N52 Swap Discussion

[hoveringuy]

Spoiler alert!



I picked-up a 67k mile motor out of a 2010 328i with the help of this thread's host, Gareth.

We compared his motor with mine and he immediately noticed that my transmission is 2" shorter. Turns out that I have a Getrag G6-17 and he has the G6-37. The difference is in the torque rating and the 37 was used on the slightly more powerful 330's. It's rated for 273ft-lbs while the 17 is weaker at 125ft-lbs. RealOEM has the 37 weighing 95.9 while the 17 is 74.5, almost a 20lb difference.

Seeing as how the 17 is installed in the heavier 5 series, and that people have been upgrading their 328's to 330 specs for a long time now, I'm not worried about it, plus with an N54 intake I'll be making power by spinning the motor faster at about the same torque.

One of the other differences is that the newer motor has the oil separation built into the valve cover, so no external cyclone separator and the required drainback into the pan.

The entire package was only $2300. Cheap!

[hubcapboy]

We learned a ton today. Thanks for the ride. I was working on a cardboard to-do list round trip, and ordering two of everything.

[nando]

oh yeah, I had forgotten about the difference in the transmission between the 325/328 and 330. Regardless, a 6mt sells for like $800 alone, so you did pretty good on that engine. Also, BPC broke theirs at like 500hp (turbo 325i), so I really doubt you will have a problem.

[hoveringuy]

We were reviewing basic Dynamics 101 material, and although a 125 ft-lb rating doesn't sound like much, it's at a higher rotational speed at the driveshaft, and translates to 406 ft-lbs at the wheels through a 3.25 differential.

[wazzu70]

Exciting news. We need more of the swaps!

[hoveringuy]

The other thing I've realized is that there was a change to the electrical architecture of e90's in 2007.The fuses and DME relay that were integral to the harness prior to 2007 moved from the engine box to the cabin, no longer integrated with harness.

It's still not difficult to add the relay and fuses, but the e90 harness seems too short on the injector/coil side anyway.

Will probably get X3.

[hubcapboy]

https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e90-330i-lim/components-connectors/components/k-relays/k424-relay-for-gun-mount/jEaXCzb

Most obscure e90 option?

[hoveringuy]

Awesome! I want.


"The weapon holder in the central rear seat armrest provides space for an MP5 and three magazines. The holder is fitted with a lock, which is operated via a switch operated from the front seats."

[hubcapboy]

I don't know how helpful this is going to be for everyone else, but based on what I've just learned this has prevented about 12 boneheaded "I wonder why it doesn't start" moments and maybe 3 "I wonder why my battery keeps dying" moments.

I know all the circuit information is in the TIS, but for the e90 there's 3 or 4 revisions of a few parts of this harness, and the TIS only lets you look at one little part at a time. I end up chasing one circuit through and forgetting where I was. This is an attempt to document the 2006 330i harness that I have to start with... so that I can compare it to the X3 harness that I think I bought for some additional length, and so that I can understand how to sew in my additional wiring, or re-use wires that I won't be using. The wiring harness can be broken down into four parts by unplugging connectors.

X60001:

This starts out pretty anticlimactic. The X60001 connector goes into the smaller of the two DME plugs. The reason this is cut off from everything is this handily only contains wires that go back into the dash. None of the X60001 conductors are part of the engine harness... this is the DME's connection to the interion including CAS, Battery sensor, Brake light switch, exhaust flap, accelerator pedal, clutch switch, wheel speed, OBD... we're going to be using a lot of these later for connecting to the car.


The Crab Harness:

My brother named this the crab harness. We used to have a crab intake, we may as well have a crab something. this is mostly sensors but also has the DISA changeover plugs, throttle valve and the starter trigger. It includes the X60002 connector from the small DME plug (which is mostly 02 sensor related) and the X60005 connector from the large DME plug (which is the largest connector and has most of the engine business sensors as well as the BSD bus for the alternator and oil condition sensor). This harness also includes a relay for the crankcase breather heaters, and everything that doesn't go back to the DME goes to a Maroon X60551 connector.


The Rail Harness:

This harness has two plastic rails, one with the 6 injector plugs and one with the 6 ignition coil plugs. Each rail has some "front of engine" sensors plopping out of it. The valvetronic motor pops out of the middle of the ignition rail. All of the ignition signals connect to the X60006 connector in the big DME plug, all of the valvetronic wiring is on X60004 in the big DME plug, and all of the fronty engine stuff like VANOS solenoids, thermostat, water pump, the eccentric shaft sensor for valvetronic, the camshaft position sensors, and the oil pressure switch return to the X60007 connector in the big DME plug. There's also a valvtronic activation relay hanging off this harness, which is powered by the positive lead ring connector. I don't understand why this is powered separately, but I expect I need to dig up a fuse for that.

Everything that needs to be passed on to the car such as the AC compressor signal, or several different power supplies is passed to a green X60552 plug.



The power harness:

The power harness looks small, but honestly this is a huge mess. This was the hardest part to figure out, because powers and grounds are spliced, there's fuse blocks... ugh. The power harness plugs into the crab harness with the maroon X60551 connector, and the rail harness with the green X60552 connector. It also powers the DME with the X60003 connector, which is in the small plug. It has a B+ distribution which is the main power for the engine, and needs a 60 amp fuse added. All the grounds combine here and go to chassis, and there are 7 fuses. This harness also has a blue plug that goes to the chassis with the AC compressor signal, the reverse switch (which is the long protected wire that we won't need because our reverse switch is chassis-side already), the starter signal... the wakeup signal... the CAS injector relay signal... it's basically the e90 equivalent of the C101.

[hubcapboy]

Here's my thingy diagram of the three harnesses above that are mysterious. It looks like I forgot to connect pin 6 of the green connector, so the power supply for the coolant pump will need to be a mystery for now (edit: I found it... fuse 09 should go to pin 6 instead of pin 5. Pin 5 just goes to the ground bus). There's a pdf attached to the post which reads a lot better that the jpeg... but honestly this all hurts my eyes compared to looking at it in autocad with a black background.

My next task here is to compare this to the X3 harness I have to see if there's helpful length and to the Z4 DME pinout to make sure it works with the flash.

Then I can half-tone everything that stays, highlight everything I don't need, and overlay the connections that I need to make to the C101 and e30 dash for the accelerator and OBD.

[hubcapboy]

My blue connector Pin 7 is labelled "Blue Relay 87." That shows up here:

https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e90-330i-lim/uI4HGeS

If anyone can decipher the A4010 and give me confidence this is just ignition switched power that would be great. I've clicked through all the fuses listed on the junction box, but I don't see them. I'm sure this is "oh duh that's terminal 30 or terminal 15 or something something" but my eyes hurt...

[hoveringuy]

458lbs with everything except oil and exhaust.. Includes A/C, engine mounts, wiring, the shifter, G6-17 transmission.

M20+G260 is about 497lbs.

[hubcapboy]

nando : The C101 gives us vehicle speed to the Motronic on pin 14. Motronic uses that to change at least idle speed when the vehicle is stopped. The MSV70 accepts a signal (on pin 17 of the X60001) from the dynamic stability control which is called "signal processed wheel speed, rear right." It seems curious that this wouldn't be done over CAN on the modern computer, but if it IS given its own wire, I expect that means the DME will understand the e30's signal?

My example MS43 wiring I've been referring to doesn't use that signal, but you reference it here:

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forum/e30-technical-forums/24v-engine-swaps/m54-s54/382375-mss54-s54-swap-speed-signal

Just checking that the same holds true for the MSV70... it sounds like the DSC is just "faking" the vss pulses.

[hubcapboy]

Ok. Here's an attempt. This should incorporate:

-EKP under the hood and driving the fuel pump through the C101
-All connections to the C101. No check engine light is provided, but I'm extending that to the glove box for later use. Service reset will be a momentary switch at the firewall, oil pressure is taken from the harness, oil levels are taken from the e30 switch via an abandoned secondary O2 sensor circuit.
-Econometer signal from Steve's former Seattle Circuit early model taking a signal from an injector
-OBD2 plug using ISO 9141-2 K-line.
-Accelerator pedal that I forgot to draw traces for but trust me they all go to X60001
-A spare PT-Can plug in the glove compartment for later use.
-An American Autowire 11V threshold charge light trigger
-An added circuit for the 2nd coolant temp signal for a double temp sender (one for gauge, one for DME)

Fortunately I've never been asked to design a PCB. This is messy laid out flat... it's not as bad as it looks.

n52_E30 HARNESS.pdf

[nando]

nando : The C101 gives us vehicle speed to the Motronic on pin 14. Motronic uses that to change at least idle speed when the vehicle is stopped. The MSV70 accepts a signal (on pin 17 of the X60001) from the dynamic stability control which is called "signal processed wheel speed, rear right." It seems curious that this wouldn't be done over CAN on the modern computer, but if it IS given its own wire, I expect that means the DME will understand the e30's signal?

My example MS43 wiring I've been referring to doesn't use that signal, but you reference it here:

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/for...p-speed-signal

Just checking that the same holds true for the MSV70... it sounds like the DSC is just "faking" the vss pulses.

Yeah, surprisingly it comes from a wheel speed sensor, not CAN. It's actually very simple - I just change the number of pulses per mile (the "K" factor) from whatever the E90 is to 9 for the E30 diff sensor, then adjust for tire diameter. Fortunately it's an unsigned DWORD so there's plenty of room to adjust it.

You of course need to run the signal from the cluster (that gets processed through a little chip on the speedometer PCB), which goes to the C101 anyway - and not directly from the diff sensor, which is just a reed switch and presumably quite noisy. If somebody wanted to ditch the E30 cluster, you can salvage that chip and make your own signal processor for it, the function of it is pretty dang simple. This is what I was doing with my E46 M3 cluster that I finished but haven't got around to making it all plug in.

MS43 does use VSS as does basically every DME since at least MS41 - it's used for things like VANOS actuation and a ton of other things on MSV70. But, most people with those older DMEs left it disconnected (rather than just dealing with it properly), and worked around the issues of it being missing by changing the VANOS maps, etc. so it wouldn't run in limp mode.