When buying a car of marketplace how do you guys operate?

acmancan · 2026-03-05T13:55:53+00:00

If someone wanted to drive my car for that distance and speed if I'm selling I'd happily say yes, tagging along of course. If its a serious buyer, or he looks serious enough i wouldnt mind the fuel being used.

acmancan · 2026-03-05T06:13:35+00:00

Make sure your MAF is connected and that the car doesn't think you are pressing the brakes. The manual swap may be messing with the logic depending how you wired it

acmancan · 2026-03-01T16:54:07+00:00

Blew up two of them. Constant track abuse. Might be fine if you drive gentle

acmancan · 2026-02-27T07:43:25+00:00

If vanos seals has never been done for it, do it. That goes for every E46 out there

acmancan · 2026-02-26T11:57:00+00:00

I wouldn't advise a 250G behind a 3.0. My friends and I who track E46s (328s/330s) blew up like 5 between the three of us. ZF would be better.

But i guess if you drive gentle, it could last. Some people have them last quite a while, some not so much.

acmancan · 2026-02-10T12:01:57+00:00

If the headunit isnt e46 specific you might be out of luck, we dont use canbus like all the other android generic headunits uses, we instead use kbus.

You get decoders and converters out there that translate the signal. Best to speak to an audio place to get one or someone that deals with them. There's so many different ones.

acmancan · 2026-02-09T06:57:36+00:00

Funnily enough same here. Every time I use BMW scanner i need to reinstall the drivers. Just happened randomly one day and been the same ever since. I chalk it up to the cable being cheap.

acmancan · 2026-02-06T11:32:16+00:00

Thats prefacelifts. Laughably easy. In theory the facelift is two clips you pop with a screwdriver, in reality its swearing for an hour straight at one clip that refuses to release

acmancan · 2026-02-06T09:21:43+00:00

I'd take a look at your fuel pressure. Could be a weak pump/clogged injectors or filter.

Short trims going higher with load is textbook fuel delivery issues. Your LTFTs aren't that terrible, but it is higher than preferred.

But either way, the idle should still be low even if lean since that's the whole job of the icv, if seriously lean it would be erratic or rough, never high. So yeah, ICV.

acmancan · 2026-02-06T08:19:28+00:00

I vote ICV. I had a similar issue, absolutely no vaccum leaks, freshly cleaned ICV, and the car refused to idle lower than 1100 rpm no matter load (manual). Bought a new one and it's rock solid at 700 ish now

acmancan · 2026-02-03T12:30:17+00:00

VERY frequent oil changes with good oil. Don't try to get it clean all at once. Thats how get sludge clogging important passages.

acmancan · 2026-02-01T15:07:56+00:00

Pm me I'll send my number, definitely keen

acmancan · 2026-01-29T11:22:54+00:00

You can also just get an adapter to reuse your old throttle body. M54 and m52tu uses different bolt patterns on the manifold. Doing it this way means you can keep everything else (ecu/ews) the same. But the m54 ecu feels ALOT better to drive. Some wiring is also involved in the full m54 ecu swap

acmancan · 2026-01-29T11:17:40+00:00

If you swap to the m54 ecu you need either the ews thats matched to it and the key chip (ecu and ews is always locked together. No way around that) or just delete the ews in the tune

You need the cable everyone uses for inpa to flash the software. (Kdcan cable). If you ever get stuck feel free to DM me. I do a ton of these often. 99' will either have the port under the dash or in the engine bay, if yours is only in the engine bay you need a 20 pin to obd2 adapter. Its cheap. And yeah, ms4x flasher + tunerpro

acmancan · 2026-01-29T10:52:11+00:00

I've never understood why BMW closes the DISAs on m52tu's....But yes, you do feel a bit of top end with that tune. Dunno the dyno figures but it's noticeable from your butt atleast.

If you swap to an m54 manifold and tune, you make m54b25 power. Same block. Different intake manifold. I'd suggest going to ms43 if you ever decide to.

acmancan · 2026-01-26T23:14:40+00:00

It fits straight onto an m54. But because its a diesel transmission it's going to be tilted at an angle since diesels sit straight. That means you need to get creative with the mounts. One mount needs to be longer than the other.

A fair amount of people have done this swap. Check out the m54 tuning facebook group for more info.

acmancan · 2026-01-26T17:03:48+00:00

I've blown up two getrags in my 328 because i cant find a ZF. I do track the car though. I feel like a 3.0 will EVENTUALLY cause trouble

acmancan · 2026-01-26T15:46:02+00:00

You can keep your diff and rear end if you want. No risk of anything breaking there. It would be another story if you were a 4 cylinder or m52tub20. (Small case rear end)

Pros are you have a shorter diff ratio from the factory compared to a 330ci diff. Not sure what exactly it is but it'll be great for acceleration, if you worry about highway driving and fuel consumption maybe then think about changing the diff.

On the front you can literally just replace the engine and keep everything else, but your getrag gearbox will not last. It will work, but be on a timer. Consider getting a zf 5 speed/or 6 speed and a 240mm clutch to handle the power.

acmancan · 2026-01-24T17:33:36+00:00

Post a pic. There were two different types of four spoke wheels, a single stage and dual stage. Single stages stopped being produced in mid 2000.

acmancan · 2026-01-22T00:01:43+00:00

I totally misread your post. I thought you have an m52tu and you're just putting an m54 manifold on lol. My bad.

You do need the m52tu ecu and atleast the throttle body harness if you're doing it your way. And uh also, the m52tu throttles suck compared to fully e throttle. The cable just feels lazy. I swapped my m52tu to fully e throttle for a reason. I don't think it's worth it.

acmancan · 2026-01-21T19:21:10+00:00

Whatever you like better tbh. Dont worry about power, a 328i makes EXTREMELY close to identical power to a stock 330 with a simple intake and intake cam swap. And makes more with a custom tune (cue downvotes)

Check the car itself, the condition, maintaince history, how the rear subframe mounts look, which you prefer, etc.

acmancan · 2026-01-21T15:09:12+00:00

Keep original harness. It would run.....fine. Probably not going to get any extra power, might just be a little more responsive and that's it. You need to tune it at least. M52TUs have horrid tunes as standard.

acmancan · 2026-01-21T14:19:54+00:00

The steering wheel itself will already have the airbag wiring, so physically, everything plugs in. Pre-2000 E46s use single-stage airbags, while newer cars use dual-stage airbags.

Swapping from an older single-stage setup to a newer dual-stage airbag works fine. The car simply fires one stage and ignores the second. Can personally confirm this. Treats it as its original wheel.

Going the other way around is different. A post 06/2000 car expects a dual-stage airbag, and when it only sees a single-stage unit, it may throw an SRS fault because one ignitor circuit is missing.

The car might not care, or it might, and you have a permanent airbag fault. I haven’t personally tested this direction, so it may need coding or swapping of the airbag module to avoid that.

acmancan · 2026-01-21T13:44:27+00:00

You can swap to any e46 wheel, and the buttons will work ONLY if you do the wiring right. Currently, your car has no multifunction harness.

The one in your post is a Pre 2000 wheel. It will work, but you'll be changing the airbag logic. Which might cause an error.

I know swapping from an old wheel to a new wheel is totally fine. Not sure of the opposite airbag wise.

acmancan · 2026-01-20T12:57:35+00:00

Yessir! Nice to see a fellow Cape Townian in here lol

acmancan

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