Picked the car up with 158,xxx miles. Already had ground control coilovers, h&r swaybars, rolled fenders & quarters, and the AFE intake. Also had the typical e46 chrome & faded headlights:
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First step was to get rid of the chrome and get some new headlights. Went with some ebay (don't judge) projectors. A few hours of work made them presentable:
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After that, the black kidney grilles went on to complete the look (For now):
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Some fiddling with the coilovers (I still need to go down a hair in the front) allowed a set of 18x8.5/18x9.5 Breyton Magic's to fit, wearing 225/40r18 & 255/35r18 Bridgestone Potenza S-04 Pole Position. Also picked up a used roof rack so I can finally go mountain biking again:
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Currently en-route is an M3 rep bumper with hamann style fog covers. After that's on, a few light performance upgrades will be coming... M3 intake manifold, exhaust, & a tune. Anyways I realize I'm fairly new here (been reading the magazine for years though) but I'm looking forward to learning more about actually being at the track & hoping to help & contribute where/however I can.
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Looks great! It's amazing what a set of wheels and fresh lights can do to change the look of a car.
If you're going to be tracking the car -- or just running it low on rough streets -- make sure to get the E46 strut tower reinforcement plates. Those ground control camber plates don't distribute the load over the whole strut tower, so without the plates it will deform or crack overtime. They're only ~$20 a pair (check Turners or ECS or others for "E46 Strut Tower Reinforcement Plates").
Were the original headlights reflectors or projectors? I'm not sure if you're aware but you can get new headlight lenses from BMW for less than $40 each. They just pop right out. Makes restoring the factory headlights easy, and they look great. Since they have a fresh UV coating they last a lot longer than polished lenses. I wish other manufacturers designed their headlights with replaceable lenses like that :-(.
What tracks do you have around?
Thanks 
. Saw your car in this month's magazine; sweet write up on a sweet ride! Always loved the Fieros. Came so close to buying a roller about 1 year ago. It was an '88 GT prepped for a 3.8sc... Then I remembered all the other times I've been burned buying projects (see: any of my s10's lol) so I decided to hold off. The originals were reflectors, but the aim adjustment tabs were all broken. They were pretty much trashed. I'm planning on going with the ECS reinforcement plates, as well as the activeautowerke chassis reinforcement kit. I'm going to have racewerks do the work on the chassis kit but that won't be for a while into the future since I didn't see any stress cracks last time I had it up on the lift (thank god lol) and it's roughly 15 hours of labor (not cheap). Those plates are actually on my next list of things to order from ECS, along with their gopro mount & carbon fiber strut tower bar. I was hoping my new bumper would show up today so I could bring it inside (had the day off today), but it looks like whenever it gets here it's gonna spend all day looking suspicious on my porch. As far as actual tracks go, VIR would be the big one but its several hours away. I'm not too far away from US129 & the blue ridge parkway though. Plus there are tons of auto-x events around here if you're willing to only do class friendly modifications (which will be a problem for me lol)
You can use the Street Modified class which is unlimited mods to your car if it's needed. Because of your rear wheel width, you are in D Street Prepared, but the locals will most likely let you run STX until you start winning.
Hmm... I'll definitely look into it and see what they'll let me do since I'm kind of super novice when it comes to this kind of stuff.
Hasbro
SuperDork
8/19/14 10:16 p.m.
Mr_Clutch42 wrote:
You can use the Street Modified class which is unlimited mods to your car if it's needed. Because of your rear wheel width, you are in D Street Prepared, but the locals will most likely let you run STX until you start winning.
Good to know. Is being allowed in STX a fairly common procedure?
It all depends on your modifications. Many beginners often buy performance parts for their cars that place them in street touring class, like lowering springs. STX is for certain cars like a regular E36, E46, WRX, and a Mazdaspeed Protege. You have to check the rules to see which class your car will be, because there are 5 other Street Touring Classes.
Opti
Reader
8/20/14 9:06 a.m.
How are you liking the s04s? I ran the 760s on my last car and right now I'm looking at 760s vs s04s.
Get some camber plates. The car won't take much camber at all and you'll want it if you drive it hard.
Sounds like your modifications are all STX legal.
Opti wrote:
How are you liking the s04s? I ran the 760s on my last car and right now I'm looking at 760s vs s04s.
Absolutely love them. In my opinion the s-04 is a step up from the 760. I've put several people coming from 760's into s-04's and none of them have come back and beat me up yet so I'd say you'll most likely be happy in them lol. Side note, several boxes showed up today... after I eat my dinner I'll be taking some pictures of the new goodies 
Dinner was delicious... so here's some pictures:
First off I had roof rack lifestyle problems today, when a box of garbage bags flew out of the bed of a truck. I dodged the box, but a garbage bag grabbed on and held tight. Stayed on all the way to work lol.
But now for the fun things that showed up: My M3 rep bumper, & my Hamann style fog light covers.
The yellow fogs (mad tyte jdm, yo) also showed up but they're fog lights so... yea... not a super exciting picture. Just waiting for my license plate bracket from usmillworks.com to show up, then I'll be getting it all painted and put on
While I had the car on the lift today (got a brake fluid exchange today), I did some inspecting of my rear suspension. Called our head tech over to verify, since it looked like all the suspension points had an aftermarket coating on them. Made a call to previous owner... turns out my car already has the active autowerke reinforcement kit on it. So... jackpot!!! Saves me about $1700 in parts & labor. Apparently he forgot to mention that when I bought it lol.
In reply to Harvey:
Maximum wheel width for the STX class is 9". I just checked it the other day. He has 9.5" wide rear wheels.
In reply to e46potenza:
Wow, you got really lucky!
Yea definitely nice to pick up a car that has work done to it already and find pleasant surprises. Not something I'm used to that's for sure. Probably holding off a few weeks to get the bumper painted & put on... going to tidy up some maintenance items and get a front strut tower bar first. Function before Form, always.
On wheel width, better to go to a square setup anyway, but otherwise I suppose some street prepared class will work. There is really nothing good that comes out of having a staggered setup on these cars when it comes to handling though.
Sigh... put my S-04's on the back finally. Much scraping, many unsettling noises. Fairly certain the spring didn't seat correctly when I lowered the car back down off the lift since it's only on one side (RR). Gonna pull it apart tomorrow on the lift tomorrow and take a look/raise it up a bit more in the rear. Got all I could out of the General's I had on the back but found a gash in the inside sidewall, so it was finally time to replace them.
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Uuc shift knob, m3 rep is finally on, graphite trim swap with a double din conversion and an eonon head unit. There's a lot more now but my iPad is annoying the crap out of me
