WBM346Z Build Journal

As I have decided to keep my current transmission in it's current state, without a rebuild, I thought it might be prudent to check up on that state of the transmission by getting some oil analysis done on the transmission fluid. Unfortunately the sample wasn't going to be very good, as the transmission was out of the car, I wouldn't be able to follow any of the standard sample taking guidelines. I figured it would only be a baseline sample to check the condition and compare future samples against so it shouldn't be too crucial. Using the new sampling pump and sampling kit I got from ALS Tribology I drew a sample and sent it off for testing.

I made an order for a few Carbon Fibre parts I had been looking at for some time now. These were some Carbon Fibre Fog Light Covers (with Brake Cooling ducts) and a Carbon Fibre rear deck lip spoiler from JC Sportline. The Carbon Fibre Fog Light Covers I was after for a styling way to be able to plumb up the HARD Motorsport Brake Cooling Backing Plates whilst also looking stylish and maintaining the stock fog lights. The Carbon Fibre rear deck lip spoiler was to balance out the Carbon Fibre Fog Light Covers at the front by adding some Carbon Fibre to the rear. Due to the Targa Australia regulations I can only run panels that are the same shape and style as original. As a result I cannot run any CSL panels, so no front Carbon Fibre lip or CSL front bumper, no Carbon Fibre rear diffuser or CSL trunk. I am hoping that balanced with the Carbon Fibre at the front this will all up look balanced and stylish whilst being tasteful but making it clear that the car isn't stock. I...

Now it was time to get around to trying to install my new Syncro Design Works RTAB's. As I had not borrowed the RTAB tool from Syncro Design Works I was going to have to try figure this out on my own. At first I attempted to rig up a press on the outer ring of the RTAB using my 3-jaw puller which was more complicated than you would think. This did work quite effectively but annoyingly there wasn't much space in the jaws for how deep the press was so I had to use a somewhat flimsy grease cap to try push on the outer ring. This worked for about half the press then it completely crushed itself so I aborted before any pressure was applied to the bearing's inner race. Unfortunately I didn't manage to snap any pictures during this operation so all I have is this photo of where I had to stop: Luckily I have a mate who has a bearing press anyway so I wasn't completely out of options. This was an easy option for me as my Rear Trailing Arm was out of the car as part ...

Now I had some time and while the Fuel tank was out I thought it was time to install the new Radium Automotive Fuel Pump Install Kit (with Walbro pump). The instructions provided by Radium Automotive for this are extremely straight forward. In general I followed these instructions although I did make a few adjustments along the way to better suit my build. Radium Automotive Fuel Pump Install Kit Instructions Instead of reusing the plastic convoluted tube I decided to run a new line using Gates Submersible Fuel hose. Unfortunately due to the bend radius of the hose it was getting quite close to kinking when installed in the correct manner. To solve this I got a hose anti-kink spring from a local hose supplier. It wasn't the exact size required but it was tight enough to the hose that it would not be able to kink completely flat, the outlet pressure from the pump should keep the hose "open" providing it doesn't completely kink. So whilst not completely optimal, I st...

So the Syncro Design Works RTAB's arrived today and I have the opportunity to open them up and finally have a look. They came very well packed and with a set of printed instructions for those who have never removed / reinstalled RTAB's on their E46 M3 before: Due to the restrictive costs of International shipping I chose not to borrow the RTAB tool from Syncro Design Works (although for others this is an option, it just requires a deposit and must be returned within 30days). As a result I was going to have to find a way to install these with the tools I had at my disposal which is either a 3-jaw puller or a mates bearing press. That is a job for another time...

Now that the car will have Turner Motorsport FCAB's and ECS Tuning RSM's it seemed only fitting to get some monoball design RTAB's as well. I had been researching these on and off as part of selecting the other monoballs for the car but hadn't fully decided yet as I still had basically new PowerFlex RTAB's installed. I found there was a few options out there: Dinan Fall-Line Motorsport Syncro Design Works BimmerWorld Turner Motorsport   There may be others but these are all I was able to find and look into during my search. From what I have researched the Dinan option are supposed to be amazing, with nothing but positive reviews, although they are also easily the most expensive. The BimmerWorld option have also been around for a while, with mixed reviews. The two new options to market are the Fall-Line Motorsport and Syncro Design Works. Both seem to be great options set at a reasonable price point. Not a terribly large amount of details on each (in terms of...

Given the age of the car and the condition of the steering rack I decided that I should investigate a rebuild or upgrade. My research brought me to a great thread over at M3Forum written by forum member Volke -  Comprehensive Steering Information Thread  (updated to NAM3Forum link). It seems as though the dead feeling I had been experiencing on my stock rack was due to the progressive nature of the stock E46 M3 rack. An "upgrade" or remedy to this would be the CS/CSL steering rack, E46 330i steering rack or a few options from the Z cars. Taking my research back over to M3Cutters (as M3Forum better serves LHD cars and my car is a Euro, hence RHD) I found that the E46 330i Steering Rack is normally noted with a "Purple Tag" on RHD cars and so a common upgrade is the Purple Tag Steering Rack upgrade.  As I dug further it seems that as this steering rack came off a more standard car they were cheaper and easier to come by - especially refurbished/rebuilt - and showed co...

There was a fair few things that bothered me when I stripped the car. The main one was the use of "push-on" fittings which were a pain to use and most of which had perished to the point of requiring destructive removal. Given this and the terrible state of all the power steering hoses I knew straight away that I wanted to find an after-market alternative to replace the aged hoses and try and remove the "push-on" fittings from the system. During my research I found that there was a fair few people out there that had hose companies make them up replacement hoses instead of getting OEM replacements. As much as I liked the idea of this it still left me with basically the same hose setup so I kept looking and stumbled across the Hack Engineering Power Steering Lines Sets (for E46 M3) . There were three options to chose from: Replace the lines but keep the "push-on" connectors to the cooler Replace the lines and upgrade the cooler to AN fittin...

After deciding on an purchasing a Evolve Carbon Fibre intake I wanted to look into an Oil Catch Can to protect the new intake from vented crank-case gases. There are multiple generic options out there ranging from ECS Tuning, to Mishimoto and there is obviously the option to build a custom kit, all of which would meet the brief. Although, as usual, I wanted a ready to go kit for this car. After a bit of research the only ready to go kit I could find for the E46 M3 was the Radium Automotive Oil Catch Can Kit . Checking out their website I also found a few other E46 M3 parts/kits they had on offer; Fuel Surge Tank Kit , Fuel Rail Kit and Fuel Pump Install Kit . Unfortunately I fell in love with their high build quality and marketing material as very quickly I found myself wanting it all. So as a result I set out to justify why I might need all of it. The Fuel Pump Install Kit was the easiest to justify in some ways as I was at the level of mileage where it would be prudent to re...

Today the Supersprint Exhaust arrived all boxed up and new. Even though I won't be installing this for some time I was too excited so I unboxed everything to have a look. I didn't go as far as removing the shrink-wrap packaging as this will protect the individual pieces enough until it comes time to install. Unfortunately the Sports Muffler had sustained some minor damage in transport. You can see one of the hangers on the left hand side of the below photo has been bent inwards. I emailed Best Exhaust and sent them the photos of the issue. They spoke to Supersprint in Italy about it directly and they advised that my warranty would not be voided if I chose to remediate the damage myself (ie bend it back to shape). So rather then go through the painful process of some kind of warranty claim or replacement I opted to just remedy the situation myself. At least I have it in writing that my product warranty will still be honored now if something happens to that hanger ...

Another upgrade I started looking at was Sway Bars. The stock ones on my car were pretty rusted so it seemed like a good enough excuse to look around at other options.  I am not much of a CSL fan boy and cannot bring myself to pay the premium for CSL parts under the guise of staying stock or true to BMW so I figured I could find a better candidate in this list of aftermarket options: KW Suspension Ground Control Hotchkis Turner Motorsport H&R Eibach The first candidate I looked at was the KW Suspension Sway Bars under the premise that they may be designed to compliment the KW Clubsport suspension I had purchased. After a bit of research it doesn't seem like they were specifically designed to compliment their own systems directly and the size of the bars was more or less on par with the CSL spec bars. The next ones I looked at were the Hotchkis sway bars. These were appealing as the front bar is hollow which would reduce weight. Although after reading a few re...

As part of my reinforcement at the rear of the car I decided I wanted to investigate a Rear Strut Brace. Initially I wanted something that would tie-in as part of my Rear Axle Carrier Panel Reinforcement (to complement the Redish Motorsport RACP Reinforcement plates) so I was drawn in by the Mason Engineering GTR Brace. Unfortunately after referring to the Targa Australia Regulations I found this clause: M 30. S us p ension ii.      T he a dd i t i o n of b r a c es fo r s tr u t / d a mp e r t ow e r s is p e r m i tt e d , p r ov i d e d the y are o n ly co nne c t e d t o ea c h t ow e r , an d are n o t co nne c t e d at an y o t he r po in t of the c hassis o r bodywo r k . A tt a c h m en t of s uc h a b r a c e mu s t b e by bol t s. T he d esi g n of the b r a c e is o t he r w ise f r ee. As a result I was not going to be able to run a brace which triangulated from the strut towers down to the Rear Axle Car...

Almost a requirement of any good build is an exhaust upgrade. Everyone from school boy tuners to fully blown racers do it. So now it was my turn to have a look. There is a very exhaustive and well written thread (Thanks to aznbo187 over at M3Forum) that covers all of the potential options you could ever imagine for the E46 M3. Now my drivers for the exhaust were I wanted; an all-in-one ready to go package (as usual), a performance increase, a little bit of extra noise without being obnoxious and a taming of the tinny rasp all E46 M3's have. There are multiple options to address the noise, tinny rasp and all-in-one requirement, but after a bit of research there was only one that offered a confirmed and consistent performance increase and this was the Supersprint option. So with that in mind I was very quickly set on the Supersprint offering without really jumping into anymore research. I didn't see any point spending any money on anything that wouldn't provide a performa...

As the car had done ~94k miles I thought it would be time to refresh the cooling system as part of the build project. It also gave me an opportunity to remove the viscous clutch fan, as I have never liked these. This is similar to my dislike for sleeving engines that aren't low-revving V8's, I have no science to support why I don't like them, I just don't. My main driver here was to upgrade to something better than stock with increased reliability. As with my other parts decisions I also wanted to stick to something that for the most part came as a ready to install kit specifically for the E46 M3. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there was a lot of options to chose from when it came to cooling upgrade for the E46 M3. I compiled a list of some of the options I reviewed / considered: Zionsville Radiator Fluidyne Radiator and Oil Cooler C&R Radiator and Oil Cooler Mishimoto Radiator and Oil Cooler CSF Radiator and Oil Cooler I am sure there is more opti...

Now with a rough build plan in place an my modification application sitting with the Department of Transport it was time to start stripping the car. This would allow me to at least start on the underside refurbishment, as irrelevant of the modification application outcome the underside needed a tidy-up. Stripping the car would also allow me to find other parts that needed refurbishment or replacement. As the car was a UK import the corrosion underneath was going to be horrid so I already knew there would be a fair bit of stuff that would need to be replaced or refurbished. I snapped a couple of photos of the car and parts as I went:

As I mentioned in the previous post I wanted this car to remain street legal and as a result I was going to have to get a Modification permit and approval for the level of modifications I was looking at. This means that all of my modifications were going to have to comply with the National Code of Practice for Light Vehicle Construction/Modification . The initial stage of the process is to complete a Modification Application which outlined what I planned to do. This stage is relatively simple and is just so they can stop you from starting anything that they will reject straight away. All you get at the end of this stage is "in principal" approval to continue with your modifications. As an engineers report and thorough inspection are required to get the final approval. I wanted to get this stage started as quickly as possible as it had to be submitted by mail so I knew the processing and response times would be slow. As a result I did some rather quick and high level resea...