Help me like my E46 330i drift car- Things worth doing.

Stavros

Stavros

Active Member
As title. Got a E46 330i Sport with a welder, CDV delete, lowered (just springs, but feels ok), and that's about it for now.

I've never been a big fan of E36s for drifting despite people loving them, and it turns out I feel the same about this E46.

As it's pretty presentable looking, got 11 months MOT, and already got a few drifty bits, I may as well keep it, but anyone had one can tell me how to make it feel better?

Fucking the 255s off the back is no1, as a car with about 220bhp does not need that.

I'm used to small/light/fun drift cars that actually have feel, and E46 seems vague and random to me- Is there any suspension mods, that people have done that make them feel better?
I fitted fancy rear front arm lollypops and a E46 rack to my E30 and it felt 107 times better, but what you do on E46s for drifting I don't know.

The electronic throttle feels shit to me, feels like it does what it wants, not what I want- Anyone got one remapped? Does it make it more of a real feeling throttle?

Anything else?

Don't wanna spend a fortune as it'll prob only last me till MOT time, but feels like it prob makes sense to make what I got better as anything else for 1000-1500 will probably be way shitter...
 
Fuck off the clutch delay valve for a start, there are throttle controllers available but I cant tell you if they are any good or not.
 
Might benefit from some bushes, have you had a look under to see if any are particularly fucked?
 
Check the rear subframe mounts as they tend to rip away from the rest of the body

Can buy strengthening kits online
 
First paragraph I said the CDV is gone.

Aside from outer 1 arb link bush they are ok.

Rear subframe is fine.

I was hoping for advice from people with actual experience of E46s for drifting.
 
I had an e46 325ti that had been mapped before I owned it and every time you went near the limiter it would lose power for a second, was fucking sketchy and ruined the fun mid flow a bit. Personally (and I know you'll agree based on light chuckable cars) I wouldn't bother messing around remap wise, maybe someone could suggest a good alignment setup to make it fell a bit more lively and involving?

Oh and my stupid throttle was wank too didn't feel 'connected' at all
 
Glad it's not only me.

And yes, it's front geometry that will mostly fix what I don't like about it I reckon. The throttle feels poo n a bit random, and the fact it's a bit big I'm not fan off, but they lesser issues.

But exactly what's a good shout on E46s I don't know for sure, and don't wanna just do loads of stuff when it's only a couple of the bits that do the job.

If I get no joy I'm gonna go with my guess and what someone else I trust told me, so more camber/castor with top mounts, and maybe them lollypop arms like I had on the E30.

Just nice to have other peoples experience too.
 
from memory of my e46, cheap ebay coils do actually make them feel pretty good.
the front top mounts are slotted so you can add camber for free, e36 top mounts fit from memory so you can use e36 m3 for a bit of castor so pretty adjustable pretty easily and cheaply.
concentric bushes on lower arms combined with 46 clubsport (purple tag) rack should give you the quick lock and flicky ness.
id get it plugged in and make sure the throttle is responding to 100% (something i knew nothing about until my transit started messing about) the pedal efficiency and signal breaks dow apparantly.
they have a fuck tonne of grip out of the box on the back end, we ran 225's for skidding at wheels on a 323, it will do it but needs its face kicking in.
 
Yeah, Google found me nothing, but someone in drifting I actually trust to listen to said reversed E36 M3 front top mounts are the way to go too a few weeks back.

The lower arm thing yep, that worked on the E30 so keen on that.

Good shout on the other stuff too, cheers!
 
When I had mine I swapped out the manual diff (2.93) for the auto one (3.38) made a vast improvement.

eBay coilovers also made a good improvement.

I also hooked up a switch to fully disable the abs/esp as when it was off the speedo and fuel gauge didn't work which was no help for just daily driving.

Rear subframe bushes are always shagged, even on standard cars, if you jack on the subframe it seems to move a fair bit before the car starts to actually lift.

I've heard there's supposed to be a way of recalibrating the throttle via the ignition, I.e a certain sequence of on/off and pedal pushing, I'll try and find out a bit more info on that and let you know.
 
Well this just happened, which hasn't exactly helped me like it lol.

Has it done the diff in? As the bolts seem to still be in the shaft...

ffs2.jpg

ffs1.jpg
 
Looks similar to what my mates 328 e46 did. Output shaft shat it and took the seal with it. Diff and housing should be ok, depends how badly the output failed.

The splined section is hollow and shattered on my mates car, was a fair mission getting the remains of the output shaft out.
 
As diffs normally come with output shafts, it sounds like a good time to fit a 3.38 then if I can find one cheap...
 
Stavros said:
As diffs normally come with output shafts, it sounds like a good time to fit a 3.38 then if I can find one cheap...
Click to expand...

I was going to say the same thing.

I never managed to find a "cheap" auto diff, but luckily one of my local scrap yards had a 330 auto in, managed to buy it for £100 which isn't to bad I suppose, was well worth the money either way.
 
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