ATTEMPTING THE NURBURGRING IN THE E46 BMW M3 I RESTORED

crazy how one tiny thing can just completely now this is really going to be the true test of the m3 and also my mechanical skill what a journey it's been on already from finding it abandoned on the racetrack so me restoring and doing rod bearings steering racks subframes boot floor repair suspension wheels and even a full interior this car has had the lot and it's really pushed my mechanical ability before the m3 goes to the body shop to touch up all the paint work that it needs it would be rude not to test this car out to its full potential and all the work that we've done to it at one of the most dangerous yet fun tracks on this earth the nurburgring in germany a total of 12.9 miles and 139 corners it is the longest and most challenging race track on earth with it being also open to the public you can imagine there's a lot of drama now i've never been that to the nurburgring but i feel like i know it like the back of my hand thanks to this i've been driving the nurburgring for a long time now on this learning the track in an e46 m3 now i've done two laps on the simulator in a standard e46 m3 with standard road tires on measured from the first bridge on the course to the last bridge on the course which is of course the tourist layout the dry time of a seven minute 48 yes 7 48 and a very wet time of a 9 minute 31 9 31. so the challenge in this video is going to be can the m3 actually make it there and get round the track all in one piece and two can we get anywhere close to the time that we set on the game whether that's a wet track or a draw track and there's only really one way to find out let's go now joining me on this journey will be chris and that journey starts off in leicester in the united kingdom and will continue 504 miles to the nurburgring we hopped onto the channel tunnel and then within half an hour we're on the other side in calais france with the remaining 290 miles to go the m3 was eating up the miles and we managed to get to a place in france called lille where we stopped off for our second fill up okay so quick fuel update we've realized that one the cruise control doesn't work on the e46 which is quite handy on a long trip and also the heater on the feet is constantly on so we're down to uh just a socks at the minute it absolutely stinks a feet in the car but so far the car is doing well we're doing pretty good on fuel around 25 miles per gallon we've got the next stop in belgium and then finally it's nurburgring tomorrow let's go [Music] so chris myself and the e46 powered on into belgium where we'd stop at the hotel and the next morning would start the trip from belgium where we'd hope to arrive at nurburg later that day [Music] 500 miles in the e46 and we're within 11 miles of the nurburgring now and the e46 has actually been really good all the way touch wood which is you sort of doubt yourself because we've literally had the rear subframe i've had the front subframe off all the suspension off i don't think there's been anything on this car that i haven't had off so if anything's gonna come loose or fall off or break it's kind of gonna happen here and worst case on the nurburgring which with fingers crossed doesn't happen but within we are within touching distance now of seeing at the nurburgring for the first time [Music] [Music] and just like that we have made it the e46 has made it chris has made it to the nurburgring come on this is going to be such a surreal moment getting on the track and driving the e46 12 and a half miles around it and trying to be in the score on the gran turismo game and everything was going so well until [Music] now this was purely my fault the police had pulled us over on the side of the road for one that we didn't have a front number plate and also for two we wasn't meant to stop at the side of the nurburgring it's a towing zone it wouldn't be a europe trip without some sort of confrontation with the police um we wasn't supposed to stop outside the front of that nurburgring and also well we had to kind of tape the plate on now today we can't actually drive on the ring but tomorrow from 10 30 to 2 it is open to the public as it is a toll road so tomorrow is the day the e46 gets put through its paces fingers crossed for it now with the racetrack being open for anyone to drive as you can imagine there's a lot of crashes which means there's a lot of interesting finds around the outside of the nurburg track why is this just become the perfect place check this out [Applause] as well oh my god this is asking gt3 rs rear quarter damage it's a small bit of damage on the headlights it's actually a rear light is the headlight in reverse now if you do crash your car on the track then more than likely the insurance will refuse to pay out which means a lot of cars like this gt3 would just be repaired privately and then put back on the road without a registered title so when it comes to selling no one would have even know that it's been in an accident that's of course unless you checked it out using carl vertical who has sponsored today's video now carl vertical works in over 20 different countries and it gathers data from so many places to ensure that the car that you're buying is as advertised check out this check that i've done on an audi r8 at the top i can see a green light that there's been no mileage fraud a green light there's been no theft but there's an amber light for accident and there's no outstanding finance on the car as i scroll through the report i can see every time an ownership's changed every time it's passed or failed an mot but there i can see that damage was detected on the car i can see that all the mileage lines up throughout the years here but right here i can see that damage was recorded on this car in 2018 and even better than that i can scroll through the report and find the actual pictures of the damage where it was auctioned off at the car crash auction and just to show you what a good report looks like here's a report on my e46 m3 all green lights at the top all the mileage all lines up and there's no report for damage so to check your car out or a car that you're potentially about to buy you can do by clicking the link in the description box below and with my link you're going to save yourself a nice bit of cash as well thanks carl vertical [Music] so today was the day i got to tackle the nurburgring i woke up early to visualize the track and fill up 33 liters of the finest 102 run fuel 75 euros 75 euros [Music] so this is it we've got my ticket so we're going out for the starting lap first remember this is a toll road so you don't actually need your helmets you overtake on the left-hand side only there's no speed limits but hopefully we get around in one piece and the car is absolutely sound let's do this here we go it's time to die [Music] this is so weird but i've done this so many times so we went out for the first starting lap just to confirm everything was exactly like the game now even though we were on a certain lap i wasn't driving particularly slow but as you can see in the top right hand corner on the gran turismo game i was considerably quicker so when we go out for the actual time lap i'm gonna have to up my game a lot obviously we don't have a passenger in the game and a boot full of luggage but i was going to try my hardest to try and get somewhere close to the time and even on our first starting lap it wasn't long before a yellow flag because somebody had had an accident but first first impressions i'm my heart is beating so fast i've got i've got sweaty bombs we've got the oil temperatures risen very very high um yes it's it's scary this is one of the scariest tracks oh dude oh jesus we've got a mini off the track i didn't take long did it oh god that's a bad one hope he's okay there he is okay he's having a he's all right this is [Music] and that's how bad it could turn quickly like so if the track wasn't scary enough after seeing that crash it shook us up just a little bit but we continued on the lap taking in every corner preparing ourselves for the next time lap he's not gone for it he has he's entered we're honored [Music] oh my god then coming back to the final bridge for the first starting lap is this where we stop the time and then we'll stop the timer right now now hold on mate let the brakes pull yeah weld done m3 yes it's uh give the engine a bit of air what a lap that was way more fun than i expected and that was just the first lap we're not going to be breaking any records for the first lap but obviously we had a yellow flag but that was that was so much fun the carousel was hilarious the next lap i think we're going for a time i think we've got it we've got to go how are you like it's just nervous all the way around but no the m3 is made it one lap the oil temperature did rise quite high but i don't know what's kind of normal in this i've not really flushed it that hard on the actual public roads but that was i reckon it was around 120 degrees at oil temp so i will check the oil before we go out again that was that i can't explain how much fun it is so much fun i'm sweating absolutely sweating but now this is where the time comes in i have no idea how far off we're gonna be but playing on the game you've got balls about this big and then in real life they go to about this big there's only one way to find out how fast we can drive around the nurburg let's do it 7 48 to be not that we're going to beat it but we can give it a good go i might give way to this m2 which is already coming for me wow and time has started m5 is coming wow they're flying jesus i'm sorry i'm gonna go quiet for this whole lap it's all right i'll commentate a bit did what that was something he's going in hot so there's audi's next we've got a diesel a6 trying to pick another overtake slowing fast up going around the outside like a trailer park go jesus it's weird because i left for a break on the uh on the game don't dare i'm gonna choose the clutch okay we've got a mini now minion output in front nice now before it all went wrong we was making up some really good time on the lap and the car was feeling really good and i felt so familiar with the track thanks to the actual racing game but there is one long flat out straight after this corner right here which i think the e46 just gave up on now almost instantly after that corner things went downhill i've lost power and engine management so i've lost power i've lost power we're on a power loss no no we're on hot as well i've got no power i've got no power we're cut out ah we've cooked something no m3 we've got nothing now on the nurburgring we know there are huge fines for being towed off so we was desperate to get the e46 out of limp mode and going again so we decided to try and diagnose the issue by plugging in a device into the obd reader oh my days man okay i'm coming i'm coming i couldn't swap out we're not gonna get up oh no the m3 was losing power quick my foot was flat to the floor we don't want to be tall we're not checking the car it's been taking a while 56 60 12 issues we're gonna have to get towed off the track do you reckon yeah we ain't gonna make it around we've literally got no power at all issues are being cleared or just keep despite our efforts the m3 was not coming out of limp mode and this was the code that was bringing up an actual fault with the abs ecu but i couldn't see why an abs fault would cause it to go into limp mode and we are off the track let's find out what is wrong with this because we are not getting up that way now first off we started with the old simple off and on tree [Music] but that didn't seem to work i was hyping up the m3 and then we finally went for the actual main track just to give everyone an example of what's going on we are on the corner just before the carousel the cars decided to go now the car mechanically sounded fine so i could only think that it was some sort of electrical issue which was causing it to go into limp mode now right here is the abs module but i couldn't see anything obvious on why it was failing unless something had been cooked in the heat but the inevitable happened and it looks like we're going to be towed off the track we're calling a tow truck i dread to think how much it's actually going to cost we're about to find out now from this point i can see the whole trip has definitely got a lot more expensive which i think it's the perfect time to tell you that the m sport hoodies are back in stock or if you just want to show you support you can hit that subscribe button and hit the like button below oh just sometimes things that turn out to be a really good idea and a lot of the time they're not it looks pretty clean underneath though looks like i did a good job pal looking nice so he finished the lap off in a way that well i didn't expect to on the back of a pickup truck no he's not he's carouselling but we tried to see the brighter side of things [Music] successful lap and an unsuccessful lap and also we've been trailered off we've got the full experience and um i'm glad to share it with all of you guys including chris as well [Applause] now we had no idea where they were actually taking us or how much this was even gonna cost we could only sit and wait to find out but then we finally arrived at this place [Music] hello can you go to the office yeah we sure can tell me the truth now then how much does that just cost me for the transport yeah 285 oh okay yes all right okay we thought you're gonna need oh crash is only 15 euro more oh wow bargain so with the recovery fee paid the next thing to do is try and work out what exactly was wrong with the m3 first off i started by checking all the fuses to do with the abs module but all seemed fine ideally i could have done with a more in-depth diagnostic tool so i could get some live data to see what exactly was going wrong but that's when we got recommended a local specialist called peter a guy a noble guy called peter and we're going to his workshop fingers crossed that he's going to have the part we need or be able to diagnose it a bit better than the tools and the computers that we have another 100 euros later we arrived at peter's workshop and it seems we come to the right place loads of e46s kicking around now peter who is an absolute legend plugged in his diagnostics all which was a lot more advanced than ours and straight away picked up that we was having an issue with the throttle actuator this is a actuator from a throttle oh throttle actuator [Music] which made so much more sense so the reason we're not getting any power to the engine because the actuator which opens up to let air into the engine is not opening wide enough when we press the pedal down so now peter was going to check whether it was an issue with the throttle pedal or the actual throttle actuator was stuck and after a few tests we can confirm that it is a problem with the throttle actuator the only issue is now can we get a throttle actuator um and can we fit it and after some very anxious moments of trying to search for one in germany as if by magic peter whipped one out of the garage what are the chances but we've definitely came to the right place and he was straight on with removing the intake manifold to access the throttle actuator which sat just underneath it it made actually a nice difference for me to sit back and watch somebody else do the work especially after all the stress of breaking down on the track go down as a legend in my city because we beat the streets trying to spread the wealth around the block no i can't keep for me told me i should leave i see the bigger picture and it's way bigger than me can't believe it like but it's safe to say peter knew his way around this engine like the back of his hand and within minutes it was all back together with a new throttle actuator on would it work here we go come on come on yeah we've got where's working good yes peter is the man we're working we came to the right place we came to the right place now by the time we prepared the e46 it was too late to get back on the track so we waited for the next morning where it was very wet so the m3 is back on the road a minor hiccup but thanks to peter what an absolute legend we have a new throttle actuator which apparently again is another common problem on these but it is fixed and it wasn't cheap around 300 euros and that's for a second-hand one but nevertheless we're back on the road and today as you can see it is very wet but the m3 has only managed one lap one successful lap so it's only right for a wet lap but i'm sorry i am gonna have to finish the video here if you want to see the full lap i will post it on my instagram right here thanks for watching this video if you've enjoyed it hit that subscribe button hit the thumbs up button and i'll see you in the next video peace out [Music] okay it's super sketchy super super sketchy right [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] deny now me the best time

Channel: Mat Armstrong

Views: 1,356,876

Keywords: bmw, m3, bmw m3, e46 m3, laguna seca, manual, police, police stop, towed, modifed, nurburgring, nurburgring crash, nurburgring fail, nurburgring lap, restoration bmw m3, building a car in 10mins, common problem, breakdown bmw, bmw e46 m3 csl, nurburgring m3 e46

Id: 1vl4NuXQal4

Length: 23min 38sec (1418 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 12 2022