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Neal

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Posts posted by Neal

  3. Posted · Report reply

    Yep , got this on a few parts imports for 1960's mini & car audio bits. Worst it seems to be with DHL where I even needed some special import thing when the value was over $1000 NZ. (Re-11's from tyrerack) Would have worked out far cheaper to source NZ if Bridgstone NZ carried E46 M3 sizes

    Tend to split orders up now. Better to have 3 items sent via 3 lots with individual items under $400 than trying to combine and save a few % on combined postage.

  7. Posted · Edited by Neal · Report reply

    Still a higher spec than my orginal E21 323i. Some people may have dreamt about owning a new BMW all there life.

    Remember the days before Jap imports and how expensive new & second hand BMW's were ? I think this is similar to China at the moment. Just as well they don't import secondhand BMW's from Japan. Imagine what would happen here to prices if these dried up.

    edit , starting to sound like an old bugger eh

  8. Posted · Report reply

    Used STP on E30 & E36 , biggest difference noticed on E30 323i. Would gain around 25 - 30 km on a tank of gas. Stats based on 600,000 km of commuting with av speed of 52.4 kmh (Sad ah). Commute was 64 km per day in varying driving. 100kmh to crawl so mainly low rpm.

    Bigger diff on unleaded petrol suggesting that the 95 octine had more crap in it compared to leaded. 98 seemed cleaner when that became available , didn't notice any diff running 98 after injector clean.

  10. Posted · Report reply

    He loves his BMW's like the rest of us. But yes a big hit. Mind you, how many 410kw cars of this age with 10,000 kms and this level of refinement could you get for the price he's asking ?

    Can't say I've been in a X5 , but I find the X6 has more room and sits higher than a 5 Series. If I wasn't married to an "expecting" accountant I'd be very tempted (and broke there after) Would make the ulitmate car in many respects, power , comfit , saftey.

    Anyway , have brought a lotto ticket, cross your fingers for me guys !

    Otherwise , if your tempted , give him a call. He's one of the most fanantical petrol heads I know. The X6M is as new and he looks after new cars like no one else I've met.

  11. Posted · Edited by Neal · Report reply

    GPS has been working fine since I have had the car but on the last 2 trips it has completely failed to get a lock on any satellites. It keeps thinking I am starting out somewhere where it seems to have been last used successfully and now keeps telling me "Return to the Planned Route"

    How can I make it re-aqcuire the GPS Satellites?

    If it is going to involve a major repair then it might be time to think about upgrading to the big screen version version (Mk11?). It might also fix my problem that most of my TV stations no longer come in very well and seem to have the "MUTE" message showing at the bottom of the screen....sigh :unsure:

    Have you placed anything on the rear parcell shelf and covered up the gps antenna ?

    Sorry , not sure where it would be on Touring

  12. Posted · Edited by Neal · Report reply

    I'd buy that example if I didn't already have a lower km version. :o

    Mind you at standard ride height I only just make it down my driveway with a couple of mm to spare.

  15. Posted · Report reply

    Cheers Neal - hadn't thought of checking for loose nuts and bolts :-)

    3Pedals - take it easy fella. I think I said I'm new to this at the begining. Yes i paid for this stuff - but it wasn't expensive. Yes I'm going to try it at 2ohm - and if it does sound distorted I can always change it back to 8ohm.

    Thanks again guys.

    Follow the youtube link and download the guy's mp3. It's a good track to check for rattles for the box and the car and tunning in the sub gains etc. Watch the volume though as at 600 rms you'll be pushing the DB's and don't want to run into clipping.

  18. Posted · Report reply

    Theory of the amps is interesting,(built a few mosfet based hifi amps over the years and repaired too many to remember) yet much of car audio amps are geared towards high current output stages rather than using more voltage and running hgher impedance drivers. Even BMW have been dropping 2 ohm mid bass drivers in the cars over the last decade.

    Doesn't pay to have online aurgments with 3 pedals as these are often very techincally sound( it's also easy to be taken out of context without writting a book rather than a quick post). But with car audio I've had 25 years of dropping sound systems into BMW's and a couple of SQ trophies to boot.

    What I've learnt has been through a quite a number of systems , some have been gear towards lots of $$$ other have been mates with modest budgets. What I've found with Sub bass is the driver has the largest factor in the quality of sub bass and the amplifier is of less importance. However , power corrupts and in my experence I've been getting the better reaults with high power class D amps running low impendance drivers than I did with mid powered class A/B amps running higher impedance drivers worth a few $k with exotic onboard componets. Be assured that you are on the right track with what you are doing. Neal

    PS , if anyone if after BMW size midbases I brought another pair of these recently. http://www.ebay.com/itm/PPI-355CS-PRECISIO...=item1c269ff104 These used to retail for around $1200 nz when they came out on the mid 2000's and still hold there own now.

  19. Posted · Report reply

    Went the otherway from re001 to re11. Fantastic grip and roadholding and very predictatable on the edge of traction. (track day). Not as much comfit as Ps2 but better in every other regard. I can imagine that the Ps3 may close the gap between grip of re001 verse re11.

  21. Posted · Report reply

    Now your talking ! :)

    6, Spanner check anything with bolts in and around the boot , check every few months (had bumper come loose once)

    7, Check your rear fill speakers once you have the sub running. They may tear themselves apart with the energy of the sub

    8, Take off numberplate and add double sided foam to back of plate. Then re-attach

    You may not need item 5 with different amp

  22. Posted · Report reply

    hence me suggesting running amp in bridged mode with an 8 ohm load being better than running stereo mode running dual 4 ohm load.

    3 pedals will be able to work this out when he has thought about this more deeply as most car amps run blt mode for bridging (hint, Think about the mono'd sine wave through a bridged amp sharing two power supplies and the recovery time needed to recharge the output stages of the bridge + amp and - amp under load)

    8 ohm speaker load becomes the bonus for damping ;)

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Neil - cheers for the info. I had though about amping my front speakers, but at the moment I have a pretty average Panasonic headunit with only one set of pre outs. I definately want to replace that with something decent that looks a little more in keeping with the dash and with 2 pre outs etc. Also I have the fronts in the standard mounting position - in the front kick panels. Do you think it's really worth amping the fronts in those cramped little spaces?

    With a single pre-out you could run an RCA splitter and feed the ff150 & a latter sub amp. Run the rear fill speakers off the factory head unit. I ran a setup like this a while back on the wife’s car and it produced good sound.

    If you’re going to the trouble of replacing the head unit look for 3 set pre-out version.(front / Rear / Sub) Possibly look at versions with built in time delay (some sony HU's for e.g) so you can offsite the driver’s side midbass & tweeter. This will give a stereo image that’s sounds more like sitting "middle stage" rather than "middle right stage"

    You can get good sound out of factory e30 location for midbass drivers. As bass duties will be handled by the sub you don't need much of an enclosure size to produce midbass frequencies (80 hz up) .

    Look at mounting tweeters on each side of the dash by the windshield to pull stereo image up.

    The factory rear nokia speakers are ok for rear fill so don't worry about replacing those.

    Alternator wise you should be fine with the amp you have. If you are doing lots of short trips in the winter with headlights, wipers, rear screen demister on than give your battery a chance to recover from starting the engine before driving around with bass heavy music. One of my e30 systems was around the 210 watt rms mark . When it was cranked you'd see a slight dimming of dash lights to the music but nothing really to worry about. I did however fit the highest capacity battery that would fix under the bonnet.

    I only started having voltage issues (e36) at around the 600 rms point with a class A/B amp. The system could drain a battery in about 15 minutes if you were caught in traffic using low revs (not much alternator charging)

    Ironically I had less issues when I change out the amp to multi amp 1000 rms total , The difference was run a class D sub amp which was far more electrically efficient.

    That circuit looked fine for de-thump btw.

    In terms of running the Sub with only one voice coil used , you can try without issue. I did this on an earlier system where the sub amp was 4 ohms min. I ended up running both voice coils in series as the bass seemed to be more controlled with better definition than just running one coil. No harm in trying different combinations.

  25. Posted · Report reply

    Matt my amp won't handle a 2 ohm impedance - wish it could... Yeah i think I'm sending even less than 150w at 8ohm. Figure my options are:

    1. Sell the sub and buy a lower power single coil replacement.

    2. Save and buy a mono 2ohm stable amp.

    I'd prefer to do the second option but don't think I can afford that any time soon and won't look forward to replacing the 8 guage power and earth I just installed <_<

    Keep the sub and run it in series (8 ohm load) In reality there is not much difference in SPL between 100 rms verse 150 rms. If anything your give your amp an easier load to run and still should get reasonable bass volume.

    Save up for a 2 ohm stable sub amp ( or some 2 channel amps will run 2 ohm load in bridge mode) look for at least 300 rms into 2 ohms.

    Use your FF150.2 to power your front speakers later on.

    In terms of running the earth to the battery verse to central point you will have no problem using the body as an earth with the power you are running.

    However , if your running amps with 800 rms or more run the amp earths to the battery or consider the battery to chasis size earth cable. BMW's are fairly generous with battery earth size cable but you do need to consider what an additional (short term) 200 amps could do the the cable with high power audio systems. espically when starting the car with the stereo pumping.

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