WBM346Z Build Journal

Next up it was time to look at locking down the Vanos. Now I had done a bit of research on this before buying the car so I already knew there were a few main options. The big issue was the failing tabs on the exhaust hub followed by some rattling issues in the cam gears and/or sprockets. The two main companies that offer solutions for these issues are Dr. Vanos and Beisan Systems . Based on the feedback over at M3Forum it would be fair to say that the Beisan Systems options are the most favoured. The issues I have with their offerings is they are all DIY and I am not really tooled up to complete this level of work at the moment. On the other hand Dr. Vanos solutions are ready to bolt in and even references some local Australia workshops which are competent at the install. As a result I decided to go ahead with Dr. Vanos as my source of solutions but now I had to decide what options and what workshop. To address the exhaust hub I really wanted to "upgrade" the parts ...

The car as I bought it unfortunately only came with a Tape Deck based BMW Business Radio. Which in 2014 is extremely dated, so I started looking for an upgrade. I am not hugely into after-market sound systems and the car already had the Harmon-Kardon kit so I was happy to stay with that and only wanted to upgrade the Head Unit so I could use more recent technologies. It was very important I be able to play music from easier sources such as CD's or USB stick and it needed to have Bluetooth connectivity for my phone. I also didn't want an obviously after-market Head Unit. I had done this previously in an Audi 90Q20V and regretted it every day I drove it. After a bit of research I found that there was a whole swathe of units that were OEM styled the most popular of these being the Dynavin and AVIN units. The AVIN unit seemed more popular on the forums and was developed by a community member: AVIN Avant-2 Launch Thread on E46Fanatics Luckily about the same tim...