Obioban's Long Term e46 M3 build

Finally got some pics of my new laser jammer location, to give people in the new jammer GB ideas of where to put them. So, here they are as well 










































Best wedding gift I've ever given.

Can anyone guess what it is? 






Shiny new parts that will hopefully be going in on wednesday. 

Also doing diff mounts.

SS mids because I was so impressed with the headers that I had to get the mids, and TMS ALCA to replace my UUC ones. This are half the weight of the UUC ones and not made by UUC :lo:










Rough day for my car. I went to do the TMS control arms and diff mounts and found a whole pipe of issues:

1) The UUC RLCAs were bowed and the bushings were falling out of them once removed from the car. Not great! And not possible to see with them in the car. I was already replacing them, so not that big a deal now, but... ug. 

2) While doing the front diff mount, I glanced at the subframe bushings (already replaced with new stock when my turner subframe kit was welded in) and noticed that they were seriously torn up. Complete circles around the center bolt. So... out came the rear subframe. Ordered some AKG 90A poly subframe mounts which should be fairly similar to stock in stiffness and hopefully will last considerable longer. Still on my original poly RTABs (now with 120,000 miles on them), so consider me a believer in poly longevity. 

3) Once I had the subframe out, I noticed that the people that welded in my subframe kit didn't do a very good job sealing it up afterwards... with the result that there is now rust on the chassis. Ordered a serious rust repair kit-- when it comes I'm going to completely grind it down, clean it, treat it, and seal it.

Since the subframe is out, and has some minor surface rust on it, I'm going to get it sandblasted down and powder coated in a silly color for fun. Haven't decided on a color yet... 

Annoying day!! At this point, every single part that attaches to the rear of the car is sitting in piles on the garage floor. :banghead:












In an attempt to get some fun out of this project, and since all the parts are out of the car anyway, and since it actually will protect them going forward, I'm going to get the following parts sand blasted and then powder coated glossy red:
-rear subframe 
-rear v brace mount
-v brace
-the two chassis braces that go under the exhaust tunnel 
-the thrust plate
-rear sway bar bushing holders 
-trans support brace 

Since the TMS RLCAs come blue, I'm going to get the factory rear upper control arms done in blue, as close to matching the TMS arms as possible.

None of this will be visible unless you're under the car, so it's really just for my own amusement :roll: 

Parts before (subframe not pictured as bushings being pressed out):





One more before shot that I forgot to post. Subframe seems bigger once outside of the car!

Just realized i never put up pics of all my underbody items after I got them powder coated (and new bushings put in everywhere). 

Clearly not installed at the moment, but still thought they'd be fun to post.... 







































And, totally invisible if you're not under the car! 

















Subframe repair is complete!














Can't wait to get the rest of her put back together 



Just realized i never put up pics of all my underbody items after I got them powder coated (and new bushings put in everywhere). 

Clearly not installed at the moment, but still thought they'd be fun to post.... 







































And, totally invisible if you're not under the car! 

Installed the newest intravee firmware and am really enjoying the new features! Dynamic nav zoom based on speed, playlist selection by number keys, vehicle info on demand, auto mute and distances displayed when in reverse, etc etc

New intravee shiz - YouTube

Found this video of my car on YouTube that has more views than any video I've ever posted :roll:

Obioban´s red BMW M3 E46 - YouTube


Found an awesome new option in the tomtom app 




Last night I used navcoder to enable the voice control portion of the bluetooth module. Super kickass, and reminds me very much of MKIV-- extremely limited in what it can do, but super good at what it does. Made ~10 test phone calls by name last night on the highway (ambient noise), and they all went through correctly. 

"

Sometime I think coding/programming mods are my favorite mods. So free of downsides, just better!


Hit a raccoon on the way home tonight. Somehow it managed to take out a fog while leaving the fog trim :clueless:

Also toasted a splitter.

Misc updates...
I received the SS street muffler with the race tips, and put it on. It's EXACTLY what I was looking for. Same volume as stock (maybe a tiny bit louder), but with much better tone and much better looking tips. My car felt a bit slower when i took the Scorza off and feels a bit faster with this on... idk if it's placebo or not, but either way I'm extremely happy. 

BM53 just arrived in merry old england today, so I'm getting lots of time to pay attention to exhaust tone alone. :roll: Looking forward to getting that back. Interestingly the e39 retains bluetooth speakerphone functionality without the BM53 whereas the e46 does not. Must be a DSP thing. 

I'll be getting dyno tuned by Evolve before the new year. I'm pretty excited. Before I do so, doing a couple of tweaks to my stock airbox:
1) adding an AIT sensor, separate from the MAF, in a non heat soak prone area (and having the car retuned by evolve to expect the new values)
2) adding some gutter to my intake duct to ram cold air up there at speed
3) Bimmerworld elbow. 

Plus the V1 stepped headers. Once all the hardware is on, plan to give the car a couple of weeks to adapt. Then, off to the dyno for tuning. 

I'd like to hit ~310-320 rwhp on a dynojet. That will be it for power for me until it's engine rebuild time.




Posted this in another thread, but thought I'd put it here too...

I used leatherique for the first 6 years I owned the car and tried gliptone this year. I wasn't at all happy with the results, so I'm going back to leatherique. 

Leatherique leaves it soft, supple, and matte. Gliptone left it matte, but feels dried out to me. 

Don't like the results, regardless of what supposedly should or should not be used.

And, really, Cleveland is the reason people were using leatheique to start with... and he wasn't one to give advice without knowing what he was talking about!

I will say that Gliptone was a much easier process to do.

Rod bearings replaced, and not at all sad I did!

Crank, happily, is still perfect, so no stroker for me yet.






A couple of months ago I was browsing m3cutters and came upon this thread, which piqued my interest: 
http://forums.m3cutters.co.uk/showthread.php?t=48861

Most of it doesn't apply to our cars (that thread is about the BM54, which has TMC support and frequent failure, neither of which applies to us), but this part does:
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccfj1

However, the change in the system is very good indeed, it’s quite hard to explain, there is just more quality to the sound, more bass, more mids, crystal clear highs and a shed load of depth, a richer fuller sound all round, and no more need for max bass settings (in the tone menu).

So, off to England went my BM53! Baris upgraded the amplifiers in it, as well as adding heat sinks to it so it doesn't overheat. Several days later (he turned it over in 24 hours, but shipping to/from england times some time) it was back in the car. 

Sound quality is now, dare I say it, decent! The stock system always kinds of sounds like your listening to it through something. This significantly improved the quality, and made it seem much more like the source audio. I'm still running the stock HK speakers, now with 130,000 miles of use, so I suspect it would be even better with good (or even just new) speakers. This isn't an upgrade that'll give you thumping base, but if you want the music to sound clearly/better, it's a significant improvement (and still works like stock in every way  ).


All of the rod bearings in order. Cylinder 2 and 5 took the worst of it, as normal:












Stupid nor'easter... Switched to snows even though it'll be back into the 60s this weekend.




I just ordered the CSL cabin air filter holder. 

I'll weight both and compare, but it'll be a couple weeks-- backordered because CSL, germany to england, england to me, maybe get stuck in customs along the way :roll: 

I'm excited-- always been annoyed by how heavy the stocker is, and it's weight off the front of the car 


Replaced the rear window seals tonight using this guide: 
http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showt...p?p=1065838915

I went off guide a bit because I'm a huge 3M fanboy, so I used their seals instead. 

Before:



During:



After:

So, forgot to post this. Earlier this month my friends had a surprise party for me, and got together to get this for me. It was fully stocked at the time-- I've had my way with it a bit :shifty:

Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself 



Always a welcome sight 



 

Quote:

Originally Posted by flipm3 

I love getting stuff from Amazon.........




oh wait..... :taser:

Unboxed pics NOW!!!!!!!

Swaintech coated V1 stepped headers and SS section 1 for SS V1 stepped with HJS cats 





Time for this:




And this




And done







Update:


 

Quote:

Originally Posted by gojcaj 

I could have sworn you had a CF airbox at some point? Where'd it go?

It was time to move on from it.

I may be back with an OEM or evolve box in the future.

Underbody is sitting pretty 

Picked this up because it may not exist in the future.

Not sure if/when I'll ever use it. My general plan at the moment is to pick up pieces I see used for cheaper than they should be, and if I ever get a complete setup, install :roll:



I'm going to get laughed at for this one, and rightfully so...

... however:




















Video fixed. 

Meant to make it unlisted, not private.

Here's the video. Video makes it seem louder in the cabin than it really is-- in real life it's quieter now than it was with the stock muffler. 
(which is not to say quieter than stock-- the headers and section 2 made the car louder with the stock muffler on it). 

Zero drone, not alloying ever, pretty much exactly what I'm looking for (other than lacking an evolve or OEM CSL airbox). What I like most about it is that it doesn't sound like "muffler sound", if you know what i mean. Pretty certain I won't be changing exhaust setups again!

Better video to come! I'm not really that pleased with how it came out. It's super dark out and no street lights around, so most of the video is blackness. I'll upload it and post it here, but going to leave it marked as unlisted so it won't spread overly much. 

I'll make another in a month or so with both daytime footage and sounds from the dyno included 

YouTube

Being a Michelin fanboy, got these for the fiancé's car. Really excited to see how they perform, but waiting till snow is in the forecast to swap out the old snow tires for these (they don't have that little tread, just little enough that they won't work well in serious snow anymore).




Just got back from a 1500 mile 4 day road trip, focusing on good driving roads every day. Also met a forum member on the way home to trade back seats to a non ski sack one (lighter, exact weight difference to follow).

Car got seriously dirty on some mud/ice/slush mountain roads in vt this am 



RI:



Vt:









I may be uploading some video in the coming days depending on how they came out...


One of the best roads I've had the chance to drive, - YouTube

Editing was to take out conversation and places I slowed down (residential). Never came up behind another car. 

Had to go slowish as I was on snow tires, and it had just warmed up to 32º. 

Not overly exciting, just onboard footage at realtime speed. Does need sound, though, imo. I probably should have turned my music off for this portion...


Last VAC piece off my car and OEM lightness installed 






Finally found a BMW part I've been looking for for years: fabric wire wrapping tape 



Part number:




This winter I ran the Bridgestone LM-60s on my car for ~2 month. I absolutely despised them-- squirrely under braking, squirrely under durning (you could literally feel the tread blocking rolling over), no grip under acceleration, constant DSC interruption. I disliked them to the extent that, for the first time in my life, I replaced a set of tires before they were worn out (actually, that turned out to not be true-- I though I was replacing them before they were worn out, but it turned out I wore through the rear tires in 2 months without turning DSC off :roll. 

Anyway, on to the PA4s: they are EXACTLY what I wanted in a winter tire. Imagine a winter version of the PSS-- that's them. 

Grippy (dry), good braking, good wet/hydroplaning resistance, not at all annoying! Not super light (then again, neither are my winter wheels), but they make the car enjoyable to drive again. 

If you're looking for a winter performance tire, I can't recommend them highly enough. 

That said, I'm sure they're not going to be spectacular in the snow. Certainly nowhere near as good as a non performance winter. That said... in the one snow we've had so far, they performed better than any performance snow I've had before. 

I could not be happier with them. Highly recommended! 

Oh, downside: they don't (at least not yet) come in stock sizing. I went with 235 front 245 rear. 

Got three cars dyno tuned by Evolve on tuesday. I'm super excited with the results, the cars feel amazing. Mid range on the e46 is beginning to feel like it did stock on the e39 :screwy:

Equally impressive as the gains, to me, as how identical each pull was to the others of the same tune (pulls were done in groups of three). They lines were pretty much identically overlaid on top of each other every time. Super consistent! Everything also still feels like stock, or better. Completely smooth, flawless idle, perfect throttle response. arrot:

The entire process was a joy, and actually a really fun day. Strap down to the dyno, do three pulls, send the data off to Sal, he'd review it, make some tweaks, and minutes later we'd have a revised file back to flash on the car. Rinse, cycle, repeat until the car was optimized. The e46 and e39 took 3-4 tunes to get it spot on perfect, the e60 took a couple more because we didn't realize going in that it had a bad MAF so it was returning bad data. Once that was sorted, 2 more tunes and it was perfect.

Gains shown are from the dyno tuning alone. No hardware changes were made and each car started out with an evolve tune (so total tune gains are greater than what's shown in the graphs). 

Every car has over 100,000 miles on it. Some significantly over. 

Total mod lists:

e46 M3:
Supersprint V1 Stepped headers
Supersprint HJS 200 Cell catted section 1
Supersprint resonated section 2
Supersprint Street muffler
Bimmerworld Intake elbow
Turner pulleys 
Evolve AIT relocation 
Evolve Tune

e39 M5: 
Evolve Headers
Superspint HJS 200 Cell Cats
Supersprint X pipe
Supersprint Street muffler 
Evolve carbon fiber intake
Evolve Alpha N tune

e60 M5:
Supersprint Headers
Dinan Muffler
Dinan 3.91 Diff
Evosport Pulleys
Intake scoops and blockoff plate
BMC Filter
Evolve Alpha N tune


Video:

Dyno day 2012 final-- e46 M3, e39 M5, e60 M5, Evolve Dyno Tuned. Lots of supersprint. - YouTube


e46: 





e39: 





e60:

Just for fun...

SAE S65 vs my S54 SAE:

Two mini updates:

1) mini tune tweak coming from sal soon with some fun changes. Details to follow 

2) it's cold! Redline halved.



So, my two tune updates:
1) fire shooting on WOT shifts 
2) CSL warmup light values

Which, incidentally, take a LONG time. Given, it's cold out, but it took 20 min of driving today before all the lights went out. I think I may actually be able to treat these as a redline, unlike the stock ones which I always felt went out way too fast for the engine's health to listen to!

Mmm... VANOS PIZZA



Finally snowed 

Snow at last! - YouTube

Picked up every issue of roundel from 1999 on, including these 3 issues in particular. 

It's AMAZING flipping through the earlier issue-- I literally want every car in the magazine. Unlike now, where I really don't want a single thing BMW makes 



Couldn't take it any longer... Summer tire time 

... Car still covered in winter filth.

Unlike most stereo projects, the focus of mine was not particularly to improve sound quality (though that should be a nice perk of it). My goals were as follows:
1) Increase trunk space
2) Reduce the total weight of the car
3) lower the COG
4) recover some 50/50 weight distribution 

To do this, I did a number of things... 
-I cut the total number of speakers in the car from 12 to 7 (removed all rear speakers and HK subs)
-I used lighter speakers than stock in each application (used polk speakers, which use rare earth magnets for the same pull strength at less weight)
-I relocated all of the heavier electronics to the far back of the trunk floor
-I switched to the non nav/cd changer trunk liner
-I switched from the dual HK subs to a single 8" free air sub in a stealth box
-I added an Alpine PXA-H100 sound processor, which the intravee tricks the nav into thinking is an OEM DSP sound processor for full control through the factory MKIV UI 
-light weight amps (2.7 lbs each)

Hard to explain with words. Here's some pics. Starting with the cliff notes, 
Before (sadly I forgot to take a pic before I pulled the trunk liner or of the HK subs in the center middle of the trunk:



After (note that while the stealthbox is larger than the OE HK box, it's in a useless spot above the shock tower instead of dead center in the most useful spot in the trunk):



Ignore the shock adjustment hole :P



And now for some pics of the process along the way...

Parts in a pile waiting to go in:



Stock electronics in the nav/cd changer harness:



And in the new, smaller bracket: 



All the trunk mounted modules: 



Intravee breakout box on top of Alpine HD radio on top of OEM bluetooth:



Intravee on top, with the serial port left open for future firmware updates 



Bluetooth antenna on the friendly side of the metal wall :roll:



Trimmed down the door to fit the new, deeper, 6.5" Polk speaker and padded the borders to keep rattles at bay and make a nice seal:



Polk speaker in boom mat, being trimmed to fit:



Result:



And bolted down:



Stock HK out:



Wiring up the new tweeters: 



Heat shrink: 



Result: 



Foamed up:



Added a plug to make the doors easy to install/remove in the future:



Floor modules in their final location:



Whipping up a wiring harness to extend the nav plugs so they can be mounted under the trunk floor:



Heat shrunk:



Had to dremel the top and bottom of the plastic off the DVD drive to make it fit under the trunk floor:



Was amused to notice that the MKIV display is made by alpine. All alpine system 



While the car away apart, took out the center console buttons and mailed them to terra to have the seat heater temps turned up. Always annoyed that they weren't warmer, like non M e46s :banghead:



Used to have fairly heavy speakers mounted on the center of the headliner for the CB and scanner. Now using light weight speakers behind the rear door cards instead. Reduced weight, lowered COG, and better back seat head room 



Levitating photoelectric license plate cover :roll: 



Crossovers with wires bundled in factory fabric tape:



Wiring ugliness mid project:



Cleaned up and bundled:



Noticed the right side of my brake pedal is wearing out. Too much heel toe :raspberry:

Day 1. 



My car is looking really old compared to this pic 

My splitters were already in bad shape after seven years of use, but a racoon recently finished one off. So, replaced at last!







In 2-3 weeks, should have some free time to do the Besian stuff. Super excited!





I also learned how to make stuff out of carbon fiber recently. What an enormous pain in the ass. I had all sorts of projects I was contemplating doing, but having done it once... not sure I'll ever be able to get motivated to do it again. Ug ug ug :banghead:







Valve train looking healthy at 135,000 miles. Today is besian vanos fix install day!



Couple panorama shots from bimmerfest this weekend. LOTS of cars!





And, this amused me. Everyone ignoring an MP4-12C because there was a TMS e92 M3 next to it. 



Had a couple projects I took care of yesterday. 

First up, replaced the fuel pump regulator. Nicely resolved a starting issue I was having (engine took extra cranks before starting up). 

Next, found a hole in my chassis that the JVT headers had made, long ago when I had them. So, ground that down with the angle grinder, prepped it, POR-15ed it, and put new chassis coat on. Forgot to take an after pic :roll:. Should be locked down from rust again, though... 

 

Next up, did vibratech engine mounts. Huge difference, way more than I expected. Entire front end of the car feels much more planted, and no noticeable NHV increase vs my 38,000 mile e9X M3 engine mounts. I'm very pleased with how these came out!




I went to also do the vibratech trans brace/mounts...



But sadly they don't clear the SS V1 stepped catted section 1:

SS v1 section 1 vs vibratech trans mount - YouTube

So... that came back out. Hoping vibratech makes a version that does clear, and every better if they make it in aluminum for extra lightness! 

For now, however, I'll remain with the stock brace with RE mounts.

I went to a test drive event at my BMW dealer yesterday to drive all sorts of different cars (new BMWs and their competitors). 

While I was there, I hoped in the show room to grab a bottle of water and some cookies. I overheard three different people ask the sales people how much my car cost, didn't hear anyone ask about the cars they were actually trying to sell. 

Test drove some modern BMWs, disliked them all, left. 

Stopped at the post office to mail some packages. Came out and two people were taking pictures of my car. 

Solid day. Modern BMW. :facepalm:

Can't wait for these 

Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Porsche 911 GT3 - YouTube

And PF-11s 


Brake light flashing on full ABS stop added 

Abs braking flash - YouTube

With the HK sub removed, the oem BMW grocery hooks were eating into trunk functionality (they were the limiting factor on the trunk opening).

So, my first VAG product:






Status update: married



Pic with close friends that I've met through the car-- half are M3f members.

:hattip:

iPhone photo from M3f member CMT, more professional version (slr, wedding protographer) to come.

So, the CSL thread inspired me to get off my ass and finish this project. I changed to this sub:



Which only weights 4 lbs. 

To get it to fit into the stealthbox housing, I had to grind ~.5cm of metal off the outside of the speaker, ~.5cm of material off the inside of the stealthbox, and make new mounting holes inside the stealthbox, but it all worked out. 

Amazingly, it actually make more bass than my previous setup :clueless:

Expected this to be a 1 hour project, ended up being more like a 6 hour project. Still, car is lighter, so I can't complain!




Got my 3rd OEM CSL piece. Yet another that nobody will ever see/realize isn't stock :roll: 



Looks strangely like a flute :hmm:

Oh happy day. Back in CSL airbox sound bliss 

The Evolve build quality is ABSURDLY better than the VAC box. This thing feels stiffer than stock and may even fit better than the stock plastic box. Everything is just flawless. I am so very, very pleased arrot:



Seeing how the CSL vacuum rail is going to mount up. I'm SO excited to get rid of that ugly eye sore sensor they added mid 2005 on top of the engine!



Everything must come off!





Box in place....









Ducting on....

Still to go... 

CSL "BMW M Power" Sticker needs to be installed. 

Wire up a harness from the MAP sensor to the ECU. 

enable CSL cluster oil level display using NCS expert.

Get ecu back with CSL software loaded on it, pull stock CSL file, send to evolve. 

Get back modified CSL file, flash onto car. Data log, send results to evolve, get retune. 

Rinse, cycle repeat until data log based tuning is optimized 

take to dyno, dyno tune. 

arrot: arrot: arrot:

So excited to be back in airbox! And it feels sooooooo much better made than the last one.

Hard core modding time, sticker on.



A forum member just sent me this. Apparently QUANTUM44 is using my car to sell their wheels. :roll: 

Not a bad photoshop at least :P



https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...ze=2000%2C1333


Just discovered the code feature, as seen at 2:00 in this video:

BMW Auxiliary Ventilation and Code Feature - YouTube

Makes me feel like this

trimmed on Vimeo

Want to figure out how to retrofit it to the e46...

One gets the vague impression that you might own a red BMW. ;)

You married your car?

Congrats on the wedding 

nice car. Love the red/red, wish more people would opt for that combo 

Yesterday I converted my fan setup from the stock aux/clutched fan to a Z4M inspired SPAL electronic puller fan setup (16" medium depth). Because fan capability is reduced, I retained the stock fan shroud to make the most of my SPAL fan. Side note, fans are only really used when sitting in traffic or for the AC compressor, so cooling capacity at speed should not be changed by the project. 

I'm using the factory aux fan controller to control the SPAL speed. Because it's now the only fan (instead of an aux fan), I'm changing the ecu fan control values to that of the Z4M (which also only has an electronic puller fan). 

Project goals, from most important to least:
longer water pump service life (as no fan/clutch wearing the bearing)
no more fan/fan clutch replacements 
decreased weight
remaining weight moved inboard 
decreased parasitic loss on the engine 

Some pics... 

Front bumper and ducting removed so I could pull the factory aux fan:



Factory aux fan controller, which I added a plug to to connect to the SPAL fan:



SPAL fan mounted on the factory shroud. I wanted it easy to remove and to not damage the radiator. This way it removed with the shroud, and just adds one plug. I reused the hardware from my trunk decontenting project (added loctite and the silver bits aren't visible once installed: 





And installed. These two black bolts are all you can see once it's in, and they get further hidden by the air duct that goes on top:



From the other side:







Saw my dealer taking this down and snagged it. 




A friend of mine just made this video from my bachelor party. Pretty awesome, IMO! 

CNF GoKart 082413 - YouTube

Took some pics of the beater this afternoon 

Icy trees kind of make a cool backdrop, so... 

Goodbye hyper black RAC RG63's



Hello anthracite RAC RG63's



(Traded last night)

Happy new wheel day! Every car got wheels they've never run before. 

e46 got a set of anthracite RG-63's that I traded my hyperblack RG-63's for over the winter. Much better match for IR, imo!



e91 got a set of 17" BBS SR's. They look AWESOME now (way better than in this pic), but are going to look even better next week when we take it off the non sport suspension: 



e39 got a set of 18" BBS RG-Rs in silver. Never seen silver RG-Rs before, the color goes quite nicely with Le Mans blue, I think!



... all cars need washes. It's been winter, what can I say :clueless: 

Could have also used a non phone camera and non rainy day, but.. reh.

M3 has been getting a little bit neglected, mod wise, because the m5 has been consuming all my time. Still have a cf roof waiting for install on the M3 when I have some time!

Disassembly complete. Waiting on a couple parts before beginning reassembly in full...

Engine is starting to go back together. I'm thinking I'll have everything other than the intake manifold on tomorrow, and not that because I'm waiting for the fuel injectors to come back from rebuilding. 

First startup is going to be a little scary due to the shear volume of things I've replaced/changed, but if everything goes well there I don't intend to be inside again for another 100,000-150,000 miles. 

Current state, when I called it for the night:



One thing I did do while I was in there was delete the secondary air system piping. I had previously deleted the pump and used a block off plate on the piping, but this really nixes it as much as possible:

Pipe was turned into these:



Which look pretty stock and are as secure as stock (if not more so) when installed:

Good progress today. Reassembled the chain system and vanos. Timing marks check out after cycling it, in full retard:







And it's starting to look assembled again...