Building an Alpine White BMW G81 M3 Touring xDrive

The G81 M3 Touring has been long-awaited by the BMW community. The G81 is a great practical everyday performance car in standard form. However, there is a wide range of awesome upgrades to take the M3 Touring to the next level! If you’re a G81 owner, no doubt you’ll want to make it your own by adding some unique styling upgrades and increasing performance because… well, why not?

This G81 M3 Touring xDrive, owned by Dale at Autoworks is not the first G81 we’ve built here at R44 Performance. We also built the first modified G81 (documented at least) over with Sportwagenhandel in Austria, You can check out this build here.

Why modify your BMW G81 M3 Touring?

Although the G81 is a fantastic car from the factory, we see it as more of a solid foundation to create something truly special. There are a few important issues to address including ride height, exhaust sound & exterior styling - all of which we will cover during this build.

1. MSS Adjustable Suspension

Unfortunately, just like the G80 & G82, the front ride height of the touring is far too high and quite unsightly. Whilst a number of lowering springs are becoming available to solve this problem, our favourite solution is to use adjustable springs that offer the benefits of lowering springs combined with the adjustability of coilovers.

The MSS G81 M3 Touring Adjustable Ride Management System allows you to adjust the ride height by approximately 0-30mm, meaning you can set the car up to meet your personal preferences. If you have a steep driveway or live around lots of speed humps, you can have it sitting higher. Whereas if you’re looking for a slammed look, you can drop it the full 30mm. The MSS adjustable springs are also perfect if you’re changing wheel & tyre setups regularly as you can adjust the ride height accordingly.

Another benefit is the retention of the factory adaptive/electronic dampers. With the MSS adjustable spring kit, you can still switch between comfort & sport suspension settings - something you would lose with coilovers.

2. Bimecc Wheel Spacers

It’s a bit disappointing when the stock wheels don’t sit flush with the wheel arches. Fortunately, Bimecc spacers are an extremely affordable yet high-quality solution. We generally recommend a 12mm spacer at the front & a 15mm spacer at the rear.

Bimecc spacers are machined from aluminium & feature a black zinc coating for long-term durability. We have supplied/fitted thousands of Bimecc spacers & the feedback from customers is always excellent.

3. Exhaust System

With the G81 M3 Touring sounding just as muted as the G80 & G82, upgrading the exhaust setup is definitely a worthwhile improvement. Even with the estate body style, the standard exhaust is unchanged, meaning all the aftermarket systems for the G80 will also fit the G81!

On this build, we fitted a Remus racing OPF-back exhaust system to improve airflow & exhaust sound without compromising the vehicle's emissions or causing an engine light etc. This is also a slip-on system, meaning it's fully reversible, should you want to put your M3 Touring back to standard.

As you can hear in the video, the system is just as quiet as OEM in the vehicle's comfort modes but unleashes more volume & burbles in the sport driving modes.