Harper

Agreed, OE is the way to go where possible. Will be like a new car when done! Who's doing the upholstery work?

There's no doubt those things increase load on the power steering system, but it's also not an uncommon setup for a dual duty e46. If anything most run square 265 or larger instead of the 255s that I'm running. Not sure whether to attempt to upgrade the cooling loop or just put it back together as is with new parts and hope for the best. It might just have been that the last few turns at Taupo before the corner that it failed on were too tight/low speed but you'd think failures would be more common doing things like autocross if that were the case.

Pulled apart the whole power steering system last weekend to see what the damage was. The power steering reservoir had a bunch of plastic from the cap in the filter and when I pulled the pump out there was bits of plastic inside the pump, as well as pretty obvious scoring on a lot of the rotating surfaces. I think it's fair to say the pump is shot. I thought maybe the reservoir might not have been OEM hence why it melted but it is the OE ZF piece so it's very strange. Fortunately there was an S54 power steering pump on trade me for $125 which was pretty lucky so I grabbed that and it appears to be pretty much perfect inside. I was worried I would have to bite the bullet on a new PS pump from which was looking closer to $600. I did order a full set of new lines since mine were already weeping and it's something I've been meaning to do for a long time but put off since they aren't cheap. All in I was at just under 800 dollars for all the replacement high pressure lines, hoses and reservoir, not including the second hand pump. Ouch. As far as I can tell there is nothing that 'failed' that would have caused the fluid to boil. No blockages in the cooling line, none of the high pressure lines had collapsed or failed. Really seems like the fluid just got too hot which seems bizarre. There doesn't seem to be any obvious upgrade options for the cooler line which seems like the most obvious solution. It seems like the E9X cars have a beefed up cooler with more fins but they are a totally different design so fitting one to the existing would require some custom mounting. Doable but not very elegant. If anyone knows of something to upgrade there let me know. In other news unrelated to the M3, I picked up something pretty cool for my 'daily driver' alfa 156 2.5 V6. The 3.0L V6 from an alfa 166 is pretty much plug and play with the 156 since they are essentially the exact same engine just bored out and are a nice upgrade for them. They run off the same ECU and map, all that swaps over is the bigger injectors from the 3.0L and that's about it. A 3.0L 166 came up at a scrap yard so I thought I'd go check it out. That weekend I was pulling it lol. Unfortunately someone had already snagged the larger intake runners so I'll have to use the 2.5 ones which will choke the motor a bit but I'll just have to keep an eye out for a set. I hadn't really intended on taking the engine because it's meant to be a daily driver car but when I saw the window sticker on the car saying it had done 75,000km as of mid 2020 I figured I would just grab it. Couple hours later I now have an engine sitting in my garage. I can't believe how good the condition of the engine is. It looks brand new. The internals are perfect as well. The original honing on the bores looks untouched which is hard to get a photo of but the crosshatching is perfect. I will do a full gasket set, replace the rod bearings and a few other parts that are easy to get to since I have it all apart already and they aren't so expensive. But I'm pretty blown away with the condition since it cost me less than 300 dollars. Love it when a daily driver turns into another project... But it should be pretty cool when it's swapped over.

The only reason I thought it might have been the pump first is just since its pretty unheard of for these to boil the fluid when using ATF, it can happen when using hydraulic fluid. But yes the cooler line might be partially blocked or damaged or something. I will have a closer inspection once I pull everything apart. The fluid was maybe a year old, flushed it not too long ago. Fortunately I have a spare steering rack if this one is toast too, hopefully not though.

First track day in the M3. Car was 'almost' flawless. Weather Couldn't have been better despite the days either side looking pretty miserable. Still can't believe how much attention this car garners even surrounded by some pretty cool cars. Some CSL airbox noises: 20220604_131453.mp4 20220604_122738.mp4 20220604_092642.mp4 We were just talking about how the car had been faultless before the second to last session and we must have jinxed it. I was getting a bit more comfortable in the later sessions and pedaling the car a bit harder. On the last lap of the second to last session I lost power steering mid corner and did the cool down lap with a plume of smoke coming out from underneath the car. When I came into the pits I could see it was power steering fluid that was on the undertray and assumed the high pressure rack lines had failed since mine were weeping a little bit already and I would call it a day. When I went to top the reservoir up to make the drive home I noticed it actually looked like the fluid had come out from underneath the cap and through the overflow hole. It was pretty clear the fluid had boiled. When I undid the cap to see what the level was at, the dipstick had completely melted off... The power steering did return once the fluid had cooled down but it was clear on the drive home that the pump was toasted. It was whining under any kind of load and has probably had molten plastic pulled through it. I'm not really sure of the sequence of events, whether the pump failed and the bearing over heated which cooked the oil and the cap, or whether the oil boiled and caused the pump to fail. I have never heard of an E46 boiling power steering fluid while using ATF, I wasn't going sideways that much. Either way, looks like I'm gonna need to start buying some replacement parts..

Called them and they confirmed that a single tow hook on the front is sufficient thankfully

Only have one tow hook for the m3, anyone know if I need to have two for the track day? The tow hook I have can either screw in the front or rear, would be annoying if I get turned away for not having both at once.

Kayne Barrie

Been ages since I last updated this so I'll definitely miss a few things that I've done. Most notably, had a problem with the ohlins dampers on the front sticking slightly on rebound. I was worried they might be bent or something but after removing them and sending them off to get rebuilt at KiwiSuspensionSolutions it turned out to just be some toasted internal bushings. I did really want to play around with getting some lower spring rate springs for the front while it was all disassembled and put a CSL front sway on to get the bounce frequencies closer to a flat ride setup, unfortunately cost just got in the way this time so I'll add it to the list of wants. Also finally updated the MAP sensor to the Kassel Performance unit to replace the old GM MAP sensor that had the wrong scaling for the OEM CSL engine management. Pretty easy swap over. Finally got around to grabbing some facelift tail lights for a pretty reasonable price. Visually they were mint, unfortunately a couple of the LEDs in the left hand unit were dead though. Luckily the place I got them from was a wrecker in the states and has already shipped a replacement unit so I'm not too upset. Currently in the midst of gearing the car up for a track day and one of the items on that checklist was sorting the diff fluid which hasn't been changed since I owned the car. While I was there I decided to replace the side seals on the output flanges since the left side was weeping a small amount. It should have been a straight forward job but for whatever reason I was having a nightmare doing it. Problem after problem. All went back together eventually though. Went with castrol fluid available from FCP and buying the friction modifier separately. Most people say to add 4.6%, I figured better to have too little than too much so I started with just under 4%. Went for the mandatory 'test drive' out to an empty paddock to make sure the diff still locked up and sure enough. No diff noise and the lockup feels sharp too, significant savings over the OE fluid so I'm satisfied. One day I'll get Kayne to build me a proper clutched diff since the fluid LSD's in these have a limited lifespan. Couple more things to do this week before the track day, flush brake fluid, new wheel studs etc. Really looking forward to going out on track in this, although the weather is making it look like I might spend a good amount of the day sideways...

Can't they be converted by just putting an E90 M3 manual gearbox in and coding to match. Meaning it's pretty easily reversible no? I can't really see a problem with converting them personally.

Yeah unfortunately BMW fabrics are ungodly expensive. Would ASC be significantly cheaper? Pretty sure they would be indistinguishable from the OE stuff tbh.

Awesome, good choice. OEM all the way IMO. ASC is pretty responsive on Instagram if you haven't tried there yet. Stu's Trim and Sound in Wiri did all the work on my interior, would recommend them super highly. They always have some crazy high end classics in their workshop too so you know you're in good hands if you go there.

Have you decided what route you are going to go with the retrim? What fabric did you decide on?

How do people let them get that bad. Makes me sad.

Thank you, their one looks like the cheapest option. Will grab one of those. Still, $65 makes the eyes water when it's essentially an airplane neck pillow.

Gearing up to do a track day in the M3 soon. Most tracks seem to say they require a foam neck brace? I have a helmet and suit already, where can I buy the neck brace? Is it actually necessary, is it something that is policed? They seem pretty pointless in terms of safety.

No worries. I assume you've seen the set of nogaros that someone had trimmed in CSL materials. They look very OE when done that way. The manual sliders are a very basic mechanism so I'm sure the release handle would be an easy thing to fabricate. Hopefully the gap between the pillar is passable. I look forward to seeing what route you go.

Thanks mate, yeah I'm over the moon with them. They are infinitely better than the stock seat for me. More comfortable, the grip is so much better. The sedan sliders have significantly more travel. Attached a couple photos below with a ruler. I tried to take decent photos but it's quite hard to show because of the depth. The ruler is a bit longer than 300mm and is super close. It's within 5mm of a 300mm gap. When I spoke over the phone with NZTA they pretty much said when it's that close it would just be down to whoever is certifying it and whether they believe it's unreasonably difficult to get in or (more importantly) out. The other issue is the routing of the seatbelt. In the above photos you can see I have it tucked by the backseat which is what I do when getting in and out, but in it's natural state it is going across that entryway as a result of the cutout at the hip on the seat. Again, NZTA basically just said it would come down to the certifier whether the seatbelt unreasonably hinders exit. My guess is the combination of the gap being so close to 300mm and there also being a seatbelt in the way would result in a fail. You could eliminate the seatbelt issue with a different seat design like cobra nogaros which are closer to the CSL design in that they do not have a cutout and the seatbelt runs over the side of the seat bolster. Or Recaro Sportsters which can tilt to get more access etc. And that's not even mentioning the need for a rear release lever for the back seat. Summary is, I wouldn't bank on passing cert while retaining the rear seats if you have two fixed back bucket seats in the front, even though functionally the backseat is perfectly usable. For a perfectly legal setup Recaro Sportster CS's are probably the best bet, but they are not a true bucket seat.

100% if someone wanted to they could but that would require some planning or a thief skilled in a very niche area, which given the type of person to steal a car seems unlikely. Hopefully the CCTV footage provide some insight but it's probably way more likely it just got towed with the intention of parting it out.

Pretty sure a lot of the more modern BMWs are actually easier to steal due to keyless ignition systems and comfort access. E46s are more challenging from what I've heard. It's not impossible but requires a bit more technical knowledge than you'd expect the average car jumping rat to possess. I could be wrong though maybe theres some easy way to bypass the EWS.

Saw this car out by the airport once, had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Pretty much dream spec on one of these for me too.

Yeah super curious how this was stolen without a key. Thought the EWS on these made that super difficult.

Definitely, it's a super cool fabric I love mine. An E30 M3 I saw with mtex in it on instagram a while back: But when you're doing a whole interior the cost of the fabric adds up fast... and with there being so many cool period correct fabrics available for the E30 I'd probably end up going one of those routes. You're welcome to have a poke around mine to see what you think of the fabric in person if there is another meet sometime soon.

The comfort seats are really sad looking compared to the sport seats most of them have. Anyone know if there are any M-texture M5s in NZ? I'm guessing not since they are crazy rare.

Might as well make the most of the shipping cost and grab a carbon roof while you're there.