[ADEe92]

Hi all

I'm from South Australia and have been driving, and tinkering with BMWs for the past 20 years. I've recently purchased a very late (1/2013 build), one owner e92 as a replacement for a heavily modified e30, which I've been daily driving for the last 10 years. In the time honoured BMW tradition of creating 'editions' at the end of the model run to try and keep the cars moving against the tide of the new model, it's a 320d Sport Plus Edition.

I've been tinkering with BMWs a long time - originally I ran a couple of e21s, one of which I rebuilt the 2.3L M20, did a manual conversion and converted to EFI, and my e30 went from a 320i automatic with a humble 2.0L M20 under the hood to a M30B35 swapped manual with a laundry list of mods (looked OEM+, but nothing went untouched underneath the car). The plan for the e92 is to keep it stock and just maintain it as I'm keeping the e30 as a weekender on historic registration, so I can scratch the modding itch there if need be. The e30 is about to hit 400,00km on both the chassis and M30B35.

Hopefully I won't need to do too much wrenching initially asides from interim oil services between dealer services. The brake pads do need doing soon, so I'll probably do those, and since I'm intending to keep the car for the long haul, I'll probably swap out the lifetime fluids in the gearbox and diff for Redline products in a while.

Anyway, a few details of the car - it has no sunroof, is space grey with anthracite dakota leather + blue stitching, anthracite bamboo trim and headliner. Wheels are 18 inch style 313s. The fuel economy of the N47 is quite stunning after daily driving an M30 for almost 7 years!

Been active on r3vlimited for a few years, so some people may know me from there (and the old EUROCCA forum if there's any old members from then lurking here )

Cheers
Luke

outside


inside


...with my e30

[Trev88]

Welcome mate! Glad to see another n47 in the group! Haha can't wait to see what mods you have lined up! Beautiful car!

[Socket]

I see you found the Aussie forum

Welcome aboard

Plenty of helpful people in here, who will be more then happy to assist with technical questions and stuff
The classified section is a great place to pick up cheap pre-loved and the occasional new part
If you are planning on modding your car check it out first or post a WTB (want to buy) and someone might have what you are looking for

Looking forward to seeing how your build takes shape mate.... and once again welcome aboard

[ADEe92]

Thanks guys.

Loving the way the car combines amazing fuel economy in a very drivable package.

Doesn't have the grunt off the line that the e30 has (probably a good thing given the abundance of speed cameras around these days), but once the turbo spools up there's plenty to keep things entertaining.

Sometime I'll buy a code reader to help with maintenance, but is anyone running a vent gauge of some sort? Coming from older BMWs, I'm a bit disturbed by the lack of temp gauge in the car. Maybe it's not an issue?

[Trev88]

Get the Bmw performance power kit parts (nice metal sticker, bigger inter cooler, bigger fan, some extra ducting) less the ECU and get a custom tune. Drive is night and day. You could go BMW performance power kit ECU but it would be much more expensive than the custom tune.

[ADEe92]

Just looked it up - looks a good upgrade. Where is the best place to pick up the kit? Through the dealer?

My e30 does 0 - 100 in around 6 dead. If I sell the e30 I'd be pretty tempted.

A couple of e30 shots:

Engine bay


Interior - very basic by modern standards!
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The e30 has:

M30B35 engine with custom exhaust, chip & Miller MAF (around 160kW, 320Nm)
Manual swap
Stage 1 ACS Extreme clutch
Eibachs / Bilsteins, adjustable strut tops and full poly bush kit
16 x 7 Ronal Alpina reps
Recaro LX-Bs
3.25 LSD

I've clocked up 100,000km on the swap and it has been bulletproof (helps that it's basically a mildly tuned e34 535is in an e30 shell), so certainly not afraid of mods.

[Ken Oath]

Welcome to the forum.

Not having the spectrum of guages can be disconcerting but the sensor and monitoring is excellent.
Vent guages or an app like Torque can be used to monitor most of the common data via OBD port.

If you are chasing more power then just buy a 330D and be safe in the knowledge that fuel economy is phenomanal and know that you will never have to visit forums because of unreliability.

Enjoy.

[ADEe92]

Thanks Ken.

Very true on the power front - I bought the car with the ambition of keeping it stock and maintaining it. It has all the options I was looking for right down to the black headliner. Thanks for the reassurance on the sensors / monitoring.

I cross shopped against an e92 330d (but it unfortunately had a beige + aluminium interior and wasn't an m-sport - not a fan of the LCI e92 without the m-sport kit), a couple of different F30s, and a couple of different F22s, but decided this was the best option for me in the end with its blend of practicality, economy and being a manual.

Must stay focussed on the original goal

[DR-JEKL]

Looks like a neat daily!

I don't think Ive seen the colour stitch option before? Seen it on a few limited edition model M3's but not the normal BMW range.

[Socket]

Originally Posted by ADEe92

Thanks guys.

Loving the way the car combines amazing fuel economy in a very drivable package.

Doesn't have the grunt off the line that the e30 has (probably a good thing given the abundance of speed cameras around these days), but once the turbo spools up there's plenty to keep things entertaining.

Sometime I'll buy a code reader to help with maintenance, but is anyone running a vent gauge of some sort? Coming from older BMWs, I'm a bit disturbed by the lack of temp gauge in the car. Maybe it's not an issue?

yep Im running the P3 vent gauge

http://www.p3cars.com/

Displays water temp, speed, boost and a heap of other stuff
Easy to install, clean look and orange lighting matches the dash lights
Downside is you lose some airflow from the vent but I have not really noticed

[ADEe92]

That looks pretty neat - I may have to look into getting one if my lack of temp gauge paranoia gets the better of me.

Originally Posted by DR-JEKL

Looks like a neat daily!

I don't think Ive seen the colour stitch option before? Seen it on a few limited edition model M3's but not the normal BMW range.

Thanks Dr Jekl - the coloured stitching options were part of the 'sport plus edition' package. The car also has 'edition' written on the sill trim instead of the usual M\\\ script.

Here's a closer shot of the front seats - it's subtle, but looks good.

[Ken Oath]

P3 guages are not fully supported for DDE.
If you use Torque or similar you can manually configure PID's for the data you want displayed.

[Socket]

Originally Posted by Ken Oath

P3 guages are not fully supported for DDE.
If you use Torque or similar you can manually configure PID's for the data you want displayed.

I did not know that Ken.... nice catch bro

[ADEe92]

Ouch - driving home from work I got T-boned on the driver's side by someone turning right across the traffic. Thankfully I got away with just some minor injuries, but the front wheel, guard, door and rear 3/4 are all damaged so hopefully it will get sorted fairly painlessly through insurance.

[Socket]

Sorry to hear mate. Good luck with the repair

[ADEe92]

Thanks Socket - went to the insurer nominated panel shop and they took a look at it and said they couldn't fix the rear 3/4 due to it requiring special tools and a combination of gluing / riveting, so refused the job and suggested I contact the dealer for advice.

Helped out with the insurer for me by suggesting that no one in their network could fix the car so I got choice of repairer.

Rang the dealer and they recommended a BMW approved panel shop, who said it's fixable so I'm now waiting on the insurer to get back to me following their quote. Will see what happens next but either way the car won't be fixed before the end of April.

[ADEe92]

... and so the maintainance part of the thread begins

Replaced my rear brakes today - all went fine, although I have to admit that getting the wheels and brake discs off was painful, both had rusted to the hub. Haven't come across that before given it's so dry here, but looking on the forums seems pretty normal! Anyway, got them off in the end and everything else was fine, including resetting the service indicator

The car goes in to be repaired on April 2, so I'll do the fronts after I get it back - they're still showing 1000km until replacement required, and haven't popped the sensors yet so I should get through this week ok.



Thinking the service indicator might even be a little pessimistic as the previous owner lived in the hills.



Shiny new Zimmerman discs and pads - they bedded in without issue, the coating came off the swept area and there's no squeals or shuddering to speak of. I cleaned the hubs up thoroughly - the rusty looking hub is a light coating of anti-seize so that hopefully the wheels come off easier next time!

[Trev88]

You may wanna do your transmission fluid if your car is near 100,000km

[ADEe92]

Thanks Trev - it's at 70,000 at the moment... was thinking of doing both the transmission & diff at 100,000km, but could do them sooner.

[ADEe92]

Picked up the car this afternoon from the crash repairers - they've done a great job.

Good as new



Will get stuck in to the front brakes sometime in the next couple of weeks.

[Socket]

Originally Posted by ADEe92

Picked up the car this afternoon from the crash repairers - they've done a great job.

Good as new



Will get stuck in to the front brakes sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Did a great job

[ADEe92]

Not much to report, me & my family got out of mandatory isolation last night after having to return from overseas in a hurry a couple of weeks ago. Took the car up to the carwash today & gave it a quick bath. Thankfully it started straight up after not being started for 5 weeks. I had wondered whether the battery might have died, but it was all good Took it for a quick bit of spirited driving in the hills to charge the battery as our rules in SA aren't as strict as the Eastern states at the moment - ie. going for a drive on your own is ok.

Stay safe everyone!