E46 330 track build. (Very slow progress rate.)

Slowly, slowly, inching towards putting my 330ci back together. Goal is have it ready for a weekend at VIR on October. Feels ambitious since it gets an average of an hour a week of effort out of me. 

Progress to date:

• Acquired abandoned E46 330 from an apartment complex my buddy does work for. Auto, could see oil and coolant bottles in backseat, so assumed blown head gasket. 
• Got title to said vehicle following a drawn out series of bureaucratic obstacles. 
• Used title to get key. 
• Trailered home, attempted to start. Fired right up, and immediately went towards overheating. Confirmed popped HG with the magic Kool aid powder that changes color. 
• Yanked everything out of the car. Drive train, subframes, interior, sound deadening, etc etc.
• Caged in my shop by Adam of 9hio, which was awesome. 
• I welded rear subframe reinforcements.
• Spent way too much money on parts. 

Plan is to follow Spec E46 rules with my parts selection. Not necessarily because I'm planning to race, but figure it's a proven recipe and might lend a little credence to the build if/when it comes time to sell. To wit, have purchased: MCS single adjustable setup with Spec spring rates, have Vorshlag camber plates, but in a sorta weird deal with Vorshlag, ended up with some generic rear spring perches without any discussion, (a topic for another day). Have a 3.46 LSD built by Syncro Design in GA, rings, a ball hone, threadsert kit for the block and a slew of M54's that need head gaskets. Plan to try my hand at a garage "rebuild". Have a 5spd from a 2001 330, Tilton single disc clutch/flywheel and then a bunch of new bushings, bearings, brakes, etc. 

I think I'm mostly to the point of "put it back together" and want to try to document things better, mostly for myself. Adding pictures sucks from my phone, and I think I got this current phone around the time of cage install, so will have to get older pics off of slightly broken prior phone. Will try to get some of the steps along the way added to this post and then update as I can moving forward. For now, cage in progress Dec of last year:

And most recent progress (do NOT zoom in on my overhead welds), the rear subframe reinforcements: 

Worst build thread ever. 

Came to grips with the fact that time with kids was going to mean no meaningful time with car (NOT a bad thing), so it'll be on its way to Quantum at VIR so they can hopefully turn this basket case into a track day toy...just as soon as I get home from work today and figure out how to finish loading said basket case. Today will mark day 2 of "shell onto trailer solo" while also finding/cataloging/shoving-in-black-bins all the parts I've acquired to finish this thing. 

It tried, unsuccessfully, to fall off the blocks I had it on, on the interstate. After some grunting and deadlifting, me and my buddy got it back where it needed to be and added another strap. And now the pros take over. 

I guess I can still update this, but it's no longer progress by my own hands. Cage and engine bay are painted. 

Also, glad I sent 2 motors. This was motor number 1:

Any reason why you didn't just buy one already track prepped? Gotta be multiple thousands of dollars cheaper than sending a shell to a shop to be prepped. 

peanutpckrupper said:

Any reason why you didn't just buy one already track prepped? Gotta be multiple thousands of dollars cheaper than sending a shell to a shop to be prepped. 

I'm hard headed and was overly optimistic about my ability to spend time in my shop? I started this with every intention of finishing it myself. "Life" dictated otherwise, and the more I looked at it just languishing on my lift, the more frustrating it became, so I made the call to pay someone to finish it. 

I haven't run the numbers on what it took to get me to the point that I handed it over to them to be able to add that to my eventual bill, and I likely won't. The math would surely support your claim.