The Blue Phoenix - E46 325i

[Senor_Taylor]

Its still a closed box but looks aftermarket? Pics?

I'd be extremely cautious with throwing mods at it, old BMWs have a sense of humor at their owner's expense, so the second you bolt some sweet new wheels or shocks on it your power steering pump will decide to explode. (My E46 actually ate two PS pumps before 80k miles.)

That being said there are some cheap mods you can do under the guise of preventative maintenance. For example if the shifter bushings are all blown out and you have to replace them anyway, a common trick on the E36 is to grab a 4-cylinder Z3 shifter arm for another $50 and you get a significantly shorter throw on the cheap. There's probably something similar you can do with the E46.

If you have a buddy who can weld you can hack off the muffler with a sawzall (leave the resonator or your ears will bleed) and replace it with a couple sections of straight 2" pipe and make it loud for next to nothing, although it'll still be slow.

Here is the airbox. His service history says something about AFE filter a while back. Also, I'm not sure why the steering pump is wet.



I'll definitely look into the shifter. The bushings aren't really THAT bad at the moment, so that would be needless money spent.

Have you seen that in person? I could understand straight pipe on a truck, because YOLO, but that seems ridiculously rice-tastic to do on a car, especially a 325. Maybe I'm over thinking it, because I have access to a couple welders.

Resale value? What is that and why do you care about it?

I do, a little. If I'm living like a hobo with two cars, I want to make sure that when I sell one, I can continue to live like a hobo with two cars.