[chocstraw]

Just did this job and I would like to commend you for your efforts in writing this thread and including some pretty great pictures.

A few notes:

- I would highly, highly advise that you disconnect several, several more connectors than mentioned in this DIY. These cars are getting up in age, and BMW had a CFO who was notorious for cost cutting, down to the insulation material of various wires, most notably in the earlier years. If you can unclip it, you should. Mark everything with a slashed paint pen mark or, if you must, a screwdriver score / scratch, as some of them are identical connectors in very similar places, most notably around the cams.

- Also unclip several more pieces of piping, this makes accessing the rear of the engine block so much easier. This is difficult as well, but saves you time and packaging concerns for the two E-torx holding the starter in.

- It is ~not~ necessary to use 3/8ths drive or a special socket handle. I removed the starter with a tiny 1/4 socket handle with a 3/8ths step up for the E-torx. Mine was not on tight at all. Probably to the order of 15 lb / ft or less, if I were to guess.

- those clamps for the idle control valve can be re-used with some finesse. A small flathead can lift the retaining clip off, loosen the bend slightly, and needle nose + channel locks can gently be used to cinch everything up again.

- Removing the strut tower supports could prove pretty helpful in this, and might be a good time to couple this with the free camber mod you can do on E92s, where you jack up one side, remove a pin under the strut tower brace, and move the struts and supports inwards a little bit. It's on the forums, would recommend it. Not enough to cause worse tire wear, might even improve it.

All in all, I was able to do each half in about 80 minutes, say ~3 hours total. I am not including the 20 minutes I had to search for a damn T30 that was somehow missing.