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Some interior goodies ready to be installed. Kit was sourced from Lithuania. Quality of fabric looks and feels great and stitching looks top notch. Going with all original fabric to the car (0211 anthracite). I assume the shaky frames of the sports seats are going to require a fair bit of work to get feeling nice and solid so not going to be a quick job. Have all new seat struts to install while seat is taken apart. Current state of the seats are pretty bad. I looked into just replacing just the pieces that need doing but ultimately decided to go full kit as the seats would have faded a lot over time so wouldn't match the new fabric.

I've worked out a cost effective solution. Along with upgraded pots in my oem calipers I'll use oem M3 CSL 345x28mm rotors.

Auckland to Havelock north and back in a day. My ass appreciated the Recaros, was actually not bad for 11 hours sitting on it. Saw a white E87 with ACS ducktail and black wheels in Taupo, wouldve been a cool pic

Bled clutch and brakes, fitted d shaft, heat shield and exhaust. Once you jump in and out a few times...it's quite awrrite. Another feeling altogether sitting in this car. It's like the Ls was meant for a race spek like this.. 3.9 ratio diff in this one, with thicker shafts...last one was 3.15...so ...😳

Over 20k EUR to fly it to Germany. Wow. Good to hear Misha says he likes the Chassis.

I've just finished reading through this thread from the start (I'm looking at getting one of these in the next year or so as my daily). Stunned at how you have done all this work as a student. Takes a lot of passion for the project and maturity I didn't have when I was a student. All my spare money went on beers and I wouldn't have had the motivation to do something like this (on the side of study plus part-time work). To have done all as a uni student - mean. Car is sick. Hopefully you now have it off the street and in a private space. Look forward to seeing what comes next.

Been slacking on keeping up with the progress here. Manual swap is all done now, was all reasonably straight forward. Installed a lightened SMF, 550i clutch, all new shifter bushings, m performance short shift kit, braided clutchline, removed the CDV and swapped to a large case 3.08diff with a Quaife ATB LSD in it. Everything works like an OEM manual car, no lights, no errors, cruise control works, reverse lights, mirror dips when going into reverse etc.

I recently moved house and after unpacking all the boxes found a present I was given for my 21st birthday by an acquaintance. A crystal model of a 635CSi and it's still in pretty good nick considering my 21st birthday was quite some time ago (hint, last century).

My pic, Nikon D4s 70-200 2.8FL/E

I was on the National getting hassled by all the race cars in my sh1tbox P11. Saw your car at around 8am, want sure who the owner was and was in a bit of a rush for a 🚽 😅 Next national is in November which is ages away. b13e28fb-c036-4bae-a491-29538f0b1c68.mov

Has to be the best kept E46 in the country

The detailing mission still slowly chugging along, I took on tackling the front bumper, which is by far the roughest panel on the car. It's suffered quite a bit of abuse throughout its life and probably deserves a full respray but that's not something I'm willing to entertain at this point so will settle for an improvement instead of perfection for now. The mounting rails that slide onto the hanger brackets were already broken when I got the car with the passenger side one being particularly bad. The bumper was sagging quite badly initially but I managed to align it well enough that it wasn't too obvious. Was about time to properly address the issue though so I used it as an opportunity to further hone my plastic welding skills. Bent the broken bits back in place and melted in some steel mesh for reinforcement. Won't be good as new but will hold much better than before anyway. The paint was badly stone-chipped all over, beginning to crack in a few places and had a few rough scratches here and there as well. I polished it up best I could, touched up the rock chips and the worst of the scratches on the underside. The mesh grille was looking quite faded and rock chipped as well so gave it a few coats of paint to bring it back to black. Only got a before photo of it though. The trim inserts got some Carpro Perl treatment to rejuvenate the front end even further. The result was never going to be perfect but from a few feet away now looks infinitely more presentable, which was the best I could have hoped for without it becoming a full blown repaint. Mint.

Another four months gone by, done a bit to the old girl so thought I better make another post to update the thread! May have posted in here already that I sourced a minty black headliner for it. Any decent E46 headliner is a hard find these days, let alone a non-sunroof, black, Touring one! After sitting on top of my Tech2 E30 in the garage for at least a year, and the original one deciding to come away completely, I had a spare afternoon and got it installed into the car. I have to say, doing a headliner job on a touring is a breeze compared to a sedan, as it flys in and out of the tailgate! I also decided to service the transmission, new filter oil and pan gasket as no idea when those were last done! At the last Wof I got an advisory that the left front shock had very slight misting and to keep an eye one it. I forgot all about it, but the last month or two I have noticed the car a bit bouncy in the front. So I have ordered some Bilstein B4s, and of course tophats and bumpstops as makes sense to do those while in there. I have a set of M Sport springs here, so I think I will put those in place of the original 320d ones and see how that looks and feels. If memory serves correctly, when Graham owned the car, the front control arms and CABs were changed already, so shouldnt have to do anything more for many more miles! Other than that, just keeps going and going, starts first time every time, happy days!

Been a minute... very busy time. Engine is back in the car, everything is connected back up. Cut and welded the chargepipe and throttle body for a wiggins style clamp, bonnet latch got zinc coated and a few other bits and pieces tidied up. Downpipes are back in also, very painful job, o2 sensors back in and new exhaust is almost finished. Full stainless 3inch exhaust from the downpipes back, with a single adrenalin r louvre baffle resonator. All thats left now is the oil cooler setup, parts are on the way, fresh aeroflow oil coolers and all teflon line and fittings. Also will be putting in a check valve and a tee to allow for an accusump to be fitted at a later stage. Parts should arrive soon and then it will be ready to be fired up and dyno tuned. Will try and keep this updated more often.

Very productive weekend. New input shaft seal for the gearbox. Was super careful putting this one in, made sure it went in as square as possible and tapped it just barely below flush. Didn't take many photos since I was really trying to get the car driveable for this week. Motor back in, cooling stack in. I installed a new MAF sensor, O2 sensors, fuel pump. But I still had a rough idle. Eventually discovered it was the MAF connector itself. The female pins were quite loose which meant that with the airbox off and the intake tube moving around with the engine the contact was not good. I squeezed the pins tighter and fitted the airbox so everything was solid and the idle was perfect. A quick look at the fuel trims in INPA suggest they are perfect but I'll do a proper log later and see how things look. Front end taking shape Back on the ground, first time seeing the final ride height (will settle a bit) with the new bilstein B8s and eibach springs. Pretty much perfect for what I was looking for seeing as it will be my daily. Cabin filter and new windshield cowl fitted. Unfortunately I'm still missing the front air duct that feeds the airbox. The one of the donor car was broken so I'll have to make a trip to the scrap yard to get one. Interior assembled with a few nice new parts, I'm still repairing the driver seat so I have temporarily fitted the driver bucket seat from the M3. Sorry Olaf, this ones getting a badge. Car got a much needed wash and out for it's first quick test drive. Absolutely stoked with this thing. It's very quick, corner to corner it's not really any slower than the M3. Not quite as much zing as the S54 up top but much smoother and torquier low down. Still a few details to finish it off: - Driver seat - AC re-gas - Air intake scoop - Exhaust hangers, the 325ti has unique hangers which I didn't pony up for resulting in the tail pipes not sitting quite centred - It's too quiet. I like my cars quiet but at idle you wouldn't even know the thing is running. It has a fully stock 325ti exhaust, so I think I'm going to open up the small centre resonator and gut it and see what that sounds like. - Z4 FCABs - Alignment - Tyres, the Chinese ones on it are not up to scratch for the B30 torque - Custom plate I think, this one is a keeper I love it too much already.

Just checked again, and she's live! Will get a WoF booked in. Hallelujah!

Very cool milestone !! Looking forward to the next updates 👍

Got back from a round trip down south and up the West Coast with the parents last week, clocking up around 2,400km across 6 days. Threw in the old stock rear springs beforehand. Whilst it didn't completely eliminate the rubbing, it isolated it to only the harshest dips in the road when catching them at high speeds, but overall much better and meant I could drive with way less stress and way more confidence. Considering this was the first road trip I've taken the car on with 4 adults and a bootful of luggage on board, I can't really complain about the little rubbing still remaining. This was an outlier of a situation and with 1-2 people on board, I don't think rubbing will be an issue on the stock springs. Some absolutely amazing roads out there and an absolute ideal place to put the car through a proper stress test after the big rebuild. Some small issues aside, the car performed perfectly and effortlessly ate up the km's. Queenstown - Glenorchy is still my favourite bit of road in the country but also enjoyed experiencing the Queenstown - Te Anau and Wanaka - Haast routes for the first time ever. The folks loved their first time in NZ as well, saying it felt like they've been to 5 different countries in the short time here, such was the variety of landscapes behind every new mountain ridge. Good good times.

Win!

Finally got onto cleaning up the manual diff. Disassembled the thing, gave it a good clean with a bunch of wire brushes, hit it with rust converter/primer and a few coats of paint, then resealed and put back together. Made for some pleasing before and afters. Then went on a hunt for the culprit of the clunk but still couldn't pinpoint it with any certainty. Jacked the car up and had a mate operate the clutch. Clunks like a bastard every time the clutch is engaged to go into gear. Video Found a few videos on YouTube as well with exactly the same issue, combed through all the comments but doesn't seem like anyone's found a definitive answer either. Some are blaming the dual mass flywheel, some say it's driveline slop and their mechanics are claiming it's perfectly normal. I somehow doubt it. Regardless, got onto swapping out the diff. Tried reproduce the clunking with the driveshaft disconnected but all seemed fine with no load on the gearbox. Had another try once the shaft was connected to the diff and still all good. But then with the axles hooked up to the diff the noise came straight back. The search continues. Bit disheartened, bolted everything back up to go test out the manual diff and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the clunk had became much harder to reproduce. Definitely still there if you're looking for it but nowhere near as prominent under normal driving circumstances. Going from a 3.38 diff to a 2.93 fixed the gear ratios right up, 1st gear actually became usable and overall the car was now more pleasant to operate. Properly enjoyed driving it for the first time since the swap... ... just in time to park her up for the next 3 months as I'm off to Europe to catch up with family after 4 long years. Will pick up where I left off in September ✌️

It's definitely firmer than a standard M3, but not uncomfortably so; no excess driveline noise in the cabin or anything of that nature. I've been meaning to update this thread for a while - recent (well, around a year ago now) additions include a CSL airbox (Karbonius). Some photos after a wash a while back:

A step in the right direction yesterday, at least. Workshop prep to assist with motivation: Surplus home theatre receiver, and a classic Philips CD502 (one of the best (budget) CDP’s ever for fun and pace. Made the interconnects with my son, teaching him to solder. And now to clear workbench space and get to it. Struts and calipers first. # days till Castlepoint: 25.

Sacrificed?? You mean chosen for special blessings!