The daily driver at the time was a highly modified 2007 Subaru Legacy GT. Upgrades included a Blouch GT30R turbo, DeatschWerks 750cc injectors, Walbro 255 LPH fuel pump, Perrin front mount intercooler, Tial 50mm blow off valve, downpipe, exhaust, coilovers, Cobb Accessport and a custom tune by Jon at HB Speed (what is now Cobb Tuning Socal) in Fountain valley.
The car made 380 whp at 21 psi boost and the car just pulled all the way to redline with a really smooth power band.
This is the current car. It’s a 2003 BMW E46 M3, an engineering masterpiece. It has one of the highest horsepower per liter output for an automobile engine. I found this car in Chandler, AZ which is 360 miles away from my home in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. The service history on this car was flawless so I committed to buy and bought a one way plane ticket to Phoenix where the owner came and picked me up. We signed papers at the bank and it was mine!
My remedy for a temporary plate. Just go to any dealer and ask for their dealership paper plate. It’s free advertising for them, they’d be happy to give you one.
My long drive back. It was basically like this for 5 hours, but it was the shortest 5 hours ever. Mmm, cinnamon. I’m talking about the interior of course!
Driving into the night. I think I finished listening to 6 whole albums.
They very next morning, my friend Kevin comes over to perform an Inspection 2 on the car. By the way if you’re in SoCal and have an E46 M3 I would highly recommend him if you need any mechanical work done. You may want to take a look at his massive support thread on M3Forums. He’s very well respected on many BMW forums.
Two main things you want to check with these S54 motors! One, check and perform valve adjustment. Two, inspect VANOS hub and check for any broken tabs. You should inspect these two things every 15,000 miles or whenever you do an Inspection 1 or Inspection 2 (rotates every 15,000 miles).
This is with the valve cover open. You can tell the previous owner maintained his car by replacing the oil well before the recommended service interval because of the shiny bronze-like color of the valves. The darker it is, the dirtier the oil.
Operation room. Those blue shop towels are best. So are the magnet catch bowls!
After the Inspection 2 was completed, I installed Khoalty CSL splitters. Yeah?
I just wanted to throw this picture in so you know how it sits now. More updates to come!