cheap M3, whats the worst..

OSR tyre punctured with big screw *FLOUNCE*

wont be able to carry out repair until next tuesday at the earliest :(

may have to bolt on the original non staggered wheels

life without wide rear wheels for a few days. first world problem
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oh hai guys

Spot the difference
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3mm of brick dust over the cars, but the driveway is finished!

On an exciting note, MAF ordered today and some filters. Once its been washed it can have an oil change and now that I can keep it off the road it can go back under its cover.
 
ideally i want to have it painted before christmas, thats the biggest aim for the car for the winter. last time i used this particular paintshop they had a 3 month waiting list though.

as for the engine is lovely. its revvy (not vtec revvy) so when you do put your foot and the revs get about 6k when most cars start to go limp the S50 has another whole 1krpm still to go.

being a relatively large engine you can dawdle abotu in traffic as it has a decent amount of grunt low down in the revs too.

if you do upgrade to something s50 you should bear in mind that the main weak link for the engine are big ends which can lead to instadeath and is very expensive to repair as regrinding the crank is apparently almost impossible.

so given the age of the cars/engines and the sort of owners they are likely to have had, i would want those bottom end bolts uprated and shells replaced before i stuck it in a car. that engine work had been carried out to mine a few months before i bought it, it was one of the main pros about the car.

im hoping for more firepower from mine once the new MAF etc go on :D
 
the driveway down the side leads to the existing garage (more of a shed IMO, designed when cars were presumably much smaller)

the new garage is at the end of the garden. the original garage will disappear and become an extension of the driveway and it will lead to the NEW garage which is much much bigger, much much better, but needs a roof. thats one of the next big expenses.
 
what a review, the main critisism is that it lacks the involvement of the original E30.

what a different world we must have lived in back then, thats all i can say. i know the e30 must have set an extremely high bar, but that must have been one hell of a raw experience.

the review doesnt go as far as to say the car is inert, there seems to be no question that its very good, but doesnt live up to the e30. i couldnt find in the article how the car compared to its rivals in terms of involvement.

i would say im a bit of a handy driver but this car, even after a month and quite a few hundred miles makes me think twice from time to time. there is no traction control safety net. if you get too eager, and there is plenty of power to make absolutely sure you get into trouble, the car is capable of asking you some very big questions which you absolutely must be ready to answer.
 
they are mega rare. you either get the museum examples with a few thousand miles, which seem to be advertised for £8k+
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/3858576.htm
http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/3208571.htm

there are very few others that arnt utter dross. very few adverts list any important work having been carried out. lots of them are chavved up.

you get a few which have had partial restorations (ie some suspension bits and a lowering kit) which come up in the £5k region

they are a dying breed and it looks like theyre dying quickly
 
Hi there

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Thats the box of BHP on the left ;)

Would be really good if there was a way i could plot the G / torque output before and after
 
I'm at the royal Albert hall tomorrow, might not get to fiddle with it until Friday :-(

I can't remember who has our groupbuy gtech. Smart phone might be capable of it though
 
Carried out some basic on the BM yesterday. i picked up an air and oil filter and maf earlier this week but due to life getting in the way i wasnt able to fit them until yesterday.

getting the airbox out is easier now that ive had some practice. maf is attached to the airbox and i was changing the filter too, so i removed it completely

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old maf had one of the screens missing. i found that in the bottom of the plenum when i took the intake system off last time

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i was hoping to find a date stamp on the original maf to show its manufacture date.
most components have them

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no date stamps on new one either
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the old air filter certainly did have a date stamp though (got to love a car with a crap history)
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fram filter was taller which can only be a good thing

filter is absolutely tiny though which really has to make you laugh at wallys who want "performance filters" when BMW obviously prove you can get 300bhp from one that size made of paper

Height(mm) 58
Length(mm) 243
Width [mm] 178

oil was changed, blah blah blah, oil filter kit comes with new o rings and washers, which seems a bit over kill considering it cant have done many miles since it was last done

the car wanted a wash too and you might remember that when i cleaned it last i only had time to hard wax the front... so i washed it and hard waxed the rest of it

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couldnt do a test drive there and then due to traffic but i reset the ecu and took it out later on.

i had this to contend with next

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as for the test drive, i took it out at about 11pm lastnight. there was a couple hundred £ worth of placebo riding on this but without a doubt the car feels noticably more ballistic now. noticably more muscular at normal revs, even odd things like small throttle opening, it makes the throttle more linear (less jerky, easier to drive). so it has improved response and outright shove

next month, two new lambdas
 
I think its got to be bloody close to it claimed figures now, it really does go. Maf made a huge difference.

Its not even just that, its a 90s hero. Ive been driving mine for 5 weeks and ive only seen a few others
 
for sure. if i were to bin it i would be completely gutted.

a) i wouldnt be able to live with the embarrasment
b) ive put a lot of time in to this car, which itself was a bit of a gamble, and it turned out to be a car i like
c) definitely a rare sight on the road, especially nice ones.
 
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just a pic, but when i cropped it it did something to the resolution
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ill get another vid together when i can think up how to set up a camera best (primitive, i just have a camera on my phone)

a shot of the speedo would be funny, the gauges go round pretty fast but as long as there is sound youll know what speed its doing anyway
 
Nothing interesting has happen in the past couple weeks, Ive just been driving/enjoying it.

Due to life getting in the way Ive not been able to tinker at all, but I have set the next set of goals as lambdas and lights.

Going back to the original orange indicators front and back and oe headlights "delensed" and with HIDs.

The last set of tweaks included the new MAF. Aside from additional firepower it has made a difference to the fuel consumption.

The cumulative average has risen from 23.8 to 25.2

The average since the new MAF was fitted changes between high 27s to low 28s. Not a bad "combined" figure imo
 
Mine can be a bit inconsistent. Some mornings you start it and it acts like I didn't do a cold idle prog at all, the revs sit bang on 700 the moment you start it. The next morning it will idle at 1100 to 1200 for the first couple minutes. No rhyme or reason to it
 
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