N52 Swap Discussion

[hubcapboy]

The harness for the msv70 is beautiful. I didn’t understand how it worked until I had it In my hands. There are sub-harnesses assembled into each of the two plugs, and they’re coordinated with the area of the engine or chassis that sub-harness is routed to.

I’ll have full documentation of the harness I build including every every connection to the engine harness, and every signal that I add to talk back to the dash. I have a full 330i harness and (I think) a full x3 harness in a box, and I’m expecting to use one of the subharnesses from the x3 from the port side of the engine where I believe the extra length allows the DME to mount in the factory e30 location (per CWLO).

[Bored]

Labor day incoming... does that mean that progress will be seen on the oil pan?

[hubcapboy]

I wish I had some secret progress to report... This is more of a pre-progress update from two weeks ago. I was trying to catch up and get ahead of the yard before fall so I could concentrate on the car without feeling guilty and just ended up digging up most of my downspout drainage. As you might have guessed, I didn't get THAT done and it started raining last night.

Here's the plywood pan bolted up to the block in the engine. The driveway's not level, the car's not level, I'm not level, and the bottom of the pan looks ragged because it breaks to the slope right above the rim of the tire there. I thought I was going to take an equivalent photo of the m20 in the other car, but the valence is in the way so there's no point.



Here's where it sits from the top.



Here's the reason for the delay and head scratching... when I pulled the m20 skidplate from the other car (jesus it was filthy) This is the UUC skidplate for the M20, and one of my goals was to get my pan to fit inside of it... mostly because one of my overall goals was to not decrease clearance beyond what I had with the M20, and this pan pretty much defines my clearance. A lot of this wing is hanging over the plate (the intersections are circled) and the plate turns in towards the center of the car... most of the designs seems to, and I"m not sure why, but I'm going to try and work with that constraint.



Losing most of that wing kills a lot of oil volume, but there's space for another inch of pan at the back:



It's a little deceiving there... it looks like there's way more room than there is, because the pinion housing cover sticks forward a little. You can also see that the skidplate is about an inch low at the front, so the front of the pan needs to be beveled to let it go all the way up. I'm going to re-model and come up with a volume after making these adjustments. If I'm not happy with the volume.... Through-pan tubes for the pan bolts and a starboard wing look like the best approach to me, and sound like insanity to everyone else who's seen it. We'll see!

[Bored]

I think the fact that there is no steering geometry changes, or subframe modifications is the most appealing way of doing this. A pickup and oil pan sounds like it'll be a lot easier to do rather than running around resdesigning steering components and whatnot, but I'm not a fabricator.

[LukeJ]

When I measured the stock pan, the steel rear sump only held 5 quarts in the lower portion. 300 cubic inches has been my target zone for the front sump.

Since we've taken some weight off the front of the car from M20 to N52. The ride height will change in the front as well.

Would it be better to get some 'lower' 325i springs or maybe the springs for a 318i in order to restore previous ride height?

[hubcapboy]

I think you’re definitely going to be little nose-high on factory m20 springs, but m10 springs would probably put you back to factory height (they’re different right? I’m not crazy?)

My car is already on ground control coil overs, so I have the adjustment, although if I remember I have them just about as high as they’ll go, although the springs are a lot stiffer so they won’t lift as much as softer factory springs when they’re unloaded.

I had to scroll back way too far to find this photo...

[LukeJ]

My car sits on H&R super sport springs. Here's a picture from last winter.

With the nose being about an inch higher than it was, I'm wondering if I should go for shorter springs made for a heavier engine or the 'same height' springs made for a lighter engine.

I've got the motor and trans in the car, no fluids, no exhaust, no starter, no hood. Once it's all together, it should come down a bit, but I think I'll still need some new springs in the front.

[hubcapboy]

Oh man! that looks sweeeeeet!

(what a LOVELY color)

I'm really surprised it's an inch higher on the HR sports... with independent suspension sometimes it won't settle until it rolls (as the wheels press out) but if you're up on blocks like that I expect it would slide?

You could set 50lbs of something on the radiator core and see what happens. That would more than make up for the fluids and parts going back on.

[hubcapboy]

It's sad that it surprises me how much I can get done when I'm actually working on the project...

I had a few false starts on this. I had the pan templates printed twice and they were "fit to page" both times instead of printed 1:1 like I'd asked... The third place got it right, but not before I'd cut a few pieces out at the wrong size and burned two days each time. Dumb mistake...

I wanted to print and cut these myself because I (1) had a few plates of 16ga plate lying around anyway (2) didn't want to go through the 4 day lead time for laser cutting (3) figured that for these the cutting time would be less than the round trip drive to the laser cutters and (4) figured I'd have plenty of hand-trimming due to the unknowns of the bending and what they'd do to the total length of plate.

As it happens, with the cheapest Harbor Freight 18" plate break, I didn't end up making any changes to what I cut with the wheel except for some edge filing. I don't think I can come up with any improvements unless I need to make changes to the shape.

Here's the pan bent and tacked. The white shape on top is the other "side" of the sump, which I have to leave off to see what's going on with the pickup:



The two front corners have very tight bolts. I tacked these to the edge of the gasket and then depressed them with a ball peen until I could drop a bolt in. You can see that on the nearest corner here:



Here's the same side-shot as I had with the plywood sump, but this time the skidplate is clamped up in place. It wasn't worth making the shape of the back of the sump more complicated to bump around the rack pinion. Yea... there's still paper template inside...



Weird angle, but this is from the transmissions POV:



I ended up overhanging the skidplate on the port side by about a half inch... but I need that much width for the oil level switch on top. I'll just bend the flange down. The skidplate won't be anywhere near as stiff on that side, but I think I'm happy.

[LukeJ]

Oh man! that looks sweeeeeet!

(what a LOVELY color)

I'm really surprised it's an inch higher on the HR sports... with independent suspension sometimes it won't settle until it rolls (as the wheels press out) but if you're up on blocks like that I expect it would slide?

You could set 50lbs of something on the radiator core and see what happens. That would more than make up for the fluids and parts going back on.

Yeah, we'll see how it looks once I get the rest of the weight on it. Those blocks do slide a little. I use them with a couple pieces of melamine when I do my alignment.

Nice job with the oil pan. The feature you changed in the front to match the skid plate turned out great. Any idea what your volume is going to be?

[hubcapboy]

Huh I thought I'd included that in a post somewhere... I only got the factory steel pan to hold 4 liters... were you measuring with it tilted over at 30 degrees? the lowest point for me was the low side flange. Filled to 1/2" below the top of the wing, the steel one I built came out to 4.8. Even if the factory one is actually 5 that seems... fine.

[hoveringuy]

This means the pickup will make an immediate turn down from the pump inlet, a factor will be giving it the bracing to keep it from pendulum-ing around. Tie into the first set of windage bolts?

Oil drain facing the rear?

If the front, angled section is a bit thicker, like 12 or 14Ga, or internally ribbed/reinforced, do you still need a skid plate?

Looks great!

[hubcapboy]

I’m mostly interested in not applying any force from the road directly to the engine... particularly since the pan bolts are aluminum. I’m in a city where I scrape my skid plate pretty regularly, even when I’m trying to pay attention.

Oil drain might be on the rear on the side of the pan. I think you can actually get it lower on the side because the boss for the thread doesn’t have to stick up.

The pickup on this oil pump doesn’t actually have a bolt at the pump, so the only option is fixing it by windage tray bolts. One of the four locations is the pump bolt, and I think I’ll actually need all three of the remaining bolts to hold the pickup in place.

[LukeJ]

Huh I thought I'd included that in a post somewhere... I only got the factory steel pan to hold 4 liters... were you measuring with it tilted over at 30 degrees? the lowest point for me was the low side flange. Filled to 1/2" below the top of the wing, the steel one I built came out to 4.8. Even if the factory one is actually 5 that seems... fine.

Yes, of course 30 degrees and a slight tilt to the rear as confirmed by a digital level. 5 quarts went right up to the end of the large radius out of the sump. It was on the verge of spilling out the low side. The factory specs call for 7 quarts, so when I measured 5 it seemed reasonable since the filter contains some oil and when the engine is running the other quart+ is being circulated. Which also means the sump is 'full' most of the time. There is also a 'small sump' at the front of the factory pan that seems to correspond with oiling the oil pump chain. But maybe BMW put it there for no reason. I incorporated a feature in my baffle that will make a small pool of oil under the sprocket just in case. I plan on using a Porsche Boxster oil pickup with a 1" SS elbow and misc. Like you said, a drain plug on it's side in the back will drain more oil, or something like that.

[LukeJ]

Huh I thought I'd included that in a post somewhere... I only got the factory steel pan to hold 4 liters... were you measuring with it tilted over at 30 degrees? the lowest point for me was the low side flange. Filled to 1/2" below the top of the wing, the steel one I built came out to 4.8. Even if the factory one is actually 5 that seems... fine.

No doubt 4.8 liters will be just fine. 4.8 liters is 5.0721 quarts.

When I 'measured' the stock oil pan, I used a Rubbermaid juice pitcher. Which might explain the difference in our measurements since it's hardly a precision tool. I used water, but that shouldn't make a difference. :-)