What Turner Motorsport can do for Your E46 M3
The E46 M3 offers arguably one of the greatest packages of all time. With a 333hp, high-strung, straight-six that breathes through individual throttle bodies, an engaging manual transmission or lightning-quick SMG option, and an aggressive visual presence, it is no wonder the E46 is the favorite choice for a huge number of enthusiasts to pick as their daily driver, weekend warrior, or track weapon. At Turner Motorsport, we are certainly huge fans of the E46 M3 as it came from the factory, but we’ve made plenty of improvements we find to be paramount to enjoying the best driving experience possible in the car.
We have a long history with the E46 M3 platform. It has brought us success on the track and in our personal lives, as several of us are proud E46 M3 owners. Thanks to that interest and the need to find the perfect formula for achieving our goals with the car, we have been dedicated to learning all we can with the E46 M3 in the pursuit of driving perfection. This week, we’re going to show you what our years of development at Turner Motorsport can do for your E46 M3.
Whether you just picked up an E46 M3, are thinking about one, or have had one for years, you undoubtedly know how incredible the S54-powered coupe is. As we have covered in some of our older articles, pulling better performance capabilities from any car is as easy as improving the suspension and drivetrain. With some minor changes, your M3 will handle and perform like never before. |
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| Suspension
The E46 M3 was given competent suspension components when it was designed, but they were also intended to be comfortable enough to satisfy a wide range of owners, many of who were not as interested in the performance side of the package. Keeping it stock is fine, but upgrading the front control arm bushings, rear trailing arm bushings, shock tower mounts, strut tower mounts, sway bars, and end links will greatly improve your turn-in response, braking response, and handling overall while reducing the amount of body roll in the corners and deflection present in the OEM counterparts. | |
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Monoball Upgrades
Our Monoball FCABs and shock mounts offer your M3 the ultimate versions of those traditionally rubber bushings with sealed spherical bearings that eliminate deflection. This means your suspension won’t ‘absorb’ some of the energy you want to transfer to the ground and will maintain proper geometry through the corners. Additionally, the nature of serviceable sealed bearings makes them incredibly long-lived, which will keep you from worrying about replacing them as often as a polyurethane or rubber version. For more information, be sure to read about the functionality and properties of our Monoball upgrades in our Keys to Performance article | |
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Rear Trailing Arms
Another point of deflection is in your rear trailing arms. Our Adjustable Rear Trailing Arms come in street or track versions, depending on your needs, and give you both the benefits of stiffer components and the adjustability you need to keep your alignment within factory specs even with a lowered ride height. | |
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| Sway Bars
The factory sway bars help reduce body roll by acting as a pendulum of sorts between the left and right suspension assemblies both in the front and rear. Not only do they help mitigate body roll in the corners, but they also affect how your M3 behaves with regard to under and oversteer. Our adjustable sway bars are larger, stiffer, and lighter to further reduce body roll to help with weight transfer under hard cornering and also let you change the driving dynamics to bias your car’s preference to more or less under or oversteer depending on your needs.
Of course, with those sway bars, you’ll want to upgrade your sway bar end links too. While not as critical with stock ride height cars, adjustable end links prevent your sway bar from binding. If you are going to replace your sway bars and bushings with upgraded units, you should go ahead and take care of those end links since lowering the car will likely be inevitable. The Turner Motorsport units are capable of supporting lowered vehicles while retaining the functionality of either the stock sways or our upgraded units. | |
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Mounts
On the same topic of reducing deflection and improving the efficiency of your E46 M3, engine mounts, transmission mounts, differential mounts, and strut mounts are all areas where power is lost to the soft rubber mounts that absorb some of that energy you want going to the ground.
Turner Motorsport polyurethane engine mounts will keep the engine relatively still, which greatly reduces deflection and improves your car’s responsiveness. It is important that if you use solid or stiff polyurethane mounts in one part of the driveline, you should be consistent throughout. That means solid engine mounts and either solid or a polyurethane differential mount should happen at the same time. This series of upgrades will give your M3 a much more connected feeling any enthusiast would envy. It should be noted, however, polyurethane, Delrin, and solid mounts reduce deflection but increase noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) so that should be something you consider if the E46 M3 is your daily driver. While they don’t make the car uncomfortable, and most enthusiasts are willing to make that small sacrifice, some people prefer the quiet and softer feeling of factory mounts and bushings to stiffer, harsher mounts. | |
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| Shifter
The components most responsible for how your M3 ‘feels’ when driving are the shifter bits. There isn’t anything wrong with factory shift levers and knobs, but a shorter throw, shorter height, and more comfortable shift knob can make a world of difference in your driving experience. You can use shorter levers from other BMW models to achieve a better feeling, but a custom-tailored throw and height will be more rewarding. Our Adjustable Short Shift Kit lets you dial in a feeling that suits you best for the most engaging feel as you row your own gears. SMG guys, sorry, but you’re stuck with the paddles! | |
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Brake Lines
Another contributor to what your car feels like to drive are the brake hoses. The factory hoses expand under pressure and can feel softer than is desirable. Our Stainless Steel Brake Lines resist that expansion that adds mushiness to the pedal feel and instead offer a much stiffer, more responsive feedback from your brakes. They don’t make you stop any sooner, but they do make the pedal require less input from your foot to do their job. That alone is enough to noticeably change what your driving experience feels like. | |
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Rod Bearings
A weak point in the S54 are the rod bearings, which were recalled by BMW for premature failure. Clearly, rod bearing failure is less than ideal for anyone who expects their engine to function at all. While the failure can be catastrophic, it isn’t likely in any car that received the replacement bearings of proper spec during that recall. However, for peace of mind, our specially WPC Treated Rod Bearings offer even reduced risk of wear and a longer life, which means you won’t need to worry about doing the less than simple task of replacing them again for a long time. This means less time worrying, less time wrenching, and more time driving, which is what we strive to achieve at Turner Motorsport. | | | 
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Body
Once again, this is more important for lowered cars, but certainly applies to even a stock ride height E46 M3. The factory splash guard under the body does its job of both reducing drag and keeping the engine bay relatively safe from grime, water, and debris, but it offers no protection from hard hits. This leaves the expensive underbody components virtually exposed to danger, particularly the oil cooler, radiator, lines, and oil pan are at risk if you hit something unavoidable on the road. It is important to maintain the protection and aerodynamic benefits of that factory cover, but equally important to make a protective version that can handle the worst you could expect. That’s why our Turner Motorsport Skid Plate is designed to bolt into the frame with solid mounts to protect your car while also maintaining the factory airflow that allows your car to breath. This is a critical addition if you are lowered and definitely recommended even at the factory ride height. If you’re curious to learn more about our skid plates, check out our Turner Motorsport Skid Plates Explained video. |
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| Chassis Reinforcement
Another inherent flaw to the E46 chassis, in general, are their tendency to crack, bend, or fail in places you definitely don’t want. Places like the front subframe, sway mounts, shock tower mounts, and subframe mounting locations. It is quite common to see cracking and mushrooming, especially in the subframe mounting locations on the body, in cars that haven’t ever even seen track time. While they can be generally fixed at no small cost, it is best to take preventative action. Our full front and rear reinforcement kit features specially cut, durable, weld-in plates that will help distribute stress and prevent the risk of failure in all those weak spots. This set of plates is imperative for anyone with an E46 M3, especially if they intend to spend any time on a track or driving aggressively. | |
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| Software Tuning
You thought we weren’t going to mention anything that actually adds power, didn’t you? Well, we couldn’t make an incredibly responsive, well-handling, and engaging list of upgrades without giving you a little more fun from the S54. Our Shark Injector Software is the easiest modification listed here that only requires you to plug it in and turn it on to benefit from additional horsepower and torque by remapping some of the software for more bias towards performance. It raises the rev limiter, removes the speed governor, and gives you more power that will give your car the noticeable boost in performance to match all the drivetrain and suspension upgrades already mentioned. | | |
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Takeaways
The beauty of our list of Turner Motorsport upgrades we walked through today is that the common theme is not making a different car but instead accentuating the already phenomenal characteristics of your E46 M3 and tailoring them to suit the needs of a driver looking to have the best driving experience possible without dramatically changing the car into something else. With our protective skid plate, treated rod bearings, and full reinforcement kit, you can feel confident in the longevity of your car, especially with our other improvements that add responsiveness, feedback, and better driving experience. Lastly, make sure to check out our full Turner Motorsport Keys to Performance library for more in-depth explanations of the systems we’ve covered in this brief article and then some! |
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