Sam Engelhard

[MrNrge]

I am a nuclear Engineer that works for the US Govt at the Nevada Test site out side of Las Vegas NV.
I picked up my 2003 Z4 3.0 6-speed manual for $200 in July 2022 with 165K miles. The car was not running had great bones and was suppose to have a blown head gasket. After getting it home discovered the lowest compression was ~145#s which is marginal. Kept going through the car and found a seized water bump and and the CCV system had never been maintained. Did a full coolant system refresh (except the radiator) FCP parts and re did the CCV system. Car runs perfect now. All said and done for about $1000. Since then I have a hard time getting my wife out of it for me to do more improvements. Just finished a full suspension system upgrade/refresh. Bilstine B8s all around and up graded polyurethane bushings 85a as well as motor and transmission mounts. It now feels like a race car. I now have about $4000 into it now. It is much harder to keep my wife from driving it.
This is a hobby car my daily driver is a 2008 e90 with the n51b30 and a manual 6-speed with 225K miles.

 

[andyglym]

to the Forum from West Cumbria, England. That's a good result

Visited the Nevada Test Site on a benchmarking week in early 2012, an interesting place, vast though

 

[Mus Musculus]

to the forum from Cambridgeshire, UK.

 

[PHILIP BAXTER]

Hi, and welcome from me in Cardiff.

 

[Shelly]

 

[Mint]

Hi and to the forum from me too in Stafford, England.

 

[colb]

Welcome aboard the Forum, you have arrived at the best Z Forum on the Web, help and advice always available here.
As our membership is Worldwide its a good idea to update your user details with your location and model of your car, it assists us in answering your questions.
You could also add a signature to show these detail so they appear in all your future posts.

If your new to OBD2 you will want to bolster your toolbox with a decent Code Scanner, bound to need one sooner or later.
I can reccomend a Creator 310+ as a good all round scanner and easy to use.
If you want to go the Laptop route then find yourself a Windows laptop running Windows 7 or above and
purchase BMW Scanner 1.4 available on ebay for little cost, it comes with its Interface, cable and software on a usb stick, you will need a 16pin to 20 pin cable changer to plug
these diagnostics in to the under bonnet diagnostic plug (Pac-man socket) to read all modules on the car.
If yours has a 16pin obd2 socket under the steering wheel inside the car that will only read the engine and transmission modules,
the Pac-man socket reads all modules. If you get hooked on Diagnostics you may want to have a go with BMW software, INPA, NCS Expert, Winkpf and DIS, these
can be problematic setting up but usually due to configering the right drive and usb settings. Help usually forthcomming on the Forum if you run into install problems.