e46 M3 Community-designed CAD files Master List

[heinzboehmer]

Few complements for cobra's awesome tool above (thanks again for sharing):

1. Crankshaft holder tool
   This serves the same purpose as 83300493843, but sendcutsend will make it for you for 1/3 the price. I got mine made out of 4.75 mm thick 304 Stainless Steel.
2. Press cup bolt guide
   This sleeve is tighter on the bolt shank than the cup is and provides a significantly longer contact surface. This helps ensure that the press cup is as square to the timing chain cover as possible. This guide does slightly interfere with the bolts on the taper tool at the very end of the pressing process, hence why it's designed to be removable. The idea is that you use the guide for the first ~5 mm of press travel, then remove it from inside the cup to fully seat the seal.
3. Modified taper tool with a 0.5mm oversized end taper OD
   My crank edge had some marring on the front edge which was catching the lip of the seals and ruining them. The oversized tool stretches the seal just enough to get it past the marred edge without permanently deforming it. I would highly recommend you use the original taper tool if possible, but this one is worth a shot if you find yourself destroying a bunch of seals.

[cobra]

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7055707

CAD for an adjustable front main seal installation press tool.

[enam3l]

This is great, thanks!

[M3llowM3]

Has someone made one of these yet? These are dumb overpriced for what it is lol

I made a very rudimentary file for this to 3d print some years back, never actually ran one on my car. I didnt get around to putting the clips on it. figured if i ever got around to printing and installing one i would just silicone it on from behind the 'csl hole' or something.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4568538

[heinzboehmer]

Recreated (most) of the front bumper foam pieces. STLs attached, CAD here: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/e7...4e7633977c9769

Printed these out in 95A TPU with 5% cubic infill. Bonded to carrier with a two part epoxy. Also applied some lubricant (Krytox) to the surfaces that the bumper slides over for extra longevity.

Refer to this post for pics: https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...993#post305993

Couple things to note:

1. I did not recreate the center piece, as that was still present on my car and I was too lazy to do the extra work. Draft angle and front radius is the same on that piece, so should be fairly easy to extend the CAD to include that piece if needed.
2. Laziness strikes again! The outer pieces are not as long as the stock ones are. Didn't feel like figuring out the contour of the carrier, so I just cut them off once the carrier stops being flat. Just butt them up against the edges of the carrier and you should be good.

[0-60motorsports]

Anyone design the 1 quart oil bottle holder for our cars to go on either the left or right side of the trunk?

Like this:

https://www.rendition-custom.com/products/e46-trunk-oil-storage-box

[dHam_Slow.46M]

Recently picked up a 3d scanner and thought I'd scan the diamond key as a test. Here's the OBJ file for anyone who'd like to tinker with a re-closable housing or maybe just cover.

https://www.printables.com/model/1237064-bmw-diamond-key-scan

[0-60motorsports]

Has anyone seen this on ETSY?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1808947229/?ref=share_ios_native_control

I would love one for our cars. I messaged the guy and he seems to have blocked me for asking that question LOL. WTF

[Jerrychendesign]

Awesome idea! Will upload files i make for my car too!

[CarbonSchwartzenegger]

I could give two poops for 3D printing. The E46 is now the reason I am interested in it, and this thread is the cure to the fever.

[karter16]

This seems like a great 3D print solution.

Why not slide the adapter on from the front, instead of having it go under, so the second mount hole can apply even clamping force on both sides?

That would certainly have been an option - in practice it seems that this approach allows for more than enough clamping force to hold it in place. The second mounting point is as much cosmetic as it is functional as the sensor is held down pretty well even with just the one mounting point.

[Obioban]

A little project I've been working on for the last little while is an adapter to help the Bosch 0261230101 MAP sensor fit better to the CSL air rail. For those who don't have the background, the original MAP sensor for the CSL is NLA. a few years ago NZ_M3 identified that the 0261230101 sensor was a good replacement option given it's characteristics are very similar to the original.

The key difference in it is the physical packaging - the original sensor had two mounting points, whereas the '101 sensor only has one:



Now it's a pretty close fit, but not ideal for the following reasons:

1: The nose of the sensor is a few mm too long.
2: The o-ring OD is too small.
3: It obviously only has 1 mounting point rather than two.
4: The mounting holes are deeper and therefore the OE bolts are not long enough.
5: The distance from the centre of the nose to the centre of the mounting hole is slightly less than the distance from the centre of the hole to the centre of the mounting thread on the CSL secondary air rail.

In general I believe others have used a craft knife to cut a little bit off the nose to make it fit, but I wanted to do a bit better.

So I made this 3D printable adapter plate.

The adapter solves for #1 and #3 above, #2 is addressed via a replacement o-ring, #4 is addressed via replacement bolts and #5 is addressed partly by the adapter and partly by modifying the sensor.

The adapter looks like this:



and here it is in printed form:



And here's photos of it installed:






Below are the details you need to know if you want to use this for your own install:

CAD File: The STL for the adapter is here E46_M3_MAP_Sensor_Adapter_v1_3.stl
Material: I printed mine in PETG-CF30 which is sufficiently heat resistant and hard wearing for the application.
Finishing: I printed mine with extra solid layers and ironing turned on to give a good surface which I then carefully wet-sanded to produce a very nice finish.
Affixing to the sensor: Once I was happy after test fitting I used plastic adhesive to glue the two pieces together.
Fitment: I used a carbide burr on my Dremel tool to thin out the metal insert in the sensor mounting hole to increase the wiggle room when mounting (hopefully it goes without saying to keep the sensor pointed down so you don't get bits inside it). Mine did JUST fit without, but I wanted to ensure the sensor was centered correctly and not being pulled to one side as well as prove the procedure out for others.
O-Ring: The correct size of o-ring to use is 14mm OD x 8mm ID x 3mm H Viton.
Mounting Bolts: If you wish to replicate the look of the original mounting bolts they are DIN7984 bolts (M6 x 18mm), I chose to get mine in stainless steel rather than zinc plated like the OE items.


A big shout out as well to davidinnyc who acted as guinea pig to try the adapter out before I did my install. He found on his rail that the fitment was too tight to get both bolts in, so it's a pretty close thing without grinding/filing of the sensor mounting hole, unfortunately this isn't something the design of the adapter can fix, given it's the sensor itself that is slightly wrong dimensionally for this application.


Hope this is of use to people - enjoy :-)

This seems like a great 3D print solution.

Why not slide the adapter on from the front, instead of having it go under, so the second mount hole can apply even clamping force on both sides?

[bmwfnatic]

Very Nicely done! I don't understand why in the holy hell would BMW discontinue a vital part like this for any car.

They didn't afaik, but they offer another sensor from some french car that fits even worse.

It probably went like this;

BMW Parts Employee: Oh we ran out of sensors, I must inform my colleage from Purchasing.
BMW Purchasing Employee: Oh we ran out of sensors, I must inform Bosch that we need some more, lets see the last 10 years we sold around 300 of these, so we will order 500 and we should be good for a while.
Bosch Employee: Ja we can make the sensor, but minimum 5000 units to resume production.
BMW Accountant: 5000 sensor is too much, we will not sell those in 100 years, etc...

[0-60motorsports]

Very Nicely done! I don't understand why in the holy hell would BMW discontinue a vital part like this for any car.

[karter16]

A little project I've been working on for the last little while is an adapter to help the Bosch 0261230101 MAP sensor fit better to the CSL air rail. For those who don't have the background, the original MAP sensor for the CSL is NLA. a few years ago NZ_M3 identified that the 0261230101 sensor was a good replacement option given it's characteristics are very similar to the original.

The key difference in it is the physical packaging - the original sensor had two mounting points, whereas the '101 sensor only has one:



Now it's a pretty close fit, but not ideal for the following reasons:

1: The nose of the sensor is a few mm too long.
2: The o-ring OD is too small.
3: It obviously only has 1 mounting point rather than two.
4: The mounting holes are deeper and therefore the OE bolts are not long enough.
5: The distance from the centre of the nose to the centre of the mounting hole is slightly less than the distance from the centre of the hole to the centre of the mounting thread on the CSL secondary air rail.

In general I believe others have used a craft knife to cut a little bit off the nose to make it fit, but I wanted to do a bit better.

So I made this 3D printable adapter plate.

The adapter solves for #1 and #3 above, #2 is addressed via a replacement o-ring, #4 is addressed via replacement bolts and #5 is addressed partly by the adapter and partly by modifying the sensor.

The adapter looks like this:



and here it is in printed form:



And here's photos of it installed:






Below are the details you need to know if you want to use this for your own install:

CAD File: The STL for the adapter is here E46_M3_MAP_Sensor_Adapter_v1_3.stl
Material: I printed mine in PETG-CF30 which is sufficiently heat resistant and hard wearing for the application.
Finishing: I printed mine with extra solid layers and ironing turned on to give a good surface which I then carefully wet-sanded to produce a very nice finish.
Affixing to the sensor: Once I was happy after test fitting I used plastic adhesive to glue the two pieces together.
Fitment: I used a carbide burr on my Dremel tool to thin out the metal insert in the sensor mounting hole to increase the wiggle room when mounting (hopefully it goes without saying to keep the sensor pointed down so you don't get bits inside it). Mine did JUST fit without, but I wanted to ensure the sensor was centered correctly and not being pulled to one side as well as prove the procedure out for others.
O-Ring: The correct size of o-ring to use is 14mm OD x 8mm ID x 3mm H Viton.
Mounting Bolts: If you wish to replicate the look of the original mounting bolts they are DIN7984 bolts (M6 x 18mm), I chose to get mine in stainless steel rather than zinc plated like the OE items.


A big shout out as well to davidinnyc who acted as guinea pig to try the adapter out before I did my install. He found on his rail that the fitment was too tight to get both bolts in, so it's a pretty close thing without grinding/filing of the sensor mounting hole, unfortunately this isn't something the design of the adapter can fix, given it's the sensor itself that is slightly wrong dimensionally for this application.


Hope this is of use to people - enjoy :-)