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the one and only e30 s52 engine swap


AsparagusMike

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Man this brings back memories.

Putting motor in or removing, turbo on or not. 

Option Number A: Leave turbo off, attach turbo in car, make custom wrenches and use crows foot wrenches to tighten it down as best as you can before your knuckles are at the bone.
Option Number B: Leave turbo on, torque bolts well while out of car, hate yourself for leaving it on while lowering it into the engine bay.
Option Letter 3: Take sawzall to that damn core support that is always getting in the way... 

I'm glad to see the clock marks were still visible on the cold side of the turbo, did you throw that snap ring in there? 

I see you already trimmed your alternator cooling duct, good work. Those lines will wrap quite snugly over the alternator, but it looks dope as hell once it's in there. 
       - Put the front hose on first, then the one towards the rear of the engine. Fully tighten the first one before going to the second. 

I look forward to hearing this thing absolutely roasting the stock wheels wrapped in old snow tires :)

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5 hours ago, GunMetalGrey said:

I'm glad to see the clock marks were still visible on the cold side of the turbo, did you throw that snap ring in there? 

I have not, I need to get the beauty cover trimmed and in place first. I have although tested out the installation process of this snap ring and it now haunts me in my sleep.

5 hours ago, GunMetalGrey said:

I see you already trimmed your alternator cooling duct, good work. Those lines will wrap quite snugly over the alternator, but it looks dope as hell once it's in there. 
       - Put the front hose on first, then the one towards the rear of the engine. Fully tighten the first one before going to the second. 

Thank you for this. Oil cooler lines will be hooked up as soon as I have it mounted with the intercooler on the front. I do like how you made it so it mounts right on the bottom of the intercooler, makes it quite easy.

 

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Time for some progress updates my dudes.

New spark plugs!

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NGK (4554) 2 step colder plugs. Gaped them to .021, hopefully should do the trick.

Went ahead and started working on trimming up the beauty cover to clear the turbski's when I noticed something interesting about the mounting points for it on the valve cover.

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Not sure how the hell that happened and to be honest I never really noticed it tell now. Looks like the beauty cover will be sitting this one out.

To compensate a little (not to sure how much it will help) I went ahead and heat taped all the wires closest to the hot side of the turbo.

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I guess we'll see what happens with that.

Also got the section of the strut tower heat taped where need be.

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With that finished up I went on to the next thing, heater core issues. As per @straight6pwr advice I went ahead and poured water through both sides of the heater core pipes and sure enough water came out both sides.

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After figuring that the core is most likely not the problem I have now assumed that it had a little something to do with this...

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The kink was even worse when it was hooked up originally so I tried twisting it a bit when hooking it back up and I'm hoping that will do the trick.

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I will also be pulling the HVAC panel to check to make sure the temp dial is functioning properly. I sure am happy to know that it wasn't the heater core though.

Next up, fuel pump.

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Ordered me up a Walbro 255 fuel pump and the installation kit on amazon. Stock pump ran like a champ with no issues on the NA setup but, with the extra amount of demand for fuel I felt it would be necessary for the upgrade. Everything showed up on Saturday and I got right to it.

Fairly easy install, curious as to how loud this will be in comparison to the stock pump.

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Ah, what's next... Intercooler bracket.

Spent a little time with my buddy on solid works and came up with a cool little design for a bracket. Following day we took the design over to a friends shop and had it cut out on a scrap piece of 3/16 aluminum with his plasma table and bent it up in the press brake.

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Also had holes cut out for the oil cooler fitment.

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It really keeps the intercooler and oil cooler solid and held in place nicely and I'm super pleased with how it turned out.

Spent the rest of the night getting the intake manifold back on and everything hooked up including the larger 80 lb Siemens fuel injectors, oil cooler lines and the vacuum lines for the 2 diverter valves which is then all routed into the cabin to hook up to the MS.

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Speaking of MS. As some of you may of suspected from one of my previous post I had no intentions of running the MS3x with what was supposedly considered a wiring harness.

I will be going with the much more cleaner and user friendly MS3 pro pnp.

 

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1 hour ago, suspenceful said:

Are you going to run a turbo blanket on that thing?

What's the reason for heat-taping the strut tower? Are there wiring/rubber/lines there?

Not to speak for him, but I assume a blanket will be in place.

The heat tape on the strut tower is to keep the strut tower temps down, the exhaust runs pretty snug to it, and there is no need to have it hot. 

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On 2/12/2019 at 10:43 AM, suspenceful said:

Are you going to run a turbo blanket on that thing?

What's the reason for heat-taping the strut tower? Are there wiring/rubber/lines there?

Yes I will eventually be running a blanket over the turbo, anything to keep the temps down is always a plus in my book.

Heat tape is mostly just for protection of the paint and strut tower but I also have the wheel speed sensor wire running underneath there being partially protected by the tape.

 

Tuesday I was able to spare a few hours and get over to the shop to crank a few more things out.

Valance was definitely in need of some trimming to clear the 90 degree silicone hoses and the intercooler.

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Also had to completely remove both of the upper brackets that attach the valance to the core support.

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Trimming of the left high beam headlight was necessary to clear the charge pipe. Hopefully will get some projectors to replace the sealed beams sometime in the future.

Finally got to install some euro grills I bought a few weeks back.

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With that all said and done I went ahead and got the coolant system filled back up.

I really can not get over how awesome the air lift system works.

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Big exciting things happening tonight... stay tuned!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think It's about time I get a damn update on this thread.

Yet's rewind a few weeks lol.

@GunMetalGrey stopped by Thursday evening (valentine's day) with the MS3 pro and to give me a hand with the setup of the base tune and what not. After finagling around with it for about an hour or so we got it all set up and I gave her a go. There was a click, and then nothing, Terrific! I suspected that the grounding issue I once had before had returned so I hooked up a jumper cable, one to the mounting point on the alternator the other on the chassis ground bolt. Hopped in and gave it a go, not more then a second later after cranking she popped right off! The idle was quite rough and we only left it go for maybe 5 seconds before shutting it down and took a look at what they had pre-set for ignition timing on the base map, 31 degrees!? Not sure what the reason was for setting it that high but we tried bringing it down a bit to 18 degrees as well as tweaking with the warm up idle rpm and gave it another whirl. Much smoother, as we let the engine run for a bit and warm up the turbo started sounding very dry and quite loud. Immediately we shut it off, popped off the oil feed line, and after giving the engine a few cranks sure enough, no oil. After this was addressed I loosened up the vanos banjo bolt (being that the feed line and vanos line run off the same port on the filter housing) and once again gave it a few cranks, nothing. Seeing this I back tracked in my head remembering quite well that the oil pressure was sitting right below 60 psi so the motor had good pressure which also means that the port with the distribution block was getting oil but not the vanos one, I was quite confused on how that was possible and after another 15-20 mins of brainstorming on what the hell was going on we called her a night.

Following day while I was on lunch I figured there has to be only two reasons for the issue, somethings backwards or somethings clogged. After work I went straight to the shop and although feeling that it was very unlikely, I flipped the oil cooler lines around, propped the feed line in a cup and gave her a few cranks.

 

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That was it! I still don't quite understand how this was possible other then the fact that the oil cooler must have only allowed flow of oil in one direction with some sort of valve. At that point I also took the liberty of figuring out my grounding issue which was quite simple. The powder-coat on the motor mount had caused an interference with it and somehow I've been lucky enough that it never made a fuss up tell now. Easy enough I removed one of the bolts and sanded away the coating covering that area.

 

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Hopped back in and it cranked right over and was running well once again. This time there was no funny noises coming from the turbo, Yay!

Didn't really tweak with anything else on MS3 (being that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing) other then just run and save data logs whenever the car was running.

With the car now at least running I had to park it over on the other side of the shop (cold side) for a while as per the deal with my grandfather so he could attend to a few projects of his own.

 

Fast forward to present day, hoping to get the car rolled back over come spring break (Week of March 17th - 24th) to get things finished up.

As for a to-do-list...

  • Get another Driveshaft
  • Get the exhaust installed. Unfortunately the hangers currently welded to it mount to spots on the car that I would rather not mention. Gonna go ahead and cut those out and make some up to mount to the stock locations.
  • Bleed the clutch system a bit more
  • Mess with the wiring for the headlights a bit (intercooler caused rerouting of the loom that comes across the front of the car causing them to be a bit short for reach)
  • Wire up the boost controller
  • Finish up wiring for the wide band and boost gauge and then get everything tucked back up underneath the dash
  • Find another glove box
  • Maybe find some different wheels and tires
  • Get it tuned

Luckily there's not a whole lot to get done before she'll be ready to get back on the road.

 

 

 

 

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2 things checked off the list today!

Picked up a glove box from a guy off r3v for a fair price. That's gonna be shipped out tomorrow and on it's way.

Called up driveshafts specialists in Texas this afternoon and got me a reman'd driveshaft ordered. I can't even begin to describe how helpful the guys are over there, they really know their shit and were super helpful in figuring out what I needed. Prices were very reasonable as well. 100% recommend!

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  • 3 weeks later...

More progress!

New driveshaft installed, check.

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While I was under there I went ahead and finished up bleeding the clutch system.

Next major thing on the list was wiring and finalizing everything.

Wideband and boost gauge had to be fit up and wired in. I ran 3 wires for the ms aux plug. One for the wideband, boost controller, and electric fan.

After getting everything routed how I wanted I wrapped all the wires with 1/4 inch split loom for tidiness. Also had to remove the old stock ecu bracket I was using as the ms module is about an inch wider then the 413. Luckily they sent some universal type brackets that I was able to fit up to the old bolt holes for the stock bracket which made for an easy install.

Little before and after...

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Also found what I'm assuming to be my culprit for the "no heat" issue.

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The pin holding the wire was popped out completely so when I was trying to turn the dial to warm it was just pulling the hole sleeve and not the wire. In order to make sure that doesn't pop out anymore I drilled a small hole behind the wire and ran a zip tie around it, crossing my fingers that was it. (blue colored zip tie to follow the theme 😉)

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Picked up a glovebox from a user on r3v a couple weeks back, showed up today.

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  Gonna work on getting that installed tomorrow.

Last major thing on the list before the car is ready for a tune is the exhaust. Friend of mine started working on some new hangers for it Monday night, he will be returning Friday and hopefully we can get that all done so she's ready to go.

 

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1 hour ago, straight6pwr said:

can you elaborate on the driveshaft company in TX? name and contact info? approx cost for a reman? did they take the core?

http://www.driveshaftspecialist.com/Import html/BMW.html?fbclid=IwAR1yBJOudQh88SPdHGBys1P3qNmyzeTmipGNG0o12pam_jRlPh-TlIuMDgc

I believe the guy I talked with was Brent, super knowledgeable. Before calling make sure to have the driveshaft out of the car and a tape measure on hand as they do require you to make a few measurements to insure they send you the correct one (you wouldn't believe how many different variations there are). Driveshaft was $399 with tax plus a $80 core charge. They send a return shipping label for the core driveshaft which you just simply send back in the same box the reman'd one comes in. New reman'd driveshaft is of very nice quality and comes with a new CSB.

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21 minutes ago, AsparagusMike said:

http://www.driveshaftspecialist.com/Import html/BMW.html?fbclid=IwAR1yBJOudQh88SPdHGBys1P3qNmyzeTmipGNG0o12pam_jRlPh-TlIuMDgc

I believe the guy I talked with was Brent, super knowledgeable. Before calling make sure to have the driveshaft out of the car and a tape measure on hand as they do require you to make a few measurements to insure they send you the correct one (you wouldn't believe how many different variations there are). Driveshaft was $399 with tax plus a $80 core charge. They send a return shipping label for the core driveshaft which you just simply send back in the same box the reman'd one comes in. New reman'd driveshaft is of very nice quality and comes with a new CSB.

Did you have them put the e30 CSB on the e36 driveshaft?

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11 minutes ago, AsparagusMike said:

The reman'd driveshaft was an E30 one and they will ask for measurements of the CSB as well to confirm that they send you the correct one which comes installed and ready to go out of the box.

For some reason I thought you were using a ZF, good to know though!

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Well it looks like everything is good over here! Only reason for doing a compression test in the first place was because it is part of the pre-dyno inspection checklist and I just needed to know that everything is good and healthy. Very happy with the results, everything was within 10 psi or less of each other!

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Finished up hanging the exhaust last night! Very happy with the way it sits along the bottom of the car. As of right now I'm just gonna run the two hangers. There is a spot for a third one which would have to be welded to the muffler but the way it fits up now and how snug it feels I don't think it will be needed, we shall see though.

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Next little thing was something I had not originally anticipated on but after some diligent research I came to the conclusion that for me, the pros out weighted the cons. I decided to switch over to E85. Friday night I took a ride to the closest gas station with a flex fuel pump which luckily is only about 2 miles from my house and picked up 6 gallons. Came back, drained out the remaining 2 gallons of 91 still in the tank and poured in the 6 gallons. Once this was done I proceeded to tunerstudio where minor adjustments had to be made to the fuel ve table.

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To get the car to at least run and idle with E85 I simply had to highlight all the values, go to my scale cells tool and increase everything by 40%.

After letting the fuel pump prime for a few seconds I turned the key over and instantly she was up and running, very rough of course but after letting it warm up a bit everything started to even out.

This brings me to my last order of business. I Found a tuner. After spending some time asking and searching around I located a shop, DB performance out in Rogers, MN. After some messaging them on facebook explaining my setup and what not they gave me an estimate on the cost and I locked down a date, April 15th. A day on the weekend would have been the best for me but it was an extra $100 and all other days were pretty much booked up tell May. Nevertheless, very excited to what kind of power this thing puts down! Last few things on the list include me tucking up some wires on the front of the car and going through everything on the pre-dyno checklist. May do a few other cosmetic touches that need to be attended to.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Last little update before Dyno day!

Finished up checking off everything on the pre-dyno checklist!

Double checked the ignition timing. Everything was good there, as expected.

Pulled my wastegate and double checked that I had the correct springs for the boost pressure I plan to run. Luckily I had as it was set at 15 psi on spring pressure. Swapped in a brown and red one which is 7.25 psi (plan is to run around 8 psi once tuned).

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Something else I hadn't mentioned but needed to attend to was one of the axle boots in the back. When I bolted the rear end back up after switching out the bushings and what not I just so happened to rip one of the boots on accident.

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So, I ordered 2 new boots for the whole axle off amazon and got to it. Fairly easy job to do but very messy with the grease and all, had all my tools used covered in it after I was done.

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Unfortunately the boots on the other axle have a few cracks from dry rot so I will be eventually doing those as well.

So, since my car originally did not come with cruise control I did not have a clutch sensor to wire up to run launch control/2step that I was hoping to do. Well thanks to @GunMetalGrey I do now. Wired it up the following night. I am looking forward to the enjoyment this will bring me 😀.

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Alright, back to the checklist.

Boost leak test. Instead of paying the 70 to 100 dollars for a tester online I instead made something myself that did the trick. Unfortunately since the turbo leaks through the back side of the face I had to pull that portion off and plug the beginning of the charge pipe there.

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On the other side I popped off the 90 degree boot connected to the throttle body and plugged that side where I also had a valve stem I installed into it as well as a port for the diverter valves vacuum line so those would stay shut.

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Brought it up to 30 psi before my valve stem started seeping (it was a cheap one) so brought it down to 25 psi where she held as well as everywhere else in the system. I did however notice that after about 15 psi the seam on one of the diverter valves started leaking air out. Not much I can do there besides replace it and being that I will be running lower then 15 psi of boost anyways I think I'll be alright (famous last words). I do plan on eliminating both of the valves down the road and running a tial bov or similar that weld in to the pipe instead of hose clamps.

After that was finished, I went ahead and reinstalled the turbo housing...

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Lastly and the most exciting update... WHEELS AND TIRES!!!!

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Yes, they are reps. They will do fine though.

CCW classic reps to be more specific made by avid 1. They are 16x8 et25 all around sitting on a set of Toyo proxies R1R 225/45-16 tires . I was originally gonna do a 205/50-16 but with the extra power I thought it's best I run something with a bit more meat. Only down side was the fact that I had literally 5 tires to choose from in that size and 2 of them had been discontinued.

As for the wheels, the back's fit perfect with no rubbing. The fronts however had some rubbing along the inside on the strut tower as expected. knowing this was most likely to happen I had 5mm spacers come with the the wheels to get me a +20 offset which helped with just the right amount of clearance on the front. I will also be running 5mm spacers on the back so it looks more even, idk we'll see. I need to order some wheel studs before I do this though.

I feel pretty confident that she's ready to go. Really hoping all goes smoothly and nothing major happens, we shall see.

Stay tuned!

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