Zen and the Art of E46 M3 Ownership

[0-60motorsports]

Looks good!

[fattycharged]

He was always that guy


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[Bimma360]

Car went in for a full respray last week, should be getting back next week or the week after. And then mad rush to get everything I’ve been buying over the last few months installed (but who am I fooling, its probably going to take another 2 months to install everything the way its been going).

So... I ended up buying a second CSL diffuser last week. Just bought the genuine BMW unit from bmwfnatic. Shipped out on Tuesday, received on Friday, dropped off at the paint shop today. Just in the nick of time.

Contrast that to the (Carboproject) paint matched diffuser from Euroconnex. Ordered in November with the promise of 2 weeks, received at the end of March. Was not happy with it one bit. I'll keep it short, the main killer for me was the exposed carbon with several spots of cloudy (due to trapped air bubbles) and thick resin. Amongst other things, some fabric bridging too in the areas with the thick resin. Dude claims on his website that it's made with pre-preg. Carboproject does not for this particular piece, although they do state elsewhere that they have the capability. Regardless, unequivocally this is not pre-preg. Best case scenario, resin infusion, but I wouldn't even be surprised if it was a wet layup that was vacuum bagged afterwards. The piece is noticeably heavier than the genuine BMW one, and is blatantly obvious which one of the two is pre-preg. He took two weeks to get back to me for my return and refund request, with some BS that the cloudy appearance is in the clear and that I should take it to a body shop or detailer to correct hahaha. Regardless, I gave him just over a week to get back to me before I filed a dispute with Amex. Charge was reversed before he even got back to me. I will share my whole experience once this whole chargeback becomes finalized at the end of June. Dealing with this guy is wild.

Anyway, two freakin diffusers (facepalm)...

[Bimma360]

I never posted a pic of the Burkhart tips installed, nothing fancy but perfect for a factory muffler.



Vorsteiner bumper finally arrived about 2 weeks ago, and I can finally start making some progress on all of this. Stripped the front end, and test fitted the CSL bumper. For fitment, the brake ducts, foam padding on the top of the kevlar carrier, and the outer suction cup stud things had to come off. The Vorsteiner doesn't use any of those suction cup studs and I'll remove all of them before final install. Lastly, the bottom lip of the kevlar carrier will need to be sanded down/trimmed a little bit to make room for the center grill. Nothing crazy.





Overall, fitment is great. With these kinds of parts, you can't expect that it will just slide on and fit perfectly without much adjustment. Also, this thing doesn't come with any instructions nor is there any documentation online. But with some time you can get everything fitted up properly. Once I was satisfied, I pulled it off and the factory bumper slid on perfectly haha.

Then I got cracking on the Karbonius CSL trunk. Removing the factory trunk really was a piece of cake. So far I am actually quite surprised and relieved at how easy all of these panels come off haha. I didn't install everything on the CSL trunk yet. Since the entire car is more or less going to get repainted, my painter told me to just fully install the trunk and that he'll just paint it installed. I don't see why that would necessarily be a problem, but I don't know just yet. It is tempting though. Would be nice to just do it once and not have to mess with all of that after the car is painted.









Fitment is generally good. I still need to keep tweaking it, to get the panel gaps perfect. I am having a harder time doing that, but had to walk away for the day. Honestly, the way I have it now I don't think anything would catch someone's eye unless they specifically looked for it. Still, I'd like to get it as best as it could be, and then I can comment on it. Regardless, I am pretty happy that everything generally fits pretty good. I could have bought OE, but I really wanted the weight reduction and the exposed carbon is really cool. A big sigh of relief, b/c the last thing I wanted to deal with was returning parts like this.

Next up, removing a bunch of exterior stuff to get the car ready for paint and stripping out the interior for the CSL stuff.

Oh, honorable mention to some new bulbs haha...

[Bimma360]

Perfect, reach out if you need anything. Looking like this is going to be a great build!

Have you considered refinishing your CSL door handles and dash trim in the same silver finish you did the SMG trim in? Feel like it would pair nicely with the silver finish on the exterior of the car.

For now I am going to do the dash in carbon. But the door handles didn’t cross my mind. Good call. I think I’ll save that for a quick weekend project after I get the car together.

[Avedis]

Thank you! Truth be told I already had your DIY already saved. I actually read it twice already haha.

Perfect, reach out if you need anything. Looking like this is going to be a great build!

Have you considered refinishing your CSL door handles and dash trim in the same silver finish you did the SMG trim in? Feel like it would pair nicely with the silver finish on the exterior of the car.

[Bimma360]

Awesome start, following along

If you need a DIY for the door panels/center console:
https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...nsive-tutorial

Thank you! Truth be told I already had your DIY already saved. I actually read it twice already haha.

[Avedis]

Awesome start, following along

If you need a DIY for the door panels/center console:

https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/main-forum/e46-2001-2006/246178-e46-m3-csl-door-panels-center-console-comprehensive-tutorial

[Bimma360]

Love the CSL interior bit.

Got any pics of those seat installed in the car? I wish they were an option when I did mine (https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...988#post201988)

Your seat install looks great!

Unfortunately from mid December through the end of January I went on side quest rebuilding my "garage," which is more or less a glorified shed. So I haven't done much with the car apart from collect parts. The house was built in the 1928, and the garage is original to the house, and structurally untouched for almost 100 years. It needed a new roof. The sill plates on all three walls were also rotted out and the structure was basically just being supported by the 4 corners alone haha. So when a contractor quoted me the equivalent of building a brand new garage to restore the current structure, I was like "screw it I'll do it myself." Still have to do insulation, drywall, and a few odds and ends, but I am at point where I can get back to the car.

I don't have any great before pics, but here is one from 5 years ago haha. Followed up after its refresh, and with the E46 in its new home.

[Casa de Mesa]

Love the CSL interior bit.

Got any pics of those seat installed in the car? I wish they were an option when I did mine (https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...988#post201988)

[liam821]

Those seats look amazing! I'm interested in seeing how your carbon work turns out. I used to have a slicktop IB 😭 - I might be biased, but it's easily one of the top three colors on the M3.

[Arclitgold]

+1 to that!

[Sharocks]

Real talk if the stock muffler didn't weigh as much I'd rock one on both of my cars.

Hmmmm.

Excellent work and rather quick work to getting this car to where you want it to be.

Gives me inspo to make a build thread too.

[bavarian3]

Following.

The muffler looks amazing and way less work than I went through to get mine like it.

[Bimma360]

Wow nice!! That muffler looks incredible

I can’t say enough good things about Ospho (wear gloves, it's acid). You can see it didn't quite take away all of the discoloring on that center section, but close enough, especially for a 20 year old muffler. It does wonders on aftermarket stainless exhausts even more so. Dr Beasley's is just a protective coating, it doesn't change the appearance of the metal, so what you are seeing is just 30 minutes of scrubbing with Ospho. With the wash and coating, this is about 2 hours of work from start to finish.