E46 Question, Do you know what the factory gears are?

[Paycheck713]

What kind of gears come on a 2000 328i? 2004 330i? What would happened if I put '04 M3 Differential with 3.62 gears on either of the 328i or 330i? If anyone has any insight please feel free to enlighten me, I'm almost clueless on the matter. Thanks

[JustinMG]

the gears? you mean the whole trans? well the M3, 330 and 328 all have different motor sizes...so the mounting wouldnt work. the diff. may work, just crawl under your car and look at the linkage on your rear axle and compare them if you have all of these cars...
if i may ask, why are you wondering this? rule of thumb if you want a guess at motor sizes for BMWs is all in the two last numbers...atleaste for the 3 series it is...a 228 has a 2.8L inline 6, the 330 has a 3.0L, and i belive a M3 has a 3.2L or a 3.4L...im not sure on this but i belive that the trans layout would be differant aswell...so i dont think you could just simply take your gears out and put them into the housing of a 330...but i could be wrong...i dont have a m3 to compare it to lol

but like i said the diff should work...just take a close look at it and see how it mounts in place, the sizes and what connects to it and make sure its compatable with the area it needs to be mounted into

[Paycheck713]

Well a guy is selling the rear diff. from his 04 M3, I have an 04 330i, my buddy has and 00 328i, and it does fit but I guess I really wanted to know if it would make a difference "performance" wise or if it would be a little more aggressive because my car is a 5spd. I was a little confused because he said im selling my rear diff. with 3.62 gears, for some reason I guess I thought that the diff. had some kind of gear ratio in it...lol...so again if anyone else can help??? But Thanks JustinMG.

[JustinMG]

i belive 330s have diffs already...ill have to crawl undermine to check but im pretty sure they do...so really it wouldnt make much of a differance in your preformance...you have TCS and a diff...nothing else would really benifit much better

[Paycheck713]

The 328i also?

[Neel]

Uhhhhh what ????

The E46 M3 has the M-variable differential, and as a result of that it also has a different rear sub-frame then the other 3 series. So no an e46 m3 differential will not fit on any other 3series without modification. A differential will help greatly with performance. Try diffsonline or quaife or even koala motorsports (i think).

[Paycheck713]

Sounds good, that pretty much answered my ?'s, good thing I didnt buy that M3 diff, I didnt want to jump into prematurely! Im barely learning and trying to work on my bimmer, started as an oil change then the brake pads then I was so intrigued I started looking for stuff to fix lol

[Chet]

Hey I got your PM, and I rely back.