Need info on this 330d E46

[claude]

anybody know anything about this car 04 d 78179 black 330 d saloon

[RossYB]

Don't know the car but from checking the reg on a few sites:

Black 330D Sport Auto,
UK Import, (I think!)
NCT expired March 24th.
Current owner has it since 6th of May!

[Dave]

dont know anything about the car but if your plan is to get serious power out of that engine, make sure you know what you're getting yourself in for.

[claude]

can you elaborate dave , what exactly are you referring to

[Dave]

The 204ps engine is excellent, I want one in my car.

The E46 really struggles with the torque when you try to push it. It will demolish the prop shaft cv joint, they will become a consumable. You should google the vibration problems that result when remapping it.

Talk to James, scottfree3 about what he has put into his 330Cd

[michael320]

Ive had a few 330d's both 184 and 204, one of the 204ps cars was pushing huge torque. Never had an issues.

[Gar]

I hate to say this but was james car not a bit of a lemon iirc it was rough when he picked it up at a lowish price and after injecting a shitload of money into it it just threw up problem after problem

[Scottfreee3]

The car is slowly getting to a stage where it's handling the power. It was not looked after when I bought it and nobody in Irl know enough about the engine to fix the boost issue. Turned out I fix that myself after 6 months of testing etc. Then I freakishly broke the propshaft.

As the car stands now she runs superbly and the electronically controlled 204bhp engine is stunning. It's more like a petrol than a diesel.

I'm pushing it fairly close to the limit. The OEM bushes can't take the torque and last only a few months. This is causing the CV Joint on the prop to fail.

I've designed and fitted my own polyurethane bushes more or less all over the car and its transferring the power to the road, not the body of the car.

The E46 chassis is not good at handling the torque. Anything over 420ft lb is not advisable. If you want more you will need to poly Bush and to a hard strength (I'm using 93A).

Finally the auto box's don't remap well as the torque inverter fails. On the manual the dual mass flywheel will vibrate under heavy load in the higher gears. This is very very common and to avoid this you need to accelerate with higher revvs. The only solution is to fit a solid flywheel.

If you want to leave to engine as std there are no issues. However if you tune the engine be ready with deep pockets.


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[Scottfreee3]

Also if you look at e46zone in the UK you will find loads of info. There are several 330Cd and 330d owners there with both types of engines who have had similar issues to me.

The most common issues on mapped cars is the CV Joint and the Flywheel/Torque Inverter.

For every car you need to check if it's vacuum controlled or electronic. Vacuum ones don't have so many issues. The electronic ones are far superior, however the actuators fail and are very difficult to source and BMW will make you buy a new turbo or inlet manifold to get the actuator (my boost issue was the electronic swirl flap actuator.)

On the plus side they are stunning machines and have addicting torque, revvy engines.


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[Dave]

How long did you have the car for Michael? The issues seem to be common enough amongst heavily tuned 330's

The fact that he's on his third prop shaft centre bearing says a lot, I don't think the pressure plate or the flywheel cope with the torque, the same engine with a slightly bigger turbo (and totally different pressure plate and flywheel) in the x5 pushes out 100nm more torque than the 330 and I believe it's purely because the drivetrain can't take it.