RoyalFlushness's 2001 Imola Red E46 M3

[Loopyspec]

Carr looks absolutely perfect! Love the progress so far.

[RoyalFlushness]

Imola Red has so many personalities

[RoyalFlushness]

Finally got around to getting the rear end sorted. RMP Motors here in Toronto did the reinforcement. They found 3 hairline cracks. Welded all of them up, locked it down with Turner plates and installed Powerflex Black subframe bushings all around.

[RoyalFlushness]

Car looks fantastic.

Really like the new setup and the OEM 18s you had on there. A lot of guys are running stretched tires but imo this is the right approach. I think the front end would really benefit from OEM chrome grills and gills to match the indicators and wheels - but that's just me. Good work 🤙

Thanks man. Definitely considered going back to OEM sides and grills.

[DI46LO]

Car looks fantastic.

Really like the new setup and the OEM 18s you had on there. A lot of guys are running stretched tires but imo this is the right approach. I think the front end would really benefit from OEM chrome grills and gills to match the indicators and wheels - but that's just me. Good work 🤙

[RoyalFlushness]

Wheels and tires are fitted. A few teaser pictures from today.

[RoyalFlushness]

Remember watching your build from M3F! Since I just saw it, what drew you to a pre facelift example? Car is look great and those wheels will make it even better!

Thanks man. I have been searching for a clean Imola Red E46 for years and didn't really care about pre facelift or not. I kinda dig the OG pre led tails.

[Inizes]

Remember watching your build from M3F! Since I just saw it, what drew you to a pre facelift example? Car is look great and those wheels will make it even better!

[RoyalFlushness]

New wheels just arrived with some fresh center caps.

Apex EC7 - 18X9.5 ET22 all around

[RoyalFlushness]

Dialed in the suspension, added some spacers to the rear and added a stud conversion kit.
And... the result which is currently as she stands today: My take on OEM +
There are still a number of items that need to be addressed such as subframe, cut and polish, alignment etc... however those will be tackled this summer. Pictures:

[RoyalFlushness]

From here, it was time to go back in for some more paint work. There were a number of things that I still was not happy with on the body of the car. There was some peeling clear coat near the quarter panels and various chips and dings I wanted to have taken care of:

[RoyalFlushness]

Now it was time to pick a coilover. While price was not really a major issue, I knew I would not be driving this car daily and only tracking it a handful of times. After allot of research I decided to pull the trigger on a custom set of BC Coilovers with SWIFT Springs with the proper offset camber plates:





Installed but not yet dialled in:

[RoyalFlushness]

Fast forward to the next summer and now it was time to tackle wheels / suspension / some additional paint work. I managed to source 4 OEM Rear 18's and had them refinished in my version of shadow chrome. Mixed with some fresh 265/35/18 AD08r's and here was the result:




Coby Wheel came through with a nice new re-wrap of the old steering wheel. I went with grey Alcantara and a black centre stripe:

[RoyalFlushness]

Next on the list was exhaust and cleaning up the headlight lenses and seals. I sourced myself an old AC Shnitzer exhaust (one of the best sounding exhausts in my opinion) and used the engineering smarts of my exhaust shop to get the outdated oval tips cut off and add some nice SS staggered tips. The original ACS exhaust looks like this:


Chopped them off:



Finished Product:







Installed:




Old Lenses:





New:

[RoyalFlushness]

Paint finished and a nice wash: