Hello everybody,
I wanted to introduce myself and my new purchase. A little bit of background story about how I came about having this car and what made me want to purchase the car and how helpful this forum was in providing info to me upto the purchase etc.
My background is I've been a BMW tech for about 15 years now and when I was ab apprentice Z4's were around but I wouldn't say they were common. I remember going out in a phoenix yellow E86 3.0si and being blown away by the induction noise into the cabin and the overall performance of the car. I also remember at the time thinking it was a very unique shape, I wouldn't say I was overly flattered with the shape at the time but I liked it.
Fast forward a few years and I've had many many BMW's, E36, E46, E87, F11 and loads in between.
I developed quite an interest for track days and built up quite a well specced E46 330ci. It had GAZ monos, pro race, rs29 etc but children came along and while building this car I listened to Internet rules a bit too much and ended up pretty much ruining the car for road use, on track it was lovely but on the road it was pretty awful, the monos were 330 challenge spec and made the car so hard it was almost undriveable over the tops. It looked lovely though!
I put it back to standard and sold most of the bits off the car, drove it for a while and then sold the car itself. I knocked about in a few R56 minis but couldn't really get on with them so sold those and then found my way into the E86.
So the E86, its a 3.0si manual that's done 101k. It's a really really clean car as you can see from the pictures below. Initial impressions are and don't laugh because I've never had a car like this before, I'm still not 100% sure about it. I've never had an e85 or e86 and all the cars I've had before have been saloons, coupes or hatchbacks so it's completely alien to me a car like this. So in the previous cars you're sat almost in the middle of the car, loads of visibility around you and loads of cabin room. The Z is very small inside, I'm only 5ft 8 and it feels small to me, the visibility out of the car as well I think is something I'm going to have to get used to. The windscreen feels tiny and you can't see a great deal out of the back of the car. I do love though the view of the rear quarters in the mirrors!!!
The positives of the car are without a doubt the N52, what a glorious glorious engine BMW made. It sounds amazing, goes amazing, is simple to work on and is just great. The performance and actual driving of the Z4 is definitely one of the best cars I've had, it's not a saloon car that's been made into a sports car, it is a sports car and you can tell that.
I want to keep costs down really and would like to do the odd track day in the car so the plan going forward is a set of budget coilovers, polybush the rear trailing arms as the rear end is vague so the rtab are shot. Z4M front control arm bushes, these make night and day difference to an e46 and just enjoy it really. I want to get the steering wheel retrimmed in alcantara, the central locking doesn't work and the glovebox lid had fallen off, all this will be sorted.
It's already had a new waterpump, thermostat, dsc unit and brake pipes so they're all common things done. The rocker cover gasket was leaking when I bought it to the point the cats were soaked in oil so I've fitted a new rocker cover with valvetronic motor gasket and multiplug gasket.
I wanted to introduce myself and my new purchase. A little bit of background story about how I came about having this car and what made me want to purchase the car and how helpful this forum was in providing info to me upto the purchase etc.
My background is I've been a BMW tech for about 15 years now and when I was ab apprentice Z4's were around but I wouldn't say they were common. I remember going out in a phoenix yellow E86 3.0si and being blown away by the induction noise into the cabin and the overall performance of the car. I also remember at the time thinking it was a very unique shape, I wouldn't say I was overly flattered with the shape at the time but I liked it.
Fast forward a few years and I've had many many BMW's, E36, E46, E87, F11 and loads in between.
I developed quite an interest for track days and built up quite a well specced E46 330ci. It had GAZ monos, pro race, rs29 etc but children came along and while building this car I listened to Internet rules a bit too much and ended up pretty much ruining the car for road use, on track it was lovely but on the road it was pretty awful, the monos were 330 challenge spec and made the car so hard it was almost undriveable over the tops. It looked lovely though!
I put it back to standard and sold most of the bits off the car, drove it for a while and then sold the car itself. I knocked about in a few R56 minis but couldn't really get on with them so sold those and then found my way into the E86.
So the E86, its a 3.0si manual that's done 101k. It's a really really clean car as you can see from the pictures below. Initial impressions are and don't laugh because I've never had a car like this before, I'm still not 100% sure about it. I've never had an e85 or e86 and all the cars I've had before have been saloons, coupes or hatchbacks so it's completely alien to me a car like this. So in the previous cars you're sat almost in the middle of the car, loads of visibility around you and loads of cabin room. The Z is very small inside, I'm only 5ft 8 and it feels small to me, the visibility out of the car as well I think is something I'm going to have to get used to. The windscreen feels tiny and you can't see a great deal out of the back of the car. I do love though the view of the rear quarters in the mirrors!!!
The positives of the car are without a doubt the N52, what a glorious glorious engine BMW made. It sounds amazing, goes amazing, is simple to work on and is just great. The performance and actual driving of the Z4 is definitely one of the best cars I've had, it's not a saloon car that's been made into a sports car, it is a sports car and you can tell that.
I want to keep costs down really and would like to do the odd track day in the car so the plan going forward is a set of budget coilovers, polybush the rear trailing arms as the rear end is vague so the rtab are shot. Z4M front control arm bushes, these make night and day difference to an e46 and just enjoy it really. I want to get the steering wheel retrimmed in alcantara, the central locking doesn't work and the glovebox lid had fallen off, all this will be sorted.
It's already had a new waterpump, thermostat, dsc unit and brake pipes so they're all common things done. The rocker cover gasket was leaking when I bought it to the point the cats were soaked in oil so I've fitted a new rocker cover with valvetronic motor gasket and multiplug gasket.
North West Surrey
