Immaculate low mileage 2004 Silver Grey CSL Inspired Build

[0-60motorsports]

Wow that looks beautiful!

[Bry5on]

Glad it all worked out and thanks for taking all those nice pictures!

[Avedis]

Seats arrived from AMX in Poland. The AMX purchasing experience was very mixed. It wasn’t a horrible experience, but for the premium price, it wasn’t good enough to do business with them in the future. I don’t want to go into details and turn this into a negative post, as this build thread, and the project itself are really positive outlets for me. We’ll leave it at that and move on.

Factory seat coming out.


Seat rail and electric motor disconnected from factory seats.


Bry5on custom seat mounts mocked up. These things are incredibly well thought out.


I got about this far before I realized I needed to stop and shift my order of operations. Everything came back apart so that I could make a few adjustments then rebuild in the correct order.


First, the seat harness mounting bracket was removed, placed in my vise, and given two subtle bends. The minor adjustment ensures there is no rubbing when the seat moves back and forth.


Next, the Recaro seat bracket was attached to Bryson's seat mounts. All the bolts received Loctite to ensure they don’t back out in the future. The factory seat rail has a threaded stud that passes through the seat mount. The stud is a strange shape with a stepped and shouldered shaft. This required a custom thickness washer combined with the original nut.



After that, the seat cushion could be reattached to the Recaro seat bracket. Bottom half complete.



Next part of the install was the wiring. Again, I received some help from Bryson (I swear, I’m surprised he hasn’t started billing me). First I pulled the seat memory trim off the original seat.



Then out came the wiring harness.


There were a lot of wires, but I only needed four specific ones to wire a momentary forward and backwards switch. Off came the 20 year old Tesa tape which made a sticky mess. Old adhesive was cleaned off of the harness, then the wires were de-pinned and removed.




Old connectors were cut off, motor wires got a jumper cable for the momentary switch. Then I crimped on some spade connectors and finished with heat shrink for extra insulation.


Test fit the wires onto the seat and momentary switch.




Here is the completed look. A lot of work for a little switch, but I’m incredibly happy with how clean it looks.


Final test fit was done in the car to ensure the switch worked. Once I confirmed that, the seat came out one last time so that I could wrap the new harness in Tesa tape and install the upper portion of the seat.



The upper portion of the seat was attached. It was starting to look like a finished product, so I stopped to take a few photos.




New bolts, new nuts, and new covers for a finished OE look.


The fully assembled seats were weighed (50.4 lbs) then installed in the car. For reference the factory passenger seat weighed 63.2 lbs The seats look like they could have been a factory option for a "CS" model if BMW ever made a proper CS for this generation. Really happy with how this project turned out.

[Avedis]

While browsing through member's build threads, I saw a quality OEM+ (thicker) steering wheel posted in SQ13 thread. I reached out to him and he provided me additional information on the seller and the wheel itself.

I currently have a F30 335i and G07 X7 as my daily drivers. Both of those cars have thicker steering wheels. I don't drive my M3 very often, but when I do, the thinner diameter of the steering wheel stands out to me. Part of me feels like it's nostalgic, adding to the overall driving experience. The other part of me feels that it's too thin, detracting from the driving experience. I wanted to try out a thicker wheel to see how I would like it in the M3. Rather than wrap my current wheel, I chose to replace it. This way if I ever wanted to go back to stock, I'd simply swap the steering wheel back.

The steering wheel was purchased from GS Specialties who sells both on eBay and Instagram (LINK). The seller takes an original used steering wheel, strips off the leather, adds new thicker padding, and wraps the wheel in a smooth Nappa like leather. The wheel is ~1cm thicker in diameter but otherwise identical design wise. The 1cm difference in diameter doesn't sound like much on paper, but it makes a huge difference in feel. The seams and stitching are perfect, and the overall craftsmanship is excellent for a very reasonable cost. It shipped from Poland and arrived in a week without issue. I would highly recommend the seller if anyone is looking for custom steering wheel work.






I also picked up this extra long valve stem tool after seeing it recommended by sleeks. The tool fits perfectly into the hole in the back of the steering wheel and cradles the airbag retention spring. This makes depressing the spring a little easier than using a flathead which tends to slip as you apply pressure.




Onto the installation itself. First the battery was disconnected, then airbag and trim were removed.


Wheel removed.


Prior to installing the new wheel I took some comparison photos to show the difference in both diameter and leather.



Wiring was transferred over to the new wheel then it was torqued to spec.


Here is a before and after. Visually, it’s a very subtle difference, but feel wise, it’s a massive change. My plan is to keep an open mind as I drive the car for a few months, then revisit at a later date to see which wheel I like more.



Prior to reconnecting the battery, I installed a quick disconnect adapter for my NOCO Genius 10 battery charger.

[karter16]

so I asked Marek at AMX if he could create a small woven label (clothing tag) with the ///M logo and stitch it into the bolster seam.

Very cool - love this little detail! looking forward to seeing photos of the finished seats!

[1bluemcm]

Cool project. That's some dedication to the parts search. Love the silver greys. Nice!

[Avedis]

I have been in a "gearing up" mode for the past few months and have been slowly ordering major components, small parts, doing research, and prepping for future installs.

As I mentioned prior, the seats and custom seat-mounts are the last components for the interior phase of this project. I bounced back and forth between fixed buckets and more street/passenger friendly seats. After seeing BBB's seats, I decided to order a near identical set.

The specs are Recaro Sportster CS, custom leather upholstery, ///M logo embossed in the headrest. I also wanted to somehow tie in the tri-color, as I did with the seatbelts. Some of the examples of tri-colors integration on the AMX website were a little loud for my taste. I wanted something more subtle, so I asked Marek at AMX if he could create a small woven label (clothing tag) with the ///M logo and stitch it into the bolster seam. BBB provided me with some photos of his seats, and I used the photos to do a small mockup for AMX. Marek quickly took my mockup and designed the woven tag.

Although this is a mockup only, I expect them to look exactly like this.



With the interior nearly complete, I have been able to shift more time and money to other areas of the build. I've probably looked at the CSL intake 100 times on the Karbonius website. Today, I finally ordered the full carbon CSL intake, carbon CSL snorkel, and carbon M-Performance style strut brace from Karbonius.

I again chose to deviate from the original CSL design, ordering all the parts in 1x1 matte finish carbon. Just as I did with the interior components, I will ceramic coat them which will give a satin sheen to the parts. Really excited for the install. In my opinion, a CSL intake is the biggest enhancement to the driving experience and character of our cars.





Prior to ordering the intake, I had already ordered and received all of the necessary parts, accessories, and tools for the installation.



In addition to preparing for the intake, I also ordered a ton of parts for the CSL trunk I posted on page 5


I’m big on doing as much research as possible prior to doing any installation. Just as with the CSL interior parts, I found the lack of comprehensive tutorials for the genuine CSL trunk lid surprising. Because the DIY I did for the CSL interior components was received so well, I will be creating a comprehensive DIY for the CSL trunk lid as well.

[Avedis]

Love the details on the battery. Do you need to keep the charger on it most of the time?

Per Braille and discussion with forum members, it does not need to be kept on a charger all the time.

slavik1988 informed me he left his car in the garage, undriven and uncharged for 3 months. He stated it fired up with no issue. This was one of the main reasons I went with the i48cx over other batteries.

[bavarian3]

Love the details on the battery. Do you need to keep the charger on it most of the time?

Also love the dedication on the seat bracket covers. I had the same dilemma and opted for pick n pull and some careful application of trim paint 😁

[0-60motorsports]

Nice update! I emailed braille about shipping the battery to Bahrain, let's see if they can do that lol

Update: They couldn't ship to Bahrain which is a shame.... so I think the Antigravity will work out better in my case and a few hundred dollars cheaper shipped too....

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/h7-group-94r-lithium-car-battery-w-restart-antigravity-agh740rs

[Nate047]

Right on, car is coming along so nicely.

[Avedis]

Couple of small updates:

The battery that came with the car was an O’Reilly unit dated 2017. I’ve been wanting to replace the battery for quite some time, and finally decided to pull the trigger on a lightweight battery. After doing research here and speaking with a few forum members, I chose to go with the Braille i48cx battery. The i48cx weighs 10.75lbs, is a direct drop in part, and is fully compatible with the NOCO Genius 10 charger that I already have in my garage. While weight loss isn't priority one for this build, shedding 40.5lbs while swapping out a part that needed to be replaced anyways seemed like a no brainer. If anyone is thinking of going this route, I highly recommend Braille as a company. They replied to every email I sent almost instantaneously, and picked up the phone immediately the one time I called to clarify info.

Here you can see just how light the Braille battery is. I am able to fairly easily hold it up with one hand. It was so light that I couldn’t weigh it on my regular bathroom scale, and had to use a more precise food-grade scale instead.



Compare that to the boat anchor that I pulled out of the car (51.4lbs)


Installation was essentially drop in. The only thing I had to do was move a small white plastic spacer over so that the battery did not slide to the front or rear of the car. While the battery was out, I vacuumed, wiped, and inspected the battery tray. Everything looked perfect.


Battery was hooked up to my NOCO chager and it was set to Lithium maintenance mode without issue.



I’m still fairly new to the E46 M3 platform, so it took me a while to notice that my car never came with the ISOFIX covers in the rear seat. After seeing the price (~$75 shipped) for two tiny pieces of plastic, I put off the purchase for a long time. Unfortunately, once I knew they were missing, I couldn't unsee it. It bothered me every time I looked into the back seat of the car. My attention to detail is both a blessing and a curse I suppose. I caved and spent the $75. I took them out to the garage to ceramic coat them prior to installation.

Is there a final weight for the Mile End bumper vs stock, including fog lights etc…?

It is going to be quite some time before I get to removing the bumper for paint work. When I do, I will make sure to weigh both bumpers with all the hardware and accessories.

[Arlen4369]

Beautiful build

[Gt4]

Is there a final weight for the Mile End bumper vs stock, including fog lights etc…?

MEC bumper are around 7.5lbs

[Nate047]

Is there a final weight for the Mile End bumper vs stock, including fog lights etc…?