Steve's 2000 E46 Touring Dog Transporter Project

[Steve]

Coded my cluster to show the oil level

[Steve]

My wife and I went to Austin for a short getaway and I was able to drop the wagon off to have the rod bearings done while we were there. I try to DIY everything, but the risk seemed greater than the reward on this one, so I left it to a professional.

Dropping the car off at Hill Performance Bimmers


138k mile bearings





Overall, I'm happy to have had this done even thought mine weren't as scary as some that you see. It's hard to explain, but it is almost like driving a car that has just been detailed in that it just seems to drive a little nicer when you no longer have the bearings in the back of your mind. Can't wait to get past the 1200 mile period so I can go back to wasting fuel to hear the induction noise :rofl:

Also, a big thanks to George at HPB as he was very accommodating to work around our vacation schedule and did an outstanding job on my car.

[Steve]

Installed the bumper last night, can't believe how much more aggressive the car looks now. I'm a fan.

[Steve]

Took off the front bumper and took a quick shot showing all of the M3 bits installed. Honestly looks pretty aggressive like this, I kind of like it.

With the M3 pusher fan installed, my cooling seems much better. I purposely got stuck in traffic the other day when it was close to 100 degrees outside and the coolant temp needle stayed right in the middle. Cautiously optimistic that it was just a bonehead move on my part by reusing the 323i pusher that was causing my issue.



Also, couldn't take the mismatch and rattle canned my front bumper. Hopefully it'll last until I can get it done the "right way" but it looks good for a scuff and shoot, assuming the paint stays on there.

Probably the only Sahara Beige M3 bumper in the world :rofl:

[Steve]

I've been wondering if the M3 bumper would fit on the base pre-facelift body and decided to try it out this weekend. I've been having an issue where the temps creep up in traffic and after finding out the pusher fans are different between the base car and the M3, I decided to swap all of the M3 stuff over. I hope the correct pusher fan and additional ducting will help with my cooling issues, but we'll see.

The bumper is obviously a bit too wide around the fenders, but it looks way better than I thought it would.





Difference in width is quite apparent from some angles



I need to tweak it a bit, but overall, I like the new look minus the mismatched paint.

[Steve]

My steering wheel has really been bugging me lately since it's pretty worn. I've been meaning to get it redone, but other things have taken priority over it. Had some spare time this weekend and decided to try my leather repair kit on my current wheel. I figured there was nothing I could really lose since it already looked terrible :rofl:

Used crack filler on the really bad areas, lightly sanded the whole wheel and then sponged on dye being careful not to hit the stitching. It's not perfect, but it sure looks a lot better than it did. I'm quite curious to see how it holds up. I'll probably eventually still get a newer wheel, but this was a nice solution for the time being.



Next time I find some time I'm going to try to redo the bottom trim as it's now the biggest eyesore of this wheel

[Steve]

Made a quick video of the induction noise from the passenger seat area. Wish I had a real mic, but this will have to do for now

[Steve]

I've taken a few weekends off from this car since I've had other things going on and also have been given attention to my newly acquired E36 but I decided to get back to it this weekend.

Karbonius intake + Kassel MAP solution + MSSFlasher = The best sound I've ever heard from a car I've personally owned.

This intake is almost too beautiful to put in the engine bay, but here we go.



I went back and forth on the best wiring method and read every source of info I could find at least five times. It seemed confusing, but as usual, I was over complicating things. My final approach was to clip off the MAF plug and wire directly to it. This wouldn't be the best route to go if you plan on running the flap, but for my flapless setup, it seems to have been the most straight forward approach.



All buttoned up. I still want to clean up the wiring a little bit more, but it doesn't look terribly out of place. It could look a little more OE but that'll give me something to do for another weekend as I really wanted to go for a drive to experience the intake sound.

Is this intake worth it? It depends. I think it's 100% worth it, but it probably wouldn't be for everyone. Sound wise, it's simply amazing. Rolling into 2nd gear from 30 mph is fairly intense. It's something that needs to be heard in person rather than on video as the videos I've watched don't quite capture it. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the car and more importantly, the drivability hasn't really changed thanks to the MAP setup.

[Steve]

I picked up some black door panels pretty cheap to experiment with as I've been wanting to try a two-tone look.

Hellbeige (literally)



First I drilled out all of the plastic rivets on each panel to separate them. Once I pulled them apart, I swapped the beige insert into the black panel and used some 3/8" long #8 screws to secure it. I can't tell a difference from before, seems very solid and no squeaks or rattles so I would say it was a success.



Then I did the rest of them. It didn't really take that long, an hour or two with taking my time.



Overall, I like it, but I need to swap in a black dash and kick panels to make it look right. Once all of that is done, I think it'll look pretty good. I'm not looking forward to pulling the dash, but I think it'll be worth it.

[Steve]

Stage two will hopefully be happening soon, thanks ECS



This was in the box

[Steve]

Made a quick video of a cold start, cruise and WOT to show how the car sounds with the new muffler. Still a bit quieter than expected, but that's not a bad thing

[Steve]

Took the car to the dealer for my airbag recall. I wasn't quite sure what to expect and thought they would consider my car ruined. As it turns out, the Service Adviser was a huge E46 fan and loved the car. At one point it had several techs/advisers looking in the engine bay, which made me feel pretty proud of my work! They not only loved the car, but also gave it a clean bill of health. Also made a new friend while I was there that is in the process of doing a ZHP swap on his own wagon. Overall, great dealer experience, which is rare these days.



Also, I can't imagine getting to work in this nice air conditioned shop compared to my two car garage. All of the space and available tools must make for a pretty awesome work environment.



Next up, finally put a muffler on the car. Looked at options and there really weren't that many. I contacted Stromung and went with their S54 swap muffler based on the good things I read about it in Kaiv's M3F thread. Fitment was spot on and I was able to bolt it on without drama. I've put over 1000 "no muffler" miles on this car, so this is an interesting change. I can't tell if it's too quiet or just loud enough. The exhaust note is nice though, and it makes the car feel much nicer to drive when you aren't constantly listening to drone and obnoxious exhaust at anything above 2k rpms.



I'm also torn on this dealer badge. I normally remove them as soon as home, but this one has made it 18 years on the car and looks a lot like a M badge. Can't figure out if I want to remove it or put some replacement M3 badge stripes on it :lmao:

[Steve]

This weekend I flashed the Euro 6MT Tune onto my DME. I didn't really expect much of a change, but the car seems to behave completely different with the euro software. The idle seems to be better and it is generally calmer around town, but still pulls nicely when getting on it. The biggest change I noticed was that the revs seem to drop to idle much quicker when the clutch is pushed in. I'm not sure if this is going from a SMG to Manual conversion tune to a true 6MT tune or if this is just a characteristic of the different software. Either way, I don't mind it and it makes the car feel a bit nicer overall. More importantly, my DTML error is now gone

Only other change to the car was a fresh windshield cowl. The old one was almost completely disintegrated where it met the windshield. Next up I need to find a way to make the trim black again to match. Adam's "In and Out" spray has been a nice temporary fix, but I'd like to find something a bit more permanent.

Also found a cool side street so thought I'd stop for a quick picture.

[Steve]

Have about 500 miles on the touring now and have barely touched my other cars, love this thing!

I also made a few changes to the car, two of the things that actually bugged me the most about the car when I first got it.

Number one was the lighting. The factory headlights were halogen and pretty dim, not to mention the covers were very past their expiration date. I tried sanding and polishing them, but it didn't really help that much. I looked at picking up new lenses, but I knew I wouldn't be happy with the halogen lights in the long run so it seemed silly to waste the money on lenses. I'm glad I waited as I ended up finding a set of OEM Xenon lights shipped to me for a great price. As a bonus they already had fresh lenses on them so I was able to kill two birds with one stone. They also have a set of angle eyes in them, but not sure if I'll hook those up or pull them out.

Xenon vs Halogen, no contest.



I also coded them to the car as simply installing them up gave 'light out' errors on the dash. While I was at it I also coded the turn signals to flash when I lock or unlock the car as well as a few other nice convenience options.

Much better, other than the silver inserts, which I'll address at a later time.



Next change was to address the stereo system. I've been looking at the options out there and I haven't found much. The teenage me would have went all out and did a full new system, but I'm well past that stage in my life. The stock system is good enough right? Well, yes, but not in this condition.



I wanted to see if I could get lucky and see if any of the convertible parts would work in the sedan. The midrange and tweeters were obviously very different, but I had high hopes for the mid/low range part of the system.

Sure enough, the HK speakers bolted right in and hooked up without an issue. I believe I read these are 3 ohm instead of 2 ohm like the factory speakers, but that won't tax the amp like if it were the other way around so it shouldn't cause any issues.



Hooked them up and they sound great, or at least 100% better than what was in there

[Steve]

I ended up finding a deal on some 18s that I couldn't pass up since the offsets were so close to what I needed and the tires would work so I'm glad I didn't roll the rear fenders, at least yet. If I go much lower in the back, I'll definitely need to roll them as they rub on really big dips but they're fine otherwise.

Pictures with the new wheels:













I've put 150 miles on the car and I've been loving every moment of it. I still have some coding to do, mainly on getting the DSC to come back on board, but other than that there aren't too many jobs left to do on it.