[748adam]

Progress being made

[748adam]

Little bit of progress has been happening, managed to get most of the chrome trim painted black, with only the smaller bits left to do,
I'm liking the black on black look


Decats have now been finished and I'm itching to get them fitted!!


And lastly had a little bit of a delivery from ML Performance


I'll try to get everything fitted asap!

[748adam]

So here is a little story.
Yesterday seemed like a good day to do my decat pipes and silicone inlet upgrade. Managed to blag a 4 post lift to use to make life a little easier for myself.
Lovely day to be working on the car I thought as I got up, drove to the ramps and started the job of removing the splash guards and removing the downpipes at 10am, if any of you know the N54 engine you will know how much power can be gained through a series of upgrades but more importantly just how tight everything is rammed into the engine bay.
All the DIY tutorials are for American cars that are LHD, this is what makes it look like you can do the job on your drive in about 5 hours, us uk guys have a massive issue with the fact the steering rack is exactly where you need to work. After much cursing and 3 hours work the downpipes were off, next job the intakes, as the new silicone intakes replace the small and restrictive plastic intakes that go to the turbos it's better to do the intakes at the same time as downpipes.
After cutting and hacking through the rear inlet (1.5hrs) the standard one was out, trying to get the new inlet back in took an age and I had to get help from 2 friends to do it, as it is impossible to do on your own! The front was easier and only took 1.5 hours start to finish. Great onto the downpipes!
Managed to get the rear turbo pipe fitted with a lot more cursing and tantrums, fit was excellent and my friend has done a great job of welding them up, the front downpipes had an issue....the rear lanbda sensor location was in the wrong spot and fouled on the rear turbo lambda senor. PROBLEM! we came to the conclusion that the only thing we could do would be to cap the sensor bung off and drill a new one (this is the short version, there is a lot more to this story!)
Managed to get it done with with about 20 drill bits (all blunt!) and welded back in place, rest of the install went relatively well but all in all took 14hours!!
Not a job I recommend at all would just pay some one to do it if I knew before what I know now! What and absolute arse of a job!

[YH10]

Originally Posted by 748adam

Little bit of progress has been happening, managed to get most of the chrome trim painted black, with only the smaller bits left to do,
I'm liking the black on black look


Decats have now been finished and I'm itching to get them fitted!!


And lastly had a little bit of a delivery from ML Performance


I'll try to get everything fitted asap!

Am I the only one who prefers the chrome trim lol..:

[RajB]

Originally Posted by 748adam

So here is a little story.
Yesterday seemed like a good day to do my decat pipes and silicone inlet upgrade. Managed to blag a 4 post lift to use to make life a little easier for myself.
Lovely day to be working on the car I thought as I got up, drove to the ramps and started the job of removing the splash guards and removing the downpipes at 10am, if any of you know the N54 engine you will know how much power can be gained through a series of upgrades but more importantly just how tight everything is rammed into the engine bay.
All the DIY tutorials are for American cars that are LHD, this is what makes it look like you can do the job on your drive in about 5 hours, us uk guys have a massive issue with the fact the steering rack is exactly where you need to work. After much cursing and 3 hours work the downpipes were off, next job the intakes, as the new silicone intakes replace the small and restrictive plastic intakes that go to the turbos it's better to do the intakes at the same time as downpipes.
After cutting and hacking through the rear inlet (1.5hrs) the standard one was out, trying to get the new inlet back in took an age and I had to get help from 2 friends to do it, as it is impossible to do on your own! The front was easier and only took 1.5 hours start to finish. Great onto the downpipes!
Managed to get the rear turbo pipe fitted with a lot more cursing and tantrums, fit was excellent and my friend has done a great job of welding them up, the front downpipes had an issue....the rear lanbda sensor location was in the wrong spot and fouled on the rear turbo lambda senor. PROBLEM! we came to the conclusion that the only thing we could do would be to cap the sensor bung off and drill a new one (this is the short version, there is a lot more to this story!)
Managed to get it done with with about 20 drill bits (all blunt!) and welded back in place, rest of the install went relatively well but all in all took 14hours!!
Not a job I recommend at all would just pay some one to do it if I knew before what I know now! What and absolute arse of a job!

My mates changed his DP's in his garage on axle stands so know exactly what a pain of a job it is. Glad all sorted though even though it did take quite sometime.

[748adam]

Had a small delivery the other day, not 100% happy with the alignment but this was more of a tester than anything else, I'll order another one now I know I like it

[748adam]

Yesterday was a good day, myself and my friend decided it was time to make it louder so we set about achieving that goal. I'll let the pictures do the talking

[748adam]

So, some of you may know I have had a recent death in the family, girlfriends 28 year old brother. Heads been a little messed up but I have kind of defaulted to what I know which is taking stuff to pieces.
Started on my intake to see what state it was in, common n54 issue caused by being direct injection, fuel no longer passes over the inlet valves which effectively 'washes' them. This is their current state



As you can see, not great, spoken to a few garages who can walnut blast them for around £350 but they are also quite a distance from me so I will have to consider this.

In other news my big mod has arrived!!










Pretty good fit, couple of areas that need adjusting but the bodyshop can do that, I'll be speaking to them tomorrow, should look great once the grills are in place and it's all painted! Also have a splitter for it but having just been out for a quick drive I did catch 1 speed hump so I think I'll leave it off.

[RajB]

Quite a few people going with those Akra replica tips. They do look good but can't beat having the rest of the system to match .

Sorry to hear about your girlfriends brother. Not nice especially at that age. My condolences.

I walnut blasted mine and tbh didn't seem to make any difference but might try it again to see.

Bumper looks spot on. Tis a great mod and completely transforms the front end.

[748adam]

Thanks raj, but the rest of the Akrapovic system is a lot of pennies think I'm going to have to put the back box back on though as on cold start it is embarrassingly loud, once off cold start it sounds amazing!
Don't think walnut blasting would hurt so I'm hoping to try it out.

[RajB]

Originally Posted by 748adam

Thanks raj, but the rest of the Akrapovic system is a lot of pennies think I'm going to have to put the back box back on though as on cold start it is embarrassingly loud, once off cold start it sounds amazing!
Don't think walnut blasting would hurt so I'm hoping to try it out.

Agreed on the cost of the Akra. Love mine though and wouldn't change the cold start up for anything, especially when I have set car alarms off before that have been parked behind me

Some have stated good results from walnut blasting so it's certainly worth doing. I'd be interested to know how quickly it builds up again as that's the true findings needed. If they are back to like your pic above after only a few thousand miles for example then it would mean it's a pointless expense.

[CitizenKane]

Originally Posted by YH10

Am I the only one who prefers the chrome trim lol..:

Probably! lol.

To be fair I think chrome trim only looks good if you fully embrace the SE look. I don't think anyone would argue against the proposition that on a nice clean vermillion red or deep green e92 SE it looks stunning. But if you deviate from that look and want to go down a sportier route at all, I just don't think it works as well.

[CitizenKane]

Bumper looks great, can't wait to see it painted!

[748adam]

Had a very unexpected bargain today, browsing eBay last night I found a coral red interior 40 miles from me at a very low price, seller sent me some pictures and made the mistake of saying he needed them gone asap as they were in the way. I made a silly low offer and to my shock he accepted, off to Leeds I went this morning to collect them, in need a proper good scrubbing as they have been in a container for a while and were very dusty and grimy. Started to swap the leather off the new seats onto my old frames as my old seat are full electric as opposed to part electric, the connections are also different underneath.
From this


To this








Hoping to have everything swapped over at the weekend.

Now brings me to a guilty pleasure...... I quite like the bonnet vents on this

[RajB]

Excellent find on the coral interior.

Always a great colour combo with black/red.

A lot of people have really liked Josh's bonnet vents. A few have also fitted them. I'm a little torn with them tbh.

[748adam]

Got the passenger seat done and fitted this afternoon




Also finished and fitted the drivers seat but it's too dark to get a good picture, centre armrest will hopefully be done tomorrow

[MrSweet1991]

Originally Posted by 748adam

So, some of you may know I have had a recent death in the family, girlfriends 28 year old brother. Heads been a little messed up but I have kind of defaulted to what I know which is taking stuff to pieces.
Started on my intake to see what state it was in, common n54 issue caused by being direct injection, fuel no longer passes over the inlet valves which effectively 'washes' them. This is their current state



As you can see, not great, spoken to a few garages who can walnut blast them for around £350 but they are also quite a distance from me so I will have to consider this.

In other news my big mod has arrived!!










Pretty good fit, couple of areas that need adjusting but the bodyshop can do that, I'll be speaking to them tomorrow, should look great once the grills are in place and it's all painted! Also have a splitter for it but having just been out for a quick drive I did catch 1 speed hump so I think I'll leave it off.

That bumper <3 i quite enjoyed reading this.. sooo jelous at the monster 335 engine as well! Must link a video of acceleration sometime

[748adam]

Thanks mate, the n54 is a monster engine...when working properly and a pain in the ass when it's not. I'll try to get a video sorted but you'd probably be better off following me on Instagram for videos and more pictures, username is the same

[748adam]

So this is what £278.21 looks like to bmw


New coil on the left

Hopefully this will cure a slight misfire at idle that was annoying the hell out of me,
I also fitted some small missing trim clips and covers in the boot, changed the horrid marked grey plastic trim in the boot to nice clean black

[RajB]

Although mine doesn't show any misfire in any of the check controls it certainly has a slightly rough idle (not massively though) so I may go down the same route at some point.

[748adam]

Mine showed no codes and didn't misfire when driving, the coils are only £46 each from Cotswolds so pretty cheap when compared to non genuine ones,
Mine were the Bosch ones but now the uprated eldor units

[748adam]

not updated this in a while as I have had other stuff going on (buying a house then the seller pulling out last minute ) but today in preparation for the santa pod show I figured it was a perfect opportunity to get the machine polisher out and use the Autobrite Direct correct it range, bilt hammer medium clay and harley wax, here are the photo's