88 e30 vert lq9 build.

[midnytegsedan]

Me and a buddy of mine are in the process of building his 1988 bmw 325ic. It's kind of a slow build but i will update whenever i can with it. The motor is a 6.0 LQ9 out of a Cadillac escalade. We changed the cam and put a mild one in it. Not much else done to it besides all the bolt on things from the swap kit. The kit is from sikky with the usual headers, mounts, drive shaft and odds and ends. Front sump oil pan and wiring harness.

The day we pulled the motor out

The kit he ordered from sikky

Painted the motor, put the intake on and bolted up the headers for a quick pic

Decided to sand everything down, remove unwanted brackets and useless odds and ends and paint the bay

Got the cam in so started tearing it apart to install it

[midnytegsedan]

Me and a buddy of mine are in the process of building his 1988 bmw 325ic. It's kind of a slow build but i will update whenever i can with it. The motor is a 6.0 LQ9 out of a Cadillac escalade. We changed the cam and put a mild one in it. Not much else done to it besides all the bolt on things from the swap kit. The kit is from sikky with the usual headers, mounts, drive shaft and odds and ends. Front sump oil pan and wiring harness.

The day we pulled the motor out [ATTACH]97339[/ATTACH]

The kit he ordered from sikky [ATTACH]97340[/ATTACH]

Painted the motor, put the intake on and bolted up the headers for a quick pic[ATTACH]97341[/ATTACH]

Decided to sand everything down, remove unwanted brackets and useless odds and ends and paint the bay[ATTACH]97342[/ATTACH]

Got the cam in so started tearing it apart to install it [ATTACH]97343[/ATTACH]

Got the new cam installed, underdrive pulley and mounts

Test fitting the motor

Another shot of the test fitting process...sick pic!!

Had to put the car on rollers to get it onto the lift

Got the car up in the air installing the drive shaft and rear spacers...and yes you do see 2 racks attached lol

[midnytegsedan]

Fitment issues like crazy...had to cut the heater core hose connectors off for the motor to sit all the way back

Got the wiring harness in yesterday finally after sikky sending me the wrong harness 2 times. What a cluster fu*k of wires with only half of them labled

[lemansguy]

great start, you using a t56 as well?

[midnytegsedan]

No were not. Funds ran short and we opted to go with an automatic tranny with shift kit out of an ss trailblazer. The e30 was already auto so we just kept it that way.

[Q8y_drifter]

Nice work! What other fitment issues did you guys run into?

[midnytegsedan]

I guess you needed to get after market "lollipops" for the control arms so we just unbolted the control arms until those come in and with it being such a tight fit it seemed everything was an issue. We had to bolt and unbolt the headers and engine mounts like 20 times to get it to sit right. And having to bang the firewall back so the bell housing would fit. It's been Crazy but its coming along.

[shiboujin]

LMK if you have issues. The documentation should mention stuff like the lollipops, needing an E36 rack, and the heater core hose outlet length.

[midnytegsedan]

Thanks man i definitely will. We already have the e36 rack bolted in just waiting on the lollipops and a few other things. Haven't done much the last 2 days to it.

[shiboujin]

I found some really cheap versions of the lollipops. THR is something like $200. Bimmer world is like $180. I found some for like $90 lol.

What are you doing for the brake setup? I think the rest of your install should be simple. Well, depending on your steering coupler solution.

So many nagging little things with this swap. Simple but like hang nail painful.

[midnytegsedan]

We weren't totally sure yet. The hydroboost set up seemed to be too much of a pain in the ass so were still kinda researching it. Any ideas?

[shiboujin]

Well, you got three options. Hydroboost, remote mount, or manual brakes. All three are within a hundred or two dollars of each other if done well.

IE you can do the chasebay manual brake setup for super cheap but the masters for that are single bore so if the master goes out for any reason, you lose all brakes. Tilton makes a pedal box with three masters (one for the clutch) but can be pricey. Even then, I'm not sure how well the pedal effort is with that.

Garret makes a remote mount setup. Which feels 100% like factory (I'm told). But space becomes an issue. The booster winds up being over top of the abs stuff and is around the area you'll want your air filter. Plus it requires welding and a hole through your strut tower reinforcement. I'm not fond of all the extra parts.

Finally there's the hydroboost setup. Feels mostly factory. I've noticed some squishiness. Course if the car cuts out, you lose power assist. Then there's also the added heat/stress on the PS system. But, installation is very straight forward and requires no real modification assuming you get the sikky kit. I pulled my whole setup out two days ago. Took me maybe 30 min and most of that was me drinking soda.

All in all, the setups seem to range from $800-1200 total. Which is a bitter pill to swallow. The chase bay single pot solution is like ~$500 with a special master that places it inside the cabin instead of the engine bay. IIRC anywho. I helped with a 1JZ swap a while ago. I think that's how it was.

[midnytegsedan]

Really appreciate all the info given out. I think the manual brake set up is something I'll go with. I was reading up on it and seems doable. As we speak were running the wires for the harness right now still.

[shiboujin]

Just make sure you don't do single pot brakes please. Shit's not safe.

And yea. The harness stuff with my car was... interesting. Wiring specialties is who supplies it IIRC. Or at least was supposed to? I never did figure it out. It's not a direct sikky thing afaik.

[jalopi]

garagistic pedal bracket + wilwood pedals + three master cylinders, you're just under $600 spent. pedal feel is a bit firm, but very manageable.

either that or you can use a massivebrakes booster delete + a mk1 golf non-boosted master cylinder for half the price, though it's gonna take a bit more pedal pressure to stop the car