A purists nightmare - E46 drift build

[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.

[Tkuhn]

jc43089 said:

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

Thanks! And definatly difficult without a heated garage that's for sure, I have a heater but not one to keep a constant temp in the garage all winter long

[Tkuhn]

Made an exciting discovery that I can't believe I never thought of before. I've been wanting to get projectors in the low beams on my headlights, after doing some research i found that the OEM stuff can be transferred between housings and all the housings are the same with the same slots and markings for holes whether it was a halogen housing or not.

It just so happens I still have both of the xenon headlights from my 330i along with one of the ones with a broken housing.

I started by taking apart the broken one for investigative purposes. Things looked good like they would work!

Stock halogen coupe headlight before:

Took this existing light completely apart and deep cleaned it (it came with my car so it had 200k plus of road shit that I couldn't completely scrub put before). I dont have a before photo but here it is all cleaned up.

I cleaned up the rest of the parts then drilled a hole for the igniter wires to come our of the housing which then connect to the ballast. 

The ballast slid right into the coupe housing just like on the original pre-facelift sedan headlights. (No photo but you get the point).

Once the igniter was secured in and all the wires were ran I cleaned up the projectors and the reflective housings. Installed them into the coupe housing and put the shroud into the housing.

Now that I know it works I have to do the other headlight but I was extremely happy to find I had basically all the parts to do this.

Next up is to order some new lenses to get rid of the nasty faded ones, I tried to polish them out but new ones are cheap enough.

[Jdesign]

Thats good to know, and it looks great!

[Boris3]

Looks good! I don't have the expertise to ask the question correctly but is there any need to reflash the LCM/ECU, or will the changed setup just plug and play?

[Tkuhn]

Boris3 said:

Looks good! I don't have the expertise to ask the question correctly but is there any need to reflash the LCM/ECU, or will the changed setup just plug and play?

That has crossed my mind lol. I believe the my will still work for sure. Just not sure how the car will react, like it might think that the headlights are burnt our or something since the data being sent back would be different. It might just say theres a headlight burnt out or something. I need to do the end of that research yet. Either way I know it can be coded in if that is a problem, just need to do the research to get that knowledge. I was going to try and plug it in but the battery is not in the car since my garage isnt heated and I didnt want the battery to freeze up haha

[Boris3]

Hope it works, it'll mean that bits from the burnt bowl ZKW bixenons I pulled from my car might actually be worth something.

[Tkuhn]

Boris3 said:

Hope it works, it'll mean that bits from the burnt bowl ZKW bixenons I pulled from my car might actually be worth something.

So a quick search said multiple things. I have AL headlights so not sure how it applys to ZKWs but some said pre 03 (chassis) you dont need to code because the newer chassis have some sort of difference. Others said you have to code the light module for a xenon low beam and some other procedure to make the halogen high beams work. Apparently it can all be done using a NCSexpert. Which I have ZERO experience with lol and I am on the lower end of computer savvy in that sense.

[wasnt m3]

I swapped in oem xenon headlights in a prefacelift e46, which were a direct plug in. Everything functioned perfectly, just had a headlight error until I turned them on. Didn't bother me enough to recode.

[Tkuhn]

wasnt m3 said:

I swapped in oem xenon headlights in a prefacelift e46, which were a direct plug in. Everything functioned perfectly, just had a headlight error until I turned them on. Didn't bother me enough to recode.

Good to know! I'd like to learn to code either way honestly. Have you dabbled it it at all?

[suspenceful]

I swapped some OEM Xenon headlights into my girlfriend's 2002 E46 sedan that came with halogens. Just unplugged halogens and plugged in the Xenons. Everything functioned as it should, no errors lights either.

[Tkuhn]

suspenceful said:

I swapped some OEM Xenon headlights into my girlfriend's 2002 E46 sedan that came with halogens. Just unplugged halogens and plugged in the Xenons. Everything functioned as it should, no errors lights either.

Bitchin' hopefully I have the same results. Although it would be cool to learn to code so I could add some features. I also would like to get my key matched to my car since i swapped everything from my 330i and the fob wont unlock the car with the power locks. But not sure that you can fix that with coding

[wasnt m3]

I've got a laptop with all the coding software but never even really bothered giving it a shot. You're welcome to play with it if you want.

[Tkuhn]

wasnt m3 said:

I've got a laptop with all the coding software but never even really bothered giving it a shot. You're welcome to play with it if you want.

I'll keep that in mind, theres a really good video tutorial I found on YouTube that a guy talks you through getting the software all the way to coding some things.

[Tkuhn]

Decided to make some room in the rear today. While I'm not hammered low and my fenders aren't super rolled there was a few rubbing issues due to some of the factory bump castings I suppose you could call them inside the rear wheel wells. Hacked out some metal and made some relief cuts.

Forgot to take a before of the passenger side.

While realistically the best thing to do would be to weld them, I dont have a welder at the house. I was able to get the ends very close the the outside panel and they are much higher than before creating alot more room. I seam sealed the passenger side and need to do the driver side still. So I'll post photos when that is done!