Transmission Oil Sampling

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.

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Radium Automotive Order

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...

Purple Tag Steering Rack

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...

Redish Motorsport and PowerFlex Bushings Order

So after doing some extensive research prior to purchasing the car I had already decided that I was going to need to address the "subframe" issue. I do not have the capability to do any custom fabrication work, yet, so as a result I wanted a ready-to-go kit of sorts. Based on my research I found that the two best, most available and most commonly used options were the Turner Motorsport Subframe Reinforcement Plates and the Redish Motorsport RACP Reinforcement Plate Kit . Redish Motorsport have YouTube channel ( www.YouTube.com/RedishMotorsport ) where they discuss their kit in quite a lot of detail and also have a fair few videos of the whole process. Based on this extra information and the larger size and better looking design I decided to go with the Redish Motorsport RACP Reinforcement Plate Kit over the Turner Motorsport option. Following the Redish Motorsport recommendations for the install I also decided to buy up a set of PowerFlex Street Bushings to replac...

WBM346Z Build Journal

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