Less than 24 hours after registering at the DMV and she's got slicks and race numbers on her.
I blacked out the grille and gills. The boys at PAD gave it thorough cleaning.
Class legal modifications include headers (with a cat 6" downstream), shark injectors, pulleys and an intake tube.
Oh, and some Moton Club $ports.
One last photo before surgery.
The headers went in with some work. You have to remove about 1/4 of the engine bay to access all 18 bolts holding on the factory header. Then, you have to remove all of the factory studs and replace them with the aftermarket studs. Finally, you have to jack the car up and insert both headers simultaneously from a vertical angle. I'm telling you this because it took me about 3 weeks to figure all of this out. BUT - the eBay fitment was perfect and HOLY COW does this car rip with the headers and tune.
Installing the shocks was not difficult. Routing the remote reservoirs was a little more work. For the fronts, I removed the fender liners and snaked the reservoirs up into the engine bay, mounting them to the radiator shroud with zip ties, because I'm classy like that.
Mounting the rear reservoirs required full removal of the bumper. There are plastic vents that I removed and made small cuts to allow the hoses to fit through. I mounted the reservoirs to the trunk brackets - with zip ties of course.
The Ground Control bars were a bit of work as well, but they are so fancy and so adjustable.
With the factory 19x8/19x9.5 wheels and 26" diameter tires package, fitment was troublesome. With my race setup 18x10 front and rear with 25" diameter tires, fitment was a little better, especially once I learned how to do an alignment in my garage and dialed in -3.5 degrees of camber in the front.
And now, she's ready for battle.
Excellent. Stance looks great as well!
xflowgolf wrote: Excellent. Stance looks great as well!
An unintended consequence where form followed function.
Damn! I bet that is an incredible performance car now! Congrats!!
Looks great! How do you like the motons on the street? Any dyno numbers after the headers/pulley/tune?
Also, where in NY are you located? Asking because of the already green trees in the pics.
ManhattanM (fka NY535iManual) wrote: Looks great! How do you like the motons on the street? Any dyno numbers after the headers/pulley/tune? Also, where in NY are you located? Asking because of the already green trees in the pics.
The motons ride fine on the street. The car is firm and tight - my kids love it. I have them dialed one off of soft for both compression and rebound until I figure out where I want them for the season.
No dynos yet. The tune brings the car to 8,600 rpm, which, with six ITBs, sounds awesome - although I don't plan on revving past 8,000 very often, if at all. It is FAST - faster than any of my 911s.
I'm in Rochester. The last picture was taken at the end of February.
I just really like that blue, in combo with the square wheel setup.
I've been half shopping for a used Moton setup for a few years. I have the same ground control front and rear sways on my M3 as you, but with the TCKline DA/SA shocks. The ride is better than stock, but still not quite right.
Unsolicited Advice: You've got a lot of front camber dialed in. I found that it was too much for street driving on street tires - took me 2 ruined sets of Michie Pilot Sports, and some third set to figure it out. I think that much camber, together with bushing deflection, creates weird dynamics at the contact patch that lead to cupping and other unfortunate tire wear. I wouldn't think the same would happen with slicks, so all that to say you may want to run a bit less camber between track days.
I'm in Westchester county, so have probably run at the same tracks as you (the Glen, LRP, NJMP.)
ManhattanM (fka NY535iManual) wrote: I just really like that blue, in combo with the square wheel setup. I've been half shopping for a used Moton setup for a few years. I have the same ground control front and rear sways on my M3 as you, but with the TCKline DA/SA shocks. The ride is better than stock, but still not quite right. Unsolicited Advice: You've got a lot of front camber dialed in. I found that it was too much for street driving on street tires - took me 2 ruined sets of Michie Pilot Sports, and some third set to figure it out. I think that much camber, together with bushing deflection, creates weird dynamics at the contact patch that lead to cupping and other unfortunate tire wear. I wouldn't think the same would happen with slicks, so all that to say you may want to run a bit less camber between track days. I'm in Westchester county, so have probably run at the same tracks as you (the Glen, LRP, NJMP.)
This is a dedicated autocross car which will see street use to and from events. I'm not worried about tire wear. These are RE71rs so they're pretty cheap anyways. 3.5 degrees up front is about 0.5 degrees less than the engineers who calculated my spring rates recommend.
I retired from road racing after the shiny happy people from Sahlens gave me a concussion and ruptured my spleen by ramming me at 120 mph while I was braking on the straight at Pittsburgh - the Glen was the track I learned to drive on.
Ouch, bummer, that's a hell of a (bad) reason to retire!
I can't find one snarky, back-handed, insecure, passive-agressive thing to say about this. Well done, Sir!
In reply to Mister Fister:
You did indeed do a thing with an E46 M3, and the world is a better place for it. On behalf of myself and the other 6 billion people on this planet, I thank you.
Your thread forced me to pull the car out of winter pickle a few weeks early and go for a morning drive before this next snow storm hits!!
were gonna need a sound clip after seeing all that shiny header material...
:)
Wound up with -3.7 degrees of camber up front, tick of toe out, -2 degrees of camber out back, a little more toe in - throttle down and out of corners is the way to drive it now.
Raised the rear slightly.
I bet turn-in is amazing!
fidelity101 wrote: were gonna need a sound clip after seeing all that shiny header material... :)
Reposting for emphasis. Where's our sound clip?!? 
I was very seriously considering one of these as a donor for Uncle Ben. I have read they like to rip the rear subframe mounts out of the body without reinforcement, is there any truth to this?
This is exactly what I would want to do to any E46 M3 I bought. And yes, let's hear it!
dyintorace wrote:fidelity101 wrote: were gonna need a sound clip after seeing all that shiny header material... :)Reposting for emphasis. Where's our sound clip?!?
Impatiently waiting for this...
Aw jeez guys I haven't even had a chance to autocross it yet. This weekend I'll try and get some clips.
I could irresponsibly take some cell phone video from inside the car; or have one of my kids do it?
E46 M3 from Ricky Spanish on Vimeo.
Every time I embed the damned thing this forum reformats it . . .
Ricky Spanish wrote: E46 M3 from Ricky Spanish on Vimeo. Every time I embed the damned thing this forum reformats it . . .
Oh...hell yes.
Ricky Spanish wrote: E46 M3 from Ricky Spanish on Vimeo. Every time I embed the damned thing this forum reformats it . . .
First race, first place.
The car was loose, very loose. So loose that I didn’t push the tires to their optimal happy slip angles – but it was still fast as all hell.
I cannot legally run more tire in the rear (although I could run more wheel). I started by dropping some compression in the front which seemed to help until it rained. Next event I will drop some rebound in the rear and see what happens. I can also add some more front bar, take out some front camber, or play with the pressures (which I didn’t even bother checking). In addition, I could not be a Bob Costas.
Also, some weight reduction:
Miata battery
Cloth/manual passenger seat (still looking for a driver side)
Lightness is all well and good, but the pic of the Miata battery makes me sweat. Optical delusions aside, is there any way that retainer is insulated, or can't make contact to the posts if the battery shifts?
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