1998 BMW E36 323i Saloon - There’s no going back now...

Quote my post to see what I mean code wise

In an effort to make future removals and adjustments as easy as possible I priced up replacing every single nut and bolt on the subframe. £166 plus £11 delivery is possibly a bit steep for nuts and bolts. I’m going to start dismantling the subframe this weekend and I’ll see which bolts/nuts can be cleaned up and reused and which ones really need replacing.

I also did a bit of ringing around to get prices for having it all powder coated. Of the four places I called not one called me back. Very annoying!

That was from the Schmiedmann website. All genuine BMW bolts but much cheaper than you can get them on eBay. I'm waiting for an email back from someone at BMW with a trade price (I run a service department myself). I don't know the specs of the majority of the bolts so going to a fasteners wouldn't be any good to me as I wouldn't know what to look for haha.

I agree however

Some of them are "adjustment" bolts - so cammed washers and heads on splined threads - you can't get anything like them from fastner places

Frequently they are also automotive thread sizes which is also a bit of a pain

Not the most exciting update, but my box full of new nuts and bolts arrived today I’m impressed with how quickly they arrived and I didn’t have to pay any customs charges etc!

Ooooo shiny!





I’m hoping to start getting the subframe stripped this weekend. I’ve managed to get a couple more quotes for the powder coating and it would appear the £200 I’ve already been quoted is a good price. I’ve had prices of £300 plus VAT and more from some places! Madness!

There's some nice progress with this.

It's a shame to hear about the cats. This IMHO is one reason why cheaper cars ain't easy to find.

Seeing cars for sale with 'loud' exhaust is quite common now. I recall a friend who saw a P38 for sale (when did they get pricey?) for reasonable money from a trader and it was titled just as that. When he enquired, he said the cats had been hacked off by him.

That sounds find, but for those folks out there who use 'easy' MOT testers, it seems most of them are shying away from it now, with an increase VOSA presence and talk of video ANPR devices hitting the stations soon.

The Trailing arm bushes for the Black Series are very fiddly to get in, but not impossible. The trick is to get them square on. I think we used a Jubilee clip to help slide them in.

I wouldn't put your hopes up on the 'box conversion transforming the car; I almost wished mine was an auto TBH. My 323i Manual Coupe felt a bit 'meh' in all honesty. It wasn't quite as relaxing as you expected regarding progress. A nice(ish) noise for driving around, but no real road burner. The 106 GTi, and Clio 172 I had were much faster and perkier. I'd say my Mondeo V6 with 'only' 30BHP more was a far nicer driver.

IMHO, what they need is two things to wake them up (maybe three/4 things)
-Shorter final drive ; In stock manual form, they are quite tall.
-M50 Manifold conversion : harder to come by now, but that will give back 20BHP quite easily, and improve the induction noise no end. A remap will aid this a little further.
-VANOS seal change ; again, it can wake them up
-Lightened flywheel ; Not necessary, but it does wake any E36 up. A mate had this done to his S54'd E36. It really made the car seem perky. Unfortunately, the transmission noise was near unbearable ; it literally sounded like the 'box was about to curse word itself in the not too distant future. When back with a DMF, it was silent.

I drove and borrowed a friend's E46 328i manual. With the extra power, that was a pleasant car with the extra 20BHP and improved top end .

When I arrived at work this morning there was an reply from one of the powdercoating companies with a quote of just £75 plus VAT to do everything Looks like they'll be getting my business!