It's replacement was purchased at the end of march and before was put to work it had a few bits done
some things being essential and others being preventative maintenance
here were some teaser shots i posted on another thread
It is a manual 330i sport touring individual. It's a sept 2002 built and registered car with individual Techno Violet paint, individual embossed yellow leather and poplar natural wood, MV1's, climate control, folding mirrors, heated seats. 144,000 miles, full main dealer history, all original paint no past accident damage, original supplying dealer number plates. While it was a bit leggy the overall condition & spec was bang on and what i wanted bar 2 things, xenons and electric seats. the latter i can live without.
However it wasn't perfect. A couple things I wasn't 100% happy with but not enough to put me off buying it for a sensible price.
1: it needed tyres all round
2: it has a nasty pull to the left and shaking at 60mph
3: it was over cooling when cruising at higher speeds
All these things were easy fixes so I bought it and took it straight back to the trusty mechanics garage. It was given a thorough inspection and nothing else was found to be needing attention bar one thing (on to that later) and did a full diagnostic check and its was all good
Next day I ordered a genuine thermostat to fix the over cooling problem, as a precaution we changed the water pump and drive belt.
Next up tyres, I opted for a set of Goodyear eagle F1 asymetrics. An awesome tyre which I had on my 530i. But instead of going with OEM sizes all round I decided to go for a slightly slimmer 245 width tyre on the back. Personally I think a 255 is over kill with 235bhp. Now some people like MV1's, I hate them. To make matters worse they could do with a refurb. There's no way I was going to fit tyres to these wheels let alone refurb them
So i was on the hunt for wheels. A couple of set caught my eye but they were all low ET and I refuse to start fu cking about with tyres stretching and all that shite. Not only that i'd have to get coilovers to set the ride hight perfectly and i'm not going go down that route, not on a daily ! been there done that twice. while dont have fillings i'm not running cheap coilovers on a daily which will demolish all levels of comfort the car has and destroy them selves and the turrets which are known to crack
I was looking for a set of MV2's or nice 18"' OEM wheels when I came across a set or genuine 18" Racing Dynamics RD2's, new & in their boxes. Price was right and I went to pick them up. They are a square set (all 8j) with a slightly lower et than the OEM wheels. Tyres were fitted, wheels protected with Wolfs Chemicals Rim Shield and left to one side.
Now, as I said the car was pulling to one side, the car was looked at and had alignment check to see if that would give an indication as to why, the toe was slightly out as suspected.
Now with the RD2's going on and the car being a big leggy I though it would be a sensible idea to overhaul the suspension. it was ok, no nasty noises but just a bit tired and on inspection we found that one of the rear springs was broken
So this was ordered
It's the H&R sport cup kit, with a 55/35 drop over stock suspension. This being a sport is a touch lower than a regular touring, it is what was needed to bring the nose down a touch. New top mounts, bump stops & reinforcement plates were ordered from BMW. Before fitting I remover the camber pin from the front top mounts so I could correct the excessive negative camber from the front once it was all fitted
Talking of fitting, the stripping of the back was a PITA ! I think I did well, I only had one trim pin left behind when I re assembled it lol
You can see here against the slotted front plates which mirror the slotted turrets. so you have some scope for about 1.5 degrees of adjustment.
So once it was all fitted the RD's were fitted and it was taken back to the local alignment place and set up with factory settings. It needed a few adjustments which was no surprise
Then it i took it for a 100 mile shake down drive and i can report it is spot on !
I did consider a bilstein B12 kit with B8 shocks and the eibach sport springs however they would possibly be too firm for daily use on the wonderful roads here in London which is why I went for the H&R kit, it offers a more compliant ride with great handling
The suspension needs to settle in a big more and I expect the front to drop about 5mm more and once that's happened I'll fit some 5mm spacers on the front to fill the arches a bit more. The back is just right and if that drops any more I'll get a pair of thicker spring pads.
So for now, here's how the car looks.
Shout me when it's picture time Kos. Get above shots with the crane. 
