A purists nightmare - E46 drift build

[Tkuhn]

Aightttt nerds, with winter upon us that only means one thing. It's time to re-vamp and upgrade some things! 

First things first mid summer I moved back to west bend and luckily the place I'm at now has a garage with enough space for myself. So I moved out of my shop and into the new garage, which was one hell of a process. After moving everything first up was putting plastic up to try and hold in some heat along with adding lights. Then getting my bench set up and as much organized as I could. 

It's mostly set up now.

On to the fun stuff though. I picked up some rare BNIB all clear tails

Haven't slapped them on the car yet, but I'm excited about them.

Also snagged up a few things from an M part out for extremelyyy cheap!

OEM M hood, M skirts, a left side fender (still undecided on my plan fender wise but I couldn't pass it up), front and rear door panels with piano black trim, and 2 door seals (which I didnt need but I know the cost of them if I do end up needing them). 

Got the hood and the passenger sideskirt on with the help of @Earl to get a glimpse of what it looked like. And DAMN did it change the way the car looked way more than we thought. 

The car was stupidddd dirty from the last drift event so I put it up on stands, pulled the wheels and bumpers and pressure washed the whole car the day before it snowed. Yes it was dark and yes the water was freezing in places lol.

Also test fitted the M fender. Not sure how I feel about it yet since I dont necessarily want to do M rears yet. For multiple reasons. One being I dont want to spend the money to go wider with wheels, and another being this car is so damn clean I feel bad hacking the rear up so soon since I would most likely do rivet on rear M overs. But for fun here's a pic so I can hear your opinions. 

That's it for now boys, but doing alot of thinking on what direction other things will go.

[wasnt m3]

Hood and skirts look great. Personally, I wouldn't do the fenders. I used m3 skirts on my old touring, totally changed the look of the car.

[Jdesign]

wasnt m3 said:

Hood and skirts look great. Personally, I wouldn't do the fenders. 

I second this. The fenders are too much, and I never was a fan of those vents in the fenders once autozone started selling the "stick on's" that you see everywhere. It just looks like 00's rice to me now.  

The car looks great now and I would just stick to thestock body unless you bang into something. Als congrats on the new space!

[SteelBlue]

Does Felony Form or some other similar company make over fenders for the E46?

Would be a good medium between stock body and Pandem. 

That being said, I do really like Don Musk's E46. Feel like his car is appropriate for this thread.

[ChrisO]

Hard Motorsports makes flares moulded off the e46 m3 body, and they sell just the rears

Here they are on a sedan but they have ones for the coupe

I had there e36 flares on my old m3 and they were also moulded off the e46 m3, perfect imo. Used small color matched sheet metal screws to mount them

[Tkuhn]

To quote all of you.

Number one I would only do the fenders if I did "fake m" rear overs, also the vents would be shaved. 

Also the musk kit gets me going soooo bad haha but its insanely wide (65mm over stock M) and with wide fenders comes wide wheels and wide wheels mean needing power to spin those wide wheels. Which I'd love to do but I dont want the car to be down multiple summers due to being built or budget problems lol I'd rather be in the seat. 

Musk and a few others have made fake m rear overs and that's what I'd be looking at. A few other companies made their own wide body kits but again much to wide for me right now.

I know about ththe hard motorsport flares but I'm not a flare guy, although the price is nice so if I needed just rears due to wanting to run front M fenders (for track width reasons) I'd consider them only for the bang for the buck. But again we are back to cutting up a clean car. Which I must say I dont mind but I also dont see the need to yet and would feel a little bad haha

It's really just a big round about circle that ends me back at DONT DO IT. Lol

[Tkuhn]

Finally test fitted the clear tails

[Jdesign]

Tkuhn said:

Finally test fitted the clear tails

Love it. Looks 

[Tkuhn]

Jdesign said:

Love it. Looks 

Thank you sir! Should look even better with the planned color change this winter.

[wasnt m3]

Tkuhn said:

Thank you sir! Should look even better with the planned color change this winter. 

Care to spill the beans??

[Jdesign]

UUMMMMM I hope its white. Otherwise I retract my tailight compliment.

[Tkuhn]

@wasnt m3 @Jdesign

Jason wins haha I'll spill the beans to you boys here. It will be white, at least that is the plan.

[Jdesign]

Tkuhn said:

@wasnt m3 @Jdesign

Jason wins haha I'll spill the beans to you boys here. It will be white, at least that is the plan. 

What did I win?  

[Tkuhn]

SMALL UPDATE.

My awesome girlfriend got me this HoldFast usa steering wheel that I've wanted for awhile.

I've also been wanting to get rear door panels back in the car, never really liked the fully stripped look and honestly never felt like dealing with it last summer lol. But with that being said I messed around and found the perfect way to fit the rear panels with my harness bar! 

was able to use a hole saw to create a round section on the bottom and then my badass new m12 milwaukee dremel to cut the straights These panels were the ones that came with the car so I did the same as the front panels. Removed the arm rests and used interior paint to make them black. Kinda hack... I'm aware. But I didnt want to cut into my pristine black panels I got with the M stuff. Plus since the fronts were sprayed black they will match better. I'll save the other black panels for when a cage is put in the car in the future sometime.

And since it was 40 degrees and January I decided to back her out of the garage to sweep up while I had the chance. 

I have mostly everything off the car as I am getting ready for the color change.

[Jdesign]

Looks damn good from here!

[Tkuhn]

UPDATE.

Rolled the front fenders and rear quarters a bit, I never rolled them before and I wanted to get a little out of them. Not worth showing photos they are just rolled fenders lol.

But I got the rear panels put back together and installed. And I am hyped to have rear panels back in the car.

Also got a start on making a rear seat delete panel. Made up a good ole cardboard template.

Gotta pick up some plastic to cut out but that's it for now.

[Tkuhn]

Firmiliar sight here. Got pretty much everything disconnected to pull the engine and trans out. Planning to check things over along with replace the clutch. 

Found out I'll need to replace an axle as one of the boots is starting to seap grease. Also need a new driveshaft because the damn u-joint has some play in it. Wish these u-joints were serviceable

[Tkuhn]

New bumper came in today

And I opted to not do what every non M e46 owner does and get a M bumper lolol 

Quick mock up because i was excited. The bash bar and rad support are not on the car.

[Tkuhn]

Bumper is all trimmed up where it needs to be and mounted nicely. Not a whole lot of progress lately, slowly but surely.

[jc43089]

Looks good!  Any progress is good.  Especially with the cold weather.