Neal

I don't thing I can ever remember hearing a good sound 9 x 6. These are only good for shear volume. Go for front two way speakers. 5 1/4 will fit straight in. I'd suggest speakers with detachable tweeters. Mount the tweeters on the dash up against the windscreen. Go have a listen to as many speakers as you can , don't buy unless you've happy with the sound. If you going to a car stereo company take a selection of your fav music. Get the store to select a head unit that has all its sound enhancements turned off and is running flat bass and treble. . Get the store to turn off any subs in the system and have a listen to the speakers only with your music. That way you'll here what the speaker actually sound like Select speakers in your price range. Listen carefully to the tracks you’ve selected. Ask yourself, does the treble sound ok, is it too harsh, is it too smooth, are the vocals clear, does the speaker convey the music well for its price. In terms of speakers bands I'd recommend having a listen to entry price models from the following brands. (These are some brands that I've listened to) Boston Acoustics Phoenix Gold. Sony XSH series (XSH series are embarrassingly good for the price) Rockford Fosgate JL audio Focal In terms of bass in a BMW, because of the factory speaker size you'll need to add a sub to fill in the bottom end base. For an entry level system I'd spend more on the fronts than the Bass as your ears are less sensitive to lower frequency distortion. You can get reasonable sounding bass from a 10 inch sub mounted in a sealed enclosure. (Don't run too smaller enclosure otherwise it will sound boomy) cheers Neal

My mother put together a photo album of pictures recently that my late father took of the earlier Wellington Street Races. (Mobil 500 / Nissan Mobile 500) It has a number of pictures of BMW's which include cars that Richards /Billington drove and also included what I think was the Black JPS e30. Dad worked for the harbour board at the time so had access to most areas of the track including the pits so there's lots of good photos. I'll see if I can scan the negatives and post them here.

Hi Charles28 Alpina paved the way for this. Google Alpina B8. Alpina made around 220 E36 based V8 Coupes. They ended up being 4.6 L engines. I saw one of these on the M1 around London last year. Pistonheads.com has one for sale so you can get the general jist of it. I believe that the issue with RHD versions is the exshaust manifold does no allow for RHD steering . Maybe that's just a case of getting custom manifolds done. I'd love to do this conversion my self at some stage if it's possible. http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/184790.htm (link to B8 for as long as it lasts)

The 333i turbo was feature in either top car or bmw car in the 1990's (unfortunantly I threw my copies out) , Wasn't a factory option. The Alpina B6 and Hartage H35s are similar in may respects but both use the 3.5 rather than the 3.3 big six. When i was living in London last year these cars were selling for the 5 -6500 pound mark , about the price of a tidy e30 m3. A mint 325i sport would have been about 4000 pounds tops at the time. My fav e30 based big six is the Hartge M3 H36 which was an M3 with the 3.5 M5 engine in it . I think there is a silver 333i in Wellington, I'm sure I saw one a few years back getting serviced at Shelly's. Good luck with finding one Edit, BMW Car May 1997 feature a standard and turbo'd 333i Specs Euro Spec 3210cc inline 6 Getrag 265 CR dog leg gearbox 25 % locking LSD 1256 kg 0-60 7.3 sec Vmax 143 MPH Aplina 7jx16 rims Blisten Dampers Sports Exhaust 197 bhp @ 5500 210lb @4300

You'd think that they would have blown up the place or the car outside or something ........what an anti climax

3Pedals is right. I have an e36 325i manual and a e36 328i auto. Both are standard apart from the 325i which had the Cat removed NZ new in 94 To move the 325i along it needs about 4000 -4500 before any real acceleration happens and most of it's power is in the 5000 - 6000 range. Max power is close to redline so needs plenty of revs. The 328i develops it's power/torque far earlier and although both engines have similar HP the 328i feels quite a bit quicker and needs far less revs to do it. I think this is the best part about this engine. Also for my commute the 328i will get another 30-50kms per tank over the older 325i engine. Last week it managed 630km to reserve light on a trip. Either way the price difference between 323 & 328 aren't great. Although NZ new 325i are easier to get as manuals and normal have a higher level of interior trim. Possibly hard to get these days with low KM's. The auto 328i will out accelrate the 325i manaal from standstill or any speed (as proven by my wife).

Yep, you need to take out the factory speaker sound deadening which gives more than enough volume for a 6.5 they will give a lot more mid bass and run to lower frequencies than 5.25's. In my wife’s car I run the Sub crossover at 63 Hz which give a good up front sound image. I'm not able to do this in my car as the 5.5's bass roll off quite quickly so need to use 80 hz which does pull the sound image back a bit You'll need to lightly knock back the metal edge of the existing holes a wee bit and the 6.5s will slip in. Also check the panel that covers the underside of the Dash on each side as this can move down and sit against the top of the speaker rubber surround. You can either push it up a bit or trim about 10 -12 mill off it. Surprisingly the factory covers still fit over the speakers without the speaker hitting them on bass excursions .I'd check out front splits as this might not the same for all.

Wife Drives a 96 328 4/a Standard apart from Stereo She Rides a Kawa 650R Ninja

Haven't had too many in the last 20 years.... 1981 Mazda 626 Coupe (written off by drunk after 3 months) 1981 Mazda 626 Coupe 1981 e21 323i Coupe (Ah , my first Bimmer) 1985 e30 323I Coupe (Sold after 330,000 kms and still going strong !) 1987 Kawasaki KR1 250 1991 e36 318i a/4 Current 1994 325i 2/m ( Full optioned bog standard , owned for 8 years) 1996 328i A/4 ( Standard, Wifes run about) 1964 Mini Mk1 (1330cc Turbo project) 2001 Ducati 748R (Not standard ) 2006 Kawasaki Ninja 650R (wifes)

Yuen , Brokers shouldn't cost you anymore, and can often save you on premiums. I'd try giving John Baker insurance a call. I had the dilemma of trying to insure a motorcycle, with AMI the yearly was going to be $2800 with 3k excess (Was late 30's at the time). JB gave me a deal for the same level of cover with half the excess for $1200 yearly at the time. Needless to say , he's got more of my business. Was a few years back, but JB was driving a Bimmer at the time . I notice on my policy's I'm covered for young riders , be it at a higher excess. Give them a try, http://jbinsurance.com/ , they may be able to help with the car.

Yeah , I also have a Small car Mini habbit ....

Nicely installed Mike. Like the Amp recessed into the Box! Just a thougth, if you want to hide the Sub and leave the arm rest down just line the cut-out area with some speaker cloth. Save you having to paint the MDF

Must be one of the best marketing jobs on the internet. Would be nice to see BMW M Power do something similar with their line up.

You'll find the sound deadening on the E30 doesn't drop the bass to much. If you not going to enter SPL contests it will be fine. E36 Backseat drops the bass quite a bit, but wasn't too worried; it was the wife’s car with about 300 rms on bass. Had enough bottom end for her and she normally used lower volumes for her music. Amp was running about 10db of gain to compensate. I reckon the ultimate bass would be achieved by integrating the ports from the enclosure directly with holes cut into the rear parcel shelve.

It doesn't matter if you've got an arm rest backseat or not. Have a close look at the metal pannel where the armrest sit in front of.The pannel has more tac welds than i'd rememebered , A few light taps with a hammer and chisel each tac weld will pop leaving a nice pre-cut oval hole . You could put the pannel back when you sell the car. (See attached jpg's) One is from a pfl E30 323i the other is from a 91 E36 sedan.

The metal firewall at the back of the e36 (and e30s) has been pre-cut for the ski bag accessory thing that appears through the arm rest. If you look close the oval shape metal cover is only tac welded in four corners. A few taps with a hammer and the cover will come out leaving a prefect oval hole (30cm by 25cm) to get sound between the boot & interior. As the hole is already made for the ski bag kit you shouldn't have any warrant issues as no cutting is required. However , The e36 backseat as a reasonable level of sound deadening on it , so bass coming from the boot through the hole / backseat combo will drop the bass by about 10 -12 db. I've used this hole to mount a simple IB 12 inch subwoofer up against it in the past. Sub worked well on the e30's due to back seat design, the e36 required more power because of the back seat. One thing to consider is that the boot isn't so air tight so you need to be careful about exhaust fumes entering the cabin via the boot (especially if de-cat performed). Mainly an issue if you carry something in the boot that needs the boot lid slightly open.

Could be tuff if based on an ACS 3.2 Compact. 5.6 to 100kmh , 260 kmh vmax

E36's either have 4's ot 5 1/4 rears depending on year, very easy to replace , pop up rear grill , phillips screwdriver and you're away.

I'll still stand by Shellys, I'll share an experience going to another so called specialist in Wellington a number of years back. (Not PAGE BTW). The car broke an exhaust stud, no problems with that, a common issue on M20's. Whilst driving the car home going up Haywood’s hill the temperate gauge went off the clock (Very quickly as the e30's do). The result was a blown head gasket and a cracked head. What had happened was when they'd worked on removing the broken exhaust stud they'd moved the overflow tank out of the way. They did the repair and moved it back into place. However, the hose that connects between tank and raditor hadn't been checked. The result was the hose was just hanging on and let go about 15 kms later. Car dumped its water and cooked the engine. The specialist argued that it wasn't his problem.(Usual BS about car being high mileage etc) Wife and I were left with a $3,500 bill (Parts only as brother rebuilt the engine) and no car during winter for 3 months. I won't name the specialist as I think they probably spend time on here and are quite well respected and it was some time ago. If Shelly's had done anything similar I doubt it would have cost me a cent. BTW, A few of the Pages guys were at Shelly's when I first went to Shelly's.

Try http://www.caraudioproducts.co.nz/jlaudio.html for JL in NZ, the stealths were about $1000 , but that was when the NZ dollar was low against USD.

Could a few Wellington guys stop bagging Shelly's and let the rest of us take advantage of offers such as Michaels. The guys probably thinking why did I bother. Michael , keep them coming How about some discounts on BMW wheels & body kits ? I've been using them for 18 years now without issue across 4 different BMW's. I've always had excellent service. I know a number of Shelly customers that think the same thing.

Lyn Rodgers Automotive (09 534 3363) is up your way and has an excellent reputation for building race engines. NA engines his specialty His shop should be able to advise on best treatments to retain some of the strength when removing metal (EG shot penning / polishing etc )

Boston Accoutics make nice componets for the front speakers. I have one of their subs in the boot as well. Some of the front speakers are rated at 3 ohms so you'll make a few more RMS's out of most amps. They need plenty of clean power to sound best. http://www.bostonacoustics.com/car/car_pro...;product_id=297 http://www.bostonacoustics.com/car/car_pro...p;product_id=68 If your not worried about the sounds for the rear passengers then what about some jl stealth subs. They mount up to the rear deck speaker cutouts. http://mobile.jlaudio.com/products_stealth...il.php?fit_id=2

Names Neal At the risk of been called "Dad" by some of the younger members posted a couple of pics sampling the competion

Have a mate that use to teach before having 3 kids , lives near lower hutt. Could ask him if he's still interested in teaching if you haven't found someone .... Neal