Martin's AW/Cinnamon 6MT Street/Track Build

[gabylonfive]

As a new parent, it was almost impossible to find a window of time to tackle the subframe and other things I wanted to address while I had everything down for that job. I'd intended to do this right after the bearings but it ended up being another 6 months until I'd finally found the time.

Anyways, I ended up going with the following while I had the subframe down:

- Redish V2 reinforcement kit
- AKG 80A poly RTAB, diff, and subframe bushings
- Autosolutions 30% SSK
- Full diff reseal
- Turner rear control arms
- CSB/Guibo replacement

With the subframe off the car we finally got a clear view of the health of the racp mount points. There were a couple of cracks forming at driver rear and passenger front, which wasn't all that surprising given the mileage the car had seen. Those were stop drilled and welded and the rest of the repair was fairly straightforward/uneventful. At the time, the Vincebar solution hadn't been introduced - I wish it had as it would have been something I'd have done if available. If i have the subframe down again at some point I may add on the Redish V3 add-ons that address the same issue of tying the mount points to the chassis legs.

[gabylonfive]

At this point I had started piling up parts to tackle all of the big 3. First order of business was rod bearings as I didn't have a definitive answer on if/when they had been done. I didn't even bother with an oil analysis, I wanted a fresh start so I only put about 50 miles on the car before setting up some time at the shop to diy them. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I replaced as much as I could while I had the pan down:

WPC treated OE bearings
OE rod bolts
Oil pump
PS pressure lines, res, etc
Gruppe N motor mounts
Steering coupler
Gaskets, seals, etc etc.

I'm assuming this set of bearings had done at least 120k miles, so they looked about as I expected them to. A couple of cylinders were down to the copper, so I'm glad I did this immediately before I started driving the car as I intended to.







I also dumped the Agency Power exhaust for a Dinan muffler that I picked up off the forums. The AP exhaust was nice but awfully loud and with a brand new baby on the way I just needed something quieter that didn't wake the dead on cold starts 🤣



With the rod bearings done it felt great to finally get a chance to open the car up a little bit without fear of grenading the motor. The motor felt strong though there was quite a bit of slop in the rest of the drivetrain, so I started game planning the next phase of the build as I planned around subframe reinforcement.

My wife was also about 8 months pregnant with our first child at the time - a good opportunity for a family photo:

[gabylonfive]

I wasn't really a fan of the black roof wrap so that was one of the first things to go as soon as I got the car home:



Also discovered the smoke on the taillights was just a film so I scrapped that as well.



About two weeks into ownership I experienced the tell-tale electrical issues of a failing alternator, so in went a refurb valeo unit. The windshield cowl was also pretty beat and a buddy of mine had a spare OE one so I swapped that in at the same time.

[gabylonfive]

I've been wanting to start documenting my journey with this car since I picked it up in 2017 - 7 years, a pandemic, and two kids later...here we are 😂.

This is actually the 2nd E46 M3 I've owned. I picked up my first back in 2012: an 03 steel grey smg coupe with 30k miles. I loved the car but hated the transmission so I parted with it after a couple of years determined to find a clean factory manual (preferably white with an interesting interior) someday.

Fast forward to 2017 - I was browsing the m3f boards and found a very clean AW/Cinnamon factory 6MT coupe for sale and immediately reached out to set up a PPI. The following day the car was on a lift, checked out, and the car was mine.

The car did come with a handful of mods, but nothing too crazy:

JIC Cross Coilovers
Agency Power V1 Exhaust
Supersprint sec 1/2
18x9.5 et35 Rota Torques
CF CSL Style trunk
CF diffuser



Engine and drivetrain were all bone-stock. The car came with a decent set of service records, mainly showing vanos had previously been inspected/serviced (but not overhauled, so that was something I planned on doing immediately) and rod bearings had supposedly been done as part of a recall service 8 years prior (another thing I would be doing right away regardless.) PPI did show a couple of cracks at the driver side rear racp mount so I immediately ordered a Redish kit V2 to be installed as soon as possible. Otherwise the car checked out great - suspension/handling felt tight and engine pulled hard. Compression test showed 180-185 across all cylinders so I was pretty confident I found a good one.

The car had done 150k highway miles but it hardly looked the part. Paint was in great shape and the interior showed very little signs of wear. I had always wanted this color combo so to see it still in such great condition was a big, big plus for me. The PO obviously tried hard to keep the car looking nice, so I was super appreciative of that.

The day I picked her up: