This is the story of my Alpine White on Cinnamon 2002 E46 m3. It began in November 2022, having just sold my E92 M3 ZCP. At the time I was on the hunt for either an F80 M3 or an E46 M3, and an E46 seemed like a more realistic choice as F80 prices were still very high thanks to the crazy market that covid had created. One night, my friend Ashlin sent (spammed) me a Facebook marketplace ad for what looked like the PERFECT spec E46 M3. It was a 2002 Alpine White on Cinnamon coupe, with 88k miles and longterm second ownership. I know I’m in the minority, but I was happy to see it was an SMG since I think it is a very fun transmission when set up properly. It was listed for $18,000, so I quickly messaged the seller to make plans to see it. The CarFax report came back clean and showed regular maintenance at the same BMW dealership in Cincinnati for nearly 20 straight years.
The seller agreed to meet the next day. My dad and I made the trip up to Cincinnati in his M2 Competition hoping for the best but expecting the worse. Once we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to find a very well cared for and preserved M3 that was loved for many years by the 2nd owner, but who didn’t drive it as much as he used to and was ready to pass it on to the next person. I did a quick visual inspection on the car and felt like it didn’t have any immediate needs outside of new brakes and tires. Score!
Following a quick test drive I told the seller I would take it for the full asking price. I didn’t feel the need to negotiate since I already felt like it was underpriced, and I didn’t want to risk missing out to one of the MANY people who messaged the seller after me. The only problem was the title was another hour north in Dayton, so I couldn’t take the car home that day.
11/22/22. Taking Delivery
This was a great day. I had been stressing about the possibility of still missing out on the car for several days while waiting for the seller to get the title. My friend Connor agreed to make the trip to pick the car up with me. We met at a bank and soon after I found myself once again the owner of an alpine white on cinnamon SMG E46 M3. Oh, I forgot to mention this car was the exact same spec as my previously owned cabriolet E46 M3. It may as well have been the same car!
The rest of the day was wonderful. Connor and I stopped at The BMW Store in Cincinnati to admire their collection. I’m sure the E46 felt right at home since this was the dealership it was serviced at for nearly its entire life. We then hit the road and I started to remember why the E46 M3 is one of my favorite cars ever. They just feel right to me.
We stopped at Mercedes Benz of Ft. Mitchell to check out a G63 4×4 Squared and then had lunch at a rather questionable Frisch’s. I actually cut my hand on some flaking chrome off the SMG shift knob here but fortunately having a new car distracted me from caring about that much.
11/23/22. Changing Looks
By day 2 I was already changing up the car. I bought some stock 19″ style 67 wheels from a friend and threw them on. Much better than the 18″ D-force wheels in my opinion!
I also did a little interior detailing and removed some interior accessories the previous owner had installed. This was how the car looked for a while. I didn’t do much to it besides drive it for a few weeks while the new car excitement was still strong.
12/21/22. The Big Three
The big three is a hot topic in the E46 M3 community. I don’t usually stress about it too much on cars that haven’t had this addressed, but since I got this car so cheap I figured I may as well bulletproof it with the money left over in my budget. I decided to have the rod bearings replaced with King Race bearings, Vanos bulletproofed with Beisan parts, and the subframe reinforced. This also turned into replacing every suspension bushing with polyurethane ones, new control arms, engine mounts, a valve adjustment, and resealing the rear differential.
The rod bearings ended up looking perfectly fine. They were replaced under recall at 12k miles, so they had 76k miles on them for those wondering.
4/12/23. SMG Failure Strikes
I had daily driven the car for several months at this point. On the way to a BMW CCA event with some friends I had the SMG light pop up. No big deal I thought, I had seen that light before and it never turned into anything serious. Wrong! Soon it started popping into neutral for 5-10 seconds at a time. In rush hour traffic. On a busier road in Louisville. Greaaaat.
Fortunately, it started working fine again and made it to the event and all the way home. After determining the pump was dying I didn’t drive the car much for about a month while deciding if I would rather spend $4k+ (that I didn’t have) to have a new pump installed or a similar amount to have it manual swapped. I did some research and decided that rebuilding my old pump myself didn’t look too complicated. I decided to give it a try.
6/3/23. Reviving SMG
I ordered a new SMG pump motor and seal kit from MLReng, and an accumulator from SMG society. After waiting for *quite a while* for the accumulator to show up from Germany, I finally had a go at taking my pump out. This actually was really easy. Pop off the airbox and its right there, held in by a bolt that is accessible through the wheelwell and one electrical plug.
Rebuilding the pump was also really easy. Everyone makes these things sound really complicated and failure prone but there are only a couple parts that fail in them, usually only the pump motor and occasionally the accumulator.
Rebuilding them consists of replacing a bunch of O-rings and seals, replacing the motor, and fitting a new accumulator. These parts cost around $900, far cheaper than a manual conversion. I think most people could get away with doing a new motor and accumulator and not even taking the pump itself apart (that would save another $250). It should be good to go for at least another 100k miles!
I put the freshly rebuilt pump in the car, replaced the airbox, and filled up the reservoir with fresh CHF-11S. The bleed procedures and complete adaptation were completed with no hiccups. I was shocked at how easy it was, and a quick test drive up the road proved that it was working as intended.
The video above shows how the car shifts after flashing CSL rev matching and the inertia mod. This is my favorite setup for SMG2 and it is both smooth and fast.
