After five months of owning his 2012 VW GTI, Jeff Tam took it to his first ever track day. After that eye-opening afternoon at Thunderhill East, he knew he had to make room for his newest love in life.

The honeymoon phase was predictably sweet, but once he’d turned enough laps to become a discerning driver, he was frustrated by the front-heavy VW’s torque steer and wheelhop.

The GTI was a great car for him to find his feet as a track driver, but he knew he wanted a rear-wheel drive car with a higher base potential. There were a few candidates, but they all had their shortcomings.

The JDM Tax kept him out of the seat of an S2000.

The big-power candidate, the C6 Z06, pulled hardest at his heart strings. However, a little research revealed that its LS7 engine was plagued with a valve drop issue.

Around that time, Seigo Ma sent him a listing for a nicely sorted E46 M3. Jeff realized that for the amount of the S2000’s silly surcharge, he could take the middle-path car and sort it out for track use. By that point, he was tired of weighing the options and pulled the trigger.

The previous owner had spent some time prepping it for track work before he decided to get into shifter karts, so Jeff took on a project that was largely sorted. Included with the car were a CSF oil cooler, a CSF radiator, a CAE hard mounted shifter, Vibratechnics race engine and transmission mounts, a Moroso aluminum coolant expansion tank, CPI stepped headers, as well as a mild engine tune. The result: a quick, direct car that could run laps without issue.

While his sim experience had given him the hands to control a little oversteer, he recognized his hands might not be fast enough to catch the bigger drifts this M3 was capable of. So, after a year of ownership, he installed an OS Giken 1.5-way and enrolled in a drifting course. With a bit of instruction, he found the car to be predictable and reassuring, even if it was spinning up the rears.

Part of that comfort came from the M3’s benign nature, the predictability offered by the differential, as well as a few new parts. The first area he focused on was footwork. One of the few shortcomings of the M3 are its undersized brakes; fine for spirited driving but inadequate for track work. An AP Racing BBK shortened braking distances and helped him trail-brake more consistently.

He understood the reason for splurging and doing it right the first time, so he grabbed a set of MCS 2-ways with remote reservoirs. The prevalence of track-tuned E46 M3s made it easy to find a good setup, and a set of Ground Control camber plates and Megan Racing camber arms made getting the right alignment possible.

Any excessive tail-happiness was quelled by the mild aero package. It didn’t take much; a homemade Alumalite splitter and a Voltex Type 7 wing gave him the reassurance to push hard in the fast sections. The first event after donning the new wings, he lopped a couple seconds off his previous best times.

Along with the athletic stance, a homemade alumalite splitter and Voltex rear wing give this M3 an unmistakably serious appearance.

His proximity to Sonoma, his favorite track, lets him party the night before and still wake up in time for a track day.

The increased speeds he was hitting encouraged him to improve the car’s safety. In went a Kirk Racing half-cage, a Bride bucket seat, and 6-point Schroth Profi harness.

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment with the build is its general level of balance. The power, thanks to the stepped headers and HTE Performance tune, is progressive in its delivery. The differential puts the power down well. The general balance is neutral-to-oversteery, but thanks in part to the linear delivery of the motor, the car is still very manageable when sliding at the rear.

There are still a few items on the to-do list needed before he’s able to match the lap times set by his role model: Dan Avon. Dan’s lightweight car is the more focused machine, but Jeff’s is rapidly becoming as spartan as Dan’s.

After deciding to have the carpet stripped from the b-pillars back, Jeff committed to tread down that path that represents the death of a street car in the truest sense of the term. Nevertheless, the versatility of his E46 M3 should not make Jeff hate his drives to and from the track.

Jeff’s proven one thing with this particular M3. He’s made sure that reliability, fun, emotion, speed, and sanity—all equally important to him—can be had when the tuning approach takes everything into consideration. Usually, the word “compromise” has a negative connotation when applied to a car, but this M3 proves that it doesn’t always have to.