Davidmcd
New Member
BMW E46 hot boi revival :
Hi all so have had my e46 for best part of 5 years.
Admittedly it is a 320 ( due to before purchase at age 22 I had points and couldn’t afford more ) but I fell in love with the actual car.
Bit of back ground previously owned
Audi A3 1.8t
Audi s3 325WHP
Audi A3 1.9TDI
Mk1 Mx5 x3 what I essentially learnt to skid in
Some shit daily’s such as a mk3 golf, EG civic.
Back to the good good.
The e46 blew me away, was such an improvement on anything I had previously and it’s possibilitys we’re endless.
I bought it and well it came on some poor excuse for coilovers literally were so poor
Some rota grid 17” alloys and the rest was standard
So here set me in what I wanted to do with the car I always invisioned a more aggressive look I usually do on most cars it’s my personal style Aswell as being low with fitment.
So as a few months went by I slowly altered somethings on the car I changed all the interior trim to piano black, swapped out the head unit, made a few alterations here and there
Then I bought LED rear tail lights, Amber front markers and a set of wheels
OZ Breyton 5x120 17x10
They were so nice but too small for my liking so I went and bought some new lips for them going from 2 & 2.5” lip to 4” all around
And well I fucked it up they were too wide but I didn’t let it stop me, I looked at a few ways to maybe get around this and pulling the arches and a m3 front bumper was next, This helped but it still wasn’t right my wheels hung out the arch way too much so over winter I decided after a long debate and a lot of reviewing products that I would get air ride for it.
Yes i know air ride... I’ve heard it all before but let me tell you air lift performance struts and bags are as good as the bilstein I had on my s3. Anyway getting it fitted with help from kingfab who I will plug a lot! I realised a little more body work etc was needed so just went on with it we pulled the arches rolled and pulled until the wheels fitted, and if anyone knows BMW getting a 10.5” wheel at -8 offset wouldn’t be easy well we done it!
The car now looked pants though like properly pants so a respray was in order
I haven’t mentioned until now this car is genuine alpine white that’s what was probably the biggest selling point. So was booked in for a respray and tidy up of the body work.
After paint I wasn’t happy with the standard seats and it just so happened as I went online to browse options I stumbled across a full oxblood m-sport interior ( now this is a bloody rare option ) and the fact it was near mint rear bench was never sat in by the looks of it I was well happy! The seller was only an hour away so a short trip I went and got it, was a hour maybe two to replace and POW a white e46 with ocblood interior
Now if I don’t look like I want a m3 I don’t know how else to do it
As you do you get bored of what you have so I swaped out the wheels and saved to buy the only set in the country which were double stepped up BBS RS now a pretty rare sight they were and run a hefty price tag. And toddler along really kicking with mates going to car shows etc.
I still couldn’t sensibly afford a m3 to insure or run so I kept going with the 320 I mean it’s never really been on my mind to sell. After speaking to some friends ( kingfab ) again check their instagram!
We decided maybe an engine swap was in order to something a bit wild.
1JZ/2JZ
LS
RB
2.5 with a holset
So did a lot of research and here’s where the downfall happened
The car essentially was a stancey pants car as much as I liked having a pristine car it just wasn’t 100% my style. It looked aggressive as hell was silly wide but I kept getting in trouble with having camber ( -10°) on the rear ** I’ll explain further how that was achevied**
So I decided
New engine
New suspension
New wheels new look.
I started with new wheels work emotion CR2-P
18x9.5&18x10 they looked fantastic but where the body work was pulled for much wider wheels with lower offsets they didn’t quite fill the arches as I liked but spaced them and made do.
I then thought right some saving needs doing, while saving I went to a few more shows and decided the upcoming winter was transformation time
I went to one last show in Holland and brought the car home.
Over winter sold the air ride
The wheels and had some saved up to transform it
Was going for HSD coilovers
Some better fitted work wheels
Still undecided on the engine we did sway towards the 1JZ anyway...
Sorry I know this is a long spiel I wonder how many have made it this far.
So the air ride off and sold
Pretty much took it visiually outside to a standard car. I was getting it ready for upcoming MOT replacing a few parts for just newer in some cases swapping some interior stuff around
And that’s it it stopped. Nothing
It wasn’t even MOT’d
Left abandoned on a driveway to look sorry for itself this now is the middle of 2017
Hi all so have had my e46 for best part of 5 years.
Admittedly it is a 320 ( due to before purchase at age 22 I had points and couldn’t afford more ) but I fell in love with the actual car.
Bit of back ground previously owned
Audi A3 1.8t
Audi s3 325WHP
Audi A3 1.9TDI
Mk1 Mx5 x3 what I essentially learnt to skid in
Some shit daily’s such as a mk3 golf, EG civic.
Back to the good good.
The e46 blew me away, was such an improvement on anything I had previously and it’s possibilitys we’re endless.
I bought it and well it came on some poor excuse for coilovers literally were so poor
Some rota grid 17” alloys and the rest was standard
So here set me in what I wanted to do with the car I always invisioned a more aggressive look I usually do on most cars it’s my personal style Aswell as being low with fitment.
So as a few months went by I slowly altered somethings on the car I changed all the interior trim to piano black, swapped out the head unit, made a few alterations here and there
Then I bought LED rear tail lights, Amber front markers and a set of wheels
OZ Breyton 5x120 17x10
They were so nice but too small for my liking so I went and bought some new lips for them going from 2 & 2.5” lip to 4” all around
And well I fucked it up they were too wide but I didn’t let it stop me, I looked at a few ways to maybe get around this and pulling the arches and a m3 front bumper was next, This helped but it still wasn’t right my wheels hung out the arch way too much so over winter I decided after a long debate and a lot of reviewing products that I would get air ride for it.
Yes i know air ride... I’ve heard it all before but let me tell you air lift performance struts and bags are as good as the bilstein I had on my s3. Anyway getting it fitted with help from kingfab who I will plug a lot! I realised a little more body work etc was needed so just went on with it we pulled the arches rolled and pulled until the wheels fitted, and if anyone knows BMW getting a 10.5” wheel at -8 offset wouldn’t be easy well we done it!
The car now looked pants though like properly pants so a respray was in order
I haven’t mentioned until now this car is genuine alpine white that’s what was probably the biggest selling point. So was booked in for a respray and tidy up of the body work.
After paint I wasn’t happy with the standard seats and it just so happened as I went online to browse options I stumbled across a full oxblood m-sport interior ( now this is a bloody rare option ) and the fact it was near mint rear bench was never sat in by the looks of it I was well happy! The seller was only an hour away so a short trip I went and got it, was a hour maybe two to replace and POW a white e46 with ocblood interior
Now if I don’t look like I want a m3 I don’t know how else to do it
As you do you get bored of what you have so I swaped out the wheels and saved to buy the only set in the country which were double stepped up BBS RS now a pretty rare sight they were and run a hefty price tag. And toddler along really kicking with mates going to car shows etc.
I still couldn’t sensibly afford a m3 to insure or run so I kept going with the 320 I mean it’s never really been on my mind to sell. After speaking to some friends ( kingfab ) again check their instagram!
We decided maybe an engine swap was in order to something a bit wild.
1JZ/2JZ
LS
RB
2.5 with a holset
So did a lot of research and here’s where the downfall happened
The car essentially was a stancey pants car as much as I liked having a pristine car it just wasn’t 100% my style. It looked aggressive as hell was silly wide but I kept getting in trouble with having camber ( -10°) on the rear ** I’ll explain further how that was achevied**
So I decided
New engine
New suspension
New wheels new look.
I started with new wheels work emotion CR2-P
18x9.5&18x10 they looked fantastic but where the body work was pulled for much wider wheels with lower offsets they didn’t quite fill the arches as I liked but spaced them and made do.
I then thought right some saving needs doing, while saving I went to a few more shows and decided the upcoming winter was transformation time
I went to one last show in Holland and brought the car home.
Over winter sold the air ride
The wheels and had some saved up to transform it
Was going for HSD coilovers
Some better fitted work wheels
Still undecided on the engine we did sway towards the 1JZ anyway...
Sorry I know this is a long spiel I wonder how many have made it this far.
So the air ride off and sold
Pretty much took it visiually outside to a standard car. I was getting it ready for upcoming MOT replacing a few parts for just newer in some cases swapping some interior stuff around
And that’s it it stopped. Nothing
It wasn’t even MOT’d
Left abandoned on a driveway to look sorry for itself this now is the middle of 2017
...
