Quote:
Originally Posted by termigni
sorry I disagree. I used to hate how slow it was to get it going. No TQ just like my S2000 but with 4 seats instead of 2. I DD'd it for 3 years 12,000 miles per year and I had to get on it to keep up with Honda Accord V6s. of course, at high RPM is another story but if the car is mainly for DD, it's pretty much useless. And there is that constant worrying about VANOS, rod bearing, subframe crack, never ending interior rattles, and horrible MPG.
even though E46M was my dream car and I regret the day when I sold it, M2 is just a better car. Only things that E46M has is high RPM(no low end torque just kills this car), better interior(only the design, thx to technology M2 interior is more useful) and steering feel(welcome to the future).
I used to miss my E46M dearly until I drove my friend's E46m with full 100% dinan upgrades. His car is definitely much faster than my stock M2, his aftermarket shifter feel is close to the S2000, upgraded suspension and BBK are great upgrades to the stock E46M. but after a couple of drives, it reminded me of the things I used to not like about the car and it actually got rid of my thoughts of may be picking up a used E46m in the near future.
|
Funny-- I find my M5 boring primarily because of the low end torque. I've been thinking about building myself an s54 powered e39 just to have an e39 that I enjoy driving (and, in fact, recently bought a 530i for that purpose). I find torque to make the car far less involving-- when the car is fast without effort, going fast in it is a much less rewarding experience. I far prefer having to work the car over to get the most out of it.
I like torque in cars that I don't intend to drive in an involving manner-- e.g. I find it useful in my suburban, especially when towing the race car. But for a drivers car? High revving, high RPM horsepower every time for me. I don't feel like I'm alone in that, either-- if you think about all of history's best drivers cars, they're all of that philosophy-- S2000, GT3, McLaren F1, Ferraris, Lambos, lotuses, NSX, e30 M3s, small british sports cars-- pretty much every driver focused car until government mandated MPG and emissions standards forced the manufacturers off NA and onto turbos (and even then Porsche is holding out with their GT line). If it's an iconic "best drivers car" from any era until now (when they were forced off it), it was very likely a low torque, high revving, high specific output, NA engine.
VANOS and subframe are only a constant worry if you're lazy or uninformed. So long as you don't wait for failure, you can lock down both in a day with <$500 parts and never have to worry about them again (Beisan vanos pump disk, loctite on the cam bolts, BMW structural foam injected in the subframe mount points).
... there's much better parts out there than Dinan for the car. As I said before, several of the Dinan parts for the e46 are actually downgrades, and several are just a wash. Even the good ones (e.g. Brakes) are just a Dinan badged and price jacked version of the same thing (e.g. the Dinan brakes are just the Brembo GT kit for the e46 with a $2000 price jack and a Dinan sticker on the caliper... and in the worse rotor size of the two that Brembo offers for the car). The Dinan suspension you drove on is unmodified Koni yellow (with the price jacked) and lowering springs, possibly with sways if he optioned them-- FAR better options exist for the money, or you can get the same parts for less money. Unless he has the Dinan supercharger (which comes poorly tuned and without an intercooler, for a higher price than competing kits that are properly tuned, more power, and have an intercooler), his car makes less power than a stock e46 M3-- their engine tune loses power, the throttle bodies are useless on an other wise stock car, and the intake and muffler (of which only the right pipes work-- the left pipes are literally just blanks) has never been shown to do anything power wise.