E46 Compact Turbo Track Car Build

[MrMuddle]

Hi All, thought I'd start documenting my Euro 2001 E46 325ti Compact Turbo build. I know compacts are very marmite cars, but I've always had a soft spot for them and I picked this one up cheap for £550! I've actually owned the car for a while now and used it for a few track days and commuting to work.

Here's some pics of what it looked like just with some cheap Jom coilovers and with the track wheels pinched off my E39!




I decided I wanted a more suitable track car to have some fun in, as much as I love track days in my boosted E39, she's a big old girl!

So the plan is to strip the interior as much as possible, retaining a few things like heaters, AC if possible, some or all of stock dash and possibly the stereo too!

I also want to turbo it as it's too slow stock, so I've picked up a pair of 335i turbo's and I'm going to attempt a bottom mount twin turbo setup on the stock engine. Long term I'd like to swap in a M54B30 engine and if the twins don't work I'll go single turbo, but I fancy trying something different first and always wanted a twin turbo car!

I've made a start on stripping it and I'm weighing everything I remove from the car, so below is a list in case it proves useful to someone else, plus I can keep track on how much I've removed.

Carpet - 16.5kg
Front Floor Mats - 2.3kg
Centre Console lower section - 0.9kg
Centre Console Armrest - 1.7kg
Front Door Sill Plastics - 0.5kg
Front Seats - 25.6kg each
Front Sun Visors - 0.35kg each
Rear Seat Backs - 20.8kg
Rear Seat Bench - 5.3kg
Rear Seat Carpet 1.6kg
Rear Door Cards and Corner Trim - 5.5kg
Spare Wheel - 11.8kg
Boot Interior - 12.2kg
Boot Soundproofing - 6.3kg
Boot Tools incl Jack - 2.7kg
Rear Washer Bottle - 0.2kg
Rear Seatbelt Tensioners - 2kg
Rear Speakers - 2.3kg
Bolts and Clips - 1.2kg
Roof Lining - 1.9kg
Roof Insulation - 1kg
Oh Shit Handles - 0.1kg for all 3
Front Seat Belt Panels - 0.4kg x2
Roof Screw/Fittings - 0.1kg
Rear Wiper & Motor - 1.5kg

Total so far 151.1kg removed. I'll be fitting two bucket seats on rails so that'll probably be about 20kg back in at some point!

I'm also planning on removing the harder soundproofing, see what I can remove of the front dash, the spare wheel tray and also hoping to save some weight when I make a 3" SS exhaust. If anyone has any suggestions on what would be safe to cut out also to save even more weight would be great. I need to keep the car road legal as I'll be driving it to track and back. I'm also considering front and rear overfenders so I can run wider tyres so hopefully that would be the stock front wings removed and part of the rears cut out. Will also look into an FRP bonnet.

Here's some pics of what it looks like so far.





The twin turbo plan would be to make a new manifold for each turbo, it looks like they're cast and stainless so hopefully I can weld them to a new mani each.
Downpipes modify 335i ones or just make a pair of 3" downpipes.
Modify or get AN adapters for the oil feed/return.
Something similar for water lines.
3" IC and figure out the piping
Probably some 640cc Siemens Injectors
Stock Ecu Tune
Inlet Manifold - need to decide what to do here as guess I need to ditch the stock PCV setup and DISA
Suitable MAF
Lightweight Flywheel and Clutch
Hoping the 325 gearbox, shafts and diff will be ok.
AEM v3 Water Meth Kit
Boost Control I haven't decided on yet, if I can I'd like to run twin external wastegates with two screamers out the drivers wing!

I'm guessing with little twins and say 12-16psi of boost, it'll probably be 300+fwhp maybe! As much as I'd like shed loads of power, the aim really is just to have fun and make it faster than it is now.

This car is very much going to be a toy I can go a bit crazy with and do all the things the little kid in me wants to do!

Any suggestions or comments fire away.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers
Rob

[et89]

Cool! the right time to buy a 325ti!
Looking forward to see what you can do with the twins!

[MrMuddle]

Thanks very much, me too!

[bubela]

I look forward to where this is going!