Time for a long overdue update...

The car is nearly ready to be MOT'd! After taking some time off to finish my final exams I managed to put in enough time to get the car ready.

Back to car pictures...

First things first, finished off new brakes and pads. Probably could have got the old rotors skimmed but for piece of mind and all that it made sense to chuck new discs in. I thought a disc and pad change would be pretty simple...until finding that the disc retention screw became seized resulting in a trip to halfords to ask for a bolt extractor. Needless to say most of the people there had no idea they even sold them. Useless!

As you can see, I tried everything to get the thing out before resorting to an extractor set and nothing worked.

Next the issue was compressing the calipers. One in particular refused to compress. In the end a C clamp saw to it that it worked.

Whilst down there, I decided to put back the arch liner to find the fixing point was broken. Of course, nothing that drilling a hole and some zip ties won't fix.




Set the car back on 4 wheels and that was that job sorted.

As part of all my cars, I always upgrade the earthing straps from the engine block to the chassis and the battery negative to the chassis.

Given the application, an extra run of 4 gauge would suffice. Running 0 gauge, as beneficial as it is, felt a little overkill. With that said, there are plans to run a smaller battery and relocate it so a 0 gauge earth may be sufficient when the time comes.



Given that surprisingly enough the factory strap was in good condition, I ran this to the shock tower to keep it slightly shorter than it would otherwise have been.



And with the cover back on, everything looks nice and clean.



The battery also saw another earthing strap in addition to the oem one.





The earth upgrade along with a decent charge of the battery saw the voltage recover from 13.5v to 14.08v.



Another minor job that needed to be taken care off for the MOT purpose was the hid kit which was (badly) fitted by the previous owner.

The 55w 4300k kit clearly drew way too much current from the factory wiring given the + terminal was black and melted (not to mention it got incredibly hot).



At least now it will pass MOT with no issues there and no unnecessary attention from police etc. Win win.



Although a 323i with a single pipe from the front to the back, it came with a Supersprint exhaust.That (along with a lot of the car) had seen better days...



A dab of autosol with some elbow grease saw the tips polish up quite nicely. At some point I'd like to swap the exhaust for a 328i variant. Dual pipe front and back allows for more flow and factoring in the m50 manifold due to be fitted at some point, it would help boost the pony count a little!



And an interior shot for the fun of it. (Also removed the headlining as it wasn't that essential, no pictures though)



All that remains now is to get the rear spring fixed (potentially eyeing up new coilovers) and get the old girl insured, mot'd

Dirty plugs and grease

I seem to be finding myself tackling one major service procedure a week now and this week the main task was to swap out the spark plugs.

Okay, I may have lied, swapping spark plugs really isn't a big job reality, but considering I've always paid someone else for my previous cars, I was a little tense while doing the swap.

Ordered 6 of these...because the internet told me to (and as we all know, the internet is never wrong!)



(Well I ordered these because they seemed to be the favourite choice by many and apparently are the oem ones used by BMW, according to other owners)

Started taking them all out, one by one, and yep, these plugs were black.



Lined them all up to compare them all (all consistent, must be a good sign at least, I hope!)



Put it all back together and started her up. To my surprise (just kidding, I was quietly confident) it all worked as it should. Success.

Went in and had a bite to eat and proceeded to start studying, and then I remembered the intake manifold.

So when I was cleaning the throttle bodies, I noticed some oil in the intake manifold. Obviously this is normal, but I wanted it to be clean, purely for my own satisfaction.

Proceeded to pack the books up and went out again to tackle dismantling the intake manifold. Leaving everything plugged in, the manifold came out relatively easily (surprisingly, I didn't actually look up how to do this and just winged it!)

I guess I adopted this attitude based on the fact I knew I have an m50 which I'm on the fence about fitting (for those unaware, it's basically bigger...allowing for more air to enter the engine resulting in more power with the right configuration)

Draped a towel over the inlet to prevent dirt and such falling in.



Placed the manifold in the tub and attacked it with a 50:50 mixture of APC (all purpose cleaner) and degreaser, neat of course, before leaving a clean manifold to sit next to a radiator to dry off naturally (will give it a blast of air before fitting again)



And fitting is a reversal of the removal process. No major issues to report resulting in the car running smoothly with no issues!

Well that was after I had the engine unable to idle on it's own (plenty of swearing ensued) after refitting the cleaned intake manifold. Only to find I had forgotten to fit one of the vacuum lines! Fool!

After reconnecting the hose up, the car just starting up and revving it (even on idle) all sounds and acts much healthier. It's actually amazing what a difference new oil, new filters, new spark plugs and a clean air intake system all makes! Pretty chuffed with myself so far but there's still a fair bit of work to get done before the car is ready for MOT and the track.

Also ended up ordering some new discs and pads. It needed to be done as the current set-up is shot (putting it nicely!) Next week's update should be interesting to say the least! (Purely because as with nearly everything so far with this build, I've never done it before!)



Oh, and filled her up a little too...



And yes she's missing a foglight, because I was experimenting with different options for increasing brake ducting (will be reusing my auxillary lights from my old Smart Brabus most likely (really do miss that car).



Aaaaaand, that's a week!