Vios to Altezza

ixeo

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Wah boss had E90 ah. And now got new ride. Fuiyooooo
 

Mitevo7

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SAME... :biggrin:


Not really. Using reputable parts sellers like Bavarian-Auto and Innerpower, you can get cheaper parts. The parts were surprisingly cheap and I had a e36 and e90 (for a super short while) so when I found these parts sellers their parts are 40% - 50% cheaper than what you see outside. Parts are original or OEM replacement parts. But this applies to e36, 46 and 90 generation cars. The newer F and G series are expensive. The only reason why BMWs are expensive to maintain is because the service intervals are shorter and you can't skimp. If it says change a gasket you better change the gasket. Don't say "oh it's not leaking no need to change". This will make a regular BMW service into a nightmare scenario.

Also the name "3SGE" and "Altezza" automatically jacks up prices like how "Supra" parts are not that cheap even though Toyota. But having said that the service intervals for Toyotas vs BMWs differ quite a bit and parts that need changing is significantly less in a Toyota hence 'cheaper'.


This is a very good point. Regardless whether it's a 30k Altezza or a 30k BMW E90, at 30k it's most likely the car is going to need at least 10-15k repairs. But you probably could get away with a really really good E36/46 for 30k.
Yeah lar, i test driven about 6 E90s 323, 325i spec. In the end, i picked the Volvo just after 1 test drive ! Ironic ... Just like when you thought your high school crush was the one, then in the end you be with that girl you met once at the library.

E90 parts are surprising affordable, but the major parts like gearbox and engine's are still tough to afford if they go wrong, however, there are plenty of chopped E90s for you to pick your parts though which make them having more presence on the roads nowadays. I am seeing for E90s and F30s on the roads than E46. E36 become a rare right, especially the coupe version.

For 30K budget, i would suggest TS to get a decent E46 325i sedan. E46 coupe is nice to have but those freaking frameless door rubbers are hard to source and expensive even at Auto Bavaria. Altezza 3SGE is good if you can have the manual one, automatic transmission from the early 2000's are not comparable to Euro from the same era. The E46's 5 speed auto shifts quite good and very reliable, engine is one of the best and easily can be modded to 200whp with simple M52 manifold swap and exhaust sytem.
 
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lsm1991

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Yeah lar, i test driven about 6 E90s 323, 325i spec. In the end, i picked the Volvo just after 1 test drive ! Ironic ... Just like when you thought your high school crush was the one, then in the end you be with that girl you met once at the library.

E90 parts are surprising affordable, but the major parts like gearbox and engine's are still tough to afford if they go wrong, however, there are plenty of chopped E90s for you to pick your parts though which make them having more presence on the roads nowadays. I am seeing for E90s and F30s on the roads than E46. E36 become a rare right, especially the coupe version.

For 30K budget, i would suggest TS to get a decent E46 325i sedan. E46 coupe is nice to have but those freaking frameless door rubbers are hard to source and expensive even at Auto Bavaria. Altezza 3SGE is good if you can have the manual one, automatic transmission from the early 2000's are not comparable to Euro from the same era. The E46's 5 speed auto shifts quite good and very reliable, engine is one of the best and easily can be modded to 200whp with simple M52 manifold swap and exhaust sytem.
200whp from just that seems far far far off the mark bro.... like way far
 
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Mitevo7

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200whp from just that seems far far far off the mark bro.... like way far
Can le, stock 325i on the crank is already 195hp, let's assume 20% transmission lost, 156whp.

The stock M54 intake manifold is super restrictive, swapping to another M52B25 intake manifold will add approx 10hp without tune. Doing other basic IHE mods, stronger ignition spark, spark plugs and lastly flashing the ECU, might be about 200whp, but also depends on what dyno you are running on to see the figure lo. Most importantly is on the road feel.
 

ixeo

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Can le, stock 325i on the crank is already 195hp, let's assume 20% transmission lost, 156whp.

The stock M54 intake manifold is super restrictive, swapping to another M52B25 intake manifold will add approx 10hp without tune. Doing other basic IHE mods, stronger ignition spark, spark plugs and lastly flashing the ECU, might be about 200whp, but also depends on what dyno you are running on to see the figure lo. Most importantly is on the road feel.
Buy E46 + mod.. better just buy the E90 right? You get a better chassis and a better transmission.

Remember children about the story of #bmw1jzparking
 
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Mitevo7

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Buy E46 + mod.. better just buy the E90 right? You get a better chassis and a better transmission.

Remember children about the story of #bmw1jzparking
Dudeeee , that's harsh. E90 is of course a better choice but in terms of reliability, E46 tops it stock to stock.

At least my BMW1jzdriving for 1 full year and went through 2 services. Bless my mechanic and the wireman !
 

lsm1991

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Can le, stock 325i on the crank is already 195hp, let's assume 20% transmission lost, 156whp.

The stock M54 intake manifold is super restrictive, swapping to another M52B25 intake manifold will add approx 10hp without tune. Doing other basic IHE mods, stronger ignition spark, spark plugs and lastly flashing the ECU, might be about 200whp, but also depends on what dyno you are running on to see the figure lo. Most importantly is on the road feel.
after all that + maybe a cam u would probably be near 200whp..... i thought you meant justthe intake + exhaust, literally that, u aint gona make anywhere near 200 at the wheels, i know a guy who has been chasing that 200whp.
In the end i guess hes was going to try go the 'theres no replacement for displacement' 3.0 internals route, but covid hit and i guess this project has to take a step back
 
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ixeo

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Dudeeee , that's harsh. E90 is of course a better choice but in terms of reliability, E46 tops it stock to stock.

At least my BMW1jzdriving for 1 full year and went through 2 services. Bless my mechanic and the wireman !
Anything stock is more reliable. Simple reason is that at that age the car is falling apart. Modding just introduces more variables and more failure points.

“if it’s not broken don’t fix it”.

UNLESS, you are mentally and financially ready to sink a lot of money into it. Even if I am financially able to, I won’t do it, because it’s going to be problems after problems.

stock and repairing it is already enough mental stress. Having to bless mechanics and wireman is hard work. Especially when you find a not so good one, one step forward two steps back.
 
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vr2turbo

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Anything stock is more reliable. Simple reason is that at that age the car is falling apart. Modding just introduces more variables and more failure points.

“if it’s not broken don’t fix it”.

UNLESS, you are mentally and financially ready to sink a lot of money into it. Even if I am financially able to, I won’t do it, because it’s going to be problems after problems.

stock and repairing it is already enough mental stress. Having to bless mechanics and wireman is hard work. Especially when you find a not so good one, one step forward two steps back.
My mechanic say the same thing, Got one time my vacuum hose came off and mt VR was boosting 1 plus bar. Nice power to have, but mechanic mentioned your car now 20 plus years old, even though the engine is built to be turbo, keep at stock 0.6 boost. Boosting pass 1 bar add very high stress to the engine......lol
 

Izso

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Buy E46 + mod.. better just buy the E90 right? You get a better chassis and a better transmission.

Remember children about the story of #bmw1jzparking
Dude let it go already. It was parked a lot because of owner stupidity in trusting incompetent tuner and parts seller. If I had the same contacts I have today back then I'd be running circles around your land yacht with 460whp from a mainline dyno. But I'd probably crash because I'm a rubbish driver.

And the E36/46 looks soooooooooooooo much better than a E90 any day. Besides, you're talking about tranny from a BMW and comparing it with a JZ + R154 tranny, one is PNP in the BMW vs one that needed to be modified in. Two different situations la.

“if it’s not broken don’t fix it”.
With BMWs that's probably not a good approach to take. If it's due a for a change even in a completely stock car you better change it. Stupid BMWs are whiney little buggers that want everything changed when it's time.
 

Mitevo7

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after all that + maybe a cam u would probably be near 200whp..... i thought you meant justthe intake + exhaust, literally that, u aint gona make anywhere near 200 at the wheels, i know a guy who has been chasing that 200whp.
In the end i guess hes was going to try go the 'theres no replacement for displacement' 3.0 internals route, but covid hit and i guess this project has to take a step back
With just IHE, no you won't make close to 170whp, you will need comprehensive AFR tuning, especially when you changed out the restrictive intake manifold and exhaust manifold. With these 2 mods, we can see about 10whp without tune, however the power is not optimize at all due to the powerband shifts to high side and won't benefit automatic gearbox. For M54B25 engine, the head can be replaced with B30 engine head and port the intake route for smoother flow. Of course every end of this needs a TUNE, then it will be possible to see 200whp.
 
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Mitevo7

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Dude let it go already. It was parked a lot because of owner stupidity in trusting incompetent tuner and parts seller. If I had the same contacts I have today back then I'd be running circles around your land yacht with 460whp from a mainline dyno. But I'd probably crash because I'm a rubbish driver.

And the E36/46 looks soooooooooooooo much better than a E90 any day. Besides, you're talking about tranny from a BMW and comparing it with a JZ + R154 tranny, one is PNP in the BMW vs one that needed to be modified in. Two different situations la.


With BMWs that's probably not a good approach to take. If it's due a for a change even in a completely stock car you better change it. Stupid BMWs are whiney little buggers that want everything changed when it's time.
Your situation will be alot different if you didn't buy off a modified car, if you start off converting the car on your own, from sourcing engine, people and parts all by yourself, you won't in that mess.

Modern E90 has its charm, especially LCI model with i-Drive, its' more focused than E46 but i prefer the timeless design of 2000's cars, everything is just so right and don't seems to fade with time. Custom make a cluster dash, you will have a top gun style cockpit haha !
 

Izso

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Your situation will be alot different if you didn't buy off a modified car, if you start off converting the car on your own, from sourcing engine, people and parts all by yourself, you won't in that mess.

Modern E90 has its charm, especially LCI model with i-Drive, its' more focused than E46 but i prefer the timeless design of 2000's cars, everything is just so right and don't seems to fade with time. Custom make a cluster dash, you will have a top gun style cockpit haha !
Actually if I had done the conversion myself the car would've costed me 40k instead of the 26k I paid.

And I would still be driving the car if I hadn't trusted the first tuner + parts guy I met. The parts guy is a major distributor in certain items I used a lot and I bought a lot of parts off him for the car (about 20k worth of stuff) and his tuner was supposedly "the guy he used". Unfortunately both were incompetent and I wasted too much time and money with them. After I sold the car off (as is) to a friend, my friend wanted the car inspected by his mech which I got to know over time and is now great buddies. This mech only had to look at my ex-e36 and pointed out all the issues with the car. He's pretty much sorted out all the problems with the car and my friends wife has been boosting around with 460whp horsepower (Mainline dyno.. figures are about 20-30% less than Dynojet) without issues. I had issues with drivability back then. If I had used this mech earlier and spent my 20k with him, I'd still have the car in my front porch.
 

Mitevo7

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Actually if I had done the conversion myself the car would've costed me 40k instead of the 26k I paid.

And I would still be driving the car if I hadn't trusted the first tuner + parts guy I met. The parts guy is a major distributor in certain items I used a lot and I bought a lot of parts off him for the car (about 20k worth of stuff) and his tuner was supposedly "the guy he used". Unfortunately both were incompetent and I wasted too much time and money with them. After I sold the car off (as is) to a friend, my friend wanted the car inspected by his mech which I got to know over time and is now great buddies. This mech only had to look at my ex-e36 and pointed out all the issues with the car. He's pretty much sorted out all the problems with the car and my friends wife has been boosting around with 460whp horsepower (Mainline dyno.. figures are about 20-30% less than Dynojet) without issues. I had issues with drivability back then. If I had used this mech earlier and spent my 20k with him, I'd still have the car in my front porch.
Well what's past is past, sometimes some tuners just don't have that fate coincidence with you, i am pretty sure they did well with others but also disappoint some in the process. Am happy to hear the E36 found new life in the hands of new owner. Perhaps you also don't have that fate coincidence with the car, that's why its' giving you so much nightmares. For now, its time to recollect finances, and use 1 or 2 years to find, perhaps an E90 ?
 

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