Kevin Bacon

I've never understood the mentality of that. The E90 is an expensive car, very low mpg, expensive insurance and expensive maintenance, and yet people quibble over £41 / month to tax it??!? :scratch: That's like spending £800,000 on a country mansion and moaning about the heating bills. "Oh I'd never by a Ferrari because it costs £1000 to tax". I've never heard anything so ridiculous. Don't read too much into what you read on the net. Treat it the same as the Daily Mail doing a front page on Cabbage causing cancer, i.e. it's highly like to be unsubstantiated nonsense. All cars have common problems and all problems are solvable and not ALL cars exhibit said problems. There's more good about and M3 than bad, and you're not getting any younger. Do it man :)

You need a lot of road to enjoy one to the full. They feel big and the rev range commands plenty of clear road ahead because not much happens below 5000rpm.

Yep, 11 - 12Kg for the DMF. VR6 ones are 9Kg. I used a standard VR6 one in my conversion but in hindsight, I wish I had used a dual mass and R32 clutch for a much better pedal and less vibrations in the cabin. Need an O2M from an EOS V6 though.

M3 then :D I went out in a friend's E90 M3 recently and that's quite a machine! I think the E46 is still the best M3 overall though.

Diesels aren't my bag, but you could talk to Vince about it. He'd know.

If you have roads where you can enjoy an M3, do it. Otherwise keep the 330d. You must have some mountain bike if selling it will part pay for an M3!!

No is the short answer, otherwise everybody would do it and there would blown engines littering every major road in the country :lol:

It's the same as the 12V in terms of smoothness, but the 12V isn't that smooth imo. It gets pretty rough near the redline and there's a horrible out of balance roughness around 1200rpm as well.

I noticed bugger all difference when I fitted a 9lb cromoly flywheel (half stock weight), and I had the shorter 3.68 final drive. I think it's one of those parts people rave about but the reality is they offer very little to the driving experience.

Argentinian steaks are the best. Would be a shame to lose that connection with them :D

Ham and cheese toastie anyone? In other words, meh. Who cares. Yesterday's news is today's fish and chip wrapping. I've got ebola by the way. Tomorrow I will be dead and the world will carry on :D I think 1000s of English people should wear them and have a tour around Argentina. Indeed, f'ck em. They invaded our territory and got clobbered for it. F'ck em.

The 24V isn't an especially smooth engine. They have heavy, rubber damped crank pullies and very heavy dual mass flywheels. Without those and soft mounts, it's rough as a badger's arse. I'm not sure you can improve it tbh as the design of the engine is a limiting factor. Offset crank etc. Audi's true V6 and a straight 6 are waaaaaay smoother than a VR6.

Croque-Monsieur jambon et fromage anyone?

As I said on page 1, just get a new one from the dealer :lol:

Good man, defo a good skill to have! Personally, I would get yourself a Clarke 135TE Mig welder from Machine Mart and learn with that. It's what I did and after welding a few bits of scrap together for practice, I was able to knock up my own exhaust sections for my R32 conversion. I think Tig is worth the investment if you're doing a lot of welding that will be on show, or tricky 6 branchers, otherwise Mig is plenty good enough for exhaust fabrication!

They're about a tenner IIRC. What a peculiar thread :lol:

Just get a new one from the dealer.

:lol: Well said that man! Oil prospectors and speculators can't be trusted, and neither can oil refineries. They've been sending out false messages about oil supplies drying up for decades. This country will come to a grinding halt long before the oil runs out. We'll soon need 10 lane motorways going into London. The Dartford bridge is now permanently backed up during the day, and they've had to scrap the toll booths to try and ease congestion. It's getting ridiculous, but still the government turn a blind eye to the obviousness that's under their stupid noses. The oil companies are probably bricking themselves right now about how fast electric cars are improving. Proper hybrids from McLaren, Porsche and Audi are available right now. There are also a few full electric cars on sale right now, too. Demand for fuel will take a rapid decline once these cars become more mainstream and cheaper. I bet the oil cartels are doing their level best to slow down their progress. If the governments and big business actually cared about the planet and it's occupants, they would just ban cigarettes immediately and pump most of the fuel profits into alternative energy. And I'm sorry, I'm all for some Chinese dictatorship when it comes to kids as well because there is just isn't room for 16 kid families in this country anymore.

Got a picture of it? Sounds aftermarket to me.

For sure I was hacked! I live on fags and red bull. Rice cakes? Pah, sawdust tasting load of crap! Again, we are to blame for that! We protested once about fuel prices, back in 2005 or when ever it was. And even then that was just some hardy truck drivers doing rolling road blocks and blocking refinery entrances. The public en mass showed the government exactly what they thought of price rises - they kept on paying for it. Ironically, fuel prices are now the highest they've ever been (I think) and no one bats an eyelid. People just merrily pay it, and then go home and kick the dog, or take it out on other motorists. We've said it before. All it would take is boycotting all BPs, or Shells for a day, just one day, to send a message, and it's easy to do. But nope, people are too apathetic, lazy and disinterested to actually do anything about the things they complain about. Not a pop at you, just people in general! My commute is only 25 miles a day, round trip, so fuel cost isn't a big issue for me, but I do pity small businesses who do a lot of miles.

We all have our reasons to hate the government and big business, but on the flip side, I can take a £285 tax band car, double it's power and still only pay £285 road tax. And due to slack policing, I can drive it as fast as I like, when I like. V power and Tesco 99 readily available. Compare that freedom to say, Italy where you are not allowed to modify your car at all and say, Switzerland where everything car related is despised and taxed to death, plus ridiculous speed limits and billions of enforcement cameras. The UK is also not the most expensive for fuel, or income tax, or National Insurance type contributions. I hear where you're coming from, but there will always be arse holes in government and big business creaming us plebs. It's part of life. Don't worry about things beyond your control and you might live a few more years and stave off a few more wrinkles :D And let's not forget we are also to blame for this. The UK are such car whores and no government would turn their backs on all that juicy revenue. You gotta pay to play and I'm sorry, but all these 3 and 4 car families can **** off with their whining about fuel prices. I had a choc orange covered rice cake with my coffee, so I'm feeling unusually optimistic & philosophical this afternoon.

My first blunder in VR6 land was not checking the intermediate sprocket when I fitted some cams. It ran like cr@p afterwards :lol: It took me a while to get my head around the Mr intermediate as well. It's easy to check. Using a telescopic dental mirror and a torch, you can see the intermediate timing marks after taking the rocker cover off.

Because it throws out the cam position, which the ECU relies on for sequential fuelling, as well as valve correct sealing. Get it mistimed badly enough and you'll be a tooth or more out on the cams. You don't have a direct link from the crank to the cam like you do with a cam belt engine. You have 4 different size sprockets, so gearing comes into play. The timing relationship between the outer intermediate sprocket > cam is diferent to that of the crank > inner intermediate sprocket. Think about it. EDIT: Beaten to it by the Bowen.

Should be doable if everything is transferred over but there will always be clocks / immob issues and the fact MK5 onwards takes vehicle speed from the ABS sensors instead of the gearbox. Yeah lots of sensors! There's an Edition 35? :lol: I thought the ED30 was a nice touch, and maybe do it again at 50 years old, but one every 5 years is a bit OTT!! Yeah I have a look at that from time to time. Not many techies on there though!

Can you see Chris Harris doing the news? Imo, he doesn't have the personality or charisma to engage with people half as effectively as the TG boys can. Those 3 are personalities in their own right because of their previous experiences and other interests. Harris is a bit one dimensional. And what would he do that's so different? People always say TG is boring and are fed up with "Some say....", but what would they do differently? TG is the biggest and most successful motoring program worldwide, so they're obviously doing something right. And what does Harris spend 90% of the time doing? Yep, drifting and wearing nerdy car related T shirts. He will never be allowed on prime time TV because of his Ferrari controversy and strong opinions when he doesn't like a car. Too much of a loose cannon I think.