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He’d envisioned a set of concave BBS RCs from the outset, and these were duly sourced from eBay via Germany… although it wasn’t long before they were ousted by the three-piece Speedline Mistral split-rims you see here, which were originally fitted to a DB7.
#E46 m3 supercharger gpower upgrade#
Sav fitted this on his brother’s driveway over the week, and the next step was to upgrade the wheels.
#E46 m3 supercharger gpower mod#
Setting about fixing up the bodywork straight away, the first mod was to fit the air-ride – an Air Lift Performance setup acquired second-hand from a fella on a BMW forum who’d had it on his M3. Perfect for me! And yes, there was a plan right from the start: I wanted to do a stanced look, with the horsepower to back it up.” “The mileage was 80k, low for the year, but it had rusted arches and a dent in the rear quarter… it was a good car though, just needed TLC. “It wasn’t as good as it looked in the pictures,” he laughs. And in time, his diligence was rewarded, the right car popping up with a dealer a four-hour round-trip away from home.
#E46 m3 supercharger gpower manual#
Sav spent six months searching for the right E46, as it absolutely had to be a facelift 330i with a manual gearbox, non-sunroof, in Sport spec with the Alcantara trim and Xenon lights. I wanted to do my own take on the Touring.” There are loads of potential, too, seeing as BMW never made an M3 estate, and the M54B30 is a peach of an engine. Why did I go for this E46? Well, I always liked the Touring shape, there’s something appealing about a fast estate car. My brother also had an E30 325i which was awesome – RWD cars were really something to aspire to after VWs. “They were too expensive when I was growing up, and the E36 M3 was the one I always dreamed of. “I’ve just always wanted a BMW,” he enthuses. So, with one practical station wagon on the driveway, why get another one? The sensible family car today is a Mercedes-Benz CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake, remapped to about 600hp because ‘sensible’ is a spectrum. Following the Scirocco came a Mk3 Golf VR6, which rapidly morphed into a 3.1-litre with an ABT kit, and, as the shell rusted away, he transplanted the motor into his Corrado (carrying out the swap on his parents’ driveway).

Sav’s petrolhead proclivities are sufficiently strong that he studied Automotive Engineering Design at uni, and as such, he’s very hands-on with modifying his cars, doing as much as he can on them himself. I’ll get around to restoring it one day.”
#E46 m3 supercharger gpower plus#
My first was a VW Scirocco Storm, which had the usual wheels, suspension and exhaust plus a respray in purple, and that’s now sitting in the garage. “I’ve modified every car I’ve owned – and I still own them all!” he says. And so, as we’re soon to learn, is this ever-surprising estate car. This is probably the only E46 in existence with a carbon fibre DB7 steering wheel, and those sodding great brakes are there for a reason: you see, what really characterises supercars above all else is that they’re really rather powerful. He’s got the perfect family car – safe, practical, reliable, spacious – while at the same time turning it into a supercar. Quite simply, Sav is living out the dadlife dream. A particularly clued-up aficionado may spot that the Speedline wheels were original Aston Martin equipment. It wears its original shade of paint, it’s got a roof-box for that practical-family-man-on-holiday vibe… but wait, what’s that behind the front wheels? Does it really say Aston Martin on those calipers? And when you peep through the window, there’s an Aston Martin steering wheel in there too. And as you can see from the shoot, this BMW is an exercise in subtlety, in relative terms at least sure, folks like us will immediately spot the aired-out stance, the stellar split-rims, the M3 exhaust outlets… but to the casual bystander on the street, it’s just some old estate car. Sav is one of those kinds of guys who’s always happiest with a spanner in his hand and oil on his shirt, endlessly seeking out offbeat ideas and solutions. And Sav Kannides’ supercharged E46 330i Touring can be found somewhere toward the ‘surprise’ end of the scale. It’s a subjective area with a lot of wiggle room. In others, it can be a car that simply focuses more on power than aesthetics, and from thence the surprise arises. In some cases, a street sleeper might be a car that looks entirely standard and unassuming but hides a bewildering and entirely unexpected stable of horses within. Fusing the disparate styles of the E46 M3 and Aston Martin DB7, Sav Kannides’ supercharged 330i Touring is a big-power sleeper with a dreamy spec.įeature from Performance BMW magazine.
