E-Bay Intake Installed!!! MadTyteJDMy0! :-X

Yea the car is still slow

I felt no difference what so ever in power. No decrease anywhere, no increase anywhere. However, I did get what I wanted out of it- the intake sucking sound :-).

This is the $45 shipped intake from Ebay, the "long tube". I dont know how they test fit this product in particular but as you can see there is no way that "long tube" will fit with the filter installed at the end, on an E46-


I tried to see if maybe I put the filter at the wrong end of the pipe (one end was longer than the other)... still doesnt fit-


At this point I went downtown on it with my grinder and a cut-off wheel-


Well NOW it fits lol-


Now that it fit, the chrome pipe was an eyesore to me as it matched nothing at all in my engine bay. I proceeded to sand it with 180grit and left it at this-


I then gave it 2 thick layers of DEI flat black paint I had left overs from wrapping the headers, and it came out great. I installed it (dont hate on the zipties! They work lol)-


For $45 it's not bad at all Just that now we know that the "long tube" wont even fit the E46, just buy the $32 "short tube". If you are looking for power on an E46-
#1- dont bother with an intake
#2- if you do want to get an intake, dont waste $400-$600 on a "carbon fiber ubber pretty high quality brand name" intake... because it will not make any more power than my ebay thing!- very minimal. BMW did a decent job on the stock intake

Now if all you want is sound, then by all means you will not be disappointed

mmm you should try to fab a heat shield for that... gonna get quite a bit of hot air from the engine bay.

but again it wouldnt make much of a difference.

you were supposed to make a hole through the panel under it and open up some vents in the front of your bumper, hence the long tube. done properly, it should be sitting right on top of the panel where your outside temp sensor is installed.

you would have probably gotten better performance with the stock air box and a drop in K&N filter. For the same price though i modified a 2008 GS300 Carbon fiber Intake for mine.

it's a tube intake - it installs just like the Dinan:

http://www.e46fanatics.com/how-tos/e..._dinan_cai.php

Originally Posted by Another BM

mmm you should try to fab a heat shield for that... gonna get quite a bit of hot air from the engine bay.

but again it wouldnt make much of a difference.

I agree with your last sentence :-). For a 1-2whp difference, Im not gonna bother.

Originally Posted by froilanr

you were supposed to make a hole through the panel under it and open up some vents in the front of your bumper, hence the long tube. done properly, it should be sitting right on top of the panel where your outside temp sensor is installed.

Oh dang I didn't know that! x2. Well either way I have an M3 front bumper and there is no functional opening around there to get fresh air. The only opening on the bumper is the hole for the foglight, which of course if being taken up by the fog light itself, and it had a vent hole next to it (same bezel piece). But that vent is actually being used by a costum-routed duct for the front brakes.

Originally Posted by RAFF112

you would have probably gotten better performance with the stock air box and a drop in K&N filter. For the same price though i modified a 2008 GS300 Carbon fiber Intake for mine.

Probably, but like I said; I didnt do an intake for performance. I did it for sound only.

Originally Posted by mtnbound

it's a tube intake - it installs just like the Dinan:

http://www.e46fanatics.com/how-tos/e..._dinan_cai.php

Good to know. Now if we look at how much that Dinan intake is compared to this ebay thing, yea Im still happy (even if I failed to install it correctly) lol. For the difference it would have made to have the filter in the fenderwell, I PERSONALLY dont think it would be worth the labor. But then again, to each their own. I did it for sound anyways so it makes no difference to me.

Thanks guys! at least now I know I had it wrong to begin with lol

Originally Posted by mtnbound

it's a tube intake - it installs just like the Dinan:

http://www.e46fanatics.com/how-tos/e..._dinan_cai.php

That's an old DINAN set up.

They have a new high flow intake system that doesn't look like that as seen here:
http://www.dinancars.com/store/produ...cat=404&page=1

so where does the air come in from?

Originally Posted by uhhhmeeer

so where does the air come in from?

a mix of through the radiator via the grille and bumper opening, and also from the very bottom (when I bought the car it did not have the plastic shielding under the motor like it's supposed to).

Every where around the open air filter.

One downside with such air intakes is the open air filter letting lots of dirt into the engine. Not good in long term.

Originally Posted by jzwu

Every where around the open air filter.

One downside with such air intakes is the open air filter letting lots of dirt into the engine. Not good in long term.

That's correct but Im used to it. On my turbo Maxima (the filter was basically at the bottom of the car, as well as the turbo) AND my Camaro SS (the SS hood is great to scoop up air, but also dirt) I was used already to clean the air filter every 2 oil changes at the very latest, so that's not a problem

got any pics of your Magnaflow exhaust? which muffler did you use?

Originally Posted by mtnbound

got any pics of your Magnaflow exhaust? which muffler did you use?

I actually just did it yesterday. I had a local shop do this for me for $300 flat. Muffler is PN 12258 (it's a 2.5" single inlet/ dual 2.25" outlets), resonator is PN 10436 (28" long case, 24" actual resonator, 2.5" in/out).

Fitting the resonator (It sits very close to the diff frame thing (I guess you'd call it a carrier? But it never hits it at all)



The muffler itself



The bumper's cut for the tips had to be widened a bit as the new muffler has a wider spread for the tips (which BTW, I re-used the stock tips, so from the outside it looks bone stock. If you dont notice that the tips a slightly more spread apart, only the sound would tell you that there's something going on)


Final mocking, ready to be welded in


All buttoned up. The low point of the whole setup is actually between the rear tires so it never really scrapes. I tried already with guys in the back seat going over speedbumps and nothing (just tire rub on the fender :-(, damn 245s lol)


Sounds awesome. Considering that I have a fully free-flowing catback, this thing is super quiet. Just a nice deep melow tone. At WOT it sounds amazing. Just look at what other E46s sound like with a Magnaflow catback, and add a very tiny bit of rasp due to my headers, and that's what it sounds like. Backfire while shifting upon cold-start driving away from my house scared me the first time, haha.

bought a long tube ebay one for like $1 on ebay and slapped a k/n filter on it. U can see it on my m3 bumper behind the fog light to give cold air directly from outside the car

Originally Posted by issacsierra06

bought a long tube ebay one for like $1 on ebay and slapped a k/n filter on it. U can see it on my m3 bumper behind the fog light to give cold air directly from outside the car

Ah is ee what you mean, but I actually have a bezel covering that, and the vent that the bezel provides is currently being used for ventilation to the front brakes. You can somewhat see it on this picture from when I was doing the headers...