Let’s start with the fact that we love the S54B32. The engine started life in the late Z3 M Coupe then moved to the E46 M3 and finally ended life in the Z4 M Coupe. And those just happen to be three of our favorite M cars of all time. So why all the love? Let’s let our friends at Jalopnik (who both asks and answers the original question) take it from here:
What makes the S54B32 so wonderful is the noise. It’s the only engine this side of supercar lunacy that has such a—for lack of a better word—voluminous sound. You’ll know it when you’re around one when the air around you suddenly fills with this high-grade metallic substance, this gray-blue vapor of noise that fills an S54B32’s surroundings with such fearful urgency.
Yes it’s the noise. It’s also the feel and the hi-revving nature of the engine. Then the look. Oh and it’s an inline six. The hardest to package yet more inherently smooth configuration for an engine made today.
Ben Barry from British automotive magazine Car had a chance to do some back to back laps in every generation of M3 ever made at the Ascari test drive at a recent press event. As you’d expect (if you’ve ever read Car or Mr. Barry) his conclusions are nuanced and quite interesting. Here are a few excerpts:
I started with the E30 Sport Evo, a black one with just 7000km. Yes, it feels slow these days, the four-cylinder engine is a bit coarse, and that dog-leg gearbox takes some getting used to, but the steering is superb and – the best bit – the front end just goes where you point it. No understeer, no sense of weight pulling you wide of the apex. It just points and points and points until you ask to much of it and, eventually – through momentum rather than power – it oversteers.
Lovely car, the Sport Evo, and you can understand why us hacks slated its bigger, softer successor – the E36 – when it appeared in the early ’90s. But I’m fond of these cars – I’ve had two, the 3.0-litre coupe that I still own, and a 3.2-litre saloon – and it was a treat to drive a virtually factory fresh Daytona Violet 3.0-litre coupe and compare it with my leggy 3.0-litre that I’ve long ago converted into a trackday toy.
It’s a day that many hardcore track and racing junkies have been waiting for. BMW NA is launching official BMW Motorsports parts for the E36 M3, E46 M3, E86 Z4 M Coupe and E92 M3. These parts are the real deal and also really pricey. Don’t expect to be able to drop a couple hundred on a front splitter. We’re talking 10k on full racing suspensions and 20K non-street legal P54B32 engines. That’s right, if you ever wanted a build out that $5,000 Craigslist E36 M3 into the ultimate OEM track car, you’ve got your parts. Just make sure you have some deep pockets.
We’ve obtained a full list of parts available for the E36, E46, E92 M3s as well as the E86 Z4 M Coupe from BMW NA (via bimmerboost) below. We do not have prices yet but we expect those shortly.
As we hinted at last month, BMW Performance has officially decreased pricing for 3 Series parts. These aggressive price reductions impact both the current generation E9X cars and the previous generation E46.
BMW Performance parts when installed by a BMW Center will be warranted for the remainder of the new vehicle warranty and in no way void the original warranty with the car.
Many owners of 99-06 model year BMW 3 series vehicles have reported failures of the rear-axle supports in the vehicles sub-frame caused by cracking and defects. BMW has steadfastly denied any charges of wrongdoing made against it in the lawsuit but has issued the following statement and owners or leasees can refer to an established website for further information.
BMW NA Official Statement. BMW has agreed to a proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit concerning the Sub-Frame structures on 3 Series (“E46”) models produced from 1999 through 2006. Under rare conditions the attachment points of the Sub-Frame may develop a fracture or crack. BMW has prepared an inspection, approved repair procedure, and reimbursement policy in keeping with the terms of the proposed class settlement. Details will be forthcoming, pending the court’s final approval of the proposed class settlement. In advance of the final settlement, BMW customers with questions should visitwww.E46subframeclassactionsettlement.com.
Here is a video displaying the aforementioned fracture
It’s early Saturday morning. Spring in Chicago. The kind of hour that an auto enthusiast looks at as the golden hour. The roads are clear and the weather is back from the brink of a wretched Chicago winter.
And I have a red BMW parked in my garage. Yes the MINI is gone and I’m back to rear wheel drive with a propeller on the hood. I wouldn’t call the car “just” a BMW, yet it doesn’t quite justify a real M badge (despite the peppering of that letter throughout the car by the company). It’s not single purpose driven like the Z4 M that I’ve lusted after for years, or the perfect urban runabout like a stock manual transmission Cooper would be. Instead it might just be the best all around automobile I’ve ever owned.
Every so often the right people inside a car company get just the right amount of freedom, time and budget to create something out of nothing. The BMW 330i ZHP was born out of these circumstances. It was 2001. The new E46 M3 had just hit the market and the critics were buzzing with glowing reviews and sales were off to a robust start. Yet the public (specifically the US market) was quietly asking where the four door version of this latest M3 was. The previous iteration (the E36 M3) had one, why not this new car? Where was the answer to the four door Audi S4 or the Mercedes C32? Why was BMW simply ceding this market?
As it turns out the accountants in Munich simply looked at the market for the four door, the tooling and engineers costs associated with bringing it to market and said no thanks. And that should have been the end of the story. But a few enthusiasts deep within BMW knew better. So they went about creating a hybrid of sorts. An Alpina tuned, M engineered and BMW individual designed creation that would turn out to be one of the best sport sedans ever released by BMW.
In yesterday’s feature I talked about the thought that went into my recent car purchase and the process of elimination I went through before narrowing the search. I had gone through the list of possibilities from the MazdaSpeed 3 to used M5s. What I needed was four doors with plenty of luggage space combined with great performance, good efficiency, and (above all) something that was “interesting”. Basically I didn’t want to see myself coming and going every five miles.
So let me pick up where I left off…
Part 2
So the current (E90) 3 series BMW just doesn’t make sense from a cost perspective and doesn’t rank high in the “interesting” category. Of course I could splurge for a new E90 3 Series (with the M Sport pack and everything under the sun) but my whole point was to find something slightly used that costs less to go along with some new priorities I have.
Then there’s the E46 (3 Series from 1999 to 2005)? I’ve owned a couple of them and they’re probably my favorite used BMW platform outside of the E30. The E90 is a better car sure. But the E46 just feels a little more connected to the spirit of the old-school BMW ideals. But is it truly special enough?
BimmerFile is dedicated to bringing you the most interesting news, links and reviews related to the BMW brand and it's vehicles.
We believe in the old school BMW ownership experience. We believe in garage nights with a six pack and some friends. We believe in 2002s, in E30 M3s and E34 540s with the 6 speed. We believe in progress in both design and engineering but we haven't lost sight of what made the brand and its products great all those years ago. And yes, we believe in the manual transmission.
We long for the days of the wave and for the days of roll-up windows. Yet we love the gadgets on the inside and the xenons on the outside.
In short, we can't get enough of BMWs. This is BimmerFile.
Sections: //M3\\, E46 3 Series Aug 26th, 2010 2 Comments 
