod where no one adds a LOC to remove the DC from the Rca. it gives a very clean sound, but on my processor the high level inputs where the only input that could filter DC out of the audio stream. If I'd used the aux input on the processor I'd get cleaner sound, but don't want to risk the amps reproducing the dc and end up smoking the voice coils on the speakers, The differential output stage on the bm53 gives closer to 9 volts of output which was enough to drive the high level input on the processors. Didn't sound as clean as straight off the op amps but I don't need worry about raw DC being presented to the amps. My main source for SQ audio will be the carpc where the sabre DAC will support up to 24 bit 96 kbit audio so not too worried about the sound quality from the factory system. Some would say it's acceptable in this form, but I'm a bit of an audiophile buff and would liken it to looking through dirty glass.

Had quite a bit of fun trying to get the processor to power on the amps via a relay. Turns out the relay used more current that the two amps combined. Removed the relay and the amps powered on. Finished off the remote on and processor looms with Molex connector and tesa tape Next came the setting the input levels for factory system, iphone 6 input and car pc digital input. I did these by ear as don't have access an oscilloscope. I did set the amp outputs via multimeter to avoid the chance of output clipping into the speakers. I found that the bm53 tuner RCA mods didn't quite have enough to drive the high level inputs on the processor. Ended up feeding it both the plus and minus differential audio outputs from the bm53 tuner. The drop in sound quality was noticeable by doing so. Looks like the output stage on the tuner is the limiting factor in the factory system. Next was to remount the amp racks and mount the amps into the small storage tray. I'll run the system like this for a few weeks. Connected the speakers and sub and gave the processor a basic tune just giving it high and low pass filters according to speaker needs. Processor features time alignment on all channels as well as 1/3 octave equalisers on every channel. Will set these up later once the speakers have has 50 or so hours use. Tried the different sound source inputs. Factory cd / radio sounds ok , iphone 6 with lossless music sound good. Car pc with flac via digital output sounds excellent. Only issue so far is the 5 1/4 mid bass in the front has a hole in the sound in its lower bass registers. I'm running steep filter on these so may drop this a bit further down. Really don't want to cut holes in the door behind the driver. The ski pass bass has worked out well. Without a doubt the Cleanest sub bass I've had. Even if cranked to silly output levels I get no rattles. The spg555 / passive radiator can move some serious air. Goes low with detail and bass timing is good. Next stage is to work on mounting processor control , mouse and iphone in console area somewhere

Had mine done, I left mine a week longer in the car than I should have. Mirror leaked on the way to repair which lifted the black rubber paint off. The new versions don't break down like the originals. Another option for repair is sending them to radar-mirror.com . A number of "remote displays" devices can be mounted in the mirror.

Baz You could add something link a Dension BT lite gateway (ebay ) . Gives you steering wheel control of iPhone music , has USB in and also acts as a hands free phone kit . Will also support portable hard drives full of music up to 250 gig. HK subwoofer is an easy way to go. Will pretty much bolt in and you only need to punch out the two pre-cut metal holes in the middle of the rear parcel shelf. Otherwise if you have the rear ski hatch back set just get an 8,10 or twelve inch sub and build a custom box an fire the sub through the ski hatch, connect an amp via rear speaker output. Just ask if you want more info on how to do this.

Trying to find my report from the M3 , report at the end of 25,000 km was fine, oil was still within spec and metals contained within the oil was low. Manufacturers suggest the intervals for a reason. I'd only change more frequently if doing lots of track days.

You'll also get good a packing up the area regardless of car. You'll be amazed at the amount of stuff that will fit in a e36. On the annual holiday I manage to get s baby jogger, Porta cot, toys, baby bags, 7 pair of shoes ( I impose a shoe limit on the wife) three adults bags, the wife, mother and daughter and a couple of fishing rods. I reckon I could get an additional two packs of cards in the boot if needed. Bigger the storage srea, the more stuff you'll cart around.

After a year of no sounds in the car managed to get into a state where I'm dialing the system in. Seem to have plenty of clarity with a kilowatt on tap. Next is to tidy up the console area.

^^^^^^^^^^^ Pictures on the car or it didn't happen ?

Noticed corner weights last time beaurepairs did a wheel alignment in the wife's car

There have already been comments from her that needs to be obayed. Personally I don't see an issue with taking another 14 years to have the second one ready for daughters 16th birthday

Pop me a pm with your email address and I'll get some pictures from you. I'll post on the Wellington mini owners club fb page. Car could be worth more, above 10 k and your getting into collectors that start getting fussy about everything being original including engine. Looks like everything on it other than grill and engine would be original spec. ( unless deluxe model) Condition looks at top end though !

mk1s in this condition I'd say $6 to $9k providing it has no rust. If it's a Deluxe maybe more. Which part of the country is it ? Damm, have a couple of mk1s myself otherwise ........