14 years - 1991 325ix, Stroker/5-Speed (N52 swap?)

[Staszek]

uh oh ;)

I love your E90, and you are spot on with your assessments of the difference. I had the same one 06 330i with the sport package, great NA engine, one of the last good ones. But you are right the car is basically effortless to drive and so easy to get in trouble with. I was worried about that with the M3 but they put more of the rawness back in (still no where near the E30).

Believe me you are lucky the PO changed out the OEM run flats, on that car with the sport package the ride was punishing, it was worse then my car with 19's on it. I actually put the same conti's on as you, except for worrying about flats its a much better car with them.



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[DJ13]

Wow I'm glad I came across this thread. I was doing some research for a future purchase anda good amount of my questions were answered by going through thise 24 awesome pages. You even answered some of the questions that I haven't thought about yet =)
I'm now even more excited to pick up a 325iX touring. Awesome progress!

[Bimmer_man]

Dang man your list is a lot smaller than the list mh ix needs haha.

I am vary interested in the e46 rack swap I'd love to do the same in my ix.

I'm going to do more reading on the subject but it sounds like an amazing idea.

[nando]

Sure, I'll send it right now.

Took the boys out for a spin. They haven't been in it since last June, even longer than me. Oliver is 5 and Sam is 4.

Oliver:
Dad, this car is way cooler than your other one!
Sam:
Dad, it sounds like a chain saw! weee!
Oliver:
Dad, are you speeding? we're going really fast!
(AKA, he's picking up on the fact that it feels a lot faster in a smaller car - you don't have to go 150mph to have fun in an E30. We were going 25mph, lol)
Oliver:
Dad, your old BMW is faster than your new one.
(it's not, but still)

They were literally giggling with glee when I pegged it through gears 1/2/3 on an on ramp. I mean, we were going about 75mph by the end and the speed limit is 70. In the E90, which is a fantastic DD and honestly quite a bit faster - it's like, *yawn*. Oh, we're going 95mph? guess I'd better slow down...

also, I thought of a couple more things that need fixed:

-The cluster has some issues, I threw it together last time I worked on it (broken ODO gears) and the tachometer is about 300rpm off. the fuel gauge is about 1/16 tank low, but actually it doesn't bother me - the fuel economy is so poor and I don't DD it anymore, I don't really care how much gas is in it. I just fill it up when I want to drive it. :)

-The carpet freakin smells. There was a water leak issue a few years back and it had 1" of water in the back seat floor. I fixed that and it dried out but it still smells musty inside.

-the floor mats are terrible. I was thinking of putting the stock ones back in, but they're literally crumbling. they're originals and 25 years old, go figure. Any chance BMW will produce E30 floor mats again? I guess I'll use the E90 mats for now.

-I think for the time being I'm going to go ahead and replace the O2 sensor. I've had the same wideband since like 2010 and it's dead. I disabled the O2 feedback in my MS3 as a temporary solution but I know it's running quite a bit rich.

-I should probably go ahead and update the firmware on my MS3. I'm literally using a beta firmware from like 4 years ago which is hilariously out of date. That would require some retuning, but nothing to difficult, plus maybe it would run a lot better with newer code.

[squidmaster]

yeah I can read/write to the ISN chip. The question is, can it be disabled through software? I can send it to you later if you want to look.

for the volvos (m4.4) there is a way to disable the immo check. There is a way to resynch it with me7, but I haven't had luck with completely disabling it. I'll see what the code looks like.

[nando]

This thread is still missing the a fabled modified s54. ;) See you at the picnic this year nando?

Not terribly likely, I would like to make it again soon but it would be a tough sell. My kids are getting older though so soon we can make it a "boys weekend" thing. :)

[nando]

Can I help? Send over the dump. admin@sssquid.com

I've had a bit of luck with the horrid Volvo systems. I have a nice PDF of address identifiers which seem to match up with some of the other siemens units for bmw.

For immo there should be a separate chip that holds the keys. It's a 95040 eeprom.

yeah I can read/write to the ISN chip. The question is, can it be disabled through software? I can send it to you later if you want to look.

[CorvallisBMW]

I have the Continental DW on my convertible, I like them as well. Good choice :up:

[Wschnitz]

This thread is still missing the a fabled modified s54. ;) See you at the picnic this year nando?

[squidmaster]

no not yet. I was working on a disassembly, but the MPC563 CPU has programmable memory addresses, so I don't know how the flash/RAM is laid out relative to each other. The problem with that is the code references from the program space to the parameter space don't line up, so I can't tell what each line of code does. There's only one byte in the whole parameter space that has anything to do with EWS (C_TOUT_IMOB), so it's probably something I have to change in the program itself. if only I had a degree in computer science..

worst case scenario, I get a matching key/CAS and just wire it up. I think I can blank out the MSV70 ISN to re-synch with a CAS, so I might not even need a matching DME. It would be really cool to have a working start button with comfort access but that would significantly expand the scope of the project..

Can I help? Send over the dump. admin@sssquid.com

I've had a bit of luck with the horrid Volvo systems. I have a nice PDF of address identifiers which seem to match up with some of the other siemens units for bmw.

For immo there should be a separate chip that holds the keys. It's a 95040 eeprom.

[nando]

you would have to modify the ISN chip so it could synch with the CAS. I don't know if it can be blanked and synched, or if it has to be hard coded. on MSV70 it can be accessed via BDM. apparently on MSV80, it's much harder, if not impossible - you can't even read it via BDM.

it's probably easier to just buy a matching set. I saw one on Ebay recently for $375 which isn't a bad deal.

I can definitely clone the ISN from one DME to the next. so if you wanted a backup DME in case of failure, that's easy enough. only MSV70 though.

[tinkerputzer]

I have no idea what you said in the first paragraph but it sounds confusing :) I wish i knew more about stuff like that.

The second option sound pretty straight forward. There's gotta be a way to make a different DME work with the existing CAS or vice versa. Something i need to research for long term E90 ownership.

[nando]

no not yet. I was working on a disassembly, but the MPC563 CPU has programmable memory addresses, so I don't know how the flash/RAM is laid out relative to each other. The problem with that is the code references from the program space to the parameter space don't line up, so I can't tell what each line of code does. There's only one byte in the whole parameter space that has anything to do with EWS (C_TOUT_IMOB), so it's probably something I have to change in the program itself. if only I had a degree in computer science..

worst case scenario, I get a matching key/CAS and just wire it up. I think I can blank out the MSV70 ISN to re-synch with a CAS, so I might not even need a matching DME. It would be really cool to have a working start button with comfort access but that would significantly expand the scope of the project..

[tinkerputzer]

Yeah i figured the head and intake would present some problems, but wasn't sure if you were going to do a custom intake manifold. I'll be interested to hear you're impression on how the manual brakes feels.

I hear you on losing interest in a project. I think you've had a long enough bonding period with the E30 though to keep you inspired. You'll definitely want to have all you're ducks in a row before you start though. Speaking of which have you had any luck cracking the MSV70 CAS/EWS?

[nando]

I'm pretty sure there won't be room for a brake booster. the n52 head & intake is much larger than the M20's. Plus, it's not like my brake feel is very good anyway! I'd like to have the brakes sorted before I get to a swap.

I don't know, I go back and forth on it. My main goal throughout this is to always have an E30 that I can just jump into and drive - I don't want to tear it apart, lose interest, and then end up having to sell a half assembled car for peanuts.

The E90 had Continental DW on it when I got it - they're pretty nice for a street tire, and importantly for the PNW, good in the rain. The're also fairly cheap, so I stuck with them. They're just the stock size, 255/35R18.

if I want something racy, the E30 has R888s. :p