JEPPE: E46 M3 SMG sedan prosjekt

[Jeppe]

Dette er prosjekt tråden til min E46 M3 sedan. Orginal tråden fra byggestart til slutt ligger på e46fanatics.com og går over 70 sider med spørsmål/svar og kommentarer: E46fanatics.com

Har kopiert det jeg har skrevet i den tråden over hit.

Donor bilen var en helt strøken 2002 BMW M3 SMG som hadde gått i Italia hele sitt liv. Fordelen med å bruke en strøken og hel bil i steden for et vrak var at da visste jeg at alt fungerte og alle delene var i orden.

Prisforskjellen var heller ikke stor når man tenker på hvor mye man må koste på i deler på en vraka bil. Også sitter jeg igjen med et helt karosseri jeg kommer til å få bruk for senere.. Bilen bar preg av

å være fra Italia da den var like strøken under. Bare litt rengjøring av delene så var de som nye.

Bilen ble kjøpt inn fra Tyskland i mai 2008.

Prosjekt bilen var en 1998 318i:

Denne var også helt strøken og hadde akkurat blitt hellakkert og byttet mye deler. Eieren ble litt rar når jeg fortalte hva jeg skulle gjøre med den påkosta bilen hans..

Poenget var i begynnelsen av prosjektet å bare skru over motor, drivverk, hjuloppheng, ledningsnett osv. for å få en bil som gikk som en M3 men til en mye lavere pris enn en orginal M3. Men etter jeg hadde kjøpt inn

bilene mente min kamerat Per at han kunne hjelpe meg med å bygge over M3 skjermene og lage en "M3" sedan også utseendemessig. Ok sa jeg å så var vi igang.

Og da ble poenget mer å lage en helt unik bil ingen andre hadde, men med et orginalt utseende. BMW lagde aldri en E46 M3 sedan men når bilen ble ferdig skulle det se ut som den kom rett ut fra BMW fabrikken.

Og da ble lista lagt høyt og prosjektet tok av, og jeg har vel ikke spart så mye penger kontra å kjøpe en orginal M3. Men jeg har en unik bil ingen andre har.

Jeg ville også gjøre alt lovlig og få bilen godkjent. Var litt lei av å kjøre rundt med trimma biler som ikke var godkjente med følgene det kan få både avgift og forsikringsmessig.

Bilen er nå godkjent hos biltilsynet med M3 motor, drivverk, hjuloppheng + stoptech bremser og KW dempere.

[Jeppe]

Startet å jobbe på bilen i slutten av mai 2008.

Finally they meet...

One part off, 1 million left..

Started working on the front fenders to see how much difference it is between the M3 and sedan. And there was more of a difference than i thought..

The M3 fender is longer, and the door on the M3 is placed further back.

The M3 fender is also taller. Here is the sedan fender mounted on the M3. Will need to get hold of a skilled body shop guy for this. Because you have to shorten the fender I think the gills will have to go. Not to much of a worry, the car will only get a cleaner look without them I think.

But apart from that it fits perfekt...

Started to tear the 318 apart. Forgot to emty the AC system, so will have to get equipment for that tomorrow. Thats how far I got today, continue on sunday.

[Jeppe]

Got the car as high as possible on the jack stands..

My plan for today was to get the engine and transmission out. And to remove most of the parts in the engine bay. Got the AC system emtied, so I could remove the AC condenser, radiator and oil cooler.

Then I started working on the engine. Found out that BMWs are really nice cars to work on. There are no hidden screws that are impossible to reach, everything is really straight forward. The engine and transmission is only attached to the chassis in 4 bolts, of course there are a lot of things attached to it though....

Got the engine strapped to the crane.

Then you have to start pulling and lifting..

Almost there...

Finally I got the little engine out..

Some of the parts.

Almost ready for paint. Just the braking system and tubing left. And a little cleaning.

Thats it for today. Next thing is to get the dash and everything inside the car out. Picking up the OEM M3 rear fenders tomorrow, im excited to see how im going to fit those..

[Jeppe]

Got the rear M3 panels today. Thay came in these small boxes...

Got some work done on the car this evening. Started to work on the dash. This was surprisingly easy. I have removed several dash boards on MB and VW and this was so much easier:) I like BMW more and more now..

Then I removed the steel frame.

And then the heater box.

I also got the CSL trunk in FRP, but the quality was really bad. Im returning it tomorrow and ordering the carbon version.

[Jeppe]

Got the seats and carpets out.

Im working on getting the complete wiring harness out. It's a lot of work...

Also got my carbon fiber CSL trunk today

[Jeppe]

Got some things done to day as well. Some of the wires went under the roof, so had to take it out. Im also changing it to all black roof.

Then I had to remove everything in the trunk to get to the wires going to the rear lights.

Finally got all the wiring harness out, what a mess...

So clean without the wires.

The garage was now flooded with parts, so had to spend some hours cleaning and organizing the parts.

Here are the bolts, screws and clips so far.

Lot of spare parts for e46.

Got the pedals out.

Not much left here.

My plan was to use the M3 rear lights as well. The angle of the trunk is different.

[Jeppe]

Got the rest of the braking system out.

Next was the steering rack.

More parts.

Fuel tank.

The breather system for the fuel tank consisted of a lot of parts. It went into all these things then into the intake. hmm..

Got the rear bumper off.

Working on getting the fuel and brake lines out.

Finally..

Not much left under here.

or here.

or here.

Thats it for today. Next thing to do is to clean the car, that is a dirty job.. Then start the work on the fenders and getting it ready for paint.

[Jeppe]

Did some cleaning.

Before

After

Got the thing behind the rear seats out.

Started removing the lights and bumper from the M3. Are going to test fit them on the sedan.

More tomorrow. Good night.

[Jeppe]

Yes, you can have racing seats in the back of a sedan...

Im not going to do it though, this seat is for the 2002tii racing car.

Started removing the inside of the doors.

Then I remowed the hood on the sedan. This thing was extremely heavy! and I thought, damn I have to get a carbon hood.. If you sedan owners want to save a lot of weight, buy a carbon hood.

I was expecting the M3 hood to be just as heavy, but to my surprise it was really light! No point in a carbon hood.

Got the bumper off the M3. I struggled with it on friday and could not figure out how to get it off. Had to check on fanatics to find the answer. You just have to pull hard...

Then I got the front off. Thanks to a smart design by BMW you can get this off in one big piece.

Tested on the sedan. Perfect fit.

Then the bumper.

Lights.

Hood and fender. The fender doesn't fit because of how the door is on the sedan, but you get the idea. And the hood needs some adjusting to get it to close. But you get a feel on how it's going to look.

[Jeppe]

Removed the rear bumper from the M3.

And but it on the sedan.

It fits perfect except for the fenders. It needs some M3 fenders.

Then I removed the side skirts on the sedan.

And on the M3.

And mounted them on the sedan. These where a pain to get on because of all those plastic klips

They are a couple of millimeters to short, but it's so little you don't notice it.

Thats it for today. My friend and expert body shop guy is going to look at the car on wednesday. So hopefully we can start on the fenders soon.

[Jeppe]

A little update. Had my body shop expert to look at my car today, and we discussed how we schould do the fenders. He was positive to getting the rear lights of the M3 to work on the sedan! he is going to do changes to the carbon trunk because this is easier to work with. We figured out where and how we are going to cut the fenders and car. So we will start on this soon.

We tried the M3 trunk on the sedan just to see what the difference was. Didn't fit...hehe..

Also tried the CSL trunk, this was better...

[Jeppe]

Marking up where to cut the sedan fender.

Test fitting.

Starting to cut out the rear fender.

Oops..no way back

Test fitting. The M3 is also wider above the arch, thats one of the reasons im using a lot more then just the M3 arch.

Testing with the front fender.

Testing with the gills moved a little bit forward.

Im doing the same on the other side this weekend. It's going to be really hard to make everything fit correctly, especially the trunk with the M3 lights and all. This is definitely not the easiest way of doing it.

[Jeppe]

Did the other side today:

Got the rear M3 back plate:

Started drilling out the spot welds:

Finally:

Testing on car, looks nice:

Last thing to do before I send it to welding was to emty the rear doors.

Was impossible to get the rubber sealing around the door out in one piece..

Down on the wheels again, and ready to go. Hehe...the car looks like crap now.

On the way to the welder...

[Jeppe]

Since the sedan is at the welder I started on the M3 today. Started with cleaning up the work space and making room for the M3 parts.

M3 ready to get dismantled.

Removed the air ducts.

And air filter box.

Radiator, condencer and oil cooler for the power steering.

Fan box.

Next now is to get the engine and transmission out.

[Jeppe]

Got this today from jlevisw.com, KW V3

The car is still at the welder. But I got some parts today from turner motorsport.

The stoptech brakes was bigger than i thought...

And camber plates.

Here is a little teaser pic I got from the body shop.