Alignment Specs Adjustment Guide for Your E46 M3

Here’s a one stop alignment specs adjustment guide you’ve been searching for. If you ever asked “What kind of alignment should I get for my E46 M3?”, you came to the right place. Here are some recommended tire sizes and alignments for your E46 M3 in a variety of scenarios.

These are meant to be used as a cheat sheet guide and may differ from different suspension setups or preferences. But generally these will get you in the ballpark so you can just fine tune by yourself.

Alignment Specs Basics:

• Rear Toe In gives you high speed stability at a cost of tire wear
• Camber does not affect tire wear, toe does
• Front toe out +.05 may help with the inherent lazy center feel and quicker turn in for E46 M3 at a cost of additional tire wear.

Tire and Height:

• Square setup (same size) allows you to rotate your wheels
• Square setup will experience tram lining (car follows the imperfections of road)
• Stagger setup will tend to understeer 

Rebound & Compression:

• Rebound – Available on Single Adjustable Coilovers
• Compression – Available on Double Adjustable Coilovers

Spring Rates:

Type of Driving	Front Spring Rates (in/lbs)	Rear Spring Rate (In/Pounds)
Economical	Stock	Stock
Sporty	450	500
Autocross	500	550
Track Day	700	800

Additional Suspension Tuning:

If you are interested in further tuning your shocks, please take a look at our Fine Tune Suspension and Shocks Guide. Remember, keep your bushings in tip top shape!The E46 M3 has many bushings including Rear Trail Arm Bushings (RTAB) which I recommend to replace every 50,000 miles and the Front Control Arm Bushings (FCAB) and Rear Control Arm Bushings (RCAB) to replace every 100,000 miles. Shoutout to Obioban for the awesome maintenance schedule on M3Forums.


Have an alignment to suggest or have questions about fitment? Comment Below!