What's going on in my shop currently...

[George Hill]

I post semi regular updates about the random projects and repairs that go on in my shop in a couple other E46 forums. Originally my shop was opened to do general BMW repairs, but has moved (due to demand) to more of an E46 focus. And then lately I've been doing a bunch of S54 focused jobs that some of y'all might find interest in. These posts span back about a year or so and I'll post them and bring the thread up to the current time. As always, questions, comments, concerns are welcomed, hope you enjoy.

[George Hill]

I was a BMW dealer technician for 14yrs and about a year ago I left to open my own shop specializing in BMWs. In the last year I've had a bunch of fun projects roll through the doors and in that time I have made lots of new friends on forums like these. I've had a few people ask to keep them updated on various projects I have going in my shop and If it's ok with the admins I thought it might be easier to chronicle everything in one thread. I'd keep my current project threads going but just update this thread on new cars and projects that some might find interesting.

If so, here goes.

I've converted some friends from the idea that to have fun with a car it needs to be a muscle car and big horsepower. These guys are now BMW fanatics as well, between the three of us we have (8) Wagons, (3) ZHPs, (2) E46 M3s and a 330ci. One of them has a S54 powered wagon we built last year and with my S54 wagon the third guy was feeling left out.

He had been looking for a slicktop wagon, but ended up finding a slicktop ZHP. So Monday he and I flew out to Long Beach and picked it up. The car is a '05 Alpine on Alcantara with a slicktop and is stick shift. We landed in LB made the deal in the air port packing lot and hit the road. First gas stop.




We ended up driving straight through the night to get back home. The little car did great. 25+mpg running a bit on the high side of the speed limit. Needless to say I am jealous of his find. Future plans are to marry it with the best of this:



He is a deal hunter like I am and the plan was to buy anything and everything we could fit into the car on the way home (and/or possibly another car if we found one decent enough). The ZHP was supposed to have fold down rear seats so we were going to drive to Denver and pick-up a NB wagon interior since it was "on the way" lol. The ZHP ended up not having fold down seats and we just didn't think it would fit as is. BUT we did locate this lot of S54 items. The seller had it listed for weeks on craigslist in LA and no one snagged it. These are all S54 parts, highlights are new rod bearings and ring set, oil pan, valve cover, 6spd trans minus bell housing (might be junk then) a SS braided Vanos oil hose and a BRAND NEW Rogue Engineering M3 shifter setup ($425 on RE website!) all of this for.... $40. YES!

[George Hill]

Had a very nice Competition package Carbon Black on Cinammon E46 M3 in with SMG problems. The owner really did not want to convert the car and was hoping we could find a reasonable solution to keep the SMG. Found out the Hydraulic unit had an internal leak causing it to lose the stored pressure and subsequently ran the pump all the time setting the faults. We sourced a good condition used unit and got him fixed up.






Also working on installing an oil cooler on a supercharged E39 540/6MT. We used a kit from a reputable performance specialist but were very unsatisfied with how it turned out. Ended up removing that kit and designed a replacement that looks and function more like an OE part. BMW makes an oil cooler kit that is installed on hot climate cars in the Persian Gulf and it integrates the oil cooler thermostat into the oil filter housing. We used that component and then added to it with the custom lines and cooler. Packaging is quite tight and the only way to make this work was to run a banjo fitting off the oil filter housing, but there isn't anything that will bolt up off the shelf. I had to take a M26x1.5 to -12AN fitting cut it in half then drill and tap the internal hole to allow the banjo bolt to thread into it, making a "reducer bushing." That got us the space needed, but it is still very tight. A few random pics from the install.

[George Hill]

Quick update, SteveM3 dropped off his S54T for rod bearing replacement. His bearings were in decent shape but the way he is gonna drive this thing I'm glad we got them done. :woot:

[George Hill]

I Had Gary's 328i E36 in recently for some routine maintenance. I think you will be hard pressed to find a car more meticulously maintained and wwell cared for. This car is his daily driver for the past 16yrs and has 273k miles. The wheels have been refinished, but otherwise the exterior and interior are all original!










We changed every fluid and filter in the car including the transmission. With 273k we are not sure if that was a good idea, but decided that since he's not planning to sell the car the transmission probably won't make his ownership without it. We rolled the dice and went for the service, only time will tell I guess.




Removed the aftermarket alarm and installed a factory alarm sourced from BRaymond141 on M3Forums.




Replaced the seat gears provided by OdometerGears.




Front brake lines were starting to show signs of dry rotting, they were replaced with Goodrich lines.




Repaced the trailing arm bushings, these were installed by another shop only 53k miles ago. Not only was the rubber starting to tear, the housing was heavily damaged... installation error? We installed M3 OE bushings this time around hopefully we get double the life.






During the test drive I got stuck in traffic and the temp started to creep, traced that down to a seized Aux fan. And while replacing the aux fan found the condenser starting to leak at its end connections.




Lastly, we finished it off with an alignment by Soul Speed Performance a local road race oriented hot rod shop I partner with on items such as these.

[George Hill]

My wife's wagon is getting close to 1/4 million miles and was due for some new control arm bushings. I have no problem trying out various manufacturers of aftermarket parts to gain data. The Vaico brand has a very low return rate with my supplier (even less than Lemforders). I ended up buying Lems and Vaicos to compare. The Lems ended up being BMW bushings with the roundels ground off, even have the BMW pn# cast into them.








I did a bad job documenting Charles car, but it got a ton of maintenance done this go around. He's my original customer and I've been the only one to really work on this car for the last 14yrs. When we started it was a stock E39 M5 and over the years we have installed most of the Dinan catalog and a full SuperSprint Exhaust (incl headers). It is really a very nicely sorted OEM+ setup, this is car specifically is seriously one of my favorite BMWs.

For this go around it got most of its fluids changed, the ABS module replaced, console trim replaced, air filters serviced, and a new battery. Then in anticipation of an upcoming HPDE event we replaced the brake pads and rear rotors, tires installed TMS monoballs into the thrust rods. Lastly we replaced the headlight adjustment rods, these are a huge pain and I prefer not to split the housings (they are glued together) so I replace these through the bulb openings. Very tedious and long repair, but totally worth the peace of mind knowing the housings aren't going to leak water.










My IR ZHP thread is lacking in updates, but I did a bit of work on it too. Chasing an airbag fault for the RF door bag. The fault was for to LOW resistance in the circuit. The car monitors the resistance in the circuit and if it is to LOW or to HIGH it sets a fault. The airbags have a mechanism built into them to "short" the internal wiring when it is being worked on, to keep the bag from blowing off if they somehow get voltage applied to them. Well the mechanism is opened and closed by a pair of plastic fingers integrated into the harness connector housing. Sometimes these fingers break allowing the wiring to be shorted together even when assembled. I've seen this numerous times, but the first time it happened it was a head scratcher and if you aren't very familiar with the system, it is easy to miss.



Broken:


Fixed:

[George Hill]

Some of you may know but I also have a S54 E46 touring. I put it together late last summer and towards winter I pulled the coil overs off of it for my IR ZHP project. During that time I stole some more parts off of it in anticipation of completing the suspension swap. As the saying goes the cobblers children are always shoeless. Well that is certainly the case here too as she is still taken apart awaiting time and parts to put back together, but I am making headway. I've got the donor suspension completely torn down to nothing. The next step is powder coating everything and reassembly replacing literally everything that moves or twists.

[George Hill]

Since the last update I had the #44 and #88 M3 endurance race cars in the shop for some minor maintenance before a trackday at CoTA. Nothing to crazy just normal stuff that happens when cars get beat on repeatedly. Then I went out to the event and hung out with my friends from Soul Speed Performance who were offering support for these and a few other cars that night. It was pretty cool to see these two cars that I had a hand in building mixing it up with McLarens, Lamborghinis and Porsches (to name a few) at CoTA during their night event.




























My buddy Joe, is climbing the highest point of every state and Colorado was on his list. I sent him off with my wife's wagon and he picked up this great Natural Brown interior from Lawlence in Denver during his trip. I don't think it fits with Steel Gray so I'm not sure what will happen with it, but hopefully I'll find a slicktop in blue or white to swap this into.




The next big project is a E39 525iTa getting a M54B30/5MT conversion. The owner bought a complete sedan donor car and was extremely lucky to find one that was a stick shift as well. Overseas you could get a 530iT so we are basically using that formula to build this one with plan being to swap everything 3L/5MT over but reuse the automatic 3.46 rear gear (manual is 2.93). From there we will install the 530 front calipers and replace all the brake pads and rotors as well as all (6) rubber brake lines for stainless steel parts.






I applaud you guys who do engine swaps in the driveway without a lift, I've done them that way in the past, but what a miserable experience that is. I'm spoiled now and don't even use a engine crane.






During the conversion we focused on the driveline first. We replaced any wear item and nearly every gasket, only some of the extensive parts list made the pictures.








Everything was very grungy so there is almost as much time in cleaning as there is in the mechanical work.
















And started on the pedal conversion.






I also have been acquiring parts for my track wagon project. It is planned to be a M54B30/ZF5spd based setup. I have a 323iT as a donor, but want the larger suspension and brake components from the 330 cars and a spare M54B30 is always welcomed. I ended up finding a donor sedan in Houston on Facebook Marketplace. It came with an extra set of M-Sport wheels, it has a black sport interior, a complete drivetrain (auto trans), HARD motorsports over fenders, M3 replica front bumper, MTech2 replica side skirts, Megan Racing coilovers and some other misc items. I already sold the coilovers and factoring in how much the over fenders would cost me, the car is almost free at this point, SCORE!

[George Hill]

More work going on with the E39 touring. The swap is basically done, just putting miles on the car and buttoning up the odds and ends.

Wiring is pretty straightforward. Wired in the clutch switches, one for starting and one for cruise control. Robbed the wiring out of the parts car and wired it in to the factory locations for an OE install. The cruise wire has to go all the way to the DME and its a bit more of a pain, but worked out well.








We wanted to use the automatic final drive, but the CV flange for the input shaft is 80mm on the auto and 86mm on manual. To use the manual driveshaft on the auto final drive I ended up swapping the pinion flange. I'm normally not a fan of this option as I am always leery of the different flange changing the pinion depth. I pulled both flanges and measured their thickness and both are withing .25mm so I think it's going to be fine in this application.




One of my wagons we refer to as No Lights and No Surprises killed its auto transmission a few months ago. I've been putting off fixing the wagon because I really didn't want to spend money putting in a replacement auto trans as I have been thinking about manual swapping it. But as it would be the E39 trans is the same. I ended up putting in the E39 trans into the E46. Here is the old trans, the front pump bushing welded itself to the torque converter, killed the seal and then puked it's fluid out.








"Phyllis" the E46 endurance race car came in for an engine swap and then swapped the Evolve plenum to the Karbonius. Sitting on the stand I wasn't into the red valve cover, but in the car I like it quite well.




Next up an E92 M3 was in for rod bearing replacement.




He had a blackstone labs analysis done on the oil and no red flags were found. We ended up replacing the rod bearings for peace of mind and good thing we did. These bearings only have 78xxx miles on them and (5) of the upper bearings are showing copper. We used BE bearings and their spec'd ARP rod bearing bolts.








Also got new engine mounts and an engine ground strap

[George Hill]

Well the E39 Touring is done and I must say it sure is fun to drive. Why BMW didn't import this setup into the US is beyond, it completely transformed the driving experience of the wagon. The leather was deteriorated and the seat adjustment cables were shrunk so we also took the opportunity to refresh the seat and get it back in lines with the rest of the car.








Started prepping for an E46 M3 SMG conversion. I try to keep all aspects of the repair and modifications for any job in house so I machine the bell housings as needed for missing components. You can save some money by using used parts but the price difference usually doesn't make it worth it knowing all the parts are brand new. And we are coupling this with an Auto Solutions shifter. This one is still in process as like most things we've added to the scope of the build and are now waiting on parts.








Next picked up a couple of parts car for future builds...

1. This is a clean 115k miles 330/6MT car that rolled out of the owners garage, down the driveway, across the street, down an embankment and blasted a tree. Needless to say it's totalled, but it's perfect for us as the damage was 100% cosmetic. It ran and drove onto the trailer.












2. This is a 330/5MT slated for a wagon. When you buy a car at auction this is how they deliver it to the trailer. I've got a video on my Instagram page, but not sure how to link it here @HillPerformanceBimmers.








One of my customers and his son have a 318ti. They got a good deal on a 323cic parts car and did the heavy lifting by swapping the 6 cylinder long block into the ti. Then brought it to me to finish, big project but turned out well and rounded out with a M50 intake manifold conversion and a custom tune. This little thing rips, very fun car to drive.






One of the original S54 wagons was dropped off for some refreshing. The orient blue car was built around 2010 and has been owned by Juliann here since 2011. In a weird twist of coincidence Jason was looking for a S54 for his wagon conversion (the silver gray car). We found one and when we went to purchase it we found out it was the engine from Julianns car. We rebuilt it and stuffed it in Jason's wagon and here they are reunited, lol.

https://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=826372

[George Hill]

It's been a little bit since my last update.

We have had some major family changes over the last weeks. My 88yr old grandfather passed away rather unexpectedly, leaving a large whole in everyone's heart but mostly my grandmothers as they had been together since
they were 13yrs old. He was quite an impressive man having started his own business in the 50's building instrumentation used for water quality testing. He's entrepreneurial spirit trickled down through all of his children and a few of his grandchildren who have all owned or still own their own business, me included. He was a very hard worker and I can surely attribute where I am in life to the work ethic he instilled in me at an early age. He will certainly be missed. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/st...5507&fhid=5106

During this time period my sister married and we welcomed her husband into our family. My wife and I at the wedding, which was held a beautiful Vineyard north of town.




But in the meantime the shop has been jamming, lots of big projects coming through the shop.

This 42k mile Carbon black on Cinnamon M3 came in for a SMG to manual conversion.




The transmission bellhousing was modified in house and all new parts were used including this sweet Auto Solutions shifter.








Next the car got Dinan springs for a bit of sharpening in the handling department.




Then we got rid of the brake caliper covers, rebuilt and powder coated the original calipers.




And finished the car off with an alignment at our local race shop.





SteveM3 sent me his Porsche calipers for modification, this is a nice upgrade to the M3 brake system. To fit there are a couple of companies that make brackets but a few mm need to be milled off the caliper mounting surface.






Click the pic for a fun video of the machining:





I bought a Branick 7600 strut compressor and had some fun tearing all of my misc struts apart.





Alfredo brought his F30 335i for a shock replacement. We went with the Koni FSD kit (now called special active) and deleted his EDC shocks replacing everything except the springs and put new thrust rod bushings in while we were in there. I have done lots of E series coding but not a lot of F series coding. As busy as the shop is I decided to farm this part out. Joe @ http://Facebook.com/codemyride did the remote coding for us to remove the EDC options and everything turned out like OE. Koni shocks ride great, good improvement for this car.









We had MarkSeven's, JAWillis's, Julianne's and my S54 wagons all at the shop the other day...







I have (2) M3 tourings in the shop that need their instrument clusters modified so I went ahead and knocked out all my other clusters at the same time in preparation for future swaps. The M3 cluster will bolt right into the chassis but to be correct they need the LEDs for the rear doors added to the circuit board and then need the VIN programmed into them to remove the manipulation dot and sync the vehicle mileage. Both of these tasks require completely disassembling the clusters.

[George Hill]

The shop has been out of control busy and I am trying to keep my head above water. I am incredibly lucky to have all of these people believe in me and what I do, this is a good problem to have as long as I can manage it. I am doing my best and am already implementing changes to alleviate these issues in the future. But still the work must go on....

A future project parts car got dropped off. Semi drivers don't like coming to the shop as the roads are tight, so I met this driver at a nearby grocery store. When I rolled up the tractor was still attached to the trailer and I was wondering how they were going to get it loose (they had the tractor off before I could snap a pic). Then used the flatbed to get the car off the nose of the trailer. They couldn't get the flatbed square with trailer so it was a bit sketchy, but as the tow driver said "I've done way worse things" lol.








The ti came back so I could fix the door panels. The E36 chassis has an issue with the door panels literally coming un glued and then no longer stay attached to the doors. I repair them with a large tube of windshield urethane and lots of tape, lol.






My mom has been driving a '05 X3 since '06, it was a demo car that was also a CPO, since she bought it aside from the random oil change I am the only person who has worked on it since then. But even then it was finally to the point she was going to have to spend some real money on it to get it back into shape so it was decided to get a new car. Naturally she picked a BMW and a X3 at that. This is a 2019 X3 she got from BMW of Grapevine. It is I think as loaded as one can get but because it is a ex******er car there are massive discounts. I drove there and back and the new X3 sure is a sweet ride.






Cisco brought his E46 M3 in for a clunk noise. It was determined he had a failed strut mount and yes he did, the center fell out when the strut was disassmebled. We installed Ground Control street camber plates, reinforcement plates and then add a TMS front sway bar.












Next is a project I have been working on since May, it is a 2000 323iT with a S85 V10 swap. I've been keeping it quiet in case it didn't turn out like I hoped as the customer has been fairly discouraged by the lack of progress over the years. To this point it has been (3) years in the making, it was running and driving then became a crank no start. After that everyone he spoke to wanted nothing to do with the project, but I took it thinking it would be simple. While the diagnosis was simple, the fix was not. The car uses a stock DME so it would be emissions legal. To use the stock DME a CAS module emulator was installed. Somewhere along the way that failed and the company who built it was no longer accessible. The company restructured and I was able to get someone to there to get it going. What they did was remove the emulator and with software they were able to program the cars EWS and Key to the DME, pretty cool stuff. Now with it running and driving again we have a large list to go through to make it a nice driving experience. More on that to follow. Here's a link to my IG page with video: https://www.instagram.com/p/B4KvRJEph6Q/








Juliann, brought in her S54 swapped touring. This is THE car that started it all for me. Her car was originally for sale on the forums back in 2010 iirc. I had just bought a motorcycle and was not in the position to take out another loan or I would have bought it. Fast forward about 7yrs and JAWillis and I are scoping out a core S54 in town here and find out it is from that wagon. It had dropped a valve and she elected to replace the entire engine instead of fixing it. JAWillis ended up with the engine and it is now in his touring, how is that for small world. Anyways fast forward another couple of years and she runs across me on IG and we started chatting as she knew I was involved with her old engine. One thing leads to another and she's dropping her wagon of for some maintenance. We were going to just bulletproof the vanos but once we started looking over the car it needed a bunch more work.




The RACP had started to tear so we went ahead and pulled the whole back end out of the car and installed CMP reinforcement plates. Juliann is an experienced chassis fabricator so we worked a deal for her to do the plate install and it turned out great.






While in there, we replaced the subframe bushings and installed SDW RTA Ball Joints.




Her swap was one of the firsts and was done by an enthusiast who cut a bunch of corners. The car worked ok, but it just wasn't refined. So with it apart I fixed all of the evap system hoses and connections, fixed some random wiring, coded her instrument cluster and removed the warning light "fixes" lol.




She was concerned about the Vanos since her previous valvetrain failure. When I pulled the V/C off to go through the Vanos system, I found she got very lucky. There was a broken Vanos pump tab and luckily it was stuck in the disc. We sourced her a new (used) hub, drilled her old disc and rebuilt the Vanos unit. Finished it up with a valve adjustment and got the engine back in order.




Finally, I acquired another wagon today. You may remember I bought this was wag last year, then resold it back to the previous owner. He then later passed away and the family was having trouble selling it. They wanted it to goto a good home and made me an offer I couldn't refuse. My buddy rode down to San Antonio with me in my ZHP and we picked it back up. This bring me to (5) tourings... I think I have a problem lol.

[George Hill]

Updates are a bit lacking mainly because I have been working on a few big projects and I wanted to finish them before posting or let the owner post if they want to. Here are some of highlights.


I'm trying to focus my own extracuricular activities and that includes a specific track car. In the past I've used whichever car was most sorted at the time, but there was always a concern of bining my nice car, enter Eileen the '02 325iT. She was bought cheaply off of craigslist, then I got her running and started striping out non essentials.






A cheap set of coilovers, lots of camber, tire and a nice alignment.








I then loaded her up and headed to Hallett Motor Racing Circuit with absolutely no testing... what could go wrong, lol. Luckily nothing did, the car did great and was a total blast. HMRC is a fantastic track, I can't wait to go back. A couple of BMW CCA chapters joined forces to set up this event and it was great. Highly recommend, I will be back there next year 9/18-20/2020, mark your calendars.






After that I didn't do much, just drove her around a bit and then back on the trailer last weekend to Motorsports Ranch Cresson with The Driver's Edge. This was just an easy trip, just my wife and I. The wagon was the talk of the paddock, lol, everyone loved seeing the long roof hussle around the track.






We woke up to some extreme fog, but it quickly burned off and turned out to be a great day.




This is a link to a video of me chasing down a setup 330Ci, check the wagon out break him multiple times, so much fun!




One of my customers was racing a CoTA for the WRL end of season endurance race. They blew up the engine in the car saturday afternoon and decided to swap it overnight. I went out Sunday and helped them trouble shoot and tie up some loose ends.













Click the pic for a Video from one of the bridges.




JaWillis, another friend and I then spent some time on the dyno testing S54 conversion muffler setups. The final info is still being compiled.










And swapped a M54B30, 6MT, and B30 front brakes and rear suspension into a Geo31's touring.

[George Hill]

Another S54 wagon is done. Matt (MJWeimer on the forum here) sent me his gorgeous 2001 325/5MT for the full treatment. If there was ever a "unicorn" this is probably it. Alpine white, black interior, manual, RWD and a slicktop. And Matt has done a fanatical job of keeping it pristine with subtle mods here and there that you don't even notice unless you really look at the car. Now I have to start off with saying this is one of the nicest E46s I have seen in a long time, I don't think it is to much of a stretch to say this car is about as close as you could get to a time capsule. It was quite a honor to be a part of this cars history.

*Also note, this forum post while lengthy is still just a general overview of what we did for this car. There is so much work that goes into one of these projects it's hard to document each and every little item.

*From looking at these pics you will see that none of the body work was touched, but otherwise EVERYTHING under the car was removed (minus brake lines) and just about everything from the windows down in the hatch and just about everything windows down in front of the seats. A build like this is an extensive undertaking.

The goal for the build was to make a slightly sharper version of a S54 M3 touring if BMW was to make one. We did not stray to far away from stock where possible and added just a few touches here and there where we could get away with it. The number one goal was to make the car a pleasure to drive and so most of the parts were picked with NVH in mind. Here is the pile of parts we started with.




For any of these conversions to do them "right" you need a donor car, there are just to many small items that should be transfered over that would nickel and dime you to death if bought separetly. Another customer of mine put us onto a relatively low mile convertible in Houston. It just so happens Matt has family that way and they set up the purchase and then my wife and I headed down there and picked up the car.




And a few days later the touring was shipped in... had to pick it up with another S54 touring (JAWillis72).




Most all E46s have Takata airbags in them which are mostly under a replacement recall. Matt's passenger side needed the airbag replaced and so I worked with BMW and got that done for him as well, the drivers was the newer style already.




The convertible had been seen for an extended period of time, just because no real reason it appears. It was a bit dirty and cosmetically it was pretty rough, so no tears were shed when it's fate was determined, certainly a worthy
candidate for the swap.














M3 engine bay aftermath:




Engine is disassembled to a shortblock for cleaning and maintenance.




And cleaned up.






Bottom end coming apart for new rod bearings. Unless we have history of these being replaced recently (not just for the recall) then these get replaced, this is a must for any of my swaps.




And this is why:




Oil pump disassembled, cleaned and inspected, no damage found so it got put back together and installed.




Next is the Vanos, this is another item that is not negotiable, they get sorted out as part of a swap. There are a multiple issues with this part of the engine.
1. The bolts the attach the timing chain sprockets to the cams can loosen, the fix is new hardware loctited in place
2. The high pressure oil pump in the Vanos is driven by (2) tabs on the exhaust cam hub. These tabs can break off and the theory is there is to loose of a tolerance between the hub tabs and the bores of the oil pump. The accepted repair is to drill new holes in the pump for a tighter clearance to the tabs.
3. The upper chain guide breaks, Beisan Systems which is the pioneer behind fixing all of these Vanos issues makes a chain guide replacement.
4. The Vanos oil accumulator line can fatigue from vibration and crack, BMW implemented a new design with multiple mounting locations.
















The engine went back on the cleaned subframe which got new control arms and bushings. From there the Euro headers were installed, RMS replaced and the JBRacing lightweight flywheel and stock clutch pulled from the donor were reinstalled.






Next was the rear suspension. This was mostly good to go, so the only things we replaced were the subframe bushings and RTAB/J.








Ball joints in place of the RTAB is my new favorite modification. I will not install poly bushings or limiters in these locations so its stock rubber or ball joints. They really seem to sharpen the rear of the car, these particular ones are from Syncro Design Works. David the owner is a very helpful guy and even has a E46 Touring track car!




The final drive was removed and all bushings were replaced, along with all of the seals and gaskets.

[George Hill]

Now into the touring phase, rear end coming apart.






And after a good power washing.




And going back together with the M3 parts.






There are lot's of heat shields and insulation specific to the M3, all of these were transferred over, even if the difference was just a "M3" embossed on it, it was swapped.




S54 in the touring.






Front suspension and brakes assembled, Koni M3 shocks and struts with Dinan M3 springs. Calipers painted black, Stoptech rotors and Akebono pads with stainless steel brake lines.




Euro Cats installed. Wiring was completed using the Euro transmission wiring harness and wiring looms. (1) of the US O2 sensors had to be modified as it is to long.










Matt's wagon had the electric fan setup and we decided to keep it as opposed to installed the aux fan in front of the core support and mechanical fan on the engine. The tourings electric fan is to "tall" for the M3 radiator and oil cooler
setup, so I modified the electric fan shroud and expansion tank bracket and it turned out quite well.




Starting on the wiring. I used to pull the entire body harness from the donors, but that is just to much work, lol. So now I cut the front carpets at the seats and then cut the harness there and remove the entire front section.






One of the subharnesses I had to assemble. The '01 while it has a MK60 DSC it uses the old style separate DSC sensors. So we converted it to the new style sensor and wired it in.








During disassembly of the touring I observed it was low on refrigerant, this doesn't get discussed as much as other items but in Texas it is much more common and just as costly to remedy as the Vanos or Rod bearings (if doing as
preventative). So I inspected the A/C system and found the evaporator was leaking, which is what I expected from experience. This job requires removing the dash to pull the heater case out to get at the evaporator. We decided this
was the time to do that and it would allow a more proper routing of the wiring.






It's hard to photograph but in the middle of the evap you can see discoloration and debris, that is where the oil from the refrigerant builds up on the core and traps dirt indicating a leak.






With the dash out the wiring was completed, which included running wires to the instrument cluster, SZM (switch center in the console), fuse box, IHKA and DSC sensor (under the drivers seat carpet). I also removed some old wiring
for a radar detector.








It also allowed for an easier time routing the wires into the E-box. Most just go through the vent opening, but I pulled the cover and routed the wires through the loom with the original wire set.




This is ready for assembly. If you look closely you can see some of the wires I ran as the loom is wrapped tightly in spots and I try not to disturb the factory wrap is possible.




And the E-box all back together with the MSS54 DME installed.




Interior going back together.




Next was the hatch area to swap out the shocks. Rear shock mounts were installed to facilitate removal from the bottom so this should never have to happen again, lol.




VIN, Correct mileage and M-Track mode coded to cluster (which was also modified for the rear door indicators, not shown).




And then last minute we swapped the original 325iT bezel on after Mark (MarkSeven) suggested it for his touring.




Engine bay is just about done here. We chose the Dinan CAI as it is a clean modification but then allows us to use the non-M3 headlight as the Xenon control module is in the way of the M3 airbox. The donor headlights were not in as good of shape as the tourings. Note: the BK E36 washer tank solution. Matt requested this as i would generally have pushed for the M3 tank since he has the MTech2 bumper. But after the install I am happy with this setup and would
certainly install one again.




On the alignment rack with my old wheels to ensure the AC's don't get scratched.




This build wasn't without issues. We had a few crop up. There was some noise from the transmission at low RPM and with the clutch pedal fully released, sligth pressure would make it go away. I pulled the transmission back out and found the throughout bearing had some defects. I normally apply a very slight amount of grease to the throughout bearing (even though BMW says not to) and this time I assembled it dry as per BMW. But after seeing the bearing I put a new bearing in it and went back with my old grease method and no issues.




Secondly, after a bit of miles were put on it I discovered a an odd clutch operation issue only at high(er) RPM. It turned out to be something in the clutch/flywheel system. When we intially assembled the car Matt and I decided to reuse the LW Flywheel but after some time of driving it and now this clutch issue we decided to go back to a DM Flywheel. But since we suspected something in the clutch, the transmission came out again and this time we replaced the clutch and flywheel and that fixed the last of the issues. Considering how much work went into this build I am ok with that being the worst of the problems and otherwise has been extremely trouble free. And now headed back home.






Matt sent me this picture with the car home with his wife's ZHP.




I'd like to wrap this up with one last picture.




I was going to go out on a Sunday morning cruise with some guys from the area CCA chapter. I had a couple of car options, but still wanting to put shakedown miles on Matts touring I asked if I could take it out. He without hesitation said yes (and it would have been fine if he had said no). When I met the guys there was a lot of interest in the touring because it is so clean, then someone said "What's under the hood, that doesn't sound like a M54." I showed them the car and we all started talking. I mentioned this was a customers car and they all looked shocked like I can't believe a customer would let you do that.

As the morning drive progressed I thought about that last statement and as I think about all of my customers, there is not a single one that I wouldn't ask and expect to get the same reply. When I left the dealership to open my own shop I would not have imagined to be where I am now. I am very fortunate to be allowed to work on these cars but more importantly am glad to have met so many people I would call friends and appreciate the relationships I have formed with them. This build just highlights why I am doing this and am thankful Matt gave me the opportunity to be a part of it.