The Barbara Chronicles

[Vass 762]

The detailing mission still slowly chugging along, I took on tackling the front bumper, which is by far the roughest panel on the car. It's suffered quite a bit of abuse throughout its life and probably deserves a full respray but that's not something I'm willing to entertain at this point so will settle for an improvement instead of perfection for now.

The mounting rails that slide onto the hanger brackets were already broken when I got the car with the passenger side one being particularly bad. The bumper was sagging quite badly initially but I managed to align it well enough that it wasn't too obvious. Was about time to properly address the issue though so I used it as an opportunity to further hone my plastic welding skills.

Bent the broken bits back in place and melted in some steel mesh for reinforcement. 

Won't be good as new but will hold much better than before anyway.

The paint was badly stone-chipped all over, beginning to crack in a few places and had a few rough scratches here and there as well. I polished it up best I could, touched up the rock chips and the worst of the scratches on the underside.

The mesh grille was looking quite faded and rock chipped as well so gave it a few coats of paint to bring it back to black. Only got a before photo of it though.

The trim inserts got some Carpro Perl treatment to rejuvenate the front end even further.

The result was never going to be perfect but from a few feet away now looks infinitely more presentable, which was the best I could have hoped for without it becoming a full blown repaint. Mint.

[Harper 496]

Has to be the best kept E46 in the country

[Vass 762]

4 hours ago, Harper said:

Has to be the best kept E46 in the country

Hahah doubt it. Not yet anyway, but I'm working on it

[Vass 762]

One thing I'd been meaning to address ever since getting the car was the fact it only came with one key. Lose that and I'd be screwed.

After putting it off for ages I was resigned to finally make my way to the dealership and drop $500 to have a spare made up... until I got to chatting to @Eagle who encouraged me to have a go at coding some keys myself. Having superficially looked into it aaaages ago I had filed the task away as something beyond the realm of my abilities but after all the sh*t I've seen and done over the past couple of years it didn't seem as daunting a mission on second glance. A couple of special tools/adapters were required but I was surprised to find you could get all that you need for under $100 off Aliexpress. Probably even half that but I also got a special adapter for an EWS4 that helps avoid any soldering since RealOEM had told me that's what my car had. Turns out it still had the older EWS3 in it so I could have gotten away with just the AK90 unit but I'm sure it'll come in handy eventually.

Getting the EWS data read was a bit finnicky but once that was done the coding of the key itself went smoothly. Did the synchronising procedure in the car and the remote started successfully locking/unlocking the doors straight after. Only thing left to do was to get the key physically cut. Easier said than done.

Took it in, got it back 5 minutes & $50 later, got home to the car only to discover the key was cut incorrectly and was essentially ruined. Took it back the next day, they ordered in a new blank key, cut it properly this time, somehow transferred the insides over from the previous one and I finally had a fully functional spare key the day after. Great success.

If anyone needs a key coded in the Christchurch area feel free to hit me up, happy to help out. Will also tell you who to avoid going to to get it cut hahah.

[Vass 762]

I was out exploring the great outdoors (i.e. Pick-A-Part) one weekend, scavenging for some random parts I needed for a new project car when I noticed one of the cars there was equipped with a feature I'd been thirsting after ever since having it on my first ever E46 325ci - automatic lights & wipers. After a quick Google to look up what all is needed for the retrofit, I turned a quick parts trip into a 4-hour mission of untangling the whole wiring loom to look up exactly how everything is routed in order to get the end result as close to factory standard as possible.

Turns out all you need is the rain-light sensor, bulkier mirror surround, LCM fascia panel with the auto lights position and 4 wires to run, then just enable the feature with PA Soft or similar and off you go. Of course the windshield itself will need modifying or replacing with one with a black surround where the sensor attaches to. I'm still hoping to catch a stray rock from a haulage truck passing by and get a brand new screen through insurance but might bust out some black paint and install it as is if I get bored in the meantime.

Now I just need to find a towing module & wiring so I can rip out the interior and install this, the heated seat wiring and possibly dash cam + radar detector hardwiring all in one go.

[Olaf 3262]

Awesome progress!  god loves an e46 touring!  Took mine on a club trip last weekend, the M54B25 certainly isn't quick like a B30, though the car remains enjoyable to drive.  Going to hunt back through your thread looking at speakers and amplifier areas.

 

[Vass 762]

58 minutes ago, Olaf said:

the M54B25 certainly isn't quick like a B30, though the car remains enjoyable to drive.

Funny you say that. I recently discovered my B30 isn't as quick as a B30 either 😅 Still enjoy driving it although it's been a good 2 months since I have... 

58 minutes ago, Olaf said:

Going to hunt back through your thread looking at speakers and amplifier areas.

I've not done anything on the audio front apart from the headunit so doubt you'll find anything useful.

[Olaf 3262]

Perhaps I can make a contribution on the audio front to our collective knowledge on Touring audio - at least if I can be arsed doing it myself!  I did initially think of the double-din android units like you and @adro have done, though can't be arsed on the extra cost of the unit and running in a Camera (as useful as that would be).  I'd rather spend the extra on Konis 😊

[Vass 762]

12 minutes ago, Olaf said:

Perhaps I can make a contribution on the audio front to our collective knowledge on Touring audio

Yes please! That's further down on the priority list for now but keen to know what works for when I get around to it.

[Vass 762]

A few months ago I helped @Carbon manual swap his E39 530i. Awesome car, a stunning topaz blue 2001 Msport sitting on Style 65's.

Shortly after the swap he stumbled upon a cheap, grandpa spec 530i and just couldn't pass it up.

Despite the newly manual swapped one having tonnes of maintenance items ticked off and the newest purchase, although being tidy for its age and price, being borderline neglected, he was adamant about the former being noticeably low on power in comparison. My butt dyno wasn't as well calibrated so I couldn't feel much of a difference but to make it scientific, he organised to put both of them on a dyno power run and find out for sure. To satisfy my own curiosity and to add an extra point of comparison, I tagged along.

Three M54B30's put to the test.

First one up was the 2001 Msport 530i with around 150k km's on the clock, manual swapped with a 5-speed ZF and single mass Valeo flywheel. Maintenance included a rebuilt VANOS, rebuilt DISA, new fuel filter, new genuine camshaft & MAF sensors amongst other things so by all means well up to standard and running the latest EU2 tune.

Somehow, it only managed to push out 250 Nm & 157 hp. The air-fuel ratio held steady up to around 4k RPM at which point it fell off a cliff, taking the power numbers down with it. The drop-off seems to occur roughly at the point VANOS and DISA kick in so we suspect one or the other. Currently in the process of swapping over VANOS units so will see what that does.

Second was my Touring. Roughly 10k km's post engine rebuild, all reasonable and unreasonable maintenance addressed and well documented.

The torque curve looked a wee bit better but still ended up low on power, pushing out 255 Nm & 166 hp. It seemed to be running on the rich side throughout. The tuner said he usually aims for an air-fuel ratio of around 13 when remapping NA engines, mine were floating around 11. He was fairly confident that with a remap there's easily another 20 hp in there and that he could tune for it but it's best to figure out why the mixture is as rich as it is in the first place.

And lastly, the grandpa spec 2002 530i automatic with around 180k km's. Still very tidy for its age but out of the three definitely the least looked after and borderline mechanically neglected. Post-dyno we also discovered the DISA to be completely broken and non-functioning - the flap being completely loose and dangling around the shaft, unconnected. Lucky that the infamous pin hadn't dropped into the engine.

All this made the results all the more puzzling...

268 Nm (disregarding the early peak) and 186 hp.

What the actual hell.

The M54B30 is supposed to produce 228 hp at the crank. Account for ~15% in driveline losses, the figure to aim for should be 194 hp at the hubs. The blue car fell 37 hp (19%) short of that figure, mine 28 hp (14%).

The grey "broken" car had barely lost any power whilst we and our pReVeNtAtIvE mAiNtEnAnCe had basically managed to downgrade our engines to M54B25's.

I guess the takeaway here being that we've both just wasted stupid amounts of money on upkeep and trivial brand new parts when all they needed was a healthy dose of neglect.

Less is more.

Grandpa spec FTW.

I went back to the readings I pulled when I suspected I might have a vacuum leak, with the LTFT's sitting at 8.6%. Sure enough, the 8.6% actually had a '-' in front of it so I had been running rich this whole time, just wasn't clued up on how to read fuel trims properly to realise it at the time.

I've since read up on there being a faulty batch of Hengst fuel filters out there with faulty fuel pressure regulators that produce around 60 PSI of pressure at the rail instead of the spec of 50.76 +/- 2.9 PSI. Sure enough, I had installed a Hengst filter just this past October so suspected it might be the cause of my rich running. 

I hoped for that to be the cause since that would have been an easy fix. So I went out and got a fuel pressure tester to verify only to find that it sits at a steady 52 PSI at idle - well within spec.

With the engine turned off, the pressure quickly drops to 48 PSI and then holds steady for at least half an hour, which would also rule out leaky injectors.

I tried clearing all adaptations, then ran the car at idle, logging running parameters and sure enough, after a few minutes STFT's shoot straight into the negative territory, sitting at around -15%.

Something's not quite right and I'm not sure how to troubleshoot it further. The lack of power itself isn't really that noticeable since I barely ever push the car to its limit but constant rich running can't be good for it.

MAF, O2 sensors are brand new OE, DISA is rebuilt and seemingly operating properly (which, judging by the grey car, might actually be a detriment), ICV cleaned, fresh VANOS seals etc etc.

I could just go back to the dyno and have the car professionally tuned to aim for an AFR of 13-14 but would be good to figure out why it's currently running as rich as it is. Otherwise, if the issue eventually somehow fixes itself I might end up on the lean side instead.

Could it be something to do with the EU2 tune and it being adjusted to the petrol used in Europe that's somehow different to what we're using here? Then again all 3 cars are running EU2 tunes and 95 octane so that shouldn't be a point of difference.

All in all, the dyno experience was a good one and well worth doing, despite coming out of it slightly demoralised. Will need to do some more thorough data logging and keep myself up at night even more.

Once the car is ready to see the light of day again that is.

[Eagle 1572]

On 7/5/2024 at 10:17 PM, Vass said:

I tried clearing all adaptations, then ran the car at idle, logging running parameters and sure enough, after a few minutes STFT's shoot straight into the negative territory, sitting at around -15%

Id be going for a decent drive and re-check when its warmed up. Im not sure how long adaptions take to reset but probably more than a few mins on cold start.  If its still that high then id hook up the gauge and drive just to be sure the regulator aint spiking somehow. If that checks out log the MAF and O2 sensors to rule them out.