Zen and the Art of E46 M3 Ownership

[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]

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)...

[fattycharged]

He was always that guy


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[0-60motorsports]

Looks good!

[0-60motorsports]

He was always that guy


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ahhahahahha YUP.

[bavarian3]

Bummer to hear folks are still dealing with the same old story from Euroconnex.

I'm curious howcome you went with Vorsteiner vs other options?

This is going to be a sick build when it comes out of paint!

[Bimma360]

Bummer to hear folks are still dealing with the same old story from Euroconnex.

I'm curious howcome you went with Vorsteiner vs other options?

This is going to be a sick build when it comes out of paint!

Yeah he’s a douche.

Originally I was going to order all the exterior stuff from Vorsteiner. Figured, made in America and them being also the Guntherwerks people made it a safe bet. Ultimately changed my mind on the trunk and diffuser. I considered the GT4 front bumper but at the time it wasn’t obvious to me that he had bumpers that worked with the Kevlar carrier. Thought the Vorsteiner was the only one. Also their site said it was in stock, and getting it quickly was a priority. But nope, that wasn’t correct and I had to wait until Feb haha.

[Nate047]

Man what a build, coming along nice. I gotta try that muffler treatment on my other car.

[Sharocks]

Okay so this car will not be used for hoagie runs lol

Full respray and all is wild but makes sense since many parts are new.

Sorry to hear about the French Canadian, he takes pride in the E60 M5's SMG so it was doomed from the start lmao

[Bimma360]

Okay so this car will not be used for hoagie runs lol

Full respray and all is wild but makes sense since many parts are new.

Sorry to hear about the French Canadian, he takes pride in the E60 M5's SMG so it was doomed from the start lmao

Its going to do it all... Hoagie runs (love that you are calling it a "hoagie"), coffee runs, grocery runs, etc. The only time I want to use the X3M is when I need to fit more in the trunk and I need to haul around more than 1 kid. My wife and I work from home, so we only drive about 7k miles per year combined. If I can put 3-4k miles per year on the e46, I'll be happy. Yeah Frenchie wasted a ton of my time, but I got my money back. So if it sticks, then I guess it could have been worse. We'll see.

[Bimma360]

So I have been refraining from just posting pics of stuff as it arrives, b/c I am just going to do it as I install them. But this just came in today, and I got super excited about it. It's a bit more rounded than the factory airbox, and it really gives it a slight CSL concept car feel which I dig. Saw the car this morning at the shop, and it's about ready to be sprayed. Happening next week. Can't wait to dig in.