Watch as I simultaneously improve and ruin my E46 M3

[Nate047]

looking forward to seeing the journey! more pics please!

I have a few days this week and next, hoping to get the interior done and at least drop the suspension and make sure there are no extremely unpleasant surprises. I did discover some grime and residue near the fuel filter / brake lines under the car which is not great... Going to have to figure out how to clean that. It's worn off the coating of the car pretty badly in that area.

[Nate047]

Oh man I love those wheels, so goooooood

Thanks! I also really love the period look of them. On the down side, they are very heavy.

[Avedis]

I have a soft spot for ACS wheels and those type III look amazing on the E46 M3!

I really enjoyed the initial story, mishaps, and your decision to stick with it and to deep-dive into the restoration. Someone once posted in the forums "Be a good custodian" and that’s exactly what you're doing. Keep up the work and documentation, I will definitely be following along. I'd love to see the car in person one day.

[Sharocks]

I ain't gonna lie, I wouldn't buy a car from the Tri-State area if you paid me.

IDK how Rob does it, but he literally has a formula for spending on money on these heaps.

Nice to see the journal bruv.

[ejendow]

excited to see the build progress! thanks again for the rear interior bits

[usdmej]

looking forward to seeing the journey! more pics please!

[robgill]

Oh man I love those wheels, so goooooood

[Nate047]

Hey everyone, I'm Nate. I think this is a good time to start a build journal, I've been through kind of a lot with this car in the last 5 years and I've recently started to work on the next phase of its life as a track/canyon build. Here's how the car looks now. Well, actually it's on jacks in my garage. But you get the point.

NateHassler_E46M3_001 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

Here's the first picture I ever took of it, right after it came off the transport truck back in 2018.

IMG_9317 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

For my first entry in the journal, I'm going to go over a brief history/intro of the car, what's been done to it already, and what the goals are moving forward.

The deets:
2001 M3 coupe
Mileage at time of purchase was about 85k, currently it has about 115k
Black interior w/piano black trim
Multiple accidents on carfax but clean title
Midwest and east coast car.

My wife and I bought it together, sight unseen from a Craigslist ad and had it shipped to us. Not an advisable practice, BTW. Here's what the ad looked like:

E46_001 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

E46_006 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

E46_003 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

E46_004 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

E46_005 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

Not so bad, right? Clean but not perfect, right? We paid $16k for the car, plus about $1600 for transport, a fee for the escrow service, and I paid $250 for a PPI. I thought we scored a killer deal!

Let's just say I was in for a surprise. As soon as it rolled off the transport I was just like ".........dude." At that point, I could (and arguably should) have just turned around and sold the car as is, taken the L, and bought an LCI west coast car. But I'm dumb and stubborn, and I didn't know very much about these cars at that time, so I dug my feet in and began to fight the car. It was also at this point that my wife was like, "...dude" and she wanted to sell it. But instead, I bought her out of the part she paid for it like a true gentleman, so my fate was officially in my own hands, and mine alone.

Now don't get me wrong, the car wasn't THAT bad. I'm a photographer and image retoucher by trade, so I'm pretty good at taking phone pics where you don't see the worst parts.

IMG_5639 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

IMG_9458 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

But it had some rust, a couple areas with peeling clear coat, dinged up interior, and a lot of other small-to-medium-to-major mechanical problems that were not mentioned by the seller at any point. The car was a 4 or 5 out of 10, and I thought I was buying more like an 8. I was also mad because I had had a PPI done by a "reputable" shop in upstate NY. They told me the car was fine, but what I didn't realize was, those guys are idiots. Any car where you can't see the asphalt through a hole in the floor would be "fine" by them. Lesson learned I guess right? If you want to buy a car long distance, GO SEE IT FOR YOURSELF FIRST.

Anyway. In spite of the flaws, I did actually really like the car right away. I knew it had what I wanted, but it would take a little to get there. One of my best friends is the owner of a shop called Bavarian Workshop up in North Hills, Marc is a true G and he helps me out A LOT with my cars. I brought the car to him the day after I got it, we put it up on the rack, and we both kind of did one of these.



Again, it wasn't THAT bad, but there was surface rust on everything pretty much. Mercifully, nothing too bad on the structural parts. Extremely annoying to see this as a west coast person though. Marc gave me a list of stuff to order and said to bring it all to his house and we would bang it out.

The very first things I had to address were new tires, new brakes, new front wheel bearings, and shocks and springs.

IMG_0479 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

IMG_0491 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

We also did fluid changes and sent off an oil sample to Blackstone Labs. The results came back and were pretty much "meh," the car had had the rod bearing recall performed, so I said whatever and just drove it around for about 2 years. It already had RACP plates, and eventually I did have the full VANOS rebuild done, and rod bearings done again at the same time. Originally I wanted to DIY those jobs, but I had no time or decent workspace at home at the time, so I ended up farming it out. Interesting factoid, my car does also have one of those replacement RACPs from back in the day in it. I don't have records of this or good pictures right now, we will come back to that whole subject later on. I digress.

Short list of failures since I've owned the car:

Alternator failed like a week after I got the car

IMG_9718 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

Fuel pump died right in front of the Santa Monica Pier during rush hour (no pics, I was too busy trying to not get murdered)
Coil packs left me stranded off Highway 33 for like 4 hours waiting for a tow

IMG_6037 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

IMG_9234 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

Stock exhaust broke off at the section 1-2 junction due to rust LOL
Another alternator because Bosch alternators are hot garbage
And right now it also has ANOTHER over charging alternator, so I'm about to put the 3rd new one on the car in 5 years. Hopefully this will be the last one. I bought a Valeo unit this time.

Short list of mods:
Bilstein B8 shocks w/Eibach lowering springs. Very good, easy and brainless setup for street driving.
19" AC Schnitzer Type III wheels w/PS4s because they vibe harder than the stock 19s
AFE cold air intake, makes a decent noise, CARB legal aka painless to own, bought used for cheap
SuperSprint resonated section 2, Sport section 3, OEM dual resonated pipes combined to make a rasp eliminator section 1
IMO the car sounds really nice for how much all that stuff costs and for being 100% CA emissions compliant. I have some videos with pretty decent sound I will share later.
Rogue Engineering short shift, I've grown to like and appreciate this a lot, one of the only things I can thank the previous owner for
Some sort of subframe and diff bushings, on the car when I bought it
BimmerWorld engine mounts

Fun story time: Someone side swiped my car on Abbott Kinney. Then, before I had the chance to bring the car in, it got hit again across the rear. This was kind of a blessing in some ways, because I worked out a deal with my homie hookup body shop. Both accidents were minor, and I got a decent respray on the whole car for about $2500 out of pocket. They also fixed all the rust on the body which was GREAT. There were issues with the bill and with the timing, but I'm not going to go into that. It all worked out at the end of the day, and I was left with a car with 3 carfax accidents, new paint... But they forgot to do the roof. So it still has a fucking black roof. But yea ANYWAY, it's cool, I'm not annoyed by that, it's totally cool. Just take pictures from low angles.

E46_FitmentIssues_010 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

So that pretty much brings us up to date. My current mission as of November 2023 is to build this thing into a track car / canyon car, with some hardparking in there yea, not going to lie. I want it to look a certain way, so I'm doing some stuff pretty much just to satisfy that. I have tracked the car once in it's current state, and it needs everything lol.

I have a lot of track experience, but not a ton over the last year or two. My first goal is to go sub 2 at Buttonwillow CW13. I am confident I can make that happen with practice and patience. I think I went 2:08s or something useless like that on this day. Absolutely no brakes after 1 hot lap. Head touching the ceiling of the car. Stock seats are absolute trash. It was an informative day, I know what I need to start with to make the car do what I want.

IMG_3445 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

I'm doing a pretty decent interior makeover, suspension refresh, coilovers, wheels/tires and brakes, plus some exterior mods some people will hate. I really love the Ringtools people build for the Nürburgring, so I bought some of those aero parts purely because they look cool.

I'm doing the interior first, so that will be the focus of my next journal entry.

E46_Interior_Day_1_005 by Nate Hassler, on Flickr

Thanks for reading!