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    If you are designing your own pan you should be able to build something that kicks out at the sides to give good ground clearance & capacity. A custom pan is a better solution than a modified subframe & gives the option of adding a dipstick & better baffling.

    Comment


      My goal for the pan is exactly that... baffled and extended laterally for capacity. I’ve looked at every way to modify the subframe to adapt a factory pan because I agree the front is problematic for a few reasons. I’m not willing to move the steering rack from the factory location, and I’m not excited about moving the sway bar, and the combination of those two choices makes modifying the subframe moot. I certainly didn’t want to have to modify BOTH as seems to be the solution to any rear sump install that doesn’t move the steering rack.

      The curb clearance goal is for it to fit above the m20 skid plate I already have.

      Comment


        I have to built the transmission mount while the engine and trans is in the car... I won't have a transmission attached to the bare block while I'm mocking up the engine arms. This also means I won't "discover" that the trans has moved while I'm nudging the engine around getting the location correct. I don't have a factory E30 manual trans crossmember (well, a spare one... I'm not going to pull it off my driver), but the combination of the longer length of the 6 speed and the bolt-on e90 bracket shown here mean that the rubber trans mounts are way further back than the e30 floor pan allows... you start to get into a much more complicated mount location. My solution to this is to re-locate the trans mounts either side of the trans where they *barely* fit and build the mount forward from a flat plate. This also gets us clear of the output flange so guibo bolts aren't tricky to access. Will this be a catastrophe? I don't know... but it'll hold the trans it the right location for now.

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        Here's a new crossmember built to give a flat reference for the trans mounts. I know they're angled in the original configurations... but I thought about it really hard and I can't think of a great reason for it. Even if there is... it's going to be very slight and this really simplifies the bracket. If I end up a little high, this can be dropped down with spacers from the body. It looks like a big ugly piece, but it actually tucks up higher than the trans drain plug.

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        Here's that bracket tacked together. The trans plate is 10ga, which is woefully inadequate for use in the car, but fine for mockup because those pieces can "grow" in one direction without affecting the faces they mount to. I didn't have a big enough piece of 3/16 for the rear plate handy, and I thought it would be better to see everything bolted up with some weight on it.

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        Here's the pieces installed. There's so little weight back here that you can push the trans up with one hand about a half or 3/4 inch before it hits the tunnel:

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        There's a few changes I'd make to this... the mount ears need to move down to give better clearance between the trans and the crossmember, the ears can get a little shorter to move the crossmember back (and further up the taper of the webs on the trans giving more clearance) and the rear plate can be cut down a lot for clearance.

        Comment


          Here's some rainy day progress... I'm hesitating to lock anything else down because I have a Z4 fan in them mail that I'd like to check for fit in the front, and a Z4 automatic drive shaft in the mail that I'd like to check for length. I'd hate for the fit of either of these to not work based on a 1/4"... but they might not fit at all. My backup plan for the shaft is to make a front shaft out of an E30 "rear half of the front" and the z4 "front half of the front" to determine length and have it rebuilt and balanced later if the car ever moves. After taking a good look at the drive shaft and thinking I can't fathom why it's built this way, but I understand why people are so obsessed with alignment. there's a good comparison of different shafts here: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/for...-combos-thread They all seem to be from trans back guibo-shaft-ujoint-carrier-spline-shaft-ujoint-diff. The z4 and e90 shafts seem to be guibo-shaft-spline-carrier-ujoint-shaft-ujoint-diff.... the center section around the carrier is reversed? The e36 must have had this order as well, because the 318ti n52 swap didn't seem to address this. There's probably an e36 rear shaft that matches and is the right length, but we'll just have to see.

          Anyway.

          Left file is to be cut out of 1/4" and is the gasket perimeter offset to the exterior 2mm, and offset to the interior to "where it made sense." There's tons of room on the high side to add more material to the interior, but there's some problematic oil drains right up against the wall of the block you can see in the second photo on the low side... the only closest to the oil pump in that corner is VERY close, but that's actually not continuous all the way up to the head (there's a large opening on both sides at the crank girdle to block joint) so it might be fine to block it or make it smaller. I won't make a final decision on this until I'm looking at the flange against the rotating assembly, so I'm basically expecting to have to cut a new flange at some point (otherwise I'd send you one now, Nando).

          The four large plates with four holes are two different locations on each side of the engine where I can catch four of the engine arm bolts. The rear four are the same as the Z4 arms, the front four are shifted and include two locations on the block that aren't otherwise used, but are the same size and coplanar. On the aluminum arms it appears at first that one mount isn't coplanar, but it's actually just a collar. the mounting face is the same as the rest of them. I have some aluminum washers in the mail that should fit and will make these plates steel to aluminum contact, and aluminum to magnesium.

          The squares in the left file are the top of the e90 motor mount, and the circles with two holes are the bottom of the e90 motor mount. It might make sense to bolt these to the subframe with an existing hole and use them as a drilling template, or it might make sense to just weld them on. TBD.

          The right file is all the pieces of my trans mount to be cut from 3/16... but I've made like 6 or 7 dimensional changes to adjust some of my thoughts above and lost track and honestly it might not fit at all anymore. We'll see!

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          Comment


            are you having these cut with a laser / water jet? what's your plan for the oil pickup tube?
            Build thread

            Bimmerlabs

            Comment


              Yea, I have a quote for laser cutting that sounds reasonable, but I’m going to print the flange out on paper for a quick reality check.

              Honestly the price for the cutting is super competitive compared to the retail cost of plate. I figured why not give it a shot.

              I dont have a plan for the pickup yet apart from expecting it not to be a huge hassle. It’s not a pressurized connection... it’s just a push-in with an o ring that gets fixed with some standoffs. I’m hoping to find something that’s adaptable maybe with a turned piece to fit the pump. The pickup itself can be any screen and puck... the cheapest route seems to be a junkyard or ebay pickup from a different vehicle that can be shortened. I have a Dodge Ram pickup that looks something like the attachment floating around here somewhere that I thought might work.
              Attached Files

              Comment


                On the off-chance that someone has the Bentley for the Z4 (or there’s a better ETM for e90’s) id love a copy of the EKP diagram. I picked up a 16146766003 module with pigtails and I have an extra wire and the colors on my pigtail are different compared to the e90 diagram. I assume pin 13 is still a k-bus to disable the fuel pump in an accident and can be left floating (it doesn’t need an “I haven’t had an accident” signal) but I also have a mysterious pin 12 which is white with a red stripe and yellow dots.
                Attached Files

                Comment


                  There’s a reference in another forum that the EKP also has switched ignition? Not on the e90 it doesn’t... maybe that was a change to get fuel pressure faster while the other modules booted up?

                  Comment


                    the old TIS (which replaced the ETM) doesn't work in modern browsers anymore, but thankfully somebody has updated it:


                    https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...module/XhflKCR (description)
                    https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...module/qJ5aaO8 (Z4 diagram)
                    https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...module/pdjfLrw (E90 diagram)

                    The only difference I can see is the Z4 uses DCAN (can11h mode) and the E90 uses PTCAN (BN2000 mode). The pins are nearly identical otherwise (only the connector names differ, and the wakeup signal is different) The Z4 would have to have a different flash because can11h and BN2000 are not compatible (BN2000 is faster and carries more data, but isn't important in this case).

                    the "WUP" (wakeup) signal on the E90 is controlled by the CAS system, but you can just replace that with switched ignition, it does the same thing except of course the E30 doesn't have much in the way of anti-theft systems. The Z4 doesn't look like it uses that (I haven't followed pin 12 to see where it goes).
                    Last edited by nando; 06-22-2020, 09:18 AM.
                    Build thread

                    Bimmerlabs

                    Comment


                      Can't you use a brace like this with the e90 bracket?

                      Comment


                        Originally posted by nando View Post
                        the old TIS (which replaced the ETM) doesn't work in modern browsers anymore, but thankfully somebody has updated it:


                        https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...module/XhflKCR (description)
                        https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...module/qJ5aaO8 (Z4 diagram)
                        https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...module/pdjfLrw (E90 diagram)

                        The only difference I can see is the Z4 uses DCAN (can11h mode) and the E90 uses PTCAN (BN2000 mode). The pins are nearly identical otherwise (only the connector names differ, and the wakeup signal is different) The Z4 would have to have a different flash because can11h and BN2000 are not compatible (BN2000 is faster and carries more data, but isn't important in this case).

                        the "WUP" (wakeup) signal on the E90 is controlled by the CAS system, but you can just replace that with switched ignition, it does the same thing except of course the E30 doesn't have much in the way of anti-theft systems. The Z4 doesn't look like it uses that (I haven't followed pin 12 to see where it goes).
                        ^
                        It’s so much easier clicking around connectors instead of searching the diagrams for the same number. Thanks for directing me there.

                        there’s definitely a pin out difference between these modules. My diagram above was from a 330i and has the K-bus connection to a passenger floor module for crash detection on pin 13... the Z4 does the same thing but on pin 12. The X3 (which is where this module was reported to be from, although the model number is identical to the Z4) also uses pin 12, but uses pin 13 for switched ignition:

                        https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...module/nYZ6b1n

                        i guess what I’m expecting is that this module will expect power on pin 13 in addition to the signal from the DME?
                        Last edited by hubcapboy; 06-22-2020, 02:01 PM.

                        Comment


                          RE: the e90 trans bracket. Yes. It’s absolutely possible to build a crossmember under the e90 bracket. I just decided it was easier to locate the crossmember in the original position where the floor pan was less complicated, and move the trans mounts out of the way of the guibo bolts. I believe the ear spacing is the same as the getrag boxes as well, so the e30 manual crossmember with the extensions sold by a few companies for 6 speed conversions for 24v swaps would also work... I just didn’t have a spare crossmember.

                          Comment


                            No, that's not what that is. The wakeup signal activates the modules (and in the case of the EKP, it primes the fuel pump when pin 13 is activated) when you open the drivers door, as detected by the CAS. Any data for the different modules is transmitted via CAN, not a specific wire. The difference between the Z4/E83 and the E90 is they have an EWS3 module like the E46, while the E90 has a CAS. The Z4 uses K-CAN to wakeup the module instead of the CAS. There's no pin 13 on the X3 diagram you linked.

                            Both may have the ability to shut it down in the case of a crash, but basically what I'm saying is if you supply power to pin 13 from the ignition switch, the module should power on. Remembering the hardware part numbers for all of these are the same IIRC, but they have different software, due to having different CAN bus networks which are incompatible with each other.
                            Build thread

                            Bimmerlabs

                            Comment


                              Originally posted by hubcapboy View Post
                              RE: the e90 trans bracket. Yes. It’s absolutely possible to build a crossmember under the e90 bracket. I just decided it was easier to locate the crossmember in the original position where the floor pan was less complicated, and move the trans mounts out of the way of the guibo bolts. I believe the ear spacing is the same as the getrag boxes as well, so the e30 manual crossmember with the extensions sold by a few companies for 6 speed conversions for 24v swaps would also work... I just didn’t have a spare crossmember.
                              I swear a while back somebody posted a bolt-on BMW part that would mount the 6-speed to the E30, but it may have been the E46 version instead of the E90. It was like a mix of parts from the Z4 etc.
                              Build thread

                              Bimmerlabs

                              Comment


                                Originally posted by nando View Post

                                I swear a while back somebody posted a bolt-on BMW part that would mount the 6-speed to the E30, but it may have been the E46 version instead of the E90. It was like a mix of parts from the Z4 etc.
                                The E90 part shown above will convert the mounts to the Getrag 420 style.
                                Then you should be able to use the Bayside Fabrication brace or similar.

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