BMW E46 M3 Lemans/Cinnamon

[LCG]

So good!

do the shocks click like manual shocks or they move freely?

very curious how the motors / software manages that.

[Frode D]

I have installed the motors to control the shocks and pulled the wires to control them. I tried to make the best out of it as the motors are pretty big and the wires have one standard length.

Right rear side. Motor beside the battery:


Left rear side. Motor attached to the amplifier bracket.


Left front side. I tried to fit the motor next to the fuse box, but the motor was too big.. Will make a new nicer looking bracket sometime later on.

Right front side. Fitted inside with the DSC unit.


Pulled the wires inside the plastic to make it look as OEM as possible.
Har trukket ledningen inni plasten med andre ting for å skjule de mest mulig:



Full control from the drivers seat.




The only thing remaining is to wire a relay as the power source I found was not via ignition. Everything works perfecly

[Frode D]

Can't wait! It looks great man! I absolutely love E46s. If the ones for sale around me weret' so beat up, I might've ended up with one!

Thank you! I can imagine finding a good one over there is hard. It seems like most M3s here are taken good care of, at least to a certain point.

love the changes mate

Thanks! It looks kind of halfway done at this stage, and it kind of is as well. More to come

Good detailed work as always!

Are the e46 and e9x strut tops different then, I thought they were all the same pattern (about 95mm between studs)?

Thank you! I like reading detailed threads more than just before and after pics, so I try to do the same.

They have the same pattern, but E9x top mounts are rotated 45 degrees or so. The camber adjustment would have pointed towards the front of the engine.

[The Simps]

Good detailed work as always!

Are the e46 and e9x strut tops different then, I thought they were all the same pattern (about 95mm between studs)?

[Wilz_vagroots]

love the changes mate

[becausephilchow]

Can't wait! It looks great man! I absolutely love E46s. If the ones for sale around me weret' so beat up, I might've ended up with one!

[Frode D]

What an outstanding color combination!

Thank you, I really like it.

-

I received the rear suspension from BWS, but the height adjuster was missing so I'm still waiting for that one to arrive. As I am going to use the front struts from the E92 I had to replace the camber plates. But this wasn't straight forward when combining this with the Electronic Damper Control (EDC). The EDC comes with a shorter top nut for the shock shaft to free threads to install the EDC. Due to the design on the E46 camber plates the spacer below the bearing is longer, which eats up the threads to mount the EDC onto.

E90 Spacer - E46 spacer - regular nut - shorter nut:


I tried to use the short spacer, but 6mm space between spring seat and bearing is uncomfortably little. Left is with short spacer, right is standard E92 setup:
img]https://c6.staticflickr.com/6/5650/31032705845_5480fd3298_b.jpg[/img]

After some thinking I decided to install the E9x bearing into the E46 top plate. This increases the ride height by 10mm, but this turned out to be a good thing later on. In the stage of assembly:


Bilstein coilovers vs BWS coilovers:


I installed them with the same height as on the E92, to compare. And wow, it is tucking hard on jack stands..


Raised them 35mm and installed them again. I think this height will be good with the new 18" wheels, but I will probably do some more adjustments later. These 245/35-19s are a bit meaty.


I also installed the rear shocks and springs temporarily onto the Bilstein adjuster, but will replace this and lower the rear once the adjuster arrives. Hopefully next week.

[CBREEZ]

What an outstanding color combination!

[Frode D]

Started wrapping my interior trim with "3M Brushed Aluminum". The result is a little brighter than what i expected, but I think it gives a nice contrast to the brown and black, and of course with the brushed lips.





And a little shot from rainy Norway while waiting for the coilovers to arrive tomorrow:

[Frode D]

If fortune auto coilovers are manufactured by BC that remote unit is the next BIG thing.

Fortune Auto makes their own suspension, and Broadway Static are made at the same facility, don't know where BC is produced. But they might fit BC as well for all i know.

Either way, it's gonna be awesome to change the setup with the touch of a button.

[LCG]

If fortune auto coilovers are manufactured by BC that remote unit is the next BIG thing.

[Frode D]

spring perches sound like a good idea. has this already had the subframe reinforced? comon problem with these.

Yes, luckily for me the subframe was reinforced when the car was rebuilt.

[C2_mad]

spring perches sound like a good idea. has this already had the subframe reinforced? comon problem with these.

[Frode D]

Received a couple of rear spring perch reinforcement plates from Rouge Engineering yesterday. I think they are a good precaution when going with 18k rear springs. Also ordered a few interior things and front strut reinforcement plates, and brushed aluminum vinyl to wrap the interior moldings.



Hopefully I'll start getting the more interesting parts like suspension and wheels in a couple of weeks.

[Frode D]

good work as always have you thought about a manual swap? or you like the smg to much?

Thanks. Boring updates, but more to come.

The downshifts with SMG are pretty addicting, so unless I get some really big issues with the SMG i'm not going to rebuild to manual. I have done some research and the transmission is the same, just need to swap a lot of parts to make it work.