Your experience: what was the hardest part of your 24v swap?

[drumad]

Reminds me I need to post my exhaust set up I got done yesterday.

ebay dual 2" > dual 2" to 2.5" > vibrant cat > vibrant resonator > vibrant muffler

Quieter then I expected but I'm happy with it.

[nrubenstein]

I did research first. I've heard enough E30s with mangaflows to know that's not what I wanted. And I did get lucky that there is a great exhaust shop just a couple miles away. I drove there with open headers early on a friday morning too. lol. so loud..

My problem was that I *loved* the sound. Just, you know, not the volume level. I kept having this fantasy that a different iteration would fix it.

I'll admit that I really actually don't particularly like the sound of Borla mufflers. They just work, which is apparently why I have them on practically everything.

[318isbmw]

Collecting all of the parts. I ended up putting the engine in the car 3 times before all was said and done. I thought I had the parts and each time it was some random part that would be easier to get at with the engine out.

[etxxz]

3 MONTHS OF READING THROUGH ETM's

someone had to figure out and post OBD2 wiring.
see my wiring kamasutra

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=100950

..wow 2007 crap i've been messing with e30's for some time now 0.o

[e30s50dan]

The hardest was reading all of these threads

It was easy as "Sunday mourning"

[FredK]

I'd say it's fitting the exhaust from the headers to the center tunnel of the car, if you merge down to a single pipe.

Also, nando, I like the sound of my single 3" Magnaflow. Sounds OK. I don't expect Beethoven to emanate from my rear valance. It's more like "Nickelback" right now. Loud, obnoxious, and shitty. The sound of bald R888s is louder on the highway. :razz:

[Adrian_Visser]

Hardest or maybe I should say most annoying was making a trip to the fucking store everytime I needed a nut or bolt that I didn't anticipate ahead of time. Having a stocked garage is very helpful.

[MoparJ]

What I learned was that the "while your in there" clause will eat you alive!

This was the hardest part for me. 90% of what I took off of the car got replaced whether it was still good or not. I decided to tackle a 5-lug swap at the same time as the engine swap, so with the "everything must be new" mentality, this project has become quite expensive and time-consuming.



But still worth it.

[kingston]

Hardest part for me was that I hadn't ever done this before! Having someone like Philo around who'd done several other swaps made this do-able. I'm going to do an S52swap in the project car now, and I'm MUCH more confident.

For us, dropping the M50 with the tranny was fairly time-consuming. Next time I'll know to take the A/C mounting brackets off!

I thought I'd read plenty of swap threads, and I'd ordered stuff using excel spreadsheets to keep track of everything, but we still had a couple of surprises. I ordered the clutch that Realoem.com said I should have for my car, but when I got the kit it was for a single-mass flywheel. My car had a dual-mass, which, again, realoem.com said it should have. Weird! So, I had to source a single-mass wheel (I used the M20 flywheel with a Getrag 260. I did have to shave down some of the fins on the back of the oil pan to get clearance for the flywheel, but that was EASY.

ALWAYS plan to spend more than you hope to. In my case, I was thrilled to find that I had an uncut wiring harness is really good shape included with the engine. But I didn't know that the knock sensors were bad...and that was $140.00 for 2 new ones.

All-in-all, when I look back, it seems easier now than it actually was! But I'm excited to start the next swap!

[Jszy25]

The biggest annoyance was the exhaust

This, getting the exhaust right is the hardest part

Hardest part: Getting engine to sit right in bay.

Surprisingly easiest part: Wiring. I did it all in two hours, and one I got the rest of the car back together it started and ran. I was VERY Suprised.

What Im stuck on right now: An exhaust.

+1 to all of these ^^^

My car started (first try) 1-2 weeks ago and I still don't have it drivable because I don't have an exhaust.

I started the exhaust, cutting the front OBDII exhaust manifold and rewelding it so it doesn't point directly at the subframe anymore, but making a y-pipe and the rest of the exhaust was above my head. Leaving it to the pros, but its not done yet.

[nando]

I'd say it's fitting the exhaust from the headers to the center tunnel of the car, if you merge down to a single pipe.

Also, nando, I like the sound of my single 3" Magnaflow. Sounds OK. I don't expect Beethoven to emanate from my rear valance. It's more like "Nickelback" right now. Loud, obnoxious, and shitty. The sound of bald R888s is louder on the highway. :razz:

heh, the R888s do get quite loud. And when you get down to the chords, they'll still stick fine, but they tramline like hell. :|

[eandrade]

Hardest part of the swap was being a dumbass and forgetting to route the crank sensor properly on the front of the motor (OBDI). It rubbed against the water pump pulley, wearing through the rubber insulation and causing an intermittent short (stalling the car out) that only took place once the car was on the road for about 20 minutes, which made diagnosis even worse. Obviously, the car ran great for the first 250 miles after the swap, which drove me nuts. In the process, I exhausted my free AAA towing coverage, wasted money on a fuel pump/fuel pump relay/new set of spark plugs/new MAF, and redid the ICV.

Lessons learned?

• Be methodical; a written checklist of things to do really helped (except for that !*@*&@#$! crank sensor).
• Caveat emptor with cheap parts. I jumped on a 6-speed Getrag for dirt cheap but discovered it had a hairline fracture & f*cked shift detents.
• Rebuild your VANOS (it's easy!!) and spend the money for all new sensors while the motor is out if you don't want headaches later.
• This forum kicks ass because along with the wealth of information on this well-worn path of 24V swaps, there are sh*tloads of hilarious posts that never cease to crack me up.

[Voluted]

The hardest part for me was sifting through all of the missinformation and hearsay posted here and on e30tech.com. I'd say the most important thing to do is make sure you aren't rushing any part of the swap. I got all of the necessary parts sourced way ahead of time and managed to do the swap (start to finish) in 4 days. However, I had been researching what to do, what to buy, what to modify, where to take my car for exhaust work, getting my m20 flywheel machined etc... 5 months in advance. Write down lots of organized notes and set a game plan specific to your car and motor and it should be pretty easy.

[brokenbimmer533]

Hardest part hangs down is megasquirt. Still struggling with it.

[Jszy25]

• rebuild your vanos (it's easy!!) and spend the money for all new sensors while the motor is out if you don't want headaches later.

the hardest part for me was sifting through all of the missinformation and hearsay posted here and on e30tech.com.

agreed!