Dawson's 2002 Silverstone Metallic M3

[Str8f4c3]

Hello All!


My name is Dawson, and welcome to my build log! A bit about me: I’m from Victoria, BC, Canada, currently attending the University of Victoria. I’ve been a bit of a lurker in this part of the internet for a good while, having been a member of m3forums for the better part of the last four years prior to its demise, and I had a rather short lived build log on that site, for my 2002 Carbon Black on Black SMG Coupe.


Before we get to my current ride, A bit of backstory. While I didn’t take an interest in cars from an early age, I was enamored with BMWs from just about the second I got my license. That said, my parents forced me to choose a more reliable brand for my first car purchase (something I thank them endlessly for) and I ended up with a 2009 Mazda6. Fully loaded car, with the v6, all the options, and 20” Chrome wheels (facepalm):




In the ten months I owned that car, I put over 13000 kilometers on it, and all I did was change the oil. Amazing car with a lot of great memories, and I still miss it. Towards the end of my ownership, though, I had my heart set on finding an E46 M3. The spring of my senior year of high school, I put the Mazda up for sale, and sold it in less than a week.


I began the hunt for an E46 M3, with the following criteria: Not a convertible. That was the only thing I wasn’t willing to go for, though I also preferred to stay away from grey leather, and keep the mileage under 200,000km. Living in southern Alberta at the time, there were few examples available local to me, and after a few weeks of searching I viewed the one of the 3 cars in the area at the time, which had just come up for sale. It ended up being a bit of lemon, with more problem areas than sound ones, and it just about scared me away from purchasing an M3.


Three weeks later, I found my first M3: a fairly clean, close to stock 2002 Carbon Black on Black SMG Coupe with 155000 kilometers on the clock, from a private seller in Metro Vancouver. I went through many adventures with that car, and it taught me so much. In the two years I owned it, the car was modified with full suspension and exhaust amongst others, and I really fell in love with the platform. Here's how it sat with Forgestars for most of my ownership, and the final iteration prior to sale.






Next post is on to the good stuff :P

[Str8f4c3]

Towards the end of my time with the CB (the beginning of summer 2020), I was at a point where I enjoyed the car, but things about it were getting rather tiring. I enjoyed SMG, but I was tired of getting beaten up driving around town. I love SMG and if you drive it right, CSL tune or not, it’ll shift like butter and faster than a three pedal car. If the ability to drop to neutral quickly for red lights had been programmed into the system, I’d probably still have that car.


I loved Carbon Black, but it was always dirty. I toyed with the idea of selling the car, and posted it with all the mods still on the car and the goal of picking up a z3m coupe as a long term project, while staying open to all sorts of M cars.


Then, while browsing local classifieds, this photo caught my eye:





Reading the ad, there were a few big pros that Stood out to me: Silverstone Metallic Exterior, Lots of aftermarket goodies, Factory 6 Speed, Vanos and Rod bearings done recently, and only 145000km. There were also a lot of cons: Rebuilt title, the car was resprayed from TiAg, and a lack of reinforced subframe.


It’s easy to understand why a car like this would be passed on by many, but for me it was perfect. I subscribe to the school of racking up many, many kilometers and driving my cars frequently, especially while living in a city where it’s possible to run summer tires year round, and that’s not as easy to do with a clean, low mileage car. Plus, given I was still in possession of my first M3, I was able to keep many of the aftermarket bits I had already purchased while still leaving some mods as a “value add” when selling the CB.


The seller and I settled on a price, and a week later I took the short ferry ride to Vancouver to pick up the car. A photo from the day I took ownership:





The car came on TCKline SA Coilovers, along with the 135i/CSL Front Brakes, Megan Racing Headers, a Frequency Intelligent Valvetronic Exhaust, a BMW Performance Shift Lever/ZHP Knob, H&R Sway Bars, and a few other suspension bits. The HRE Wheels were removed (not a huge loss, as the price came down a bunch, and I wasn’t a fan of the color, 19” size, or reverse lip, though I believe a member on here now owns those rims). It also came with this custom two tone interior, which while well executed, was not particularly to my taste:





The respray, while excluding the door jambs, was very well done, and was detailed and ceramic coated by the previous owner. I’m quite happy with the condition of the paint. The car previously had a Vorsteiner body kit on it, and the rear diffuser wasn’t painted to match the body color.





After Getting the car home, I quickly got to work swapping parts between the two cars. After all was said and done, I had pulled my black interior, my entire sound system (Bavsound, Eonon Head unit, JL 10W6 Sub), My Enkei NT03+m wheels, my quad projector headlights, OE LED Tail Lights, and a few exterior trim pieces.







After that, the Car went into storage in a parkade at a family member’s Condo. The car was in a fair bit of disarray at the time, with the entire interior disassembled minus the Driver's seat, and the panel and bumper gaps all out of whack. The car would stay tucked in here for the better part of the next two months, while I addressed issues and sold my Carbon Black Car.





The day I sold the CB.





A couple days later, I brought my silverstone home. I was beyond excited to get this thing on the road. I Put the interior back together, threw in a new battery, and did an oil change. Threw my headlights in, as well as a my full set of OE BMW Performance Pedals.







The car chillin in the carport after (sort of) getting her all back together:





Initially, I wanted to have the subframe reinforced before putting plates on the car, and as such the car was parked for about a month while I ordered Reddish Plates, Superpro Subframe bushings, and other supporting bits. I eventually decided I’d rather wait to address the subframe, and just enjoy the car while the weather was still nice. First weekend out, I attended European Cars and Coffee with some M buddies, and visited the home of another enthusiast, who had an awesome collection of rides, including a minty e39 m5, a 2002tii, 997 Turbo, and a C7 Z06.







The first few weeks of driving this car, I fell back in love with the platform. While SMG is great and doesn’t deserve the hate, the manual is much more compliant around town at low RPM’s. Between the upgrades, being able to hold onto many of my aftermarket goodies, and the gorgeous new paint color, I was very happy overall.

[Str8f4c3]

There was definitely a bit of a honeymoon period with this car, which I definitely needed. It was very nice to forget about COVID and whatnot and just take the car out to the backroads on a sunday morning with some friends. It ran very well and I had no major issues with it for the first couple of months.


After the honeymoon was over, there were many little bits and pieces that needed to get ironed out. The first of those was the tune. The previous owner had stated there was a Buildjournal Tune on the car, and provided a receipt to confirm. When I went to get the tune transferred to my name with the folks at Buildjournal, they read my .bin and told me there was nothing more than a free burble tune on the car, and that the receipt I was given had been forged. I honestly have no idea what the deal with this was, but the previous owner covered the cost of a new tune, which was awesome.


That wasn’t the only roadblock though. I then had issues with the ECU when trying to flash the tune. Somehow, both of the EEPROMS became corrupt and the car refused to start. Luckily, RPM Motorsports has a location local to me, and they had me fixed up in no time. I highly recommend them for ECU Repair should you ever need it.


I also gave the steering wheel a good clean using a good old magic eraser. Works like a charm, steering wheel and stitching look brand new. A word of caution though, it will further deteriorate any areas of leather that are already peeling or tearing.


Before:


After:


Redyed the rear shelf as well. The sun bleached section almost matched the paint perfectly haha. Unfortunately I didn't get an after picture, but it looks much much better. Used Duplicolor vinyl dye.





After that, it was time to tackle the large number of issues I’d found with the suspension and overall driveability of the car. I amassed a number of parts, and set to work replacing them on a Saturday at the end of October. Up first was Clutch/trans related: I changed the Transmission fluid to royal purple synchro max, Deleted the CDV, and added an adjustable clutch stop. The difference that these three little things made was enormous. The car is much easier and smoother to drive, if you haven’t at least deleted the CDV, I highly recommend it. I have some very choice words for the engineer who thought that was a good idea. Royal Purple is better than what was in the trans, and I had it lying around from my last car, but realistically I wouldn’t do it again purely for how awful it is in the cold.




I also picked up some new springs for the front struts. Got a good deal on these 7”, 350# TCKline Springs on Ebay. The car came with 550# Springs installed up front, and 400# springs out back. Not sure what the deal was with that, but it definitely made the car feel a little off. The 350# springs went in up front, and the 550# were moved to the rear. Puts the car at almost Flat Ride Spec, greatly improves the ride quality. Unfortunately this still didn’t get me to where I wanted to be with the suspension, but more on that later.





I found out after purchase that underneath the car was in a bit of a disaster state. Just about every plastic splash shield was missing, there were exactly zero exhaust gaskets present after the headers, the belly pan was missing most of its hardware, and there were no exhaust support brackets installed. I’m still working on finding splash shields, but I picked up new hardware for the belly pan, added exhaust gaskets, and a new support brace. This actually cleaned up the exhaust sound quite a bit, eliminating much of the rattle that was present before. Still can’t believe those bolts are $4 each and BMW recommends one time use...


After that, the car went into my local independent shop to have the subframe reinforced, which I’ll tackle in the next post.

[Str8f4c3]

I knew that I wanted to tackle the subframe reinforcement as soon as possible with this car. The rod bearings were done at 132,000km by the previous owner, and the Vanos was also completed around that time, so the Subframe was the last of the big three. Car was booked at my local independent shop for the end of October


I had the Redish V2 plates on hand, as well as the Superpro subframe bushings. I didn’t feel the need to perform a topside reinforcement at this very moment, given that I drive my car like a grandma on the street, it will never see the track, and the subframe was in excellent condition as is.


I also discovered a couple of peculiar suspension choices: a set of poly diff bushings at the rear mounts, with the front bushing left OE, and a poly front control arm bushing on the passenger side paired with the original driver side bushing. To remedy this I sent a powerflex front diff bushing, updated front diff bolt and a set of Whiteline FCABs along with the car when she went under the knife.


Here’s my stock front diff bushing. No more wondering where that clunk was coming from…





A few photos I got from my mechanic. No cracks were found when the plates were put in, which I was quite happy about.








What a difference this job made. Car felt much tighter in every way, and the rear end is nice and planted now.


Took the car to Vancouver to meet with a fellow E46 M3 owner from the Toronto area, and he snapped a few awesome photos of the car.

[Sharocks]

Nice to see you here man.

Let me ask you, did this car come from Massachusetts?

Because a local friend of mine had a Tiag M3 that he resprayed to Silverstone and sold a while ago. And it had a full VCSL body on it.

Can't be many of them running around haha.

Car looks great and while I may be biased, I like the interior a lot. It's different.

[Str8f4c3]

Nice to see you here man.

Let me ask you, did this car come from Massachusetts?

Because a local friend of mine had a Tiag M3 that he resprayed to Silverstone and sold a while ago. And it had a full VCSL body on it.

Can't be many of them running around haha.

Car looks great and while I may be biased, I like the interior a lot. It's different.

Thanks man! The car was local to Vancouver, pretty crazy coincidence to have two cars specced exactly like that!

The two-tone was incredibly well done and so different, but I just didn't think it fit with the silverstone. I put it in the Carbon Black car, and it looked friggin baller.



My other worry was that it would be just about impossible to replicate when I inevitably put some buckets in the car down the road, I hate stock seats lol.

[Str8f4c3]

This winter has been all about ironing out kinks in the car. Previous owner took care of the big stuff but didn’t really bother with the little stuff, so going through the details and general maintenance has been the name of the game.


In late November I decided to tackle the front passenger hub assembly, as the car was emitting a high pitched noise at highway speed from that corner. Didn’t turn out to solve my issue (and I haven’t run it down yet, but I suspect tires at this point) but seeing as the other front hub was done under previous ownership, I enjoy the symmetry of both front hubs being new. Used an OEM FAG Hub. Not a hard job, just a bit of a pain is all.





Also was getting a popping noise from the front suspension on both sides, so I swapped the endlinks and that took care of that. Yup, they were toast.





Also took care of the fuel filter, which was original-no surprise there- and new spark plugs. Still get the occasional miss so the Coils will need to be done too, which from what I can see are original or at least very old.








I also did the Final Stage for the blower, which is still just as infuriating the second time doing it haha. I managed to brake the mount for the duct actuator, just like I did on my first M3.

[Str8f4c3]

Since November, things have been fairly quiet, with less and less driving being done, mostly just putting around town. Got some M Rain Shift boots from 2M Shift Boots for Christmas, which I was super excited about.


Before the swap. E brake Boot was OE, Shift boot was a not great Ebay unit with red stitching that matched exactly nothing in the interior except that hazard light switch lol






Boots Out. Cracks me up that BMW uses a zip tie to secure the E Brake boot. The Shift boot pretty much disintegrated as I pulled it off the frame, should've gotten a pic of it.





Gluing new boots to existing frames. I used two part epoxy for this, which means it took wayyyyy longer than it should have to do. 2M recommends gel type super glue, which is more of a 5-10 minute wait than a 30-60.





All done. Hit the ZHP Knob with the Magic Eraser while it was out.





Aaaaaand Back in the car. Don’t see a ton of this fabric in the E46, I think it fits well with the interior. Would love to get some Pole Positions and have the centers done up to match. Hopefully in the not too distant future.






Also picked up an ACS Rep Diffuser. Huge thanks to GhostGrayM3 for picking this up for me, he's a real one. Plan to paint it gloss black when the weather warms up, and affix with black hardware for a clean look, and a departure from CSL everything. Trying my best to keep the car free of Carbon Fiber.





Whew, that’s just about caught up to where the car is at today! Lot’s of plans for the coming months, including some brake work, Graphene coating in March and some other goodies. Next update will be about suspension, I sold my TCKs (Can’t wait to get tarred and feathered for that one) and the new setup arrives next week. Excited to continue with this shitbox! Thanks for reading up till now!

[timmo]

Having any car while still in high school is such a blessing - if it has 4 wheels and an engine, as far as I'm concerned you're one of the lucky ones haha.

Interesting choice by the PO on those spring rates and glad you got that mostly sorted at the time. What's your new setup?

[Str8f4c3]

Having any car while still in high school is such a blessing - if it has 4 wheels and an engine, as far as I'm concerned you're one of the lucky ones haha.

Interesting choice by the PO on those spring rates and glad you got that mostly sorted at the time. What's your new setup?

You are absolutely right - and I loved that car dearly. I ran a company with my brothers through high school and then sold when I went to university - that's the only reason I could even remotely afford one of these cars. I am thankful every day for that experience, and for ownership of my car.

I believe the TCK's were set up from factory as 300/400# rates, which means a 7.5" spring up front. The previous owner wanted to get lower, so moved to a 6" spring up front with the 550# rate but I guess didn't bother swapping the rear to something a little stiffer. I'll go into a little more detail as to why I swapped in the next post, but I got a link on good BC Racing pricing from a member here, and ended up with a custom built set of their digressive DS Series coils.

[ejendow]

Awesome journal and great progress so far!! Would love to see those door jambs painted one of these days, I feel like that would kill me every time I stepped in the cabin haha.

[Str8f4c3]

Awesome journal and great progress so far!! Would love to see those door jambs painted one of these days, I feel like that would kill me every time I stepped in the cabin haha.

Thanks! The door jambs thankfully aren't super far off when you see them in real life, but they certainly bother me haha. I feel like I'd probably go overboard if I went to fix it though, as the inside of the door is also not done, along with the trunk jamb. I've toyed with the idea of wrapping the jambs gloss black, may tackle that this summer.

[Str8f4c3]

Since I bought the car I’ve never really been happy with the suspension setup, and I’ve slowly been trying to sort it out. After the subframe job, the car is now sitting on all poly/composite bushings, and I’ve been really happy with how tight and connected it feels, but the shock/spring situation has been… less than ideal.

The car came with a set of TCKline Single Adjustable Coilovers, which were setup from factory with 300f/400r Springs, according to receipts I had from the previous owner. The fronts were switched to a set of shorter 550# springs up front at some point to get the car lower, and the rear was left at 400#, which really wasn’t the greatest and the chassis was often upset. I then swapped 350# springs into the front, and moved the 550’s to the rear. This definitely improved things, but I wasn’t getting low enough up front, and was getting spring bind in the rear on bigger impacts.

Sometime in December I decided I needed to either throw a bunch more money at new springs to get where I wanted, or sell the coilovers and get a set that did everything I wanted them to. I ended up selling the coilovers to a forum member here, and got to work researching different setups to find exactly what I wanted. My requirements were:

Independent Shock body. I like my cars low, and I didn’t want to sacrifice travel like I was on the TCK’s.
Customizable spring rates/spring upgrades. In my experience, getting close to flat ride spring specs helps with ride comfort and chassis stability immensely, so this was important. Also, I find that standard springs tend to be less compliant, so being able to choose swift springs would be a big plus.
Digressive shocks. I had a set of BC Racing BR series coilovers on my first M3, which are linear shocks, and I found them a bit harsh on awful island roads, so I didn’t want to mess with that again.
Caster adjustment. A lot of aftermarket coilovers that include camber plates are on-center mounts, where stock M3 mounts are off center. From what I’ve seen, you lose about 4 degrees of caster with an on-center mount, so having either an offset top mount or caster adjustability was a big plus to get the car lined up properly and to keep it more stable at speed.

After doing a ton of research to figure out what I wanted, and then a ton more to find a set of coilovers that would deliver that, I settled on a set of BC Racing DS Series coilovers. The DS Series is a step up from the BR series that is so popular on our cars. I had them custom built with Swift Springs, 7k front rate and 12k rear, and a camber/caster adjustable pillowball top mount.

For me it came down to these or a set of Fortune Autos, either the 500’s or Muller 1-ways, but the dealbreaker was that Fortune Auto doesn’t offer a caster adjustable top mount for the E46 M3, and a set of Vorshlag plates would’ve added a ton of cost.

Build time for these was estimated at 4-6 weeks, but ended up being about two and a half, plus a week for shipping. Not bad!

When the box came in the mail! I was pretty darn excited lol.



Unpacking. BC packages all of their stuff very well, very impressed.







And out of the box. Everything looks very quality, and is obviously very pretty to look at haha.





Close up of the camber/caster plates. They aren’t the best design as you need to drop the coil to adjust, but overall I’m pretty happy with them and they do what I want them to.



The coils sat in my living room for about a week while I waited out the 10 inches of snow we got to melt, which concludes Victoria’s four day winter. I then spent Saturday getting them installed. Here’s a shot of one of the front struts next to a stock strut, which I’d been rolling around on since selling the TCK. Stocks are massive, and absolutely miserable to remove as a result.



Fronts in!


I also took the opportunity to refresh the rear end links with a set of Lemforder Replacements, which from what I can tell are the OEM replacements, given they are exactly the same with the exception of the BMW logo stamped on the rubber of the genuine links.



One rear came out without issue, the other was pretty much toast, and ended up shearing the bolt. The lemforder links also come with replacement hardware, so I wasn’t worried about saving the bolt.


I didn’t get any more photos of the install, but if you’ve seen coilover installs on these cars, these are the same. Everything went on without a hitch. Here’s a couple more after install. I’m pretty happy with the ride height, the rear may have to come down another half inch or so, and possibly bring the front up a touch, though it is a touch higher than it looks in that side shot.





First impressions are very good! Flat ride rates and the swift springs help a ton with ride quality, it’s really hard to tell how low the car is from the driver’s seat. It handles big bumps very well, takes corners nicely, and inspires a ton of confidence. I haven’t had an alignment yet, but no rubbing so far. Overall I’m extremely happy with my choice on these, and I’d say swift springs at the very least are worth their weight in gold. While it’s to recommend a setup like this for everyone, what I would recommend if you’re on the hunt for coilovers is sitting down, researching what’s out there, making a list of what you want, and choosing the kit that fits that the best. In all likelihood you’ll be happier with your setup versus blindly going on recommendations from people who may have different preferences than you.

Sorry for the long post haha, but that’s it for now. Next up will be a few interior bits and then in a couple weeks, a full paint correction and graphene ceramic coating!

[RoyalFlushness]

Looking good bro!

[Str8f4c3]

Part 6: Graphene and interior work
Been a minute since the last update here, time to get caught up!

In late Feb/early March a couple buddies and spent three weekends detailing each of our cars. We did a full detox with soap/clay/bug and tar, then a two step paint correction with meg’s 105/205, then we did 2 coats of Ethos Matrix graphene ceramic coating. All three cars turned out great.

Foam cannon. Think we hit the car with foam probably 5 times haha



Aaaand all finished up.





All three cars we did. Me, Space Grey over Fox Red e92 M3 6-speed, and an 08 Cayman S with a 400hp built M97.



Also done a little interior work of late. After missing out on 3 (!) Euro consoles on the forums over the last couple years, I finally found a new one on FB Marketplace. Also picked up new cupholders and coin tray from the dealer.

Mmm OEM Parts



Old Console out. Pulled the console at my friends house, but forgot the mounting bracket at my house, so drove it home without a console lol.



Installed. Armrest delete is awesome and totally worth the money, should’ve sprung for one sooner. Forces you to have better posture, and makes shifting much easier for big people like me because you’re not banging your elbow into the armrest on the 1-2 shift LOL



Also started doing a little more sprucing up. The suede on the door seals was in absolutely horrid condition. The PO did include a set of seals in great shape, but I sold those to Tbonem3 for his Steel Grey project. I have a pretty solid method of repairing these after dealing with them on my last car, and the funds from the seals went to other goodies :P

Looks like someone or multiple people had attempted to repair these. From what I could tell, about 3 different types of glue were used, (This elmer’s craft glue lookin shit, and two clear adhesives, one very rubbery and the other pretty rigid) and none of them worked haha, Not sure which of these was from factory. Most of the time spent on this project went to peeling out the old glue.



Then, I Lightly scuffed the inner plastic on both the rubber and suede side, and applied E6000. Then, I used these clips to hold the two pieces together. Works like a charm. Just a few spots along the upper edge and rear corner for now, I may need to pull the rear door cards for sound system reasons sometime soon, and I will do the rest of the seals at that time.



Also decided to hunt down deflating lumbar/bolsters on my driver’s seat. Pump seemed to work just fine, but air would escape within two minutes or so. Pulled the back of the seat off, no leaks in the air lines, so decided to swap the entire pump/valve setup from the passenger seat. The whole unit is in a little plastic shell at the bottom of the seat. Pull the harness, cut the zip tie, and remove the air lines from the barbs. Overall a pretty quick job, even having never done it before.




This did end up fixing my issue! I assume that one of the valves was bad in the defective unit, so at some point I will find one at a junkyard.