2002 E46 M3 // Build Thread

[pynacl]

Noticed a little spot of oil on my garage floor after not driving the car for a bit. At first I thought it was coming from the oil drain plug, but a closer look made me suspect the center oil pan gasket. Sucks I didn’t choose to replace it while the rod bearings were done recently - feels bad dropping fresh oil. Also deep cleaned my reinforcement plate while it was off and it looks pretty darn good!

[pynacl]

Small change - I swapped all the interior lights to LED a while back and just never really liked it. Feel like it modernized the car in a way that didn’t feel right. I’m an idiot and threw away all the original bulbs, so I recently had to go through realoem and gather each bulb part number to buy them through FCP. Feel like the standard bulbs just fit the car better and pair nicely against the cinnamon interior.

Heres a few crappy pics of LED vs standard

[Rekpoint]

pynacl said:

Small change - I swapped all the interior lights to LED a while back and just never really liked it. Feel like it modernized the car in a way that didn’t feel right. I’m an idiot and threw away all the original bulbs, so I recently had to go through realoem and gather each bulb part number to buy them through FCP. Feel like the standard bulbs just fit the car better and pair nicely against the cinnamon interior.

Heres a few crappy pics of LED vs standard

I love the LEDs with my black interior because the car is so dark anyways. But I can agree, the original bulbs are the way with Cinnamon.

[YoungCR]

personally I always get "warm white" LED's when I can, I can't stand bright white either

[Rekpoint]

Legend has it this car was abandoned in an unfinished garage and not driven last year. 

[Rekpoint]

Live look at the abandoned m3s battery tray 

[KaiserRolls]

Rekpoint said:

Live look at the abandoned m3s battery tray 

Fish tank mod

[pynacl]

Getting pretty warm out here and the snow is nearly gone! Fired up the M3 to bask in the sun and do a speaker system overhaul. The factory HK system was pretty toast and rattling like a mf so I bought a bavsound kit from @wasnt m3. Installed and sounds pretty good, can finally listen to my tswift without getting a headache

[pynacl]

Spring '23 mileage update - 136,586

[KaiserRolls]

pynacl said:

Current mileage: 136,136

Is your ODO broken?

[pynacl]

Bought a new wheel setup finally! Sorry to disappoint they're just arc 8s. Just hard to argue the price and weight factor of these things. 

Apex ARC 8 18x9.5 +22 

Continental ExtremeContact Sport 265/35/18

Edit: I noticed the contis have a much more rounded side profile than the more square PS4S. Doesn’t look quite as good as the PS IMO, but makes clearance a bit easier.

[pynacl]

Nicer pic of the setup once the suspension settled a bit

[basedspider]

Looks great man! They are popular wheels for a reason

[pynacl]

Retiring the “E46”plates in favor of collector plates. Always liked how clean and minimal MN’s collector plates looked, plus no more registration each season! They do give the option to do vanity collector plates but I preferred the anonymity this time around. Someone steal my old plates, quick!

[SteelBlue]

These are much better than our collector plates. The blue and red is horrid.

Doing a vanity plate with a collector plate is also a nice option that we also do not have.

This is a great color combination as well.

[pynacl]

SteelBlue said:

These are much better than our collector plates. The blue and red is horrid.

Doing a vanity plate with a collector plate is also a nice option that we also do not have.

This is a great color combination as well.

Agreed, the Wisconsin options are pretty ugly IMO. I am already kinda regretting not trying to get “E46” with collectors. Maybe in the future!

[SteelBlue]

pynacl said:

Agreed, the Wisconsin options are pretty ugly IMO. I am already kinda regretting not trying to get “E46” with collectors. Maybe in the future!

I might do it in the future and go the @Partiallypurple route and paint it.

[YoungCR]

Really wish we had vanity collector plates too.

[Jdesign]

pynacl said:

Agreed, the Wisconsin options are pretty ugly IMO. I am already kinda regretting not trying to get “E46” with collectors. Maybe in the future!

You can do that in MN? We cant do vanity on collector or hobbyist plates in Wisco. I  painted my hobbyist plates about 5 years ago and never had issues. (Joking because my car never leaves my shop) 

From what I understand, its illegal to alter the plates in any way (hell a license plate frame is considered illegal). On the other hand, any cop I have asked always says its NBD as long as its legible. Its in line with most modifications, be honest and polite when cops ask questions, you are more likely to get a warning.

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[pynacl]

I got really tired of the exhaust setup I had, the drone was just getting unbearable with this joke of a muffler. At first I thought it sounded good enough that it'd be fine since this is a weekend car, but it just turned me off from driving the car. I swapped back to the stock muffler for now to get the drone under control. For now I have Fabspeed catless headers, stock section 1, STG x pipe section 2, and stock muffler. I'll be on the lookout for a Rogue Engineering El Diablo muffler soon. Finally can hear the induction noise of the S54 again!