Black & Tan 332iT

[Bry5on]

Holiday weekend, had the day off. In went some bimmerworld (not raised! See all my geometry posts throughout this thread) solid subframe bushings and a new fuel pump. The juxtaposition of the easiest job ever (the fuel pump) versus the hard job of subframe bushings while on your back was interesting.

I threw the bushings in the freezer for a couple days before doing the job, I don't think it made much difference though.

Pretty sure I was using that tool wrong for the rear two bushings, but oh well, it worked out in the end.

Driving wise, I'm very happy. Wish I hadn't chickened out earlier. The rear definitely feels more rigid and taut and has maaaybe the tiniest bit more tire noise than the AKG 95A bushings that were in there. The rear feels more planted down, the dampers feel like they're doing a better job, and there's some oscillation that's gone on throttle application and shifting. There's just a little bit of a harshness that was added, but not bad harshness - not even in the order of magnitude realm of the harshness that the solid RTABs added. These will certainly be staying, overall a great upgrade that modernizes the car much like the newer M cars now are.

New half shafts and rear wheel bearings are on the way as one of my outer CVs went and is clicking incessantly on right turns. That and the play, especially on the right side, in the inner part of the shaft even with new inner CVs is still pretty bad. I figure the play must be in the splines, so I forked out the dough for a pair of new ones. Still chasing that M-clunk.

And since I was in there unbolting the subframe bushing/brace, a photo of where I located the rear PDC speaker (under the mounting bracket for the TV tuner) as I don't think I ever published that here:


And last, all that sound deadening work I did in that photo above didn't do nearly as much as the little bit that I did in the wheel wells and rear quarters recently. Word to the wise.

[puma1824]

Well I didn’t remove anything except the holes I added a probably five pounds of sound deadening and then replaced the fender insulation with a hole-less ( technically heavier) part. The exhaust did seem a bit quieter, hard to tell on the quick drive I did honestly.

Oh you kept the existing and added the deadening material. At first glance, I thought you just replaced it. Thanks for the info

[Bry5on]

I really like how you've taken the extra steps. Do you know if your noise reduction is either quieter and/or lighter than the existing dampening? I'm entertaining doing the same to my touring while I replace those 6x9 speakers.

Well I didn’t remove anything except the holes I added a probably five pounds of sound deadening and then replaced the fender insulation with a hole-less ( technically heavier) part. The exhaust did seem a bit quieter, hard to tell on the quick drive I did honestly.

[puma1824]

I really like how you've taken the extra steps. Do you know if your noise reduction is either quieter and/or lighter than the existing dampening? I'm entertaining doing the same to my touring while I replace those 6x9 speakers.

[Bry5on]

In today's episode of fixing problems other people created, I install new sound deadening covers over the rear wheel arches.

I have been working on another project (more details later) that required a couple quick trips to the junkyard for some electrical connectors. While I was there, I discovered a couple e46 tourings. One of them had already been disassembled in the rear hatch area and I noticed a distinct lack of cut holes above the rear shock mounts. For those not in the know, doing rear shock mounts on a touring requires disassembling essentially the entire trunk, so often times mechanics will cut an access hole in the insulation above the mounts to save themselves some effort. Well, as it turns out, sound deadening works best when it's continuous, so those folks are unknowingly trading away some NVH. My favorite.

So this afternoon I disassembled the trunk yet again, added some sound deadening butyl sheet, then reassembled with continuous insulation. Here are some photos to document the changes.
Right side before:


And during, showing the locations I placed sound deadening:



And the left side before:


And with sound deadening mat:


Bonus photo, a nice hack fix (zip tie and adhesive) for the D-pillar trim if it's starting to fail at the fastener:


While I was in there I also discovered that the tint shop that ruined my rear defroster also ruined my antenna mount to the side glass by shaving off the mounting wire. This explains why my remote range dropped after the tint job. Hopefully some conductive silver epoxy will fix this one and get my antenna range back.

Before I started, a buddy swung by with his new machine, in stark contrast to what I was doing today:


And to anchor on that contrast, here's a slicktop orient blue wagon with manual, heated, sport natural brown interior at the Oakland junk yard:

[George Hill]

Its funny how things are, I've been wanting to put IHKR in my wagon for sometime now too and am going down this road as we speak. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like an easy retrofit, I made this video outlining the mechanical work as I can tell so far:

https://youtu.be/5ubvA1DAOAo

[Bry5on]

More discussion and video of the differences (thanks George!) on the IHKR in my sister thread over here: https://www.e46fanatics.com/threads/...#post-19247331

[Bry5on]

Ah that would be disappointing. From memory when I looked into this a few months ago, the connector profiles are the same between the two units, and as far as I could tell the only other HVAC system parts that were different were the wiring harness, and the presence of automatic AC sensor. I reckon it would at least be worth swapping control unit out and seeing what breaks.

Looks like the IHKR (knobs, versus LCD equipped IHKA) uses a single stepper motor and some gears instead of two/three stepper motors to control face/foot/dash ventilation. It's the stepper and the gears that need to be swapped. I might just head back to the junkyard to grab the harness, stepper and gears at least, as long as they're separable.

[karter16]

I've very recently learned that perhaps the entire heater core/HVAC unit needs to be swapped. So maybe this is more trouble than it's worth...

Ah that would be disappointing. From memory when I looked into this a few months ago, the connector profiles are the same between the two units, and as far as I could tell the only other HVAC system parts that were different were the wiring harness, and the presence of automatic AC sensor. I reckon it would at least be worth swapping control unit out and seeing what breaks.

[Bry5on]

Nice! I quite like the simplicity of the knobs as well - it's a straight plug and play swap right? (The only time it's not is if you get the non-AC version of the knobs I think?)

I've very recently learned that perhaps the entire heater core/HVAC unit needs to be swapped. So maybe this is more trouble than it's worth...

[karter16]

I also managed to find uncut rear fender insulation and the knob HVAC panel. For some reason I like the knobs.

Nice! I quite like the simplicity of the knobs as well - it's a straight plug and play swap right? (The only time it's not is if you get the non-AC version of the knobs I think?)

[Bry5on]

A couple recent repairs worth documenting, otherwise working well.

The BavSound driver's side woofer failed, the rubber surround tore and would buzz at certain frequencies. These were installed when I got the car, so I contacted BavSound and they were super cool to sell me just a pair of replacement woofers. The woofers are a newer style with an inverted surround that appears like it won't have the same failure mode. New style on the left, old style on the right (repaired temporarily with black RTV):


A while back I'd been struggling with a ticking/clicking noise in my steering column. After putting in new lower bushings that sound went away, but recently a new clicking sound appeared, and this one was louder and came with feedback through the wheel. I figured it was wear at the spline joint of the bottom of the steering column, as everything else is new or rebuilt by me, so I decided I would take this opportunity to do the final part of a manual swap. Not relevant to the M3 guys, but automatic e46s have a shifter cable that prevents you from removing the key if the car is in gear. This makes the key tumbler harder to turn and always bothered me because I knew it wasn't right. So this morning I headed to the local junkyard and lucked out to find a manual e46! Taking out the steering column with the wheel locked was tricky but doable by separating at the tilt/telescoping joints. I then had my way with an angle grinder and managed to remove the ignition tumbler without a matching key but still leaving no damage to the column itself. I swapped my tumbler in and away we went. Clicking problem is solved.

I also managed to find uncut rear fender insulation and the knob HVAC panel. For some reason I like the knobs. There were two black e46 tourings (one an '06!) with black interior, and one was a slicktop. I resisted the urge to take the headliner and pick up a very large project.


On the top is the manual column, bottom is my automatic one:


I took the best of parts and hybridized them into one column:


Hard to drive this way:


I also took a video of the Mullet tune in action. This is reversing from idle up my driveway, which is uphill, at a temperature that should have had the car operating in the regular (not cold start) map. You can get a sense of how easy it is to take off from a start with the tune, and this will most likely look unfamiliar to you if you have an s54 with stock cams and a CSL airbox:

https://youtu.be/hAV2H8qVOMA

Bonus shot of the car taking advantage of my extra-clearance M3 suspension setup:


I guess this was a bigger update than I expected.

[Bry5on]

Replaced a dying ignition coil and washed it. Thought it cleaned up pretty well for 230k miles.

[Bry5on]

Well look at that, rear 18x8.5 style 135 wheels will clear the front 996 brakes with a 3mm spacer. That makes a perfect et47 front offset. If only there was an 18x9.5 et45 or so to match in the rear for a CSL 235/265 stagger. Barrel clearance is the same as my 17” Apex wheels.

[0-60motorsports]

One of the tunes was done remotely so yes it is an option!

Awesome!!! Thanks for doing this.