2002 E46 M3 // Build Thread

[Jdesign]

I hate the way S54's sound. This is an exceptional exception!

[Andrew]

Wow your exhaust sounds amazing.  Is it raspy at all?

[pynacl]

Andrew said:

Wow your exhaust sounds amazing.  Is it raspy at all?  

Thank you!! This setup virtually eliminated all rasp. I installed each component one at a time and the resonated X pipe seems to be the main contributor to the tone / rasp elimination!

[pynacl]

Big update for me - I bought a house! Was lucky enough to find myself a 4 car garage. The garage needs insulation, drywall and a shit ton of love but the bones look great. Huge thank you to @Rekpointfor helping with the move!

Also got a new Husky tool chest I really dig so far. Quality is pretty good for the money, definitely no snap on, but perfect for me. Has drawer liners, soft close drawers, power etc.

[Rekpoint]

Project garage build starts NOW. Fantastic size. Just needs to be finished!

[YoungCR]

Looks like plenty of room for a lift on the future, congrats!

[pynacl]

No big update, but now that I’m in my own house and no longer a tiny apartment I was able to bust out the pressure washer again! M3 and E90 both got a much needed deep cleaning. M3 also developed an interesting issue with one of the brake pressure sensors, so that looks fun.

136,852 miles

[pynacl]

Side story - I sold the Imola parts car that the cinnamon interior came from. Ended up getting the full interior, an Eisenmann exhaust, tons of interior parts I was missing and made a pretty nice profit. Sure I’ll regret not keeping a spare S54 some day

[pynacl]

Not exactly car related but I knocked out the first step of the garage build - insulating the walls. Such a pain in the ass removing the shelving system the previous owner had. Half was built with nails, at least 1000 of them. After getting all shelving removed, I went with R15 in the walls and eyeing up R38 for the ceiling. My plan is to just finish insulation and vapor barrier this summer and drywall / paint next.

[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.