Nyxeris' E81 130i

First mods:

BMWP SSK & handbrake

SSK is lovely and for £120 including the trim it's a good buy. Really does make the car more fun on the B roads! Got the handbrake trim to match, ML Performance had it for a good price and got some fantastic service from the owner after I stuffed up the order. Highly recommended, plus they're a site sponsor.



BMWP pedal covers

...they just look pretty



Sport antenna

Didn't want to trundle around with original Corsa-looking aerial. Wasn't expensive at all and makes a nice difference to the silhouette of the car.



Alpine upgrade

The kit (courtesy of Cotswold) went in a week or so ago, car already had two subs from the hifi system (instead of the single sub from the base system) so it sounds much better than you'd expect for the money. Feel like a bit of a badge wan*er though because I managed to find Logic7 tweeter grilles for roughly half the price of unbadged - need to find a way to remove the Harman/Kardon badge without damaging the grilles and add the Alpine one



While I had the boot apart I swapped the parcel shelves for the hifi ones, I'll be adding hifi system mids & tweeters there in the future for a little boost in clarity.

Took the opportunity to swap the front-end bulbs whilst the clouds had broken. Had a bad experience with high output bulbs in the past (Philips RacingVision heated the lenses on my E46 so much they bubbled up and needed replacing - ) so rather than go for pure power I got a set of Osram "Cool Blue Boost" bulbs which still claim to be up-to 50% brighter than standard. Under £30 on Amazon for the lot as well.

Edit: the new sidelight bulbs pictured below are rubbish, far too yellow in comparison to the dipped/main beam so have been replaced.

https://www.babybmw.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=119723&start=60#p1518358

.

Before:


After:


Much nicer. Most of the blue is just the reflection of the bulb coating, they're much whiter than standard but they're not going to be mistaken for HIDS and a quick rear-view test in the old car confirms they focus nicely and don't dazzle (which you'd expect given that they're just tinted H7s).

Retrimmed steering wheel with BMWP Alcantara trim installed



In shot with the gearstick, SSK & pedal covers - the silver stitching & stripe goes with the other stuff perfectly!



In other news the Paypal claim for the BMWP air filter did the trick and I've got a refund. Would have been nice for the seller to respond at some point though!

Quick job this morning - gloss black kidneys. Also added a couple of little vinyl decals to the badge to test the water on blacking it out - quite like it tbh.



M3 LCAs turned up today too, added to the pile. It's getting bigger...

Haven't had a chance to do much over the past few weeks as the old E46 is currently occupying my axle stands to replace a bunch of MOT stuff, including a particularly uncooperative rear wheel bearing :banghead:

Trying to source a set of fancy front calipers/discs/pads for the 130 as . I don't see the point in spending £4-500 on new 'correct' parts (or trying to get it done under warranty) when I'll eventually be upgrading them anyway, but it's not a great buyer's market at the moment with the BMWP BBK having gone up significantly, and most listings for E8x 135i & Fxx M-Lite brakes having various issues from price to condition to missing bits. Not sure why people seem to think their well-used calipers refurbed by Stevie Wonder's guide dog are worth nearly as much as BMW charge for brand new!

So instead... Here's a pic I took whilst the sun poked its head out for the first time in a few days