the one and only e30 s52 engine swap

[Jdesign]

I know a guy.......  

[jc43089]

Jdesign said:

I know a guy.......  

Oh Chad...  That guy actually lives not far from me.  I have not sought out meeting him though lol.

[Jdesign]

Obviously not looking for a competent shop worker at your side?

[AsparagusMike]

Welp, fenders are shit.

It seems I will now be on the lookout for a decent pair of fenders, so if you got any sitting around in decent shape ur looking to rid urself of, hit me up! I may be interested.

On the other hand I got a few things wacked off the list the last few weeks.

Finished up cutting out all the infection this car has been victim to all these years and replaced it with some fresh stuff.

Came up with a different design for these sections. The fact is, it was gonna be tough to remake exactly what was there so instead, I did a single bent up piece cut out to fit the hole and welded on the same size box underneath. Only thing that looks a bit different was the little indent where the box stopped and the shape kept going. Even though the passenger side did however have less rust then the driver side I cut out the same areas identically and replaced with the same shapes so they would be proportional.

After those areas were completed I found me another surprise on the rear wheel well.

After getting all three sections smoothed out I scuffed them up with some 80 grit and then applied por-15 metal prep to help the por-15 rust preventive coat adhere well. Once that was finished I moved on to masking off the car for the undercoat.

Skip ahead a few days, undercoating is complete!

I tried this product off amazon called raptor by U-pol. It's commonly used for truck bed-lining. I found out about the item from a buddy of mine that used it on his truck and had nothing but good things to say about it. Most of the time for a full size truck U will need 4 quarts of this stuff but I was able to get it done with only 2.

I got to admit, the stuff worked really well!

And with what I had left I was able to spray a sturdy coat over the bottom of the gas tank. I did scuff it up before doing so with a scotch brite pad to help with adhesion.

After letting that dry for a few days, was able to throw a few things back on the car.

Originally I was gonna use copper nickel for all my brake lines but after many trials and errors I could not get the line to bend a perfect 180 for the small brake lines that hook to the three way adapter under the rear subframe. So I went and purchased a stick of zinc coated steel line to see how it would do sense its harder and all, much better.

I still plan on using copper nickel everywhere else as I haven't had any issues with it kinking except this area.

Gas tank reinstalled... check

All new 5/16 fuel hose installed with fresh fuel clamps as well as a new fuel fill neck to gas tank hose I picked up from the stealership last week.

I did reuse the original fuel pump and and assembly as it was in good working condition before. I will probably be seeing myself replacing it down the road but for now it will do fine.

Only one issue I ran into when installing the tank was one of the holes was not lining up quite right. So I took a drill bit and widened the hole just slightly so the bolt would line up with the threads. Other then that it was a good fit. Still working on coming up with an idea for a tube to connect at the center.

Met up with a fellow WI bimmer member about a week back and I traded my 4.10 for his 3.73. A bit better ratio behind an s52, the future goal is a 3.25 or 3.23 but for now it should do just fine. Thx Merl!

Overall very pleased with the condition of it, clutch plates appear to still be in good shape as well as all the seals. Took a little time to clean her up a bit before bolting it into the subframe.

For the casing, I pretty much just cleaned the entire thing really well. Wire wheeled all the rust off and applied 2 coats of por-15.

For the cover, I blasted all the corrosion off it and to keep it from re corroding put two good coats of satin clear coat over the front. Was gonna blast the bracket that held the sensor on but it was too far gone so I got a friend working on cutting another out for me.

Ordered sway bars last Wednesday, hoping to see them here sometime this week. Working on designing up a reinforcement bracket for the rear sway similar to the one sold by turner. I will keep yall up to date on how that comes out.

Once the rear sway is installed the rear sub frame will be going in as well.

As I wait for that I'm gonna start getting the engine bay ready to go for paint. As I have not this week but the following week off of school my goal is to get the bay repainted during that week off.

Also I should throw out there that I am on the lookout for a z3 steering rack. I gave my best shot at redoing the e36 rack I got for cheap, After many attempts I still can't seem to get the center seal out of the rack and don't really know anyone that has any experience with rebuilding racks. Even if I did find someone willing to do it I don't think it would be worth the money spent in labor to do it anyways so it's time to put it behind me and move on.

[P_Roloff]

Holy crap, does that ever look nice. I'm loving how much you hate rust, and how clean everything is looking underneath.

I had the same thing happen to my fenders, they looked alright for the most part but when they were pulled off the bottom edge was just swiss cheese. I also had rust underneath the trim strip.

[B C]

G260 right?

[KaiserRolls]

snap said:

G260 right?

I hope so, zf with a 3.73 will be murder on the highway

[GunMetalGrey]

As always, awesome work man! 
This thing is going to be super awesome when it's done!

[AsparagusMike]

hey Oooo!

Spent a little time after class today and drew up the reinforcements for the rear sways. Hoping to get them cut out tomorrow.

[AsparagusMike]

For all those who have painted their engine bays before. What did you do about getting the fuse box out of the way? (please don't say remove it, please don't say remove it, please don't say remove it, please don't say remove it).

[KaiserRolls]

AsparagusMike said:

For all those who have painted their engine bays before. What did you do about getting the fuse box out of the way? (please don't say remove it, please don't say remove it, please don't say remove it, please don't say remove it).

Tape it up and aim well

[B C]

Cut the harness and use wire nuts to reconnect it.

Nah.

Tape it up and aim well

[GunMetalGrey]

I wrapped mine in a few plastic bags and taped it and just got it as far out of the way as possible. 
It's not perfect, but removing it isn't something to even consider doing lol.

[AsparagusMike]

Rear sway bar reinforcements complete...

Sent them off to get powder-coated on Monday as well as the brake calipers and a few other things, hoping to see them done early next week. Once they are back I can start reassembling the rear end.

Before painting the bay I went ahead and cut the hole out larger for the e36 rack, crossing my fingers that's low enough for the steering shaft.

Custom paint booth made by my very own-self. Except for the fact that there was absolutely no ventilation and I probably breathed in more paint fumes then a single person should in a lifetime it worked out pretty well. 

3 rounds of simple green degreasing, a little bondoing of some holes from drilling out some brackets no longer needed, go back over the bay twice with acetone and she's ready to paint.

Went ahead and threw down a coat of sealer before the paint to help with adhesion, gave it about 3 hours to set up and its painting time!

and done. Nothing special but much better then what it was. From this pic it doesn't look too bad but there are some imperfections here and there that I could have avoided with some better prep work but I'm gonna give myself some slack being that this is my first time doing anything like this at this level, all part of the learning experience I suppose.

[KaiserRolls]

Did the paint adhere well to the seam sealer stuff?

[AsparagusMike]

KaiserRolls said:

Did the paint adhere well to the seam sealer stuff?

yup, no trouble there. Although I should add that cleaning out all the crevices in the body sealer is important for better adhesion sense those areas get clogged up with dirt very easily. I actually went at it with a toothbrush and some acetone for a while scrubbing out all the areas the best I can.

[AsparagusMike]

I'm such a procrastinator on posting updates.

So there was a few things I wanted to get powder coated a while back but sense I was doing the calipers as well and I had ordered reman'd front ones, I have been waiting on the them  to arrive which I bought from centric a few weeks back. I  also was gonna have the rear sway bar brackets painted as well and I wanted to get the rear sway installed before putting the rear end. Well calipers finally showed up and I was able to send everything out to finally get painted. 

Fast forward about 2 weeks and everything's back and I am super happy with how it turned out. I ended up going with a safety blue. My original plan was ford blue, which is the color I painted the oil pan, but I liked this shade of blue better and it was also a much more common color that the powder coating guy had in stock. Sense the shade of blue has changed I was gonna have to change the color of the oil pan to the same blue as well. After looking it over I decided I'd rather it be just the aluminum color instead. So, I'll be taking the pan back off to strip all the paint off sometime this week.

Now that everything is back, let the wrenching begin!

Fresh new bushings, guide pins and bleeder screws for the front and rear calipers as well as the new seals for the pistons.

Set those a side and worked on getting the rear sway bar installed. Mounts worked out good after all said done, I did however have a small issue with them fitting up nicely. I suppose when the original brackets are installed they flex just slightly wider to fit the bushing and bar in between. Well, once they were welded up there was no flex and in turn caused me a great deal of trouble and I did end up having to shave the bushing on one side ever so slightly to get the bracket to fall into place. Drilled the holes, installed the upper bolts with some washers and nylon nuts and she's good to go.

After that was complete the car was ready to have the rear end re-attached.

Had a little bit of a hard time getting the two mounting bolt brackets to line up with the holes on the pinch weld but after adjusting it around a bit I was able to get the bolts through. I ended up having to replace one of those screws as the allen heads are pretty easy to round and the old one was oh so tight and ended up snapping off. Also purchased new reinforcement tabs for the outside of the pinch a while back sense the old ones were in fairly rough shape and new ones were pretty inexpensive.

Everything is tightened down and torqued with exception to the hub nuts and axle to diff bolts as it will make it much easier once the trans is in and I can lock the drive-line up. (I did wright myself a reminder so I don''t forget, I think I've heard enough horror stories of what happens when you don't torque your hub nuts to avoid not forgetting.)

Went ahead and threw on some shock reinforcements from garagistic while installing the shocks. Ya, they are red and not blue, oh well. Their gonna get covered up by the carpet anyways so not really worried about it.

Realized this a few weeks back but I didn't mention it. When I initially pulled the rear sub frame out I had not disconnected the sensor plug on the diff and it ended up ripping off. Working on finding another plug to wire up.

Enough with the car, yets talk about the motor that I haven't worked on for a quite a while now.

Finally got the motor is timed. Spun the motor by hand several times to check and after 2 spins of the crank everything was at tdc.

Now that the timing was complete I was able to throw on the new and freshly rebuilt vanos by my very own self. Put off doing the rebuild as I thought I needed the special tools sold by beisan systems but I realized that neither of them are really necessary to do it. I did however make a small mistake. When going to remove the small torque screw underneath the 18mm nut that pretty much holds everything together I hadn't realized that it was opposite threads and snapped the bitch off. After throwing every tool on the work bench across the shop I drove out to gibson's where I spent most of that morning pulling another solenoid so I could get the thing back together.

Once the vanos was back together I went ahead and reinstalled it on the motor with a new gasket and some rtv.

Before installing the valve cover I took some time to prep the surfaces well and shined up the hardware with a wire wheel.

Lesson of the day: Don't buy a non-vanos valve cover gasket for a vanos motor. It doesn't fit.

I bought this gasket over 2 months ago and its been sitting in a box up till now when I was ready to put the valve cover on. The gasket was from elring which I purchased through ecs that had the same part # as the vanos gasket on real oem. The only way to know that it was a non vanos gasket was buy looking at the picture presented and even then its easy to miss, kind of frustrating if you ask me. So I Ordered the correct one from amazon which I received this last Friday.

With the new gasket in hand I threw a layer of rtv on both sides and installed the freshly painted valve cover. After letting the rtv cure over night I went ahead installed new ngk spark plugs with dielectric grease. Picked up some oem coil packs off a fairly low mile e36 at gibsons. For those of you that may be curious, a good way to check a coil pack to see if their any good is to ohm them. Resistance between the outside 2 pins should be between 0.4 and 0.8. Also be sure that the resistance values are about the same between the six of them.

Got a few sensors installed as well as the thermostat housing. Also started on dissecting the wiring harness and getting the c101 plug soldered in.

On the other hand, I bought myself a steering rack! I got it on eBay and its actually supposed to be here later today so I'll post up some pics once its here.

Another thing I should point out is the fact that I have changed my mind and will be going with the original e36 m3 flywheel and clutch kit instead of the m20. Sense I'll be running the g260 trans I thought I had to run the flywheel that typically goes along with it. Little did I know that I can actually run the s52 flywheel with the g260 no problem and its got the benefit of being able to run a 240mm clutch disk over the smaller 228mm m20 clutch disk. Thanks for clearing that up for me @GunMetalGrey

I'll hopefully be ordering a lightweight aluminum flywheel and clutch kit sometime this week. Still deciding between going a stage 2 disk or a 6 puck, recommendations?

I'll be starting here real soon on getting the trans ready for install and I'm trying to figure if it's of any benefit to me to get am aluminum shifter carrier that came in the late models or just run the sheet metal one that's on there, is there any advantages to the aluminum one? any incite on that would be greatly appreciated.

[P_Roloff]

Awesome progress, it’s looking great. What kind of rack did you pick up?

[B C]

Looks great!

I dont think you can use an upgraded double shear selector rod with the sheetmetal shift carrier (i believe UUC has an outrageous addendum on the price of a DSSR if you need the late model aluminum carrier)

Check the South Bend stage 2 or 3 street clutches depending on your future power desires. Basically its South Bend’s own sprung hub disk with a Sachs 918 pressure plate. I have the stage 3 carried over from my former turbo M20 setup “conservatively rated for 400 hp” I definitely dont like twin disk or 6 puck unsprung clutches from my driving experiences.

Twin disk are noisy and unsprung are bog-or-burn

Are you going to be keeping the AC? I see the bracket is still on the engine.

[AsparagusMike]

P_Roloff said:

Awesome progress, it’s looking great. What kind of rack did you pick up?

Non-m Z3

snap said:

I dont think you can use an upgraded double shear selector rod with the sheetmetal shift carrier (i believe UUC has an outrageous addendum on the price of a DSSR if you need the late model aluminum carrier)

I do want to run a dssr eventually so that would be a good enough reason for me to switch over to the aluminum carrier if that's the case. I'm just curious why you can't use a dssr with the sheet metal.

snap said:

Check the South Bend stage 2 or 3 street clutches depending on your future power desires. Basically its South Bend’s own sprung hub disk with a Sachs 918 pressure plate. I have the stage 3 carried over from my former turbo M20 setup “conservatively rated for 400 hp” I definitely dont like twin disk or 6 puck unsprung clutches from my driving experiences.

I've actually been looking at clutch kits through grip force. They sell kits including an aluminum flywheel and clutch disks with either stage 2 (carbon/Kevlar) or stage 3 (6 puck) Sprung hub clutch disks and a Sachs pressure plate.  I do think I will be adding boost to this motor in the near future so I'm just curious if a stage 3 6 puck sprung hub clutch disk is manageable to drive with a fairly stock s52.

snap said:

Are you going to be keeping the AC? I see the bracket is still on the engine.

I do plan on having AC in the car, not right away though. Right now my goal is to get the motor in the car and get it running. A/C can easily be added in later on.