e46 330ci Clubsport SSG

[mmario 52]

Wheels look great, my vote for BMW center caps

[Eagle 1672]

Ordered some Black/gold ones which should match better and save cutting. BBS caps are all different fitment so you have to hack genuine stuff up or play around with lesser quality aliexpress bits.

[Vass 859]

Nice score on the wheels, do look like a cool design but that black-silver-red and blue combo just looks hella busy. Would be ideal if they were straight silver. Almost a shame they were recently redone since it makes less sense to repaint them now hahah

[Eagle 1672]

Pretty much. They were suppose to come black caps but he changed his mind hah. BBS diamond black(more of a gun metal grey) wasn't doable for various reasons so instead used a Mazda black which is appears noticeably darker but is suppose to be lighter in sun

[hunter 408]

18 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Pretty much. They were suppose to come black caps but he changed his mind hah. BBS diamond black(more of a gun metal grey) wasn't doable for various reasons so instead used a Mazda black which is appears noticeably darker but is suppose to be lighter in sun

Be good to get some sun to see the true colour. lol. 
 

[Eagle 1672]

Im sure ill post some more in better light with different caps, but i dont see the sun making a massive different tbh. Main benefits are minor increase in performance, way stronger and straighter wheels, nicer ride and look with the 40 profile tyre and offset and having a square setup for easy of use and cheaper tyres.

[hunter 408]

I hear you on the straight wheels. I took some to get the lips refurbished today and one was wonky as once it was in the machine. I hadn’t driven in them yet. Glad I got it checked before it sent me down a rabbit hole. 

[Neil McCauley 397]

BBS RX / RG-R are god tier wheels for the E36/46. Great choice. Can't really complain at being freshly refurbed either - I've spent stupid monies in the past doing that exercise so can totally understand not wanting to spend the money if someone else already has!

 

[Eagle 1672]

Completely agree. Paint costs arent cheap and finding something even remotely decent in these specs and price range was way harder than i expected. They are 6k new in US before any than other expenses so i thought 2k was very reasonable. Worst case i can repaint them down the line if i really want to. Ive been fortunate in the past to own 3 sets of various used forged BBS wheels that were all under 1k at the time. You still pay the brand tax but used quality beats all low quality aftermarket junk any day with a much lower premium.

[Eagle 1672]

After talking to @Vass about headers i went down that RHD E46 M54 header rabbit hole again, discovered there are 2 semi reasonable priced options in the UK - Gravity and Malian exhaust. Gravity wouldnt ship their better designed ones to NZ, at least not via their website, so i decided to try Malian\Kage ones for fun(not). Long short sort they are crap. An O2 sensor bung was clocked wrong so hit the chassis and had to cut down. Their flange positioning and\or design interferes which each bank, even after cutting it. They do clear the steering very well and have new flanges put on to fit, but im not inclined to do that without a hoist or TIG welder. In talks to get partial refund and sell them onto someone else.

Early 330CI's upto >Sept '00 had M52 style headers and cats under the car, probably the best option overall but not an easy system to find.

   

 

[Eagle 1672]

Good excuse to clean up the old system and re-assemble with new gaskets, nuts and E90 etc upgraded exhaust studs(shorter with e-torx head)

Hand scotch pads, die grinder pads and a product called P21 polishing soap bought it up decent. Far better product to use than nasty Autosol.

   

[Eagle 1672]

Removed the harmonic balancer to replace the crankshaft seal which had a very small leak. Decided the put a fresh Corteco one on given the mileage. Had to remove the radiator and drop the condenser down to fit my high torque Milwaukee which still took a few 5s bursts to remove it. Decided to make a tool to install given the 410nm torque and the $80 torque to yield crankshaft bolt, the local dealer surprisingly had one for decent price. My torque wrench only went to 350nm so it was that and a oomph.

Was a bit careless with the flux core and welded the middle a bit on the piss but with GR\JP high tensile steel way its overbuilt for the job.  

 

New TRW LF-30 pump. Old one was starting to get noisy with glitter in P\S fluid. Not cheap at around $500 from Spareto and sadly made in China with a C&U bearing even, but at least its new and hopefully better than the other aftermarket ones or random 'rebuilt' ones

Installed new belt Conti belts along with an INA hydraulic belt tensioner upgrade. Replace the stupid torx pulley bolt for a 16mm bolt to make your life easier

 

[Eagle 1672]

Gold caps and 235\40R18 Michellin PS5's fitted, got $500-600 off compared to average retail price so though id buy them while i can.  

[mmario 52]

Gold caps look the business

[Eagle 1672]

After going through a credit card\Paypal dispute to crawl back some money from the ****s at Milian exhausts, i spotted a local guy on FB selling a M54B30 in 'limp mode' he had removed to do a LS swap. One of the first M54's made being a '99 build and came with a few goodies - a full M52\early M54 exhaust (minus the cats which someone had cut out), Dinan CAI (which i gave to @Vass as it was cut improperly on the side and filters are way overpriced) and TMS underdrive pulley kit (fitted)

Was tossing up using the M52 setup but no cats, crappy pipe work and me not wanting to polish another entire exhaust i decided to join the M52 downpipes on my existing system. Not a hard job right? turns out some muppet at BMW decided to use 2 different exhaust pipe diameters after the down pipes, never noticed them being different but on the E46 at least they are - ~45mm and ~50mm ID and ~1.5-2mm thick. To make matters even worse the M52 setup is double walled to the cats unlike my single walled system in the same section, i assume they did this to quiet it down a bit given the lack of primary cats. 

After finding nothing locally i turned to Aliexpress which always delivers. I managed to get 51>50mm and 51>45mm pipe reducers which were a near perfect fitment. Obviously the 201? stainless quality and thickness isnt on the level as existing system, but i think it will hold up for my usage. No TIG currently available so trialed some SS 308 flux core. The stuff actually welds better than expected correctly positioning ie not upwards on axle stands, tidy enough for an exhaust and leak free but i may redo it properly with TIG and better steel if i can find the sizes.  

 

After installing a new stud fitting the M52 headers was very easy, frees up quite a bit of room, less heat, half the weight and best of all you cant see the ugly cats now. Got M52 heatshield and another 990mm O2 sensor for the front bank in an attempt to route it the same as the rear bank, it mostly worked but was still slightly short so went along side the valve cover slot as opposed to in it. I dont know how exactly the M52 stock setup routes which would of been nice to know.

Sound wise they are noticeably deeper, like someone turned up bass a couple of notches. It has a small burble\resonance at 1.5-2k range when accelerating slowly but otherwise you'd assume it had an aftermarket muffler. Certainly wouldn't want it any louder given my car was already louder than what people say their stock E46 exhausts are, given the lack of sound deadening.

Performance wise it certainly feels like it pulls stronger, more noticeable in the ~5500+ range where most M54 start feel flat. Throttle response feels better too, maybe with the pulleys maybe adding a touch of help or just placebo. I do have various Draggy runs from summer 2023 on the old setup so will do some more in the future.    

Edited October 20 by Eagle

[Eagle 1672]

TMS underdrive pulleys. Whoever bought these along with the Dinan CAI must of been listening to Scribe. I guess they blew all their money like him instead of fixing the massive OFHG leak, worn pulleys etc, then finally tried installing random ignition coils, cam, crank sensors in an attempt to fix their flogged out engine, or maybe just broke it in the process. Turners list these at $260-280 USD + shipping but looks great compared to our local option

Are 2 obvious benefits - increased steering weight and rev matching\throttle response was also vastly improved, much more organic than the many remaps\throttle tuning ive tried. 

EDIT: I have removed these because the alternator pulley had a wobble. May test on someone else car with the secondary belt pulley.

Edited 11 hours ago by Eagle

[Eagle 1672]

Around the same time last year i did a 4 runs with Draggy out of interest, so id thought a do a few more under similar conditions. @Harper mentioned NPD100 so thought id give it a go instead of the Gull 98 in previous runs.  

Other changes with these runs are the TMS O\D pulleys, wheels\tyres, M52 manifold, cleaner engine and launching in 'M-track mode(thought had DSC disabled for some reason).

Previous 0-100 was 6.59s and 14.8s 1\4. No doubt there is 6.XX and 14.XX with improvements and more runs, but at least its in lower end of the spec range now. 

[Eagle 1672]

After donating a Dinan CAI to @Vass we had to figure out what parts they used for their additional cold air source since they dont sell them easy. I know Dinan use alot of OE parts for their mods so i eventually closed in on the likely parts. A quick confirmation with Vass concluded they were indeed E39 6 cylinder airbox boots\grommets. I decided to semi mod mine to re-create theirs after i found some suitable pipe from NZ safety. An additional cold air source cant hurt and im not exactly sure why BMW did not source it from there like the M3 etc, possibly a space or cost issue.

Pictures basically explain it, grommet pops out the airbox so its easily removable from the car. As far as temperature goes i didn't do enough logging in varying circumstances to say whether i has a measurable reduction, it wasnt apparent in normal highway driving with a 20 degree air temp and 30-35 IAT with both setups. For what its worth IAT temp reading was only ~5 degrees hotter than ambient air temperature with this installed once you pushed a bit past stuff the license speeds. 

[Eagle 1672]

E46 'vert front underbrace, a part i didn't know i wanted until i spotted it, always annoyed me the most E46's dont have a factory jack pad. This vert brace is reinforced\heavier than your std one and namely has a suitable round dimple\hole to mount my own pad on into. I used a X8R E46 jacking pad reduced to a round press fit and some Sikaflex for insurance, the E46 M3 jacking pad may also work?. Such a great QoL improvement that i wish i had done ages ago.

   

[Eagle 1672]

LPSR purple tag -  The used one he send me had a preload issue so he gave me a discount on a new rack with his rebuilt one.

CMP front brace - Was debating whether to install it but ive never used the fold down seats since owning the car so i figured why not. Haven't really pushed it hard since installing as i need a alignment but it appear to give at least a subtle improvement in rear end feel.

Meyle HD bushings - Only found out recently looking in the Bentley manual that there is a distance spec for these to be fitted (~289mm +\-1mm from inner ball joint to rubber bushing). Mine had been re-used which wasn't ideal and weren't pressed on near enough. I made a similar tool to proper ones to ensure i got them on properly this time around. Ive always felt the car wasn't as stable and lacked steering feel it should have and this was very likely the main cause. Even with the wheel alignment off its day and night especially combined with the above tweaks.