Re: Right, that's it.

It will start first turn when it's cold and it's not likely to rot anytime soon as the points that do rot all have metal under 3 years old those places. The bonnet is only 2 years old.

All Crapis were 2 years old at one time, but they still rotted like nothing else this side of a 1970s Lancia..... and yes, Fords hate cold weather. As I found with the 3 examples we've had.

Even at 2 years old they were still crappy ford partsbin desperation specials.

Shut up.

Although TBH it hasn't done anything yet except drink fuel (that'll be because it's mostly doing short runs in the cold) and kidnap the shopping in the boot every so often - first with a chopped wire that stopped the central locking opening, now it has a loose linkage (presumably from all the fettling the boot lock has been through) which falls out and means I have to climb in and snap it back into place before it will open.

Other cars I've seen have the same metal-rod into plastic clip arrangement but they've all had a sort of hooky clip that holds the rod in place - BMW obvioulsy felt their tolerances were high enough not to need that. Wrong.

A bit of goo on the rod should wedge it into place well enough, though. When it gets warm..

Oh, and I've replaced the internal battery in the alarm so there's no more random triggerings, which is nice.

that last one annoys me lol that alarm annoyed me for 3 years cos i couldn't find what was wrong with it! and you found a replacement fob! still if the boot is the only problem your lucky! i do miss having the 328 when i go on a long run, the mini is nice but the BMW would just glide along pretty quietly at 80mph

All from the same nice man on Fleabay ;-)

It does feel like it's only just waking up at 80.. but TBH when do you get chance to do much more than that in the UK anyway?

One thing that I'm wondering about with it though - it seems to suddenly get an awful lot more go at about 3000rpm. I've been reading up on the VANOS thing (variable valve timing) and getting paranoid there's a problem with it - but I think really it's all fine and it's just me.

The 328 is supposed to have a very flat torque curve though, so I wouldn't expect a sudden kick in the pants, more a continuous waft like my Carlton had.

Who knows. Goes plenty well enough for now, until I can afford the supercharger ;-)

they all do that, it's cos of the way they restricted the power on early german cars to keep them under 193bhp. if you change the manifold and throttle body for that of a 323 (with slight modding) then you should get the power up to around 220bhp and i think that reduces the sudden power rush, only way that people have got rid of it totally is from a remap. the mani and throttle body is about £500 i think fitted from a guy who is only 9 miles or so from where i live but i never got round to doing it, would have liked to have done it to see how different it was.

it comes to life after 3k rpm what used to annoy me is if you got caught between the revs, 2nd would be revving to high and 3rd would bring you under the 3k mark which could be annoying when trying to do an overtake. still it makes pretty good torque despite all that and with the valve timing i had in both MR2's and especially with the turbo kick from the MK2 i was used to a sudden rush of power in my cars.

supercharger would be great! that's what my mate wanted to do to it. he'd mention it every time he serviced it. he'd say 'you should really think bout supercharging this you know' they was a supercharged convertible on ebay not long ago making around 350bhp which i think is more than the E36 M3? although i've read that turbo charging can be cheaper.

little teaser

I was looking at that. You can get the bits off EBay for a lot less than that - might be a nice summer project for me... and all pukka BMW parts too, so it still looks 'stock' under there.

It's a bit like a diesel at the moment - from 3500 to 6500 rpm takes no time at all, so you have to keep stirring the gears. ;-)

dunno if you wanna plug it back in but i remembered the other day. in the boot there is a sensor and it controls a valve in the exhaust. at low rpm it closes one of the 2 pipes and when given a bit of gas it opens the other pipe. never seemed to make much difference to how it drove, i just thought it sounded a bit nicer on tick over with it left open. thought i mention it incase you get bored and fancy having a test see if you see a difference. sensor is in the boot err left hand side under the boot carpet if my memory serves me right. i just dunno why you'd want to make a nice straight six quieter myself, doesn't make it stupid loud just gave a nice deeper tone to the exhaust. i always wanted the super sprint exhaust but couldn't afford the silly money for the stainless steel one, couldn't even afford the non stainless lol

Doesn't sound like it will make much odds really - it isn't a two stroke after all...

And compared to the Mondeo with a grumbly Powerflow stainless system on it, it just purrs along ;-)

The R27 had two kicks like that, one at 3krpm and one at just over 5krpm, and I loved 'em hehe :-) Mind you, it was only a 2.0 n/a engine and was making more power than the Beemer 2.8, so I guess it needed some skullduggery and witchcraft.

more bhp but i bet the torque was not even close :)

Yes... I am looking forward to when the Passat is back. ;-)

Dropped it off at the bodyshop this morning... even with a totally mullered and porous intercooler, it felt more responsive and pokey than the Golf, lol.

Should have it back early next week, at which point I should have all the other bits here ready to bolt on and I can then book the VIC check.

Have sussed why it seemed to feel a bit flat some days as well, so will VAG-COM that off of it before it's back on the road as well, and all will then be good in my motoring world again. :-D