Karter16's Silbergrau E46 M3 Journal

[0-60motorsports]

Well after 9 years of flawless SMG ownership the car threw SMG codes 36 and 37 on the way to work this morning and again on the way home. Not the worst timing as was planning to have the car in the air soon for the RACP brace install, so can do the gear position sensor at the same time. I look forward to spending 500 Euro on a new one…


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LOL just get a used one.

[karter16]

Well after more than 9 years of E46 M3 ownership I finally joined the flatbed gang. The GPS died on me entirely quicker than I was anticipating and left me with a box full of neutral this morning. Car is now at Dad's ready to be worked on. bmwfnatic (thank you!!!) is picking up a new sensor this week and fedexing it to me.

Had been going to do the RACP brace about a month ago but wasn't feeling up to it at the time, glad I didn't as can do this at the same time.


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[karter16]

Had a great weekend working on the car. On Saturday morning Dad and I got the car up on stands and exhaust and driveshaft out. Unbolted the exhaust at the headers and dropped the whole thing, then the same with the driveshaft. So much faster than last time given we're just removing and reinstalling rather than taking it all apart to clean. I'm super happy with how everything under the car is holding up, it's 8 years since we did the underbody refresh and everything is looking really good under there.

I did the new gear position sensor first, access is a bit of a mission but the mutilated allen key approach does work. The old sensor was extremely notchy and rough after 20 years of service. Worth noting that we ran the first part of the SMG adaption (up to the point it wants the car started) to make sure it was happy with the new GPS.

After that we moved on to lowering the rear subframe to facilitate the installation of the Yurkan Cages 6 point brace. We took off the brake calipers and rear trailing arm pockets and lowered the entire thing about 100mm on a couple of jacks (to give us more control over forward/rearward weight distribution). That gave us enough access to unbolt the front RACP studs and get them out. We then jacked the subframe back into place and loosely bolted it, which gave us a better safety factor while working under it.

At this point we drained the diff, swapped out the rear diff cover for a new one and reinstalled with new bolts and drain plugs. I've mentioned previously that I'd long experienced some clunkiness when shifting/loading/unloading the drivetrain. This was vastly improved by adapting the SMG. I wasn't sure whether what remained was the diff getting a bit tired or whether the rear bushes needed replacing but I was pleased on checking the diff that there is no detectable lash in the diff at all, likewise with the driveshaft. I was therefore pretty hopeful that it was just the rear diff bushes that were the culprit.

The rest of the process was pretty straightforward, we unbolted one point at a time and using a threaded drill guide that dad turned on his lathe and an extra long 6mm drill bit we went up through each of the 4 points in turn. Then it was simply a case of come down from the top with a 10.5mm bit before running a tap on a long extension up from underneath to complete the thread the whole way through. With that done it was then a case of bolting in each of the 4 points and torquing to spec.

The rest of the reassembly took a couple of hours and we had the car on the ground again. The install of the brace was super quick - fitment of the brace was absolutely perfect - Marin's fabrication is spot on. Then it was just a case of running the complete adaption on the SMG and going for a test drive.


Today I drove the car on a route I'm very familiar with and I'm extremely pleased with the end result! The last of the clunkiness when shifting is now resolved. Even under heavy acceleration in S5/S6 all you get is the sound and surge of power. I'm super stoked.

And the brace. Well, I know others have reported a big improvement, but I wasn't completely sure if I'd find the same. Suffice to say the improvement is not subtle! For me the rear has always felt slightly less co-ordinated than the front (not to say it's not objectively excellent to begin with, but it's always stood out to me that the car is just a little bit more put together in the front). Now with the brace it's the other way around! The change in stiffness is hugely noticeable even just driving around town. As soon as you get to a roundabout or uneven tarmac it becomes very apparent how much more rigidity there is. The car really feels glued together in the back now.

I love it and am excited to go for a decent spirited drive.

[karter16]

Torrential rain yesterday and today so I can't do any work on my retaining wall at home. Got round to a little job I've been wanting to do for a while. The trim around the SMG shifter boot makes an annoying plastic on plastic creak sometimes when shifting, which isn't particularly pleasant from a driving experience point of view.

Today I took the trim apart and used some tesa tape to insulate the clips and mating surfaces. I also gave everything a good clean while I had it apart. Put it back together and the squeaks are completely gone (unless I press very hard directly on the plastic trim), shifting is now a satisfying mechanical click, rather than the annoying creaking sound it could be before.

[karter16]

I realised I never really updated on the bracket for the SMG reservoir. Since I installed the CSL airbox I've been running a prototype version of the bracket. Given it's a rainy Thursday here I thought since I'd proved the concept that I'd design up a more final version of the bracket.

This is still a development version and you'll note there's a few things that need to be tidied up, but didn't want to go to too much effort until I've confirmed fitment of this latest version.

I started by using my previous prototype to confirm the location of the bracket itself and mark where I wanted it with some blue masking tape. I then scanned the strut tower and loaded the (fairly untidy) mesh into Fusion to help with placing reference planes, etc.




Because the tower is an irregular shape the bracket needs to account for this:



Note that the final unit will have rubber stand offs on the back to help it sit well on the tower and not rub.


The mounting point where it's attached to the stud on the strut tower also has a raised, angled boss as the stud is not perpendicular to the strut and this needs to be accounted for so that the nut clamps the mounting point properly.




I'll get this version printed up and do another round of test fitting and any final adjustments before I tidy up the rough edges. Given my goal of not wanting to drill holes in my strut tower I think that this should be a pretty tidy end result.

[0-60motorsports]

I realised I never really updated on the bracket for the SMG reservoir. Since I installed the CSL airbox I've been running a prototype version of the bracket. Given it's a rainy Thursday here I thought since I'd proved the concept that I'd design up a more final version of the bracket.

This is still a development version and you'll note there's a few things that need to be tidied up, but didn't want to go to too much effort until I've confirmed fitment of this latest version.

I started by using my previous prototype to confirm the location of the bracket itself and mark where I wanted it with some blue masking tape. I then scanned the strut tower and loaded the (fairly untidy) mesh into Fusion to help with placing reference planes, etc.




Because the tower is an irregular shape the bracket needs to account for this:



Note that the final unit will have rubber stand offs on the back to help it sit well on the tower and not rub.


The mounting point where it's attached to the stud on the strut tower also has a raised, angled boss as the stud is not perpendicular to the strut and this needs to be accounted for so that the nut clamps the mounting point properly.




I'll get this version printed up and do another round of test fitting and any final adjustments before I tidy up the rough edges. Given my goal of not wanting to drill holes in my strut tower I think that this should be a pretty tidy end result.

Great effort as always my friend. BUT SMG Pump relocation is the only way to go with SMG cars. Glad i already did that.

[karter16]

Great effort as always my friend. BUT SMG Pump relocation is the only way to go with SMG cars. Glad i already did that.

Thanks! My car is RHD which makes a relocation a bit more involved as both the "drug bins" are already full.

[0-60motorsports]

Thanks! My car is RHD which makes a relocation a bit more involved as both the "drug bins" are already full.

Oh I didn't realize that LOL. Makes sense now.

[karter16]

Sill waiting for the ground to dry out a little bit before I progress the retaining wall so spent a couple of hours this afternoon taking the rear sway bar brackets and v brace off and cleaning them up. When Dad and I did the underbody refresh in 2017 we used an enamel black paint for most of the pieces, and 8 years on they still look amazing - wipe the road dust off and they look brand new still. There were a couple of pieces (the sway bar brackets and v brace) which we painted with exactly the same stuff, only silver instead of black. Unfortunately the silver kind of sucks in comparison to the black - presumably whatever they put in it to make it silver makes it more susceptible to surface rusting.

So anyway - I took them off, stripped the enamel with acetone and then cleaned up the surfaces with some fine sandpaper before cleaning again with acetone and then undercoating.

The pictures are a bit average because it's pretty late in the day here, but I'm sure you've all seen undercoated things before:





Had something interesting happen when I was spraying the undercoat on. It went on beautifully and then I noticed along some of the edges that it looked like it was bubbling. *Cue confusion*. The surface was prepped well and was very clean so I wasn't sure what was going on - I've used this undercoat a bunch of times and it's always been lovely.

Closer inspection revealed it was moisture beading on top of the paint. Actual paint surface is fine and the moisture evaporated again. I'm guessing that it must be close to dew point here right now and the propellant from the spray paint has cooled the surface of the metal just enough at the edges for moisture to condense.

Anyway - the moisture evaporated after some minutes and the paint surface seems good. I'll double check it when it's set to make sure it has good adhesion.