my 330i

[nick.e46.330i.]

Jdesign said:

Rad! What are the specs on those Fitti's?

The original specs are 17x10 et65ish. They were for a corvette the hub bore is in the 60's. I had a buddy bore them out to 72.56 so now I just need to rebuild/refinish them

[nick.e46.330i.]

The other week I pull the engine out of the e46.

This past week end I started to shave and stitch weld the engine bay.  Welding should start this weekend. 

[jc43089]

Be careful, my e36 has been in the corner for years now because I thought it would be a good idea to take it apart and trim out unnecessary stuff and seam weld.  Looks good though, I have had some trouble with seam sealer that I couldn't get out of the cracks burning and making the welds look poor, and tricks for that?

[nick.e46.330i.]

I used a wire cup on my 4 1/2” grinder. Got all the seam sealer off real quick

[Jdesign]

nick.e46.330i. said:

I used a wire cup on my 4 1/2” grinder. Got all the seam sealer off real quick

Same. It was a mess but it worked quickly. Im not looking forward to doing it again this winter.

[nick.e46.330i.]

Jdesign said:

Same. It was a mess but it worked quickly. Im not looking forward to doing it again this winter.

It wasn’t that messy for me. There was barely any seam sealer in the bay.

[Jdesign]

The 90s were a very wasteful time period lol

[nick.e46.330i.]

The last couple weekends have been somewhat productive. 

The engine bay welding is complete and body filler is mostly done. Just got to sand a couple more spaces and lay down a little bit more filler. 

I also picked up an s54 oil filter housing from @TehRaydarlover. I bolted it to the block to take measurements for the power steering pump spacers. 

[Jdesign]

Looks NICE!! keep on going!

[nick.e46.330i.]

Jdesign said:

Looks NICE!! keep on going!

Thanks Jason!

I got to keep moving on this. The current plan is to have it done for Euro District in April.

[nick.e46.330i.]

The engine is finally painted. It took longer than I wanted to but that’s because we ran out of propane and and when that happened I lost ambition. Haha. My buddy came out to my shop and put the primer down Saturday night. Then came out tonight to lay down base and clear. 

Also since my last I got the spacers to space out my power steering pump. 

I also put new seal on the vanos pistons and put the anti rattle kit in. I don’t have any pictures of the process as my phone died when I started. 

Now when @Tkuhn has time he will be doing the wire tuck.

[Jdesign]

Damn looking nice! Moving along steadily!

[nick.e46.330i.]

Thanks! All I have to do is buy a few gaskets, the oil pump, and send some parts though the paint line at my work and the engine will be ready to go in!

[nick.e46.330i.]

Falling a bit behind schedule, but I got the engine back in this weekend! 

I’m back down to one job so I’ll have time during the week after work to work on it.

[P_Roloff]

Bay looks great, looks clean enough to eat off of. Excited to see more progress!

[B C]

Is that engine position stock? Looks tucked back a bit.

Keep up the amazing work Nick!

[nick.e46.330i.]

P_Roloff said:

Bay looks great, looks clean enough to eat off of. Excited to see more progress!

Thanks!

snap said:

Is that engine position stock? Looks tucked back a bit.

Keep up the amazing work Nick!

Yea. That’s the stock position. The rad support and radiator assembly just takes up a decent chunk of space. 

I’ll try to! I just can’t wait to drive this thing.

[Jdesign]

Bay looks awesome!!

[nick.e46.330i.]

Little update.. Since the s54 ofh does not have tabs to mount the power steering reservoir my brother made one that we ended up mounting by the driver side motor mount arm.

 

We ended up converting the lines to -6an and instead of using the stock ps cooler I bought an auto trans heat sink and mounted that in front of the steering rack. After a couple trips to behling I everything I need to make my oil cooler lines, Vanos line, and power steering lines. We shaved the top of the core support so there was a decent mounting point for the oil cooler. 

And I had my buddy that painted the engine bay paint the brake booster as well. 

But it there’s quite a bit more to do to make the euro district deadline.

[nick.e46.330i.]

After getting my car done and on the road at 1:30am Friday morning, my car ended up making it to euro district with no major problems. There were something that were half finished and not done that I wanted to be done so my car will be going back into the shop to get finished up!  

Here are some pictures that I’ve found from the show that people have taken.