E46 Things
-
I wanted to see what the exhaust actually sounds like since induction and other cool mechanical engine noises make it hard to hear:
I didn’t do it for Dale, I did it for science.
Is the sound intoxicating? No.
is it raspy? Yes.
is it all bad? No. I find the sound to be unique and interesting. It is exotic in the way Joe Exotic is. I am content and have no plans to make it louder. If I heard it all the time I might change my mind about it.
-
That was many contemporary references in one post!
The low key rasp isn't ever bad, but when people straight pipe things and it is just an exhaust note of rasp; it gets rough.
-
For my own future reference as I sit here bored in a meeting at work:
On the list for winter
-Find mechanical cooling fan components (shrouds, clips/fasteners, etc.) and replace Spal fan with stock mechanical fan. The Spal fan will be moved to pusher duty on the front unless I can find a good used aux. fan and all associated shrouding etc.
-Replace oxidized AC Condenser before it fails and coats my engine bay/front tires/life in greasy R134a-Replace radiator if it looks crusty on the front (need to remove condenser to see)
-Coolant flush
-PS Flush
-Oil Change w/ Blackstone analysis
-Replace cooling system hoses and o-rings
-Replace upstream O2 sensors because they are probably original
-Replace TPS sensors and fuel injectors
-Replace clutch hydraulics
-Inspect/replace steering flex disk
The radiator in that car is literally brand new. I had it put in when I had Eric re-wire the car to get rid of the mechanical fan. Don't waste your money.
-
The radiator in that car is literally brand new. I had it put in when I had Eric re-wire the car to get rid of the mechanical fan. Don't waste your money.
The aux. fan controller cannot run the fan at full speed and the needle climbs while lining up in grid/idling for more than a minute on a hot day unless I am running the heater on full attempting to induce heat stroke.
Running a stock aux. fan and hard wiring the puller to a temp switch that lets it run full speed is the other option being considered.
-
The aux. fan controller cannot run the fan at full speed and the needle climbs while lining up in grid/idling for more than a minute on a hot day unless I am running the heater on full attempting to induce heat stroke.
Running a stock aux. fan and hard wiring the puller to a temp switch that lets it run full speed is the other option being considered.
I'm going to come over this weekend and inspect this fuckery for myself. I don't buy the story
-
I'm going to come over this weekend and inspect this fuckery for myself. I don't buy the story

Never a concern in this weather, but in July/August if I let my guard down while stopped, the needle has been known to be sneaky.
-

Never a concern in this weather, but in July/August if I let my guard down while stopped, the needle has been known to be sneaky.
I may just be looking for an excuse to bring the Z4 over
-
It has been a beautiful week of driving! I even remembered to disconnect the battery tender before I pulled it out of storage and drove off.
I received my Blackstone report today. The big question was if a 3,000 mile OCI is just right, or too late for an engine that makes a lot of revolutions per mile. Also beneficial is establishing a benchmark for future bearing condition estimation.
I have not been fond of the high speed stability. It is stable enough but there isn’t much aligning torque and sometimes it tramlines way too easily on the freeway. Last summer when Big Bear checked the alignment, they set the camber plates at minimum caster since it leaves all of the camber bolts visible. I think they assumed I wanted to be able to adjust the camber easily (my best guess, see pictures below). The toe is fine within stock spec, but caster is less than stock which would explain the excessive tramlining. I’ve had enough and wanted to see how much difference it would make without wasting a trip to Big Bear and finding out something unsavory about running more caster.
At full negative caster the steering is slightly heavier and the excessive tramlining issue is gone! This means I will need to schedule another appointment next time driving season starts up to get the alignment precisely dialed again, this time with an added helping of caster.
-
Installed black anodized pedal covers from Turner Motorsports. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the way the rubber blocks on the existing pedal covers feel. Turner owes me a couple pieces of hardware as they were missing from the box but im sure they will have no problem sending what was missing so I will give them a call tomorrow.

-
That looks nice
-
Fired it up to get it on ramps so I can replace a few things.
-Parking brake shoes
-Stainless clutch line
-Clutch slave cyl.
-Try out some Redline MT LV in the trans per Bimmerworld’s recommendation
-AKG Motorsport trans mounts with the cuppy-thingies
-jack point surface rust removal/POR15
I think that’s all for now. I’ll report back tomorrow once im covered in blood and grease and have made little progress
-
Just a FYI on the 420G but also this is a phenomenal build https://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?p=1491536#p1491536
someone said:
We determined transmission whine was from the input shaft bearing. Input shaft must have gotten damaged during one of the many removals/installs since it was pulled from the donor car (be careful not to let the weight of the transmission be held by the shaft). 420Gtransmissions are not repairable; neither BMW nor Getrag provide any parts or support. I contacted many 'experts' around the world, including those who convert 420G SMGs to 6-speeds. None could offer any help with the input shaft bearing. Just the cost of having someone TRY would end up being many thousands of doll hairs. I decided to write the old transmission off and source a new one. Yes. New. There are (were) two of them left in the world. It should be here this week.
-
That IS a phenomenal build!
The 420g is not one of the great manual transmissions ever crafted, hence my efforts to do a few small things to make sure it has its best chance at living its best life. If I ever needed to swap transmissions I would grab a cheap low mile SMG trans and swap bellhousings. The manual transmission cost and availability is not great and with the SMG you know a computer was shifting it instead of a pretend racecar driver. Which all E46 drivers are, including myself.
-
160,712 miles
Parking brake shoes and hardware replaced. The shoes were original (no surprise as they dont wear much) and had plenty of meat on the bones. The weak park brake was more a function of glazing and adjustment.
the drum surface received a good scuff and the adjusters were cleaned and slathered in anti-seize. Once it was back together, the handbrake cable was adjusted to factory spec and now the park brake holds the car on my sloped driveway while in neutral.
Im pretty sure I ordered an FTE clutch slave cylinder (OE) but here I am with a Sachs brand. Notice that the pushrod is a bit longer than the FTE. In this photo the stock slave cylinder binds at the last 1/4” of travel and so part of the length discrepancy can be attributed to that. I am not sure that the sticking affected performance while under pressure but it would not surprise me if the seal was affected and able to pull a minuscule amount of air for a brief moment while moving past that rough spot.
The stainless clutch line did not have the same pregnant section that the stock rubber line does so I trimmed it off and attached it since there exits a decent chance of rubbing and abrasion between the corner of the oil pan and the new line.
Transmission mounts were not replaced as the exhaust was in the way of the passenger side mount. I will save them for a future project when the exhaust is dropped.
The MT-LV is the ticket though. I took a few laps around the neighborhood in the cold weather and between the new clutch hydraulics and the trans oil, there were no grinds on the cold 1-2 shift.
It is now parked and on the battery tender again until hopefully March
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login
