wrs

Here's a drawing of the ledge that worked for me - save's you the time making a template...

Yes, E30/E36 is the same. Don't have a 3D printer... I thought about painting the bracket black to hide it but actually like the raw ally look. Each to their own though - can certainly understand why matching to the vehicle colour would be appealing too.

Are you sitting down?? $235 from BMW... I also found the cardboard template I made for the ledge - your's if you want it.

No worries, welcome. Haven't had any more overflow issues since putting in the new hoses and coolant and raising the front of the car while filling. I suspect I must have had air trapped in the head from the first time round. Turns out the ledge panel is easy to get to so I can remove it easily and trace round it on cardboard and send to anyone who wants to fabricate their own - just ask. If anyone does want a template it might also be worth while drawing up and posting the drawing. Then I can also include the bracket dims etc...

Took some photo's so here's a step-by-step to fabricate a bracket to hold the M3 Euro Expansion Tank. Turns out it was easy to remove and there was enough length in the hose to push it up onto the inlet manifold so I could take photo's. Your car should already have a bracket on the firewall where the back of the mounting ledge bolts to with 2 x M6 screw. If you fabricate a flat plate ledge (eg 3mm Ally sheet) you need to put a 6mm spacer between the bracket and ledge so it sits at the correct height. I used cardboard and tape to make a template of the plate. This was overlaid onto the 3mm Ally Sheet and traced out. The Ally Sheet was cut out with a Jigsaw. The firewall bracket mounting holes were marked out with the plate sitting in-place. The strut tower end had hole marked out about where they would need to be. Once the holes were drilled and the plate screw in to the firewall bracket I marked through the strut tower holes onto the strut tower bracket. This bracket was only temporarily bolted in so it was removed to drill the holes for the ledge. Next the position for the expansion tank was marked out on the ledge with the tank sitting roughly in place. I marked only the foot end and then removed the ledge to get everything else lined up on the bench. The bracket for the rear expansion tank mounts was cut to suit along with the PVC mount. The rear bracket was bolted on and the ledge was ready to reinstall. Top View of the completed ledge: You can see the bracket bolted and glued to the strut tower. The ledge is made from 3mm Ally sheet. The Bracket to hold the ECU plug is made from 25x50x3mm Ally Angle with the bit that slides into the plug mounting grooves made from standard electrical DIN Rail cut to reduce the width. The Bracket to hold the back of the expansion tank is made from 25x100x3mm channel with one end cut off and a piece of 25x25x3mm Ally Angle bolted to it facing backwards. The bracket has to be bent to match the angle of the two round things on the back of the expansion tank. The grey plastic is 10mm PVC sheet. I put a nylock on the M5x40 bolt holding the PVC so it could be left just nipped up and could swivel so the expansion tank can be slid in at an angle then turned into place. At the strut end there's a flat plate added to allow for the thickness of the foot of the expansion tank. You need to make a small plate up to screw on to this plate to clamp the foot. Bolts holding the back of the ledge to the firewall (6mm spacer underneath): Finished Install (except the missing coolant low plug!!) The coolant low brown/white wire needs to be pulled back from the radiator drivers side and a new ground wire added/ Height the expansion tank sits at:

Replacement hoses arrived today. Drained and flushed out the old coolant with distilled water. Refilled with 50/50 BMW blue coolant and distilled water. Went for a bit of a drive and so far no issues. I raised the front of the car this time and tried to make sure there was no trapped air. Time will tell if it still overflows. Can take some photo's of the ledge and bracket I made up if you like? I won't be able to remove the expansion tank but should be able to get enough detail for you to DIY...

I purchased a NZAD D1 Racing clutch and flywheel on TM about 5 years ago. It was for the S6S420G box (bigger spline from memory). It never worked well for me as it would very often not disengage even with the pedal at the floor (with the rubber stopper removed). I had a steel braided clutch line too. I ended up getting a standard M3 clutch plate and pressure plate which works fine and always disengages correctly with the rubber stop reinstalled. It was suspected the D1 pressure plate had the tyne pivots in a different place reducing the amount travel to help reduce the foot force to overcome the stronger springs (never confirmed by measurement). I sold it on TM cheap to someone who was going to use it on a 5-speed and never heard back - don't know if that means it worked well for them or not though. The flywheel appears to be good with the only issue not having a TDC hole to lock the crank when working on cams... It's around 7.5kg from memory. The only downside to the light single-mass flywheel is the chatter at idle and meshing noise at low rpms and loads. Looks like the UCC flywheel has the locking pin hole - interesting the holes drilled for balancing are almost directly opposite it and look like a similar amount of metal has been removed as the lock pin slot.

Not sure the small gain in pressure would help all that much. The 50/50 coolant mix I'm using already has a boiling point of 122'C which should be higher still under pressure. If it is boiling issues then I'd be quite worried as we'd be talking near 130'C if that's the case. I've had my tablet connected to the Link ECU so I can monitor ECT and it never goes over 95'C when driving. I suspect the issue was to do with trapped air in the head which has subsequently cleared because I haven't had any more overflows in the last couple of days. I didn't raise the front of the car when filling the system so it's possible some air was trapped. I did a fan delete about 5 years ago and have been using front mounted electric controlled by the Link ECU ever since. I've got new radiator hoses arriving the in the next couple of days and will be changing the coolant to the blue BMW stuff when these are fitted. I'll also raise the front of the car this time to see if this helps with the overflow issue. If there are still overflows after this then I'll change the radiator cap because it might be faulty. When fitting the Euro expansion tank you'll need to find/make the ledge support it sits on. Most likely your car will have the mounting bracket on the firewall already which is easy to use (2 x M6 screws). However, you'll need to fabricate a bracket to bolt onto the strut tower to support the other end of the ledge. I fabricated my own ledge because I couldn't find anyone with a second hand one. I used 3mm ally plate for the ledge and 25x25x3mm ally angle for the strut tower bracket. For the expansion tank mounting you'll need to make a support at the back of the ledge for the two round bits to slide into + a clamp at the front for the foot. You also have to make a bracket off the side of the ledge to hold the round plug for the ECU connection (and a second one for the other round plug if you car is auto) as this/these need to be relocated.

Replaced my radiator with a custom build from A1 Radiators. Decided to go with the M3 Expansion tank since it's self bleeding. Since the change I'm getting a little overflow from the expansion tank overflow tube from time to time. I'm only running the 1.4 bar radiator cap - should I change to the 2 bar type? Most of the time there is no overflow, only if I give it stick for a while and then stop before the cooling system has caught up (coolant up to 95'C). The when hot, the radiator hoses are firm but not hard. It's still possible to squeeze them and you can see the coolant level rise slightly in the expansion tank. If I squeeze both radiator hoses as hard as I can (to try to raise the pressure in the cooling system) no coolant escapes from the overflow hose. I'm running Autostar Long-Life 50/50 pre-mix coolant with 1/2 bottle of water wetter added. I have 3L of BMW blue coolant additive and considering changing to this after flushing. Didn't have the BMW additive when I did the radiator install otherwise I would have used it. Any suggestion what could be causing coolant to overflow occasionally?

Cheers, thanks for the info. I hope a new one won't be required - if it is I might not get it before we lock down... I'll check first thing if one is in stock in NZ and can be delivered overnight. If it is in stock and can be delivered we'll attempt fixing it (hopefully Novus will sort it out in the next 2 days...).

Hi All, Been a while. Have had my car repainted - just picked it up today. I took it back to an empty tin can to be painted + did sunroof delete. Novus removed the front and rear windows prior. Unfortunately when they reinstalled the rear window they did not fit the bottom rubber seal which appears to be important in getting the glass positioned at the correct height. So, the window now has too big a gap at the top and it's impossible to get the bottom seal in. I suspect the window will have to come back out which risks breaking it again. The glue is only a couple of days old so may not be fully cured - likely the best time to remove it is now. If it's removed again will I need a new top rubber seal of can these come out ok when removing the window? The car isn't reassembled yet - pictures to come once it's all done. Looks like tiny-pic is dead, will have to re-up all the pictures and relink...

I've managed to find a RHD LH mirror. Still need the RH mirror though. The person I got the LH mirror from thinks they have both but has so far only been able to find the LH one. Hopefully the RH one will turn up.

Thanks, already did. Nick accidentally sent me some LHD ones - been trying to find RHD for ages...

Nice, thanks for the link!!

B12 kit made a huge difference to my E36. Before with the standard spring/shock grip wasn't good in corners with lots of bumps. Now you feel them but the car doesn't move off line at all. It's even softer to small bumps. The handling has been massively improved and it feels like it will never let go. I suspect the B12 kit would be at least as good and maybe better for the E87.

Yep, the mounts are different, glass is the same. Modifying the mounts is going to be a last resort - they may not fit back together properly afterwards. LHD: LH Mirror has long base with more angle, RH mirror has short base with shallow angle. RHD: LH Mirror has short base with shallow angle, RH mirror has long base with more angle.

Hi All, As per title, I urgently need to find a set of E36 M3 Coupe mirrors RHD. My car is going into the paint shop Monday 20th Jan and so far I've only been able to find LHD mirrors. Cheers.

My Vanos is buggered so I'm going to do a rebuild. At the same time I'll get the oil pump rebuilt because the sump has to come off to fix an oil leak and will replace all timing chains and guides etc. This is because all the timing gear and oil pump is of unknown age and condition. The engine was a M50B25nv converted into a M50B30 with S50US cams (and Vanos). My old ECU was from a M50B25nv and not compatible with a Vanos engine + because of the S50US cams I decided to by a Link G4+ Plugin for better tuning flexibility. Tuning was done by Graham Neal at WRC in Napier. Graham used the standard basemap Vanos On/Off RPM settings of 2500 On, 4500 Off. It would have been better to lock the Vanos off and do a full tune then do a second tune with the Vanos locked on. Then the two torque curves could be overlaid to see where they cross and those RPMs would be the best on/off points. Considering the basemap for the Link is for a M50B25TU with everything stock there could be some differences in cam switching points considering I'm using S50US cams. I'm also using the S50 Euro headers and M50 inlet manifold. I'm not using the MAF with the Link only using MAP, TPS, IAT and engine temp. The current tune is based on this configuration but it was found the engine was running out of air and fuel starting from about 5700 rpm. I have new injectors and a bored throttle body (18% bigger) which will go on at the same time the maintenance is done. After this it will get a re-tune. I briefly considered deleting the Vanos and locking the cams in full advance but think that will end up giving good midrange torque but nothing down low or up high - could be a disaster. As already stated, the best method to find the optimum cam on/off RPMs is to do a dual tune but I'm hoping there might be someone who has experience with a similar setup who already knows what the best values would be and would be prepared to tell me. A dual tune is pretty expensive and I'm trying to avoid the extra cost. At present when the Vanos turns on at 2500 you can feel a big change - I've been wondering how much lower the rpm value could be dropped to get the torque boost earlier. There's no noticeable change at 4500 when the Vanos switches off so this point could already be about right. Any thoughts?? I have also read the maximum RPM should be limited if locking the Vanos on to avoid high RPM valve clearance issues. If the dual tune approach is taken and this is a real issue then does anyone know what the safe maximum RPM with Vanos on is? I suspect you could limit it to the point where the torque is less than the Vanos locked off RPM crossover - no point going past there anyway.

When the external engine parts were assembled from the long block we used parts from M50B30nv and M52B28 doner engine (the long block was a M50B25nv converted into a M50B30nv by one of the guys at HellBM). The oil filter housing used was from the M52 and worked fine on the M50B25NV iron block - just had to modify the power steering pump due to the mounts being longer on the oil filter housing). Yesterday I finally changed the M52 oil filter housing to a S50 type and installed an oil cooler. So far with general daily driving it appears the oil cooler does nothing (hasn't got hot so far). So, either the oil thermostat is jammed or the oil just hasn't got hot enough yet for the cooler to be needed. I haven't given it any stick yet - still making sure there aren't any leaks before taking it out over some decent hills etc. I installed new idler and tensioner pulleys at the same time + changed the power steering pump because the old one was whining majorly. One thing I found immediately was the belt was screeching on the alternator just after the engine was started. The tensoiner was at full extension but the belt wasn't tight. I've done a temporary fix by putting the old to idler pulley back on with most of the alignment spigot filled off so I could rotate it a bit further down (the one on the top alternator bolt). The belt is tighter now but still not as tight as it should be. Maybe I didn't put the tensioner hydraulic thingy back on correctly when cleaning the S50 housing or maybe it's not pushing out to full extension anymore - does anyone know if the hydraulic type loses it's extension range with time? With the replacement power steering pump and new pulleys the engine bay is much quieter. Now the dominant noise is the Vanos (next job)... So from above, hoping someone can help with 2 questions: 1. Does the oil cooler thermostat only open under sustained heavy load conditions (eg, big hill) or should it open during normal driving (eg cruising at 100km)? 2. Are the main serpentine belt hydraulic tensioners a know weakness on the M50 engine and fail so they don't fully extend? Thanks in advance.

My Vanos is tired and I have no ideal what state my oil pump is in + the front of the engine a rattling real nice... I'm looking for: 1. A M50/M52 Single Vanos Unit (11361748036). 2. A M50 Oil Pump (11411740154). Both will be rebuilt/reconditioned before being used. I also want to do an upper & lower timing chain, guide and tensioner replacement. Should sprockets also be replaced? Anyone know a good place to purchase timing chains kits? Thanks in advance.

All sorted, thanks FIAT 131R.

Cheers - but I doubt I'll find anything at all (have already checked behind the rocking-horse, nothing there).

As the title says, I'm looking for a S50 Oil Filter Housing. I have the cooler and pipe-work, just need the housing and would rather not get one from VAC, Turners etc.

It was the left rear wheel bearing - replaced and all is good again. The bushes were nearly all replaced with stock ones about a year ago. The only ones I didn't replace were the diff bushes, glad I didn't now since I've changed diffs again (although this would have only affected the rear bushes). I've had tears forming in the rear diff bushes before but they're easy to check while the diff is out using a screwdriver through the screw hole and give them a twist. I've also had the exhaust redone. After lowering the car the exhaust was scraping on driveways, judder bars etc. The previous exhaust I put in to replace the mid section used a really fat 2 in 2 out resonator. Turns out this was totally wrong for the tuning back to the exhaust ports and caused a big flat spot between 2000-2500 rpm. I've dumped the big resonator and added 2 small resonators about where the cats used to be and put a H-pipe just behind the resonators. The result is excellent - it's much quieter and the flat spot is gone (I guess quiet = no fighting of the exhaust pulses in the pipes, previously there was a big drone between 2000-2500). It also sits about 50mm higher up into the arch so none of the exhaust now hangs below the body in the mid-section. The 2 resonators were custom built by AdrenalineR and do a really good job - no rasp at all despite only being 200mm long.

Have been running RE003's for the last 3 years but looking at reviews of the PS4 I'm pretty sure I'll be giving them a try on the next tyre change. The RE003's have been great tyres with really good grip but it looks like the PS4 do everything the RE003's do but with finesse, a bit more dry grip and quite a bit more wet grip. I'll be interested to follow this thread to see what others think about the PS4.