Neal

Apex , you make some valid points. Always thought the re-11 were a Japan special only that finally got released to the world market. The orginal comment was tyres for my older 325i with 225/55/16's . He put me on to tyres that would have similar grip levels for about $150 per tyre cheaper than the Preilli or Michelin / Uniroyals. He was happy to sell me the later , but said that all I'd be doing was to help him retire earlier. Apart from the Conti's the M3 had when I purchased I checked out Ps2's And pilot cups laughed at the price and went back to Bridgestones BTW , what do you run for targa ?

Similar opinon here on tyres , Not nesscarly fused with Country of orgin with tires. More about the right tyre for the right vechile. Got out of Euro tires on the advice of one of our local mad hill climbers a few years back. (mid mounted Mk1 V8 escort driver) Looks something like this BMW Bridgestone Re-11 best road tyre so far (have had re001's , Yokohama and Conti's which all had good grip and better ride comfit) Mini Road Yokohama A032r's A008's (10 inch wheel limitation) Track Dunlop slicks Bike / Sprints / Hillclimbing / Dunlop D20x'gp's / qualifiers Check out the tyre rack survey results and decide if your after Dot rated / extreme performance / or performance tyres for the way you drive your car. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/surveyresults/index.jsp

JBL comes to mind. They have 30 years of making this size for cars. In someways 6x9's can be a good way of getting nice mid to high bass notes. If you like insainly loud rock music or slap style bass players , then go for it. However , they will over power your fronts and pull the image to the rear. (roughly 8 db up on most component speakers so sound almost twice as loud) http://www.jbl.com/estore/jbl/us/products/...d=GTO928_JBL_US (note usd) Personally for Stereo music I would rather run high quality fronts with a bit of rear fill and a sub running down from 80 hz with steep crossover rolloffs. It pulls the image forward with a reasonable soundstage for a car. (I'm not too fused with what rear passengers hear) It's hard to achieve with 6x9's in the rear.

In my view a good step in factory bass before going to sub (s) I've heard some nice sounding 2 way 6x9's in the past. Should also produce a higher spl for the same power of the 4 .5 inch nokia's. Cost effective upgrade.

Might pay to see what brands are around in your size before doing a down selection. In the Bridgestone range it looks like the Re002 is the only tyre in your size which is a good trye at a good price. However , there is more grip as you go up the range. Brigdestone NZ only carries a certian size range within the Potenza series for wider / lower profile tyres.If they don't have your size they will order in for your (3 month process through Bridestone NZ 0800 number) However , since the earthquake last year it's been hard to back order for them. BNZ tried hard to get me a set of re-11 in 235/40/18 & 265/30/18's Ended up importing a set of re-11's from tirerack for $2300 (NZ would have been $1800 through firestone if stocked) In terms of re-11's high grip dry (trackday) Wet and cold weather grip is good, good steering response , meduim noise (white noise sound) Take about 1000 kms before they are at their best.

Only the Diesel versions of the e46 330's where turbo'd.

also looks like The two interfaces use different flow control on the rs232. t The bluetooth is expecting xon / xoff or no flowcontrol. The resiler is using hardware rts/cts Youi could try strapping RTS to CTS and set putty to none.

The other way to sort the ibus connection would be via your usb on the tab. Driver here http://www.ftdichip.com/FTDrivers.htm Device here http://www.reslers.de/IBUS/ I'm running one of these via win 7 and all good so far.

Very interesting project and a great way to get a low cost high res touch screen into the car. Like Hybrid I couldn't get around the steering wheel controls and also wanted a high end dac output for the audio system. If you added 3 g with a 2degrees bulk plan data sim you could stream radio stations / gps maps / pandora

with this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Engine-BMW-X6-X5-X...c&vxp=mtrth

Depends on the car in my opinion. Had a e36 for 11 years or roughtly 1200000 kms. The car was roughly 400 - 600 per year on dealer servicing for 12000-14000 Kms per year. Over $100 of that being on good motor oil once per year. However in the last year at the 210,000 mark I spent around 3k on wear and tear items via the dealer. However that car was maintained regardless of cost and would probably be good for another 200,000km.

Sold

Also straight through or null modem cable ? e.g. dce to dte = striaght cable , dte to dte requires cross cable

+ ONE. AMP Power one relays will be fine from 10 - 16 volts across the remote terminal. More recent (1999 +) amps have voltage sensors so will not power up below 11 volts (to protect amp PSU and to allow enough charge in battery to start car). You'll need to check in more detail why the HU is dropping voltage when switched to ACC etc Things to check 1, ACC connection getting partial ground through wiring 2, Power anttennia output is not going to ground 3, HU speaker outs arn'te going to ground ( causing over current and dropping remote output voltage) 4, HU chassis has proper ground 5, ACC connection from car when turned on is at same voltage as measured across battery terminals (if this is low then these is where your issue is coming from HU, double check all HU wiring)

It's great to see people do really cool stuff in their lives. This will be a great memory that you'll also look back fondly on. Kick ar$e yatch !

Great car those 540i's You could try this link for Lower South Island BMWCC club for an email contacts. Plenty of nice roads down your way. http://www.bmwclub.co.nz/regional-chapters...-region-events/

Looks like the wife is sucking the life out of one mans dream . Regardless of taste it is indeed a sad moment. No doubt he'll be nuted after kid number 2 , the MR2 will be replaced by a people mover and his childhood collection wheatbix cards will be sold on TM to the highest bidder. One minute silence guys for a fellow man that has his dream sold.

My e46 m3 has factory hid without the washer system but I don't believe the've been retrofitted. Excellent lighting btw.

Take her for a ride in a 330 with heated seats. She'll forgo the 318i after that.

I think of the m badge / accessory in context with the vehicle that it's on. For some it means a sporting improvement over the standard car, others it might only be the hand built e28 & e34 M5's . Others it's the ltd versions of M cars that where sold for racing for Group N / A. However the article misses M-power branding which seem to be the motorsport branding now of more recent years and the M badge being mainly sports model versions of road cars.

Tend to search by image more and more these days. Helps cut through the curd

Wouldn't expect a speaker wire to pick up that much emf from having path next to Battery cable. RCA links possbily Things to check with engine running. 1,(Check right speaker connections) Make sure that the speaker terminal / amp speaker terminals connections haven't been grounded if not then carry on with these steps 2( Determining if noise is on amp output or input stage), Swap left and right front speaker terminals. Does the noise swap channels ? if yes do the next test, if no possible speaker to chasis short elsewhere between amp and speaker or amp has right channel problem. 3,(Determinig if noise is RCA lead or head unit) Swap left front and right front RCA's , Does the noise swap channels ? if yes then your poblem is right channel RCA lead or head unit noise out of right channel.. 4,( Determing if noise is RCA lead or Head Unit output) Pop out head unit. Unplug right channel RCA. 5, Plug left channel RCA into head unit Front Right. If the sound is clean then it's your right RCA. If not it's coming fron the Head unit right channel pre-out. 6 , If it's the head unit then recheck all of your head unit wiring. If this is all ok then then noise supressors may help or rca line loop isolators. http://www.crutchfield.com/p_003S15A/Ameri...tt.html?tp=2653 http://www.crutchfield.com/p_127SNI1/PAC-SNI-1.html?tp=2653

Temp road repairs due to damage done by heatwave. (as on news tonight)

With all respect to people like yourself and people in the trade you'd know about the art of mixing paints and also the challenges matching some factory paint colours from various make (like current Kawasaki motorcycle paints with pearl effect for example). In my veiw the dealer sticks are cheap enough for touch ups and a bit safer than risking someone's version of a factory colour. I think it might have been under $50 last time.

Nice looking TV . I brought one a 200hz LCD a few year back and find they aren't cracked up to what they are hyped to motion wise. Suspect plasma would would also be better than lcd/led for less motion blur. Check your blu rays for thanks picture setup (Dark Knight etc) and set your your new tv up and save to one of it's colour presets. You might find that your redish blacks become darker after. http://www.thanks.com/consumer/home-entert...mizer-overview/ BTW, If you haven't already don't forget to run through your audio time alingnment on your home theater amp. Looks like your left front speaker is futher away from the TV than right front. Time alignment will have the effect of pulling the left speaker closer to the TV. Edit: Auto spell checker is changing "T H X" to "Thanks"