New from Anniston, Al

[1989hoss]

Thank you for the add....New project...2006 ZHP..looking forward to checking out a nice rides

[fredo]

Welcome, man. What are the immediate plans or needs ?

[ELCID86]

Welcome and congrats. I was just talking about Anniston the other day. I visited there years ago while assigned to Ft. Benning, GA.


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"ZHP is a garbage option anyway- just some cosmetic upgrades with a different cam and diff to claw back some of the performance lost fitting those hideous and heavy wheels. Any 330 with a 3.46 diff will smoke a ZHP every time. The whole Mafia thing reeks of childish behavior." - anonymous E46 fanatic

[1989hoss]

Not sure yet Sir....what are some of the immediate things that need to be addressed....also,what are,the most beneficial performance mods

[1989hoss]

Thank you....

[BMWCurves]

Not sure yet Sir....what are some of the immediate things that need to be addressed....also,what are,the most beneficial performance mods

First, welcome!

Second, what immediate maintenance that needs to be addressed all depend on mileage and previous maintenance. The big ticket item is the cooling system if it hasn't been done. It's a known weak point in the M54 engine.

For performance, there isn't a whole lot that can be done in terms of increasing power/torque for our cars since they're naturally aspirated. Options include: underdrive pulleys, different intake (dubious power increase claims), headers, catback exhaust, shorter final drive ratio (3.07 --> 3.46, etc). Those are the common ones. Personally I go for feel over speed, so I replaced my shocks/struts and new suspension bushings, clutch delay valve (CDV) delete, a short shift kit (mine's by UUC), lighter wheels with good rubber, E46 M3 seats, etc. You can check out my setup by clicking on the picture in my signature.

For an extensive list of maintenance, I've copied my post from another thread below:


This all depends on what your records show but a quick rush through the common list:

Suspension: shocks/struts, shock mounts, strut mounts, strut reinforcement plates, tie rods, various bushings like FCABs and RTABs. I have a basic suspension refresh thread but depending on your mileage you might want to ask around what else you might want to include (I really should update my thread to reflect that. In fact, I'll do that now with some crowd sourcing): http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?16182-Help-with-Suspension-Refresh-at-50k-miles-10-years
Brakes: new pads and rotors. Wear sensor if you wore through it, otherwise I think you're safe to reuse it. Stainless steel lines if you're looking to put them in. At this point given age, you're probably getting up there and need to have them replaced either way, so might want to consider SS.
Fluids - these are my replacement rates, but you can adjust to how you feel: Coolant (every 2 years), brake fluid (every year or before any track event), power steering fluid (every 30k miles or ~5 years), transmission fluid (30k miles), differential fluid (30k miles), motor oil (5k or 1 year). Again, these are guidelines. Many people will say you can go 50-80k miles without changing differential or transmission fluid, but to me it's cheap maintenance, like $30 total to keep your car's internals running smoothly.
Belts: every 30k miles
Pulleys: every 50k miles
Fuel filter: Every 50k miles
Intake filter: every 30k miles
Cabin air filter: every 30k miles
Cooling system: The E46 and E39 are notorious for a cooling system with weak points (plastic expansion tank, plastic radiator inlets, etc). I personally prefer to replace everything at once so you don't have to pay labor twice or be in there twice yourself. And that way you know how new everything is. Replacement parts include: upper and lower radiator hoses, thermostat, water pump, expansion tank, expansion tank cap.
Spark plugs: every 60k miles or so

Those are the basic items, and those are my chosen intervals. People can critique them for their own needs. You can get some serious mission creep, but other things to look out for are:

window regulators - listen for crunching when rolling windows
old batteries - if our cars don't have consistent power they start to do funky things.
VANOS - I'm not too familiar with this since my car has low miles and doesn't have any visible VANOS issues currently. Other members can chime in
DISA Valve - again, I'm not too familiar with this. I plan to rebuild mine in the near future with a kit from German Auto Solutions (G.A.S.) along with a low pressure expansion tank cap (1.2 bar) to hopefully reduce some pressure on the cooling system.
Upper and lower intake boots - often crack with age and create a vacuum leak. Have them inspected
Although unlikely, have him check the mounting points for the rear subframe. It's a known issue in earlier production E46s

Here's a part list I used to do pretty much all of this on my sister's 330Xi. You might want to double check the parts are correct for your non-Xi sedan, but I'm 95% sure they're all the same. You can check over at realoem.com:

Suspension
Koni shocks/struts

Front right strut: 8741-1481RSPORT
Front left strut: 8741-1481LSPORT
Rear shocks (2x): 8040-1343SPORT

I'll toss a link in to my suspension refresh thread again, here: http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?16182-Help-with-Suspension-Refresh-at-50k-miles-10-years

Bushings

Front control arm bushings (FCABs) (BMW) - 31129063163 (note: these are different from the ones I chose which were the Z4M because I didn't want to mess with the Xi system. I would recommend the Z4M bushings. See above link for part number)
Rear trailing arm bushings (RTABs) for Z4M (OEM) - 33326770817
Hex bolt w/ washer for FCABs (BMW, 4x) - 33306760652

Other parts

Rear shock mounts (Rogue Engineering)
Front shock mounts (Lemfoerder, 2x) - 31336752735
Strut reinforcement plates (BMW, 2x) - 51717036781
Front strut dust cap (BMW, 2x) - 31331110196
Locking nuts for strut mounts (BMW, 6x) - 31316769731

Optional parts
In order to save cost I tried to offer optional parts.

Front spring pads, upper (BMW, 2x) - 31331091867
Front spring pads, lower (BMW, 2x) - 31331096664
Rear spring pads, upper (BMW, 2x) - 33531094754
Rear spring pads, lower (BMW, 2x) - 33531094518
Bump stops, front, plus dust boots (BMW, 2x) - 31302290316
Bump stops, rear (Meyle, 2x) - 33506757368
Dust boots, rear (Febi, 2x) - 33521136283
RTAB limiters (Vorshlag)

Cooling System

Radiator (Behr) - 17119071518
Expansion tank (OEM) - 17117573781
Expansion tank cap (BMW) - E46 - 17117639022 (2.0 bar) or E30 - 17137639023 (1.4 bar)
Expansion tank mounting clamp (BMW) - 17111707777
Water pump (BMW) - 11517509985
Thermostat (Mahle) - 11537509227
Upper radiator hose (Rein) - 17127510952
Lower radiator hose (BMW) - 11531436408
Coolant temperature sensor/auxiliary fan switch (BMW) - 13621433077
Coolant level sensor (BMW) - 17137553919
Coolant (BMW, 1 gallon) - 82141467704

Optional parts

Water pump pulley (BMW) - 11511436590
Hex bolt for water pump pulley (BMW, 4x) - 07119904524
Expansion tank mounting bracket (BMW) - 17111436250

Belts and Pulleys
Belts

Accessory belt (Continental) - 11281706545 / 11287636379
AC belt (Continental) - 11287512762

Pulleys

AC pulley (INA) - 11287512758
Idler pulley (INA) - 11287841228
Tensioner pulley (INA) - 11281748131

Fluids
Oil change

Motor oil (8 quarts) - Two good options, BMW 5W30 or Mobil 1 0W-40.
Filter kit (MANN) - Includes filter, large o-ring, and crush washer
Smaller o-rings (BMW, 2x) - 11427549573
Optional: purchase a magnetic drain plug from somewhere.

Other fluids

Transmission fluid (1.1-1.3 quarts) - Redline MTL or Redline D4 ATF
Rear differential fluid (1.06 quarts) - Redline 75W90
Front/rear differential crush washers (BMW, 2x) - 07119963355
Power steering fluid (1 quart) - Redline D4 ATF
Brake fluid - Again, several options. BMW (part no. 81220142156, 3 bottles), Pentosin DOT4 LV, or ATE Type 200 are all good options.

Miscellaneous parts

Spark plugs (NGK, 6) - 12120037607 / BKR6EQUP
Fuel Filter (MANN) - 13327512019
Fuel filter soft lines - https://www.bavauto.com/b1300000
Cabin air filter (MANN) - 64319257504
Air intake filter (MANN) - 13721744869
Wiper blades (BMW) - Evo version - 61610037009

Other materials

If you're looking for some spreadsheet ideas or templates, there are a couple of them over on this thread here (I quite like mine since it has service intervals built in and some other useful tabs :)): http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?18305-Maintenance-Spreadsheets-Show-Us-Yours!
If you're considering new wheels, I had a short thread on them over here: http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/showthread.php?16922-Apex-ARC8-17-quot-vs-18-quot-Offset-and-Tire-Size-Questions

[3ZHP]

Welcome, from just over the Tennessee border!


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[1989hoss]

Wow....thanks

[holyc0w]

Welcome!

[Oli77]

Howdy from KY.