herisites

Ok thought it was about time i got round to putting this detail up. I done it 2 weeks ago now!! The car in question is a BMW Z4 3.0i in a nice dark blue colour (dont know the name!). The owner is Alex303's boss, he saw the job i done on Alex's golf and wanted me to sort his wife's z4 out as he said the paint was looking tired. When i got there i was in awe at his driveway to see the Z4 sitting there looking nice enough but also on the drive was a Q7, BMW 7 series, a DB9 :shock: AND a brand new M6 :shock: :shock: Automotive porn! Anyway to the car in question, the Z4. When i looked at it i was wondering why the hell i had travelled over 100 miles for it as it was brand new, only done 4k miles! But i knew that even brand new it wouldnt be great due to the low level of care from dealership valeters so i carried out. Soaked it in snow foam and hyper wash whilst i cleaned the wheels with acid free wheel cleaner: After the wash i clayed it using Sonus Green clay, it didnt bring up too much which i was expecting really, but still needed doing: Then i washed it again and dried it. Then moved it in to the nice big garage :D and thats when the real condition of the paint could be seen :shock: Ouch! The car was covered in swirls and scratches. The roof was a hard top (not the coupe just a hard convertible roof) which had been sprayed and had some dodgy misty sections and bufer trails! I started polishing a section of the bonnet to test how hard the paint was and surprisingly for a german car the paint was quite soft so only needed final finish on a polishing pad to get pretty good results (leaving some behind though): This was the level of correction i got round most of the car, little worse in tricky tight sections mind due to the contours of the Z4 body but generally pretty good. Done a rough 50/50 shot on the bonnet: And a proper 50/50 shot on the tailgate/boot lid: The boot lid ended up like this: As for after shots, for some bloody reason all my shots turned out blurry :x apart from one which is the money shot: After polishing i went round quickly with some SRP to fill in left over swirls etc. Then topped it up with a coat of Victoria Concours wax which i havent used for ages due to only using it on my corrado and i had forgot just how good it is, left a fantastic finish! The owner needless to say was very very impressed, he would come out and watch me quite a bit during the day and ask for some techniques which i was happy to help him with. His wife was also very pleased, she said the blue looked a completely different colour and looked forward to go out posing in it :lol: I got a rather nice tip as well from him ... apparently you should never eat yellow snow :? ... nah not that kind of tip :lol: I might be going back there soon to do his son's BMW 330 coupe, which will be fun as its BLACK and will be the biggest car i have done so far considering i have only done hatchbacks and my C! Thanks for looking. Rob.

I intend to drive there in the rado next year, well just drive to germany really and thats just one of the places i intend to visit. So im gradually rebuilding my rado up 1) to handle the power from the charger and 2) so i have peace of mind for a long trip 8)

Yep run the car with the expansion cap off and with the heater on hottest setting and fan on full blast. Let the car warm up whilst squeezing all the radiator pipes (especially the ones going to the heater matrix) to get all the air out the system, when the fans kick in the water level in the expansion tank should drop, top it up a bit and put the cap back on. Make sure the heaters get warm though whilst doing it, if its staying cold then keep running the car squeezing the pipes until all the air is out the system and the heaters start getting hot.

If they are new pads then they probably werent greased up, as said copper grease the back of them. Another trick i use is to schamfer the edges of the pad, which is basically smoothing the edges so they aren't so square, thats a big cause of squeeking brakes. Mine have never squeeked since doing this.

Yeah you need to raise the engine but thats easy. Just get a jack under the engine using the corner of the sump and a bit of wood on the end of the jack to spread the weight. And then remove the front and rear engine mount bolts (the front one sits on the front cross member and the rear is directly under the throttle body/air intake which is easier to access if you remove the airbox which will need removing anyway to get to the pump) and loosen the gearbox mount. Then simply jack up the engine which needs to go quite far, use the exhaust downpipe as a guide, just jack it up until the downpipe touches the bulkhead. The water pump should then be accessible from where the airbox would usually sit, simply undo the bolts (make sure you drain the coolant first though else it could get a bit messy :lol:) and slide it out and slide in a new one and as said use shed loads of silicon sealant round it and it wont leak again.

IIRC the belt runs round the crankshaft pulley, power steering pump, water pump, alternator, aircon (if you have it), and then just the belt tensioner. If you have water splashing off the belt then im guessing its the water pump. Piece of piss to change and you can seal it well with lots of silicon when putting it back together.

Exactly, pointless really!

I wouldnt bother really mate, people have tried the power gasket and not really noticed any difference. Not sure about the pullies but highly unlikely to make much of a difference really. If i were you i would just save up, upgrade the suspension and brakes (288mm golf vr6 brakes are a great upgrade) and then just enjoy a nice driving corrado vr6 whilst you save and then whack a supercharger on it, easiest and cheapest way to get proper power from the VR6 engine, and from then on you can just upgrade parts and add more boost as funds allow and you could end up with 1 seriously quick corrado.

Fantastic guys thanks very much! Im not too fussed about having every bloody car ever made at first as thats not important its just getting the site done thats the main thing, but it would be good to have a good amount of info on there. Might even just start it off as a VAG and Porsche based site. Its basically going to allow users to find wheels that fit their car as well as have a tire size calculator (which btw i have the calculations for i just need to know what the stock tire sizes are really). So any websites with a list of aftermarket wheel fitments as well would be good :D

Does anyone know any good sites/sources of information that have a BIG list of factory car wheel and tire sizes? Including PCD's and offsets would be best. Reason being is i am working on my final year project at uni and am doing a website to search for wheels that fit certain cars as well as a tire size calculator etc so ideally need as many cars in there as possible. Cheers, Rob.

None, i done all the work on it myself. Unless you count MOT and alignment in which case once really.

Mmm liking the idea of that karl!!

I think your car is possibly one of my fav corrados! The wheels suit it perfectly and the interior sets it off nicely, well done!

Looks spot on to me mate, he would most probably be better than me!

I see 2 R8's pretty much every day near my uni in Leicester, 1 black parked in an insurance company building/car park which looks fantastic! And the other 1 silver which we only really see occassionally in a car park thats full of BMW's, Mercs, Audi's and the odd porsches. They have proper grown on me and i think they are utterly gorgeous cars!

Well mine was a full daily driver up until this September and since then i have just been doing the charger, head gasket, chains etc and then it will be just a toy whilst at uni but i intend to bring it back out as a daily when i go back to work so im kinda between the 2 :lol: but for now i will say toy as there is a chance of it staying a toy when i go back to work and getting a dizzle for the work runs etc.

I imagine you would need the loom and ecu etc to use the 2.8 because of it being OBD2 and the rado being OBD1. I think it would be a lot of hassle although if you put the effort in now then eventually when you put your rebuilt 2.9 back in you could convert that to OBD2 and have a better setup.

TT seats look good imo especially in black as i was going to get some a while back off JIMMI but didnt in the end as he pulled them out of sale. They just need the subframe modifying which isnt hard apparently and i believe there is even a guide on how to do it somewhere on the forum. So is there a chance of some beige recaros coming up for sale then? :wink: :lol:

Well you shouldnt really open the cap when its hot. If its boiling over it could be an airlock in the system somewhere or possibly your thermostat not opening or worst case scenario the head gasket gone but i think you will know when thats gone. Mine used to boil over and i thought it was the head gasket, i replaced the thermostat and water pump etc and it still overflowed it just turned out to be a big arse air lock which was a pig to get out, had to let it overflow and keep refilling for ages until all the air was out and it stopped boiling over, hasnt done it since! To check if the thermostat is opening when the car gets to 90 degrees and the first stage fan comes on feel your bottom rad hose (gingerly as the pipes get very hot) if its as hot as the top rad hose then its opening but if its just warm then its not opening. Are you pipes rock hard? Mine were when mine had the airlock.

Can i have sex with your car please?? Looks great mate! Any plans for the engine or is it staying standard?

I would just change the oil pressure sender and see if that cures it, same thing was happening to me on my vr so for the sake of a few quid for a new sender i got one and it hasnt buzzed since.

Well it was a long day yesterday and even though getting the engine apart went swimmingly and Kev seemd to think its in pretty good condition generally when he inspected the chain tensioners he cringed a bit :lol: the tensioners are completely shot, the top one is worn right down resulting in the chain rubbing the metal and the bottom guide has a crack in it. The tensioner bolt has also gone BUT my chains never made a noise and the engine was always smooth so mine was a CLASSIC example of how bad your chains/tensioners can get without making a noise so if anyone with a VR6 hasnt had the chains done and they are over 100k miles i would definately get them checked! The rest was ok, the bottom end was perfect, bores are all good etc and we* got the ARP conrod bolts on. The head mind had some rather large pits on the surface due to not running either the proper G12+ anti-freeze over its life or just not running enough and the head gasket had corroded away in places leaving the head exposed to corrode. We sorted this out though with some of mine and Kevs magical head repair putty enforced by Schimmel :lol: which did involve a lot of sanding :shock: but once done the head was flat and smooth to give a nice seal for the new gasket. We* put the head back on with the new 9:1 spacer gasket and sharan outer gasket layers and using some of Kevs special copper gasket sealant, and put on the new ARP head bolts as well making the engine now capable of about 500bhp according to Kev 8) BUT then came the timing and due to the worn tensioner etc the timing just wasnt going right and Kev was unhappy about putting it all back together and running it with the chains etc in the condition they are anyway. So the plan now is leave it all apart whilst i aquire a timing chain kit and new clutch from the states as its much cheaper (which is what i need as i am now a student after all :( ) and then Kev has offered to come back and help me do that as he reckons its not a bad job! What a legend! :D Just like to thank you again Kev for your help it is much much much appreciated, i would of been lost and very very skint without your help! Oh and thanks for the ride in your C, i was very impressed even if i didnt feel the full power due to the lack of grip :lol: * Means Kev did the work whilst i watched or made coffee :lol: I didnt take many pics but here are a couple: Kev doing what we seemed to do a LOT yesterday ... sanding! The finished result of all the sandin and the patented as recommended by Kev and enforced by Schimmel head repair putty :lol: The block with the new gasket and ARP's installed Twas a long day and although disappointing with the chains etc the rest went pretty well and its almost a relief as now that i know i can get the chains etc done without having to sell a kidney i know my engine is going to be really good so i am happy with the decision to leave it and do it properly!

I got my new matrix from GSF and it was a Valeo one and so far so good, although i dont use my C at the moment to test it :(

Thats fucking stupid!

I was sh*tting myself last year when i put mine on the rollers as i thought it was going to blow it up! I didnt do any preparations to mine at all just gave them the keys. I was really pleased with my figures, 203bhp and 196lb/ft standard 8) although it should be a bit more this time round ;)