Building A Better Bimmer - Tuner Tech

We're purists, and to people like us, BMW defined what a Bimmer should be with the E30 M3. That car could do it all. It wasn't high-strung and didn't drive you nuts on a bumpy road - it did, however, tackle twisty backroads with style and panache. Compared to the E30 M3, BMW has missed the mark with nearly all of its 3-Series (not counting the E36 and E46 M3s, of course), and that fact was made even more pronounced when we stepped behind the wheel of our E46 323i. To make things worse, our car came with a self-proclaimed "sport" package that did nothing to decrease body roll or tire squeal.

After being embarrassed driving one of our BMW test mules through a series of corners, we decided to put some "ultimate" back into the driving machine, but do so without turning the car into something it's not. In other words, we wanted better suspension, better brakes and meatier wheels and tires that look like they belong on a 3,000-pound sedan, but at the same time, we didn't want to bolt up a race coilover setup or opt for tires that can't handle the rain. Our goal was to add real-world cornering and braking performance to make the E46 what it should be.

The first step was to replace the horrible factory suspension. We narrowed our search by first eliminating coilovers and adjustable dampers as candidates. While both of those options are good, our goal was a street-driven car that doesn't require tinkering - we also didn't want to be punished every time we hit a pothole. Our search led us to UUC Motorwerks and its new Stage 3 suspension upgrade.

The Stage 3 kit is deceptive. Thanks to the "Stage 3" stamp on the shock bodies, it's easy to think the valving and spring rates are going to be aimed at track usage. In reality, this suspension system complements UUC's Stage 1 spring setup and its Stage 2 spring and sway bar package. The Stage 3 kit includes nonadjustable Sachs shocks built to UUC's spec, packaged with its springs. We opted not to install the sway bars with the dampers because, although we firmly believe in building a car's suspension as stout as possible, we don't believe in bolting everything to a car just because the products exist - rather, we wanted to get the car performing with dampers and new wheels and tires, and then evaluate the performance.

The next obvious modification was upgrading the factory wheels and tires. Since we knew part two of improving this 323i was going to be getting rid of the quick-to-fade factory brakes, we'd need wheels with enough clearance for a big-brake upgrade. Since this was a BMW, there had to be a certain level of class mixed with performance, so we opted to install a set of DPE R16 forged 19x8 wheels.

DPE is a relatively new company that custom-makes the wheels for each order. As such, the time between ordering and receiving a set of DPEs can take upwards of four months. When we received our wheels, however, we were blown away by their good looks and the weight of each. Our 19-inch wheel tipped the scales at a scant 23 pounds, which was just a hair less than the chromed 17x7s that came with our 323i, but they looked far better. Our initial thought was to order a set of M5 replicas from a company like AAA Rims, but our fear was that the M5 replicas wouldn't have enough backspacing to fit big brake kits - later measurements on a set of replicas proved our concerns to be founded.