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Heino

My E46 build

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About A month ago i bought myself a nice clean looking E46 sedan. A 2001 320i with motorsport packaging, it only has 89,000 kms on the clock and engine and running gear seems to be in mint condition.

I want to make it look like a m3 from the front and also have m3 fitment wheels.

So heres my list of thins i want done.

-Wheels BBS lm reps, 19x8.5 30p front, 19x9.5 20p rears

-Tyres on those are , 225/35/19 and 235/35/19

-Some heavy guard work to fit these wheels in the rear guards.

-M3 front bumper With fog lights

-Motorsport rear bumper with Philips diffuser

-Colour matched trim all around the car.

-Matte black kidney grilles

-Matte black wing mirrors

-And also Matte black the window trim around the top because it is weathering.

-Tints

-Projector headlights

-M spec Steering wheel

-BC gold Suspension

-Rear Camber arms

-15mm Spacers on front

-Manual Conversion.

-Certify the lot

Probably more too add but cant think of it right now

Edited by Heino

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the start

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The bbs lm reps

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Width of rears

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Test fitting at Jonos

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Another

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Another

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M3 front bumper from Krish

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Edited by Heino

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Wheels wrapped in rubber :D

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Again

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Test fitting

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Abit tight there i think

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Needs some alterations :D

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Car has now gone into Gt Refinishers, for a full respray due too the Incident i had with the reckless kids, and also is getting the guards done, Grant will also be matte blacking the Wing mirrors and the window metal trimming.

BC gold Adjustable Suspension should Also arrive at my door step soon from Black Label performance.

Coming along nicely if i may say so myself.

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Sweet! you must be stoked. Good to see youre getting the guards done professionally. It looks so much better with the flat edge retained. The cars going to look awesome once youre finished.

Just a note around coilover height and the front bumper. Things get real tricky real quick on approaching driveways and other carpark exists. Learn to hit everything diagonally and with your wheels straight. Maybe even after your bumper is done, look to get some 2mm thick rubber and attach it to the bottom of the bumper to help with scraping.

Get some new bumper and side moldings and get them painted silver too, their farly cheap to buy new. Dont try paint the ones you have on there as when theyre re-installed the ripple.

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I actually quite like the black trim on this. My 2c

Looking good though, you gonna keep this one long :P

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Sweet! you must be stoked. Good to see youre getting the guards done professionally. It looks so much better with the flat edge retained. The cars going to look awesome once youre finished.

Just a note around coilover height and the front bumper. Things get real tricky real quick on approaching driveways and other carpark exists. Learn to hit everything diagonally and with your wheels straight. Maybe even after your bumper is done, look to get some 2mm thick rubber and attach it to the bottom of the bumper to help with scraping.

Get some new bumper and side moldings and get them painted silver too, their farly cheap to buy new. Dont try paint the ones you have on there as when theyre re-installed the ripple.

Shot for the advice Josh, I'm going to gt refinishers tomorrow to specify What i want done where, and i think he is going to clean up and make sure the texture does not come through the trim pieces, I will definitely take into consideration the rubber at the bottom of the bumper because it would suck to ruin it. I might get one of those one piece front lips for the m3 front bumper, which would probably make it even worse :/ but would look good.

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I actually quite like the black trim on this. My 2c

Looking good though, you gonna keep this one long :P

I also had a little soft spot for the black trimming as well but i sort off think its worth it too paint them... give it that clean look that im after.

And yes i plan on keeping this one long because its low k's and ive chosen ever single piece that is going on it, so its more MY car then anyone else's, "Built not Bought" and all the parts were bought brand spanking new :D

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What brand of tyre did you go for?

I am thinking it's going to be a tad hard to resolve the rubbing issue on the bumper/guard area unless you cut away at the plastic bumper, I doubt you could flare that or anything. Perhaps it would be easier to just run a slightly higher spring or thinner tyres.

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I actually quite like the black trim on this. My 2c

Looking good though, you gonna keep this one long :P

It looks weird once going to an m3 bumper with no trim unfot.

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What brand of tyre did you go for?

I am thinking it's going to be a tad hard to resolve the rubbing issue on the bumper/guard area unless you cut away at the plastic bumper, I doubt you could flare that or anything. Perhaps it would be easier to just run a slightly higher spring or thinner tyres.

Im getting Adjustable susension that are fully damper adjustable and height adjustable. and the panel beater is going to resolve the rubbing problem for me. build up the bumper and mod the guards. etc. *leaving it up to the professionals*

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It looks weird once going to an m3 bumper with no trim unfot.

This is true. that is also what is playing a major contribution too painting all the trim pieces. Josh, i cant decide what to do with the Philips diffuser, paint it silver, or matte black? Thoughts?

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It looks weird once going to an m3 bumper with no trim unfot.

Ahh didnt think of that

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it's going to look pretty identical to my car haha! but nice work, when do you get it back?

Dw man I won't make it look like yours, that's the last id wanna do is build a car exactly the same as someone else's car, defeats the purpose. But m3 front is mainly the only front mod you can do in New Zealand, but I'll put a different twist on it . Mine just won't have the sick as bonnet and wide front guards and full m3 kit. But got no idea when I expect it back.

Edited by Heino

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This is true. that is also what is playing a major contribution too painting all the trim pieces. Josh, i cant decide what to do with the Philips diffuser, paint it silver, or matte black? Thoughts?

Take it your talking about a front bumper splitter ?

both have there looks..

OK will let you in a little secret with modifying e46's with m3 front bumpers and this may help you with designing your colour scheme as its the formula I used for mine.

If you look at the front area of the car with the m3 bumper on you have two main colour lines

First is the indercators, head lights and grill

Second is the spot light/brake inlet holes, front air dam.

The first you can either go black or white

the second you you cant change as they open holes (black)

Youll be introducing a splitter .. which if you paint black or get carbon fiber it will introduce more black down the bottom, which will break up the shape of the bumper a little.

Your choice is based on weather you want the car to look 'clean' or more chunky.

This is something a lot people struggle with when doing colours and what some cars will look better than others, all it takes is the wrong unbalancing factor and it wont look as good as you wanted.

The reaction you should be going for if you putting the effort in spending the $$$ is that first 'look' you get when see it coming around a corner and the car looks really attractive.

My mind set when I was doing the e46 was something with wow factor yet still classic. Hence I left thge chromo detailing on the car and didnt paint it. I tried dark headlights inners and even considered doing the kidneys dark, and used electical tape to see what it would look like, but suddenly the indecators that I had spent at the time over 1200 on (came with euro change OEM over kit) stuck out like sore thumbs.

Another thing people miss is basic contrasting colours rule of thumb. Its the whole picture you need to look at.

EG all dark wheels on dark car have a certain look to them and is very hard to pull of without doing something like say polished lip to offset the 'dark' factor the car will now have.

Just like light coloured wheels look naff on a light coloured car unless its the same colour of the car.

Really dark wheels on oppersite colour car EG, flat black wheels on white car create 'wow' factor.

Ray's new e46 m3 is another example of a car that is balanced very well. However when he tried my old BBS LMs on his old techno violet 540is it didnt work because the inner parts of the wheels I painted dark silver .. intended to go on my polaris silver e30 (light coloured car)

Red car (darker colouring) with polished lip to offset with mid silver inners and flat black detailing. Perfect.

You can change the colour of the car to say green, yellow, blue even darker grey and it will look amazing still.

There are 1,000,000 people who have done all this stuff before hand and im sure you have a few meg of images saved at home of details you really like. on cars. The trick is picking something your _really_ like and sticking to it.

Its what I do with all of my cars and how the modified ones turn out looking good.

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Take it your talking about a front bumper splitter ?

both have there looks..

OK will let you in a little secret with modifying e46's with m3 front bumpers and this may help you with designing your colour scheme as its the formula I used for mine.

If you look at the front area of the car with the m3 bumper on you have two main colour lines

First is the indercators, head lights and grill

Second is the spot light/brake inlet holes, front air dam.

The first you can either go black or white

the second you you cant change as they open holes (black)

Youll be introducing a splitter .. which if you paint black or get carbon fiber it will introduce more black down the bottom, which will break up the shape of the bumper a little.

Your choice is based on weather you want the car to look 'clean' or more chunky.

This is something a lot people struggle with when doing colours and what some cars will look better than others, all it takes is the wrong unbalancing factor and it wont look as good as you wanted.

The reaction you should be going for if you putting the effort in spending the $$$ is that first 'look' you get when see it coming around a corner and the car looks really attractive.

My mind set when I was doing the e46 was something with wow factor yet still classic. Hence I left thge chromo detailing on the car and didnt paint it. I tried dark headlights inners and even considered doing the kidneys dark, and used electical tape to see what it would look like, but suddenly the indecators that I had spent at the time over 1200 on (came with euro change OEM over kit) stuck out like sore thumbs.

Another thing people miss is basic contrasting colours rule of thumb. Its the whole picture you need to look at.

EG all dark wheels on dark car have a certain look to them and is very hard to pull of without doing something like say polished lip to offset the 'dark' factor the car will now have.

Just like light coloured wheels look naff on a light coloured car unless its the same colour of the car.

Really dark wheels on oppersite colour car EG, flat black wheels on white car create 'wow' factor.

Ray's new e46 m3 is another example of a car that is balanced very well. However when he tried my old BBS LMs on his old techno violet 540is it didnt work because the inner parts of the wheels I painted dark silver .. intended to go on my polaris silver e30 (light coloured car)

Red car (darker colouring) with polished lip to offset with mid silver inners and flat black detailing. Perfect.

You can change the colour of the car to say green, yellow, blue even darker grey and it will look amazing still.

There are 1,000,000 people who have done all this stuff before hand and im sure you have a few meg of images saved at home of details you really like. on cars. The trick is picking something your _really_ like and sticking to it.

Its what I do with all of my cars and how the modified ones turn out looking good.

Alot of good points there, will definitely take them into consideration, thanks josh.

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Quick update. They started Work on the car today and heres some photos.

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Front and rear bumper just chilling

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Rear bumper

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Getting stripped

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Same again

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Front bumper fitted just for photo

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Same again

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The rear wheels, DAM they are sexy

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Thanks Josh, will update as i stop into the shop every now and then. But it should be all finished in like a week or a week and a half :D So pretty excited.

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Have quiet abit of updates :D

The car has been fully painted *photos to follow* Also this morning when i walked in the front door i had a nice box waiting too be opened! My Adjustable suspension has arrived! Also the cherry on top my valve caps came to!

The car is going to be Fully complete on friday, And then comes the fun off Installing afew bits and pieces.

-Window regulators.

-Final stage resistor.

-Adjustable suspension.

-Wheel alignment, try get as much camber on the rear off factor arms.

-DRIVE IT!

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Entered paint booth

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Again

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Going to look stunning

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Ready to go!

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Let the painting begin :D

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All paint coats done and time for clear.

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Been cleared and wow shiny :D

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Dam i love parcels

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Arnt the beautiful

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Just because i can

So far the car is coming along amazingly! and cat wait to get her back on friday!

Anyone want to help drop in my suspension?

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Why do you want max camber on the back? Did they not pull the gaurds enough?

It's looking great

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Why do you want max camber on the back? Did they not pull the gaurds enough?

It's looking great

Well i dont want max camber. They pulled it as much as they could without taking away that nice factory edge and i wanted it to sit pretty flush. :D

So cant wait to get it back.

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How much did the coilovers set you back? Be interested to see how they ride.

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How much did the coilovers set you back? Be interested to see how they ride.

Ask Nu-Del he sells them. and yeah me too, i want to install them on saterday

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You ever get this finished Heino??

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