Hello Zroadster, my name is Dina. It's my first time posting here, so I apologize in advance if the formatting of this post is wrong... But I'm glad to be part of the community!
Around a year ago and a half ago, my Fiancé and I wanted a fun car for summer and he came across an ad for a z3. My Fiancé knew next to nothing about cars and I knew even less! When he bought the z3, we took a major risk... Neither of us knew how to drive a manual car at the time and we didn't even inspect it! My Fiance had good faith in the seller since he worked as an RCMP and struck him as an honest, kind person. Fortunately for us, it ended up being a great car; no mechanical issues and completely rust and dent free. We were very lucky.
Fast forward a year and a half, we've come from a stock z3, to a car that looks, performs and sounds much better now! There's still work to do of course, but we're happy with what we've done so far. We focused a lot on the interior, as we felt the exterior of the z3 has aged really well, while the interior still looks like something from the 90's. While I can appreciate the interior's 90's charm, we wanted something more modern.
As for what's left to do / fix:
Dina
Around a year ago and a half ago, my Fiancé and I wanted a fun car for summer and he came across an ad for a z3. My Fiancé knew next to nothing about cars and I knew even less! When he bought the z3, we took a major risk... Neither of us knew how to drive a manual car at the time and we didn't even inspect it! My Fiance had good faith in the seller since he worked as an RCMP and struck him as an honest, kind person. Fortunately for us, it ended up being a great car; no mechanical issues and completely rust and dent free. We were very lucky.
Fast forward a year and a half, we've come from a stock z3, to a car that looks, performs and sounds much better now! There's still work to do of course, but we're happy with what we've done so far. We focused a lot on the interior, as we felt the exterior of the z3 has aged really well, while the interior still looks like something from the 90's. While I can appreciate the interior's 90's charm, we wanted something more modern.
As for what's left to do / fix:
- Removing the factory analog speedometer and tachometer and mounting a nexus 7 tablet and using the torque app for a digital speedometer and tachometer.
- Adding aluminum surround to sunvisor mirrors. - Scrapped
- Stitching the door panels white so it matches the rest of the interior (will also remove the wrinkles from the door panels during this time) - DONE
- Wrapping the roll hoops in leather with white stitching to match the rest of the interior. We have the AC schnitzer roll hoops and we're trying to decide if the white stitched roll bars or the chrome ones will look better. I'm leaning towards leather, Fiancé likes the chrome!
- Wrapping the LeatherZ armrest in leather with white stitching to match the rest of the interior.
- Painting the air vents gloss black to match the center console.
- Blue LED on the door panel speakers and subwoofer enclosure to match the kick panel lighting.
- Converting the LED colors on the instrument cluster and the window buttons from amber to blue to match the rest of the car's lighting.
- Install the Eisenmann performance exhaust
- Tinting the windows - DONE
- Fixing the protruding interior door handle frames - DONE
- Fixing the protruding driver's side A pillar - DONE
- Aligning the center console - DONE
- Wrapping the roll hoop plastic surrounds in leather
- Replace the current euro steering wheel with the e46 steering wheel with white stitching - DONE
- Engrave dead pedal. Everything but the dead pedal has the ///M logo. This was intentional as we want to engrave "BMW Z3" on there!
- Install Euro steering panel. - DONE
- Paint calipers blue or white.
- Repaint entire car with black, with holographic flakes.
- Gap in cluster. - DONE
- Paint chips and smoothing out centre console
- Glovebox alignment. - DONE
- Frosted BMW emblem in the trunk's amp display.
- Mechanical issues (Dome light flickering, dead LED in switch panel and a few other small issues) - DONE
- Install seatbelt guides
- Install Southernboy's gear trim
Dina
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from me in Cardiff.
A great thread to read 
