Will's 2002 M3
Hi all, I'm pretty new to the E46 community and have decided to keep a journal of how my car evolves. I came from the e92 world with my last car being an 335is. It was a great car and truly one of my favorite platforms but I had an itch for something more raw and special. So, earlier this year I bought a pretty rough around the edges 2002 Jet Black e46 m3. It had the big 3 all addressed and was decently close to stock minus almost all solid bushings and some exterior cosmetics. I drove up to Greenville to test drive it and fell in love. The first issue was getting it home, I'd never driven a manual before and that combined with a non functioning gauge cluster lead to a few rough stalls.
Once I got it home I wanted to fix a few issues. My first issue was the aftermarket bucket seats sat super low. I'm not a super tall dude but at 5'11 I could barely see over the steering wheel and honestly they just weren't really my thing. Now I know I could've just bought new brackets but the PO hooked me up with someone who was selling manual seats for only 400. So, I picked those up and threw them in.
The next issue was the non-functioning gauge cluster. Sent it to a service for a couple hundred bucks and it came back full functional. However, with a working gauge cluster I came to the realization that my gas gauge didn't work. I also wanted to do some routine maintenance since I only had vague ideas of when things had been done. I changed the oil, cabin filter, spark plugs, flushed the coolant, flushed the power steering fluid, and threw some new tires on. Right after finishing all this my starter just gave out no warning just stopped working. Thankfully, it was in my driveway. About this same time I also grabbed some euro headers for a decent price off a friend.
I tackled both at the same time. The headers were probably the most annoying thing I've ever done on a car. Just an insanely tedious job the first time trying to learn the angles. After I installed them I felt like there was a heavy heavy fuel smell in the car which you know I guess should be expected but I'd driven countless catless cars and have never smelled it that strong. So, I chased the smell down and finally figured it out. The rear cabin pressure vents were dry rotted and allowing exhaust gas in. Combine this with my stripped trunk the smell was really pungent and me and my brother would get lightheaded driving it. With new cabin pressure vents in smell disappeared completely. I don't mind this car completely catless but I have a super high tolerance for that type of thing. Next, I wanted my gas gauge back so I started looking around for a fuel pump with the plan to just replace the whole drop in. I ended up sourcing a new carrier and dropping in an AEM fuel pump that was gifted to me by the PO. No clue if it'll last as I've seen other have issues with them shorting but I figured it was worth a try as it was free. So far, 4 months in no issues. While I was on the mood to finish up what the PO had gifted me I threw in the rear brace he gave me.
Nothing quite like drilling through the floor of your own car. In late July I noticed the clutch was really starting to slip which I knew it was on its way out at 175,000 miles and the original clutch. I was about to move for college so I decided I'd rather get the clutch done before I left. First time ever dropping a transmission and it was a fight but me and my cousin got through it. It took us 3 days but new clutch and flywheel in.
The clutch had definitely seen better days and the car felt so much better with a new clutch and trans parts. Before I left home I also dealt with the leaking valve cover and while I was at it checked all the valves. The PO had done it 10k miles ago but still while I was there I took a look. Only one was off and even then was only slightly on the higher side. After this and a fresh oil change, I took a decent break and enjoyed the car how it was.
I got some clear corners at some point. Now just to get some chrome grills and clear fogs. I'm a big black grill fan but on black cars it just looks weird to me. Anyways, while on a group drive in North Georgia I decided the car felt way too understeery. This lead to me taking a deep dive into suspension and wheel set ups. First up was the wheels. I moved to a 265 square set up on stock 18 inch style 67s. Moving to 18s on this chassis especially square makes it feel much more planted in my opinion. I did love the 19s but function over form in this case. I had them powder coated and only felt meh on how they came out but it'll work till I move to lighter wheels.
Don't look at the ride height too hard, I'm getting to that. Right before moving to 18s I hit a massive pot hole going around 45 mph. Something that normally shouldn't phase a car but it snapped one of my brake caliper bolts straight in half. Athens, GA has some of the worst roads of all time. Took me a couple hours to drill it out and then had to wait a week for a new bolt. While, I was there I noticed my b6s were leaking really badly and they were clearly blown the pot hole had just been there last straw. Originally, I wanted to go with tck SA's and convert to a higher spring rate somewhere around 300/700 then tweaking it. My budget though was making that a super hard proposition. Dropping 2k on suspension is brutal for a college student. So, I went through to see what I could do on a budget. I landed on new front b6s I was not the original owner of the b6s on my car and bilstein themselves told me it wasn't worth rebuilding. I probably could've found someone to rebuild them but I found low mileage ones for a great price. Next after reading quite a few threads I ended up on the ground control coilover conversion. I do know of the bilsteins travel limitations and so using the FCM video on them as a guide I took them apart and cut 6/8th an inch off the bumpstop. This combined with removing the strut spacer and my camber plates should net me the travel I need to run 13.5. At least that is my understanding of the whole travel thing. The only issue is boring out the GC sleeves to fit the bilsteins thankfully a friend in UGA's engineering department did it for free and it fit perfect. Next was spring rate choices this is where I still am. I bought the Ground Control conversion used and it came with 375/430 which isn't what I really was going for. I've started deep diving into FCMs spreadsheet to configure the perfect flat ride and FRC where I'm aiming for about 75% which could be way off but it seems like a good starting point. The PO of my car was running no sway bar so atm I only have a front stock bar and no rear bar which actually hasn't been so bad but that may be my next optimization. While on my flatride exploration I picked up some 650 rate springs for 20 bucks. Leaving my current set up as 375/650 which looks great but I know it has to be pushing the b6s. It doesn't feel too rough but we'll see my thoughts after a backroad run. Currently, I want to aim for 325/600 but even that might be too much for b6s it seems so again we'll see. Admittedly, I did spend the last of my fun money this month on a yellow tag rack off a 50k mile car which will be my next project but does mean my springs will have to wait for the moment. After all that minus a couple small things I think that catches everything up.
Once I got it home I wanted to fix a few issues. My first issue was the aftermarket bucket seats sat super low. I'm not a super tall dude but at 5'11 I could barely see over the steering wheel and honestly they just weren't really my thing. Now I know I could've just bought new brackets but the PO hooked me up with someone who was selling manual seats for only 400. So, I picked those up and threw them in.
The next issue was the non-functioning gauge cluster. Sent it to a service for a couple hundred bucks and it came back full functional. However, with a working gauge cluster I came to the realization that my gas gauge didn't work. I also wanted to do some routine maintenance since I only had vague ideas of when things had been done. I changed the oil, cabin filter, spark plugs, flushed the coolant, flushed the power steering fluid, and threw some new tires on. Right after finishing all this my starter just gave out no warning just stopped working. Thankfully, it was in my driveway. About this same time I also grabbed some euro headers for a decent price off a friend.
I tackled both at the same time. The headers were probably the most annoying thing I've ever done on a car. Just an insanely tedious job the first time trying to learn the angles. After I installed them I felt like there was a heavy heavy fuel smell in the car which you know I guess should be expected but I'd driven countless catless cars and have never smelled it that strong. So, I chased the smell down and finally figured it out. The rear cabin pressure vents were dry rotted and allowing exhaust gas in. Combine this with my stripped trunk the smell was really pungent and me and my brother would get lightheaded driving it. With new cabin pressure vents in smell disappeared completely. I don't mind this car completely catless but I have a super high tolerance for that type of thing. Next, I wanted my gas gauge back so I started looking around for a fuel pump with the plan to just replace the whole drop in. I ended up sourcing a new carrier and dropping in an AEM fuel pump that was gifted to me by the PO. No clue if it'll last as I've seen other have issues with them shorting but I figured it was worth a try as it was free. So far, 4 months in no issues. While I was on the mood to finish up what the PO had gifted me I threw in the rear brace he gave me.
Nothing quite like drilling through the floor of your own car. In late July I noticed the clutch was really starting to slip which I knew it was on its way out at 175,000 miles and the original clutch. I was about to move for college so I decided I'd rather get the clutch done before I left. First time ever dropping a transmission and it was a fight but me and my cousin got through it. It took us 3 days but new clutch and flywheel in.
The clutch had definitely seen better days and the car felt so much better with a new clutch and trans parts. Before I left home I also dealt with the leaking valve cover and while I was at it checked all the valves. The PO had done it 10k miles ago but still while I was there I took a look. Only one was off and even then was only slightly on the higher side. After this and a fresh oil change, I took a decent break and enjoyed the car how it was.
I got some clear corners at some point. Now just to get some chrome grills and clear fogs. I'm a big black grill fan but on black cars it just looks weird to me. Anyways, while on a group drive in North Georgia I decided the car felt way too understeery. This lead to me taking a deep dive into suspension and wheel set ups. First up was the wheels. I moved to a 265 square set up on stock 18 inch style 67s. Moving to 18s on this chassis especially square makes it feel much more planted in my opinion. I did love the 19s but function over form in this case. I had them powder coated and only felt meh on how they came out but it'll work till I move to lighter wheels.
Don't look at the ride height too hard, I'm getting to that. Right before moving to 18s I hit a massive pot hole going around 45 mph. Something that normally shouldn't phase a car but it snapped one of my brake caliper bolts straight in half. Athens, GA has some of the worst roads of all time. Took me a couple hours to drill it out and then had to wait a week for a new bolt. While, I was there I noticed my b6s were leaking really badly and they were clearly blown the pot hole had just been there last straw. Originally, I wanted to go with tck SA's and convert to a higher spring rate somewhere around 300/700 then tweaking it. My budget though was making that a super hard proposition. Dropping 2k on suspension is brutal for a college student. So, I went through to see what I could do on a budget. I landed on new front b6s I was not the original owner of the b6s on my car and bilstein themselves told me it wasn't worth rebuilding. I probably could've found someone to rebuild them but I found low mileage ones for a great price. Next after reading quite a few threads I ended up on the ground control coilover conversion. I do know of the bilsteins travel limitations and so using the FCM video on them as a guide I took them apart and cut 6/8th an inch off the bumpstop. This combined with removing the strut spacer and my camber plates should net me the travel I need to run 13.5. At least that is my understanding of the whole travel thing. The only issue is boring out the GC sleeves to fit the bilsteins thankfully a friend in UGA's engineering department did it for free and it fit perfect. Next was spring rate choices this is where I still am. I bought the Ground Control conversion used and it came with 375/430 which isn't what I really was going for. I've started deep diving into FCMs spreadsheet to configure the perfect flat ride and FRC where I'm aiming for about 75% which could be way off but it seems like a good starting point. The PO of my car was running no sway bar so atm I only have a front stock bar and no rear bar which actually hasn't been so bad but that may be my next optimization. While on my flatride exploration I picked up some 650 rate springs for 20 bucks. Leaving my current set up as 375/650 which looks great but I know it has to be pushing the b6s. It doesn't feel too rough but we'll see my thoughts after a backroad run. Currently, I want to aim for 325/600 but even that might be too much for b6s it seems so again we'll see. Admittedly, I did spend the last of my fun money this month on a yellow tag rack off a 50k mile car which will be my next project but does mean my springs will have to wait for the moment. After all that minus a couple small things I think that catches everything up.