New Member - Steering Wheel change

[Dee4]

Hi all, I have been looking through this forum occasionally for the last few years and finally decided I should join. I purchased my z3m in 2005. It was made im May 99, registere June 99 and had covered 30k miles and lived in the garage when not in use. I have also kept it garaged when not in use, so it's in pretty good nick having now covered 57k miles. I've carried out a few mods:- sound system; angel eye headlights (although I managed to purchase LHD versions so decided to convert them to RHD); armrest; short shift hear knob; cruise control and finally towbar! Yes, I know, but before you chastise me read on. BMW said tow bars couldn't be fitted on m cars, but I reckon that's because they don't want anyone to. I fitted a detachable version with swing away electrics, so for normal; driving there is no evidence on show. The set-up for touring France and Spain is great and tows easily and is very stable at 80mph in France which is legal. Anyhow, to the question:- I purchased a 120d m sport (E82) end of last year which was an ex demo and had lots of BMW performance parts fitted including the perforamnce steering wheel. The wheel is awsome, but wasted on an everyday car where the alcantara might wear, so I want to fit it to my z3m. I reckon I have the 2 stage air bag and realise to fit the wheel to my z3m I will need the up to date E82 airbag for the wheel. So, does anyone know whether the wheel will fit and if the air bag connectors are the same?

Set-up in Spain

DSC01263caravan.jpg (147.26 KiB) Viewed 336 times

[Jonttt]

Welcome to the forum, glad you decided to join and with an Imola ///M as well

To answer your question re the steering wheel I am not aware of anyone who has fitted the BMW performance wheel to a Z3. It think there are a few reasons for this none of which means its impossible though (cost, slip ring conversion, electrics, sensors for the rev display I think that wheel has, etc....).

Yours should be a facelift ///M as its production was after 04/99 and so you should have the uprated SRS system which includes a 2 stage airbag so in principle you should be able to use a more modern 2 stage wheel (there are examples of the later Z4 wheels being fitted with slipring adaption.

I ended up fitting the Raid wheel which was a strightforward fit (after a lot of research) with the correct hub adaptor for the Z3 slipring.

I did a full write up here:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=23787

There is more info on my other post on Bimmerforums about adapting other BMW 2 stage wheels here:

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh ... ?t=1396188

So in my view if you want a smaller thicker wheel with the feel of the BMW performance wheel but without the flashing lights then the raid is a proven solution (they do an alacantra version). If you set on the BMW performance wheel and you already own one then it would be an interesting project and should in theory work if you can figure out how to make up a slipring adaptor (assuming there is no fundemental changes to the way current BMW wheels are mounted to the steering column).

[Dee4]

Thanks for the info, your write-up is comprehensive and will be a great help. By the way my performance wheel does not have the info display at the top so I don't need to worry about that. I'll look into the project more and post how it progresses