WBM346Z Build Journal

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...