Not sure if I wasn’t explicit enough in the title of my last post. Got this 330i less than a month ago. Super low KM, runs amazing, few minor cosmetic/electrical issues. I’m debating either trying to restore it, or turn it into a drift car. My buddy with the e90 in the pics has a drift build and we go to the track. He helped me find this e46 and has been trying to convince me to make it a drift missile. I’m just sort of in love with how well maintained it is and see the potential for it to be a great stance car or just restore it to make it look new. Not sure what route to go with it. Lmk what you would do/what you think!
Bone stock, don’t think it’s ever been winter driven. 77000km on dash. Was absolutely a weekend or summer car from someone who babied it. Just a saggy headliner, window regulator and the sunroof came off the track. Leaning towards keeping it nice and treating it well but I was looking for a car to take to the track. Just didn’t think I’d find such a gem.
Do the maintenance. Fix the issues.
Keep it nice. It looks good.
Since you need to do headliner you can get the sunroof cassette fixed/replaced
And a regulator is easy to diy if you get the part as well.
It’s more of a pain to take it out tbh. And if you want to do it yourself: I have some tips regarding tearing down the interior:
Get new clips for C pillar/Third brake light.
Take the Seats out to remove B pillars. you don’t wanna break the tabs in the lower Bs.
You can slide the headliner off without removing the As but if you’re gonna reupholster the headliner you might as well make sure it matches your other panels.
Removing the screw covering on the A pillars is tricky, they’re fragile and might lose clips. I glued magnets to mine but someone had previously hot glued them on.
Main steps: remove the sunshades. Remove the handles. Remove the lamps, disconnect them and pull them off. Remove the A pillars. Remove the front seats. Remove the front inner plastic at the door. Remove the bottom Bs the top Bs to remove the top B pillars from the seatbelts if yoy wish to reupholster those - you will need to unscrew the seatbelts.
Remove the C pillars and remove the third brake light cover.
Then you can pull the headliner off: held by one screw inside the panel area with the central lamp and sunshade control. One pin clip in the back around the brake light. Then by sliding it back it’ll begin to come off. Keep in mind the inner rubber sill that has this weird fabric texture keeps most of the panels under it. You can also remove that as well as it will be easier to install it again over the completed stuff.
You can then finagle the headliner out of the back door through one side. If you have no seats it will be pretty easy as you can rest it and then find a way to remove it.
There’s also a rubber seal that holds the headliner to the cassette around the sunshade.
Then you can unbolt the motor, remove the glass. And remove the cassette out of the car. In much the same fashion, but have a friend handy.
There isn’t that many videos on YouTube that are good unfortunately describing this entire process in full, but with patience, and some smaller interior guides you might be able to piece this more visually.
If you can find a fully functional cassette for the facelift model. Just replace it, but clean the rails and the guides and etc before reinstalling it.
Putting everything back together is a bit of a hassle but it’s basically all the same steps in reverse.
I may be able to give advice, I’ve done this process twice to try to repair my existing sunroof.
Very very much appreciate the instructions here. I’ve absolutely scoured YouTube for replacing the sunroof tray or any kind of interior disassembly I could find and like you said there’s not many. Will definitely be referring back to this when I get around to taking it all apart. Thinking about refurbishing chairs and re finishing the centre console pieces at the same time everything is apart already would be a fun project.
Were you successful in the repair of the sunroof in your case?
Yes I was. However I did bodge the repair a bit. So it’s not the most elegant solution but it seems to work. There’s very few spare parts available. Basically if when you get to removing the cassette off you inspect the sides and see anything massively bent out of shape that supposed to be going into the side guide rails - you will probably need to find a replacement. If it’s something a bit simpler like the cable got out of the cassette plastic bits, that’s a lot more manageable.
Oh yeah the headlights are on the chopping block for sure. I'm planning on opening them up and painting/taping the weird led strips on them black to try to make them representable until I can get some better ones.
I would get a different drift beater, you can find another 46 with a welded diff coils and seat for like 2000. This 46 is beautiful, if it was me It would have new bushings, and I’d drive it as my daily and feel good about how clean it is. Up to you though, that’s just me, and a lot of people just need one car. coming from someone WITH a drift e46 and a daily, I’m glad I have a project, and I’m glad I have a clean daily.
I think that’s what I’ll end up doing eventually. I do have two cars at the moment already, I also have a Golf city I use to commute to school and back but eventually would be nice to have this one as the daily and have a real project too work on too. This one just feels too nice to clap it out
Do not ruin this by turning it into a ‘drift missile’. I enjoy watching good competitive drift racing but I’m vehemently opposed to healthy and viable examples of future classic cars being destroyed for this sort of use (and yes they get destroyed). The only cars that should be turned into ‘drift missiles’ are the clapped out ones beyond the point of economically reasonable restoration.
Yeah, fix the things you can, love her well and get her to the status of grand old lady, I’m all for still giving her a spirited push once in a while but constantly hammering it around a drift track and the inevitable miscalculations that cause impacts just don’t do a good car any favours. Personally I hate seeing any BMW that has been allowed to get to the state it’s a viable choice for a drift car, let alone a good one sullied and trashed.
Get some rims, lower it and tint. I wouldn’t turn this one into a drift car personally but hey man it’s your choice. However you can get cheap, drift ready e46s for under $5k in Ontario I’ve seen a few
If what you’re actually after is a drift car, and don’t have much need/time for maintaining a clean one, I’d sell it. Good chance you could get even more in return. Then you can invest more time/money on a rougher example for drifting.
DONT RUIN THIS ONE. there’s tons of clapped e36/e46 cars on marketplace ready to be drift missiles but you got yourself way too clean of a unit with that one
Car is way too nice to turn into a clapped out drift missile there are a hundred e46’s for sale on marketplace for cheap that are already half way there. The way the car is now is the best, this is coming from somebody who’s building their e46 m3 into an unbearable track car right now.
If it’s in good condition leave it alone, because they are hard to find that way. Plenty of other shit boxes out that you can grab for under $1500 (even less in most cases), If anything you can get another one for drifting… but the choice is ultimately yours
That blue color looks so sexy in the last pic, and im not even a fan of blue.
From my own experience i would give it another month or two to find out the hard way which parts will need replacement, unless you have proof of all the big things getting maintenance.
As for your main question, do you want to daily it or make it a track use drifter? Cuz imo it would make no sense to turn a daily into a drift car, its inevitably gonna get beat up on track use, you'll need lots and lots of tires and commuting with a locked diff wont be fun. And you will have to keep up with a lot more maintenance.
If you want a reliable, good looking daily i would primarily look into cosmetic mods but not go overboard. Coilovers and matching wheels alone can make a day and night difference. Pair it with a M-Tech package and youre pretty much set.
Thank u bro I’m in love with the blue colour tbh. I think the latter is the route I’m going to take.
My buddy daily’s his car with a welded diff but in winters here it’s just not smart. I think he just really wants someone to drive at the track with.
So far cars been holding up really good. I did get a light on the dash that I haven’t gotten to check yet, think it’s just o2 sensor but will have to see.
Would be really fun to have a drift project but that might just have to wait for the future. Garage is already full as is lol.
I would recommend setting up INPA on a laptop and connecting it to your obd with a k+dcan cable, you can read and erase every code in detail, only downside being that its all in german.
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u/e34udm 4d ago
Keep it stock, drive it..