i_love_cars

I've been totally MIA as landscaping is now done and I'm trying to get the garage as close to "done" as I can before the snow flies. So before it gets too late in the season I want to get this going. Last week on Friday I took a day to go west of Madison and make a new route towards Mt. Horeb/Spring Green area which I unfortunately discovered was wayyyyy too long. That's what happens when you go on Google earth and just start point/clicking on roads. I am going to cultivate that - next year in 2022 I will lead a cruise out that way based on my findings. AS FOR 2021, we will be stuck in the Holy Hill area doing one of my more normal routes. I am looking to do a group cruise on October 2nd. Meet up at my house in Lisbon just south of Hwy Q off of Lake Five rd. I am kicking around a couple of options that people can vote on. Option 1: Arrive anytime between 9 and 10:30, cruise starting no later than 11 a.m. on a route that is roughly 60-90 minutes. I will have coffee for those who want it. Arrive back at my house by 12:30-1 where I can have smoked ribs ready for everyone (i can do like 6 or 7 racks at a time on my smoker which should be plenty for our group). I have a loaded up fridge with a couple hundred cans of good ass fuckin beer at any given time, and enough seating outside on my patio for everyone. When we get back from the cruise I could toss some hot dogs on or something cuz those are super fast to cook, if anyone doesn't like pork ribs. Option 2: Same as option 1, except instead of eating lunch at my house, we go 2 minutes up the road to Joe Mama's off of Hwy Q which has outdoor seating and good food, but decidedly more Harleys and annoying truck bros. Choose this option if you don't want to eat any smoker food or if you just hate me. Option 3: Similar to option 1, except show up late morning at like 11 or 11:30 and eat lunch at my place, then we do a cruise starting at maybe 1 which could be extended driving up towards Road America and back, probably closer to a 2.5-3 hour cruise instead of the more local 60-90 minute around Holy Hill. This option is of course better for driving, you still get to eat good smoked food, but it does chop up people's Saturday more since it's like, basically from 11 until 4 or 5 p.m. @B C you are welcome to drive my E46 I will probably for sure have Stuart involved as well although he's not on the forums anymore - he will probably drive my E92 or Z4, and I will drive whichever car he doesn't. I have another long-time friend who isnt a BMW guy but he lives 3 minutes away and we have done lots of cruises/track events together and he will be in. So I probably have 3-4 people I know will be in to start with - trying to get a head count for who else would be committed to October 2nd. I have a 2-day track event at RA on Oct 16-17 so that weekend is out. Soccer tournaments for the kids most other weekends. As such I'm not going to provide an alternate day. October 2nd or bust.

So concrete will be getting poured at my new house in the next 2-3 weeks-ish. The driveway is 100' long and 35x50 off the garage. Lots of room for cars to park. I have been kicking around the idea of hosting a 1 or 1.5 hour C&C for people in our smaller circle (local BMW friends (WIBimmers), and some of my other car friends, this is not a public event), followed by a cruise. Some of you know that I built my house intentionally about 1 minute away from the start of my Holy Hill cruise route area. We are very close to Hwy Q/Platt. I have room for people to park and congregate outside, and I would be willing to provide good coffee (Colectivo probably). Rather than doing a 2-3 hour C&C, my thought was to do a shorter gathering and then spend more time driving. The nice part about this is that because of my location, it's a great jumping off point to start a cruise up to RA as well. So potentially I'm thinking of hosting this on a few days this season where it makes for an easy half-day (4 hours or so including time at my house and roundtrip to and from RA) for cruising that isn't going to dominate your whole day, but as part of that most likely would do this during IMSA or Vintage where you can optionally make a day out of it to watch some races. I would probably look to start these at a reasonable hour of the morning, like 9 or 9:30 a.m., rather than the 7-8 a.m. starts most public C&Cs have. Get to driving by 11 or so. For the shorter routes around Holy Hill area, it would usually be 1-1.5 hours of driving, so back in time for lunch. There are several good places to eat very near my house and by Holy Hill - Joe Mama's, Sloppy Joe's, and Freiss lake pub. Alternatively on any days that we do RA cruising, you could just eat there. I would probably try to limit this to like, 7-10 cars and I assume that's the most people I could get to actually show up anyways. I'm sure I know a few people here locally who would be interested. Most of you know I do pretty good cruise routes so shit would be legit, right now I'm just trying to gauge interest. If it's a small enough group of people I may just reach out to people individually for scheduling. Nothing is planned or set in stone yet, this is just an idea I started to come up with.

1/8/2019 Update - I am changing the status of this to "on hold". The donor car is being parted out this week but I am holding on to the engine, ECU, CAS module, EWS module, etc. basically all the bits needed for the swap. It may be a year or two before I do it, or I may end up selling the engine for cash at some point down the road, but for now I think it makes sense to just keep the stuff I need for the swap since I can break even on the donor car purchase simply by parting out everything else. The transmission has already been sold for 2800 which is nearly half of what I paid for the car. Unfortunately my house needs new windows and a couple doors and I have stupid fancy windows that is going to cost me at least $45k to replace everything. My hope is that by sometime in 2020 I can re-consider this swap project and pick it up again. I am still preparing for the swap by putting a 4.10 2-clutch diff in the E46 this spring since it needs a new diff anyway. This is the diff that we would be using when swapping the S85 in, and it makes sense anyway since BMW M-differentials suck horribly due to their locking being based on hydro upon slippage during a turn as opposed to any sort of pre-emptive locking like a proper LSD from diffsOnline will do. 12/17/2018 Update - I am canning this project and parting out the donor car for profit. I originally had a top-end budget of gross cost of 30k including the donor car. I have talked to some other shops who have done this swap multiple times with full OBD2 compliance, a/c, etc. like I was planning and there are some budget items that are just wrong on the estimate. Realistic gross cost should be factored at about 40k and even that may be a bit light. Our original cost estimates were based off of Epic's swaps, but that doesn't really factor in that Epic builds race cars that don't need to be emissions compliant, nor do they need to worry about stuff like ground clearance. I learned that without modifying the frame rails, the oil pan on the s85 will sit too close to the ground for a street car, so you need to do some fabrication work to modify the frame rails accordingly. I have also learned that whether it's using the E60 ECu or the Awron standalone, both are a nightmare to wire. We were under the impression that the E60 ECU would be a lot more straightforward, but I'm hearing otherwise from reputable sources. So I am going to use the profits of the partout to pay for an upgraded LSD (my current diff is in really bad shape), and cover the cost of my BBK. 12/15/2018 Update - The bottom of this post is updated and will continue to be updated with full list of budget items for the build I already have an E46 thread but this feels like it's going to be worth a separate post. I want a dedicated thread where I can post information about the swap as it happens and document everything. I've been talking about a swap with E-fab Motorsports for a couple months now, knowing that a V10 in an E46 would be a dream to park next to my S65. Research has been done, and other shops who have done these swaps have been contacted for information. We know what the budget should be, and I'll be working with E-fab such that this car can hopefully be used to help promote Eric's business in the Chicago area and potentially beyond. He's done a lot of good work for me this past year and we've developed a good relationship, he's able to fabricate and has a great wiring tech so I feel like this is a sound partnership for the swap. What is the goal? This will be a complete swap with fully functioning amenities - A/C, heat, power windows, push button start, etc. Nothing is going to be haggard or half-assed. The custom exhaust will even be valved with an in-cabin F-you button to activate/deactivate. The swap is not done with a standalone ECU/programming. The car will use the stock E60 M5 ECU, flashed by Epic and wired in to the E46 harness and dash cluster. Some key points of consideration: 1) stock e46 M3 steering rack can be used with an S85 from this 2008 donor because by 2008 BMW had moved the CAS module out of the M5 steering column. This is enormously helpful because it allows the swap to go on without any suspension modification or steering modification 2) The engine fits with no modification required to the oil pan, and stock S85 headers also fit although it is tight. 3) Fabrication requirements are limited mainly to custom engine mount brackets, some subframe modification, and making a driveshaft/shifter assembly. A couple odds and ends need to also be fabricated like custom power steering lines which is about 400 bucks, and some custom coolant hard lines to the block 4) A 6MT from an E9x M3 can be used in this swap as it bolts right up to the S85 block Most of this basic info has been procured from Epic who has done a couple of these swaps, and they also provide a flash tune for the ECU for this swap Now, on to the real exciting news - Steve at Blunt Tech posted a 2008 M5 on R3V a few days ago with only 33k miles on it, totaled due to side impact (see photos). He sent a video of the car starting right up and mechanically it is all good. Other than being an SMG, it's a perfect donor. It was only $7k which I am sure I can recoup most of by selling the Dinan exhaust, rear end, low mileage SMG, suspension, wheels, and probably the currently ruined interior to a tracksuit-wearing russian with a 530i (E-fab made up the part about the russian but I'm taking credit anyway). The car has been acquired as of now. Sometime over the next month I'll likely be down there in the shop helping Eric part out the shit I want to sell. The actual swap work will likely begin in January/February and hopefully be done by April. Before anyone asks the inevitable question of "what are you gonna do with your S54 engine/trans/harness?" - I don't know for sure yet, but the current ideas are this: 1) Eric at Efab needs an engine for his E36 so we may be working out a deal for the labor on this swap by giving him my S54 parts so he can build his E36 2) Buy an E30, do an S54 swap and rejoin the cool kid E30 crew so I don't feel out of place when rolling with TJ, or more than likely flip it on BaT for double my money and make a $10k profit which would make my entire S85 swap....basically free lol 3) Sell it as a swap kit to a person in need who I don't deem to be a shitfuck. For posterity, I have to post 1 pic of the E46 as it currently is. Pics of the M5 donor are below: I have talked with Efab at length and we've gathered cost information from several parts providers for everything that needs to be customized at this point - things like the radiator, ac lines, oil cooler/lines, etc. which all are going to have to be custom built. This list is not exhaustive and will be updated over time - it includes what we feel is 98% of the necessary parts for the build currently. It is worth noting that this does not include labor costs for things like R&R the engine between the S85/E46, or labor to part out the S85, or installing the additional parts on the E46 like the new diff, trans/clutch, etc. Most of that is being given to me for free by Efab since the expectation is that promotion from this build will likely net them some new deep-pocketed customers in the future. PRICING / PARTS BREAKDOWN:

Bespoke engines are a thing of the past. Auto trans is dumb no matter how fast it is. Dogs and cats are living together. M5 used to stand for something soulful. Discuss. http://g30.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1414257