Drivers Blog: Calvin Wan>>my E46 M3 Daily Driver

Since it is BMW month on Speedhunters, I figure I’d show you guys my newly painted E46 M3. White has always been my favorite color on cars so pretty much all my cars are white. The original color of the car was carbon black, but I decided to change it to a metallic white pearl. The pros at Garage Inc. in Burlingame, Ca performed the full color change. 

This car is currently my daily so I wanted to keep everything OE style for the meantime. My only major mod on the car currently is my coilovers, which are KW Clubsports. The shocks have such a wide range of dampening adjustment, which allows me use it for occasional drift and grip outings as well as daily street use.

All of the lights and wheels are still the original stock “zenki” versions. Garage Inc. just made some subtle enhancements by refinished the OEM M3 wheels and all of the grills matching satin black. They also treated the headlights, corner lens and taillights with a light tint job. I am rolling on some slightly stretched Falken Azenis ST115’s with some big spacers for that flush stance.

Here are a couple of pics of my M3 pre white paint job. I brought it out to a NCRC time trials event at Thunderhill earlier in the year and actually won the GT3 class my car was entered in with Falken Azenis RT-615 street tires. This chassis was pretty easy to drive at its limits. I knocked out my best time during my first session, which was pretty unexpected.

I have taken it out drifting a couple of times at events and I have been pretty surprised how well this chassis actually drifts. I am sure the KW’s had something to do with it too. Even with the engine all stock it has decent power to spin the tires. I am sure with some kind of forced induction setup, some chassis lightening and setup, the E46 M3 would make a pretty good competition drift car. Mmm… maybe sometime in the future.

-Calvin Wan

www.calvinwan.com
www.garageincusa.com
www.kw-suspension.com
www.falkentire.com
www.gtstickers.com
www.machiii.net

ADVERTISEMENT

Comments



Comments are closed.

22 comments

by Oldest
by Best by Newest by Oldest
1

calvin big fan. jus wanted to say good luck on the rest of your season. being an sf native i wanted to see you dominate sonoma.. but hey win some lose some. btw, i jus bought a 02 e46 m3 carbon black and was thinking bout getting the kw, ironic you already have my dream setup.. but anyways gj always reppin SF. late

2

EUR MONTH HAS COME AND GONE BMW ...NOW CAN WE GOOSESTEP BACK INTO SOME RICE PADDIES PLEASE....

3

Nice Calvin!!

4

Ain't the month over already?

5

big props for keeping it real Calvin! you've got my support

6

looks good in white!

7

nice i love it in white.....wasn't this your wife's car before hand?

8

kalvin wan more time!

9

Really nice looking M3 you got there.

10

Nice car Calvin, always rocking the nicest car in norcal.



BTW, Nice run Thunderhill.

11

Bay Area fa sho!

12

nice clean M3s

13

Nice! now get back in a e30 m3 ; )

14

Cool street/daily car.



Kind of odd that you're still on stock wheels and it's posted up here.



But it'll be cool with some nice wheels.



Garage Inc huh?



Those dudes are so far from legit.



I mean, they're pretty well known for being beyond shady.



The shop and owner have a super bad rep within the industry as well as locally.



Karma.



But hey, good luck in Formula D Calvin!





15

I am going to come off as negative but a basically stock m3, and he competes with painters tape? I come here for the off the wall cars... I can go to car domain to see everyone's weekend special.



Go invest in some magnets or vinyl.



/rant, glad tomorrow is Friday

16

the new paint job looks awesome! what'd make the car perfect for me tho is some CSL rims.

17

be glad to take a RX7 off your hands... or the S14 in Japan lol

18

Hey Bobby86, I think we wanna know more about Garage Inc.

You can't talk sh*t about a shop without giving any evidence and experience right? That's should be pretty unfair to the shop if you don't have anything to share but just your own opinion.

Would definitely like to hear what happened to make you have such opinion. Cheers!

19

Nice E46 Calvin... So subtle but so mean looking. Lovin' the offset. Got my E39 M5 and E30 M5 done at Garage Inc too about and they still both look good. Should have gone white tho... DAMN!! Did they spray your S14 too? I'm jealous!! Did they paint those wheels or did you get those powder coated?..... BTW, what's up with Bobby86... HATER!! Probably didn't even get his car done there, just hating! Calvin Wan x Garage Inc. FTMFW!!

20

Once again, E46, white, on black rims........ gorgeous! Keep up the good work bringing us all these Euro cars. as well as the RX-7's =)

21

fourth doi start results code climate partially

22

I just wanted to keep the car simple OE style for the meantime and see what I could do to the car with all stock parts. All of the paint work including the lights, grills, and wheels were all shot by Garage Inc. These guys really understand how to style a car with paint and do awesome work. They shot all the jams around the entire car and you cannot even tell that the car was originally carbon black anymore. It really looks like a whole new car.

OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS