4 Cheap And (relatively) easy mods for an E46 BMW

17 Dec 2016

You don’t need a ton of cash to make some incisive modifications, so here’s my top tips for the weekend:

Give the exhaust a nice rumble at idle by removing vacuum line that controls the metal butterfly valve in the exhaust when it’s not needed. Simply plug the removed vacuum line with a screw or even a golf tee. It’s there so the exhaust makes less noise at lower RPM but… we don’t want that.

Get on your knees and have a look, it’s that easy.

Remove the Clutch Delay Valve (CDV) for a smoother gear change. The CDV “limits” clutch slip for newbie’s but it makes clutch control a little awkward for everyone else.

This is not a difficult job if you have some axle stands, know how to hold a wrench and and can Google for tutorials online.

If you’re not confident with getting your hands dirty a mechanic should be able to do it for an hour of labor or less.

The Red Needle Mod - take your instrument cluster out, then take it apart and colour the gauge needles evenly (and carefully) with several coats, and put it back together. Now it’s easier to see.

Obviously not much use if you have the orange lit cluster…

LED Interior and number plate lights - they really do make the interior feel a lot younger and the back a lot crisper at night. You can pick up kits on Ebay, but do check the reviews and make sure they are reversable polarity so you don’t end up wondering why only some work!

If you don’t want to risk the Ebay game then the specialist BMW stores online such as ECS do kits from reputable manufacturers.

This content was originally posted by a Car Throttle user on our Community platform and was not commissioned or created by the CT editorial team.

Comments

Ten Tenths Podcast - can you rice a BMW?

Alex Kersten - get an E46 man!

Matt Robinson Mark Mason

After seeing yours and a few around town I think I need an E46 for a project car

Great tips! I’d try one or two if I’d have bought a 330i like I should have done instead of my boring Golf…

Ian Wright yes you absolutely can! Some of these are close!

wesley dean we should both get E46’s ;-)

Yea haha they’re good to drive

The LED interior looks really nice

The Led-Interior Picture is clearly an e92 and not an e46

How would anyone ever know;)

You want a gold star or something?

E92 is a 2-door.
This may be an e90 then

A friend of mine has an LED light replacement for interior lights. To be honest, it comes handy when you put an LED in a boot or somewhere like that where it is cool to see everything, but there is a reason why the interior lights are (usually) yellow-ish - the bright white ones are just plain annoying and far too bright.
Just my opinion, though. :)

I did an interior swap, and honestly I feel it draws a lot of attention at night but I do love it, makes it feel just ‘more’ for lack of any words (also did one in the passenger side sun visor mirror light always blinds them and it’s very funny)