1989 325i M54B25/320z swap

[Andrew325is]

Well yeah the face of the engine head doesn't have connections between the ports. The M52 doesn't either. There's a passageway between two of the ports on each header that goes to the small hole where the SAP tube attaches that the gasket does not seal, so you'll have exhaust gas coming out of there unless you block it off.

[blackknight530i]

Here's what I'm referring to:

[blackknight530i]

I don't believe the gasket blocks them off. You can get block off plates for them though.

I found a few online stores selling them. http://www.hardmotorsport.com/hard-m...d-m52-headers/

There are actually early Euro M54 headers that are similar to the M52 headers. They are part numbers 11621706538 (front) and 11621706539 (rear). Often listed by just the last 7 digits on eBay.

I think you misunderstood, the heads don't have any holes between the header tubes to block, only the headers themselves, so not sure why they would need to be welded. If I were using a S52 and needed to block off the SAP, then I would need what you linked to, but this is a M54 and it has the SAP outlet near the VANOS. Look back at the earlier picture of the ebay header install and you'll see that there's nothing between the exhaust outlets on the head.

[Andrew325is]

I don't believe the gasket blocks them off. You can get block off plates for them though.

I found a few online stores selling them. http://www.hardmotorsport.com/hard-m...d-m52-headers/

There are actually early Euro M54 headers that are similar to the M52 headers. They are part numbers 11621706538 (front) and 11621706539 (rear). Often listed by just the last 7 digits on eBay.

[blackknight530i]

Are you going to weld up the SAP tube holes in the M52 headers? I have a set of Euro M52 headers without the SAP tube holes I could sell you for the same price.

Are you talking about the holes in between the tubes on the headers? They don't go to anything on the head and are covered by the exhaust gaskets anyways, why would they need to be welded up? I'm using SAP blockoff on the M54 head as well. We're not using SAP at all. I couldn't figure out a reason to do anything with them.

[Andrew325is]

Are you going to weld up the SAP tube holes in the M52 headers? I have a set of Euro M52 headers without the SAP tube holes I could sell you for the same price.

[blackknight530i]

Hey Paul....

Let's say someone we know obtains an e30 Wagon and wants to do an S54 swap....

In that case, this would not be your sole e30 project :)

You know...because Wagon. :)

Depends on the "someone", LOL.

[JDuckets]

Hey Paul....

Let's say someone we know obtains an e30 Wagon and wants to do an S54 swap....

In that case, this would not be your sole e30 project :)

You know...because Wagon. :)

[parkerbink]

Very nice work!

[JDuckets]

Thanks Paul, for a thorough record of our work....we're all taking pics and you've done a good job compiling this into a cogent post.

I also want to take a moment to deliver special thanks to Dwight from Zionsville Autosport. He has been very diligent in trying to get us some specific parts for a setup that they normally don't do. As Paul stated, we have the tools, the wrench ability, and electrical expertise (woohoo Paul!)...but we aren't much in the way of fabricators. To that end, Dwight filled some of that space, namely with AC and power steering lines.

Additionally, he's done many, many different mods on e30s over the years, so if you need something specific I'd encourage you to give him a call. It's quite possible that he can do something for you. He is busy during the day, however he always returns calls as long as a clear message is left.

I encourage everyone to use them as a resource if needed. He has certainly helped us out.

Thanks Dwight!

[blackknight530i]

Nice Work Paul!

Thanks! This might be my last e30 engine swap (other than changing this one to a S54 later), but we're going to do it right if it's our only one. I'm not big on all this custom stuff, LOL. I like doing S62 swaps in E39 tourings and similar. Way simpler and we can knock them out in a few days. This thing is like when I did my S62 swap in the e38. Should have been a simple swap, but not enough people posted how to do it and more than a few custom made parts to get it to work.

I'm still planning on a S54 swap in an e39 though. That should be interesting and might make me not want to do that more than once, but from my research, it should be fairly simple.

[Rontgen]

Nice Work Paul!

[blackknight530i]

Hey guys, sorry for the long delay in getting an update. I have been absolutely slammed at work and haven't gotten home early enough on Sundays after working on the car to post the updates, so here is a long update covering two weekends on the build.

It all started with getting the new engine on the stand so we could do some oil pan swapping, coolant pipe replacing, etc.



Here's the new e38 728i oil pickup tube we got shipped from Germany to install in the new M50 oil pan. If you have the contact and time to wait, this makes the mod easier if you're not really a welder.



Got the M50 oil pan all cleaned up and ready to install:



Jeff got to work on doing the 944 brake booster swap:






The booster can actually be replaced without taking any of the lines or the reservoir loose, which is pretty cool. As many engine swaps as we've done, we've never needed to replace just the booster, so we weren't sure before this one. We did discover that the grommets that the reservoir sits in were totally shot and leaking bad, so we had to remove the reservoir anyways and order new grommets. If you keep noticing the brake fluid level dropping and can't find the leak, check the grommets. These had been leaking a long time as the subframe was completely stripped down to the metal on the driver side where the brake fluid had corroded the paint. If you ever doubted that brake fluid would strip paint, this is your proof :).

I got the intake manifold off so I could replace the hard plastic heater hoses. They were leaking when the engine was in my 525it and I had a terrible time changing the o-rings on them that I said we would just replace the whole hoses when we had the engine out. I'm glad we did them now as the pipes broke when removing them from the engine and they were extremely difficult to remove.



Got the holes cleaned out and new hoses installed.

Removed the center console to get the shifter out:




Brand new alternator and e36 engine mount brackets installed on the engine:



Intake manifold has already had all vacuum lines and the CCV replaced in the last several months with the cold weather type. The M54 oil dipstick tube will need the CCV drain barb cut off and transferred to the M50 tube:



Engine drained of oil and oil pan removed:



Installing the new pickup tube:





The bolt for the 728i pickup tube is larger than the 3 that held the old pickup tube on, so we went to the "bolt drawer" and found what appeared to be identical to another power steering pump pulley bolt, which works perfectly. Keep this in mind if you use this pickup tube. You also need to either bend or remove the old bracket for the pickup tube so that the new oil pan clears the windage tray, at least we did on this 2003 M54b25.



Installed a new oil pan gasket, even though the one on there wasn't that old. M50 oil pan installed:



Time for the intake manifold installation:




In the meantime, Steve and Jeff were removing the old M54 exhaust manifolds and installing the new M54 ebay headers (More on that in a bit):




Installed the rubber portion of the e90 heater hose suggested by Jordan on the back of the engine:



Modified the brand new coolant temp sensor with a hole in the side to attach a ground wire, per Jordan's DIY:



Drilled and tapped an e39 upper radiator hose bleed screw hole for the temp sensor. I'll use some teflon tape on the sensor in final installation:



Here's the new ECS M20 all aluminum radiator. I'm having a hard time finding anything that would make this a poor decision. It appears to be really well built and shouldn't suffer from leaking at the side tanks and it wasn't much more expensive than a new regular radiator for an e30 M20.



Time to marry the engine to the subframe in preparation of installing the transmission on the engine:



Zionsville sent us these mounts, but I'm not really sure what model vehicle they are from. They are supposed to be for this swap and appear to be working, but they do look different than the e28 ones that most people end up using:



New M54 5-speed LuK flywheel and Sachs clutch installed:




ZF 320z 5-speed transmission installed:



From the moment the headers were installed on the engine, I have not liked them and was worried they wouldn't fit. Well, The flanges push against each other so hard in normal position that you have to use a pry bar to separate them. I'm pretty sure this is not right (Again, more on this later):



Installing what I think is an e60 short shifter into the shifter arm that Zionsville sent in the kit:



Selector rod installed on transmission and the whole kit is ready to install into the car:



Shifter arm installed using the Zionsville mount:



Transmission crossmember test fit to make sure we had the studs in the right slots on the bottom of the car:



Well, we ran into our first real hurdle in the swap. We lowered the body down onto the subframe and kept fighting with the engine trying to move forward as we lowered the body. We eventually noticed that the rear o2 sensor was digging into the shielding on the passenger side firewall, but even after removing the o2 sensor, we still couldn't get it to line up.



We ended up leaving the engine out for the week and raised the body back up so Brian could use his shop for his other work. We were super tired, exhausted, and mentally drained, so we decided to do some research during the week to figure out what might fix this issue.

It turns out that when we raised the body back up, we noticed that the headers were rubbing quite a bit on the shielding in the transmission tunnel. During the week, I did some research on the M54 ebay headers and most people that had bought them ended up cutting and welding them to make them work, but we're not really welders, so we figured there had to be a better way. I ended up reading several different build threads in the M52TU swap threads here on r3v and found that the e36 M3/M52 headers are tubular without cats and fit the M54 perfectly. Then I read about some people using them on e30 M54 swaps (I think :)) and decided it was worth the risk. I found a set on Ebay for $210 shipped (only $110 more than the crappy ebay headers that require fabrication) and they had them to me by the end of the week and ready for the weekend.

Here they are installed on the engine:




Obviously, the flanges are 3 studs each instead of 2 like the M54 headers, but since we're doing a fully custom exhaust from the headers back, we're totally fine with that. The front flange seems like it is aimed very close to the subframe, so I'm hoping the exhaust shop can deal with it without too much fuss. It looks like a tight bend right out of the flange would allow it to clear the subframe, but if not, they might have to cut and reweld the flange to have a different angle.

We finally tried to install the engine again and this time, were successful :)



So much more clearance:



We're aware the M50 oil pan sits quite a bit lower than the old M54 or M20 oil pans, but with the splash shield installed, it comes right up to the M50 sump, so at least if the shield isn't scraping, the oil pan likely isn't either:



Unfortunately, Zionsville must have sent us a selector rod and shifter arm for an e30 5-speed with the 250g or whatever transmission is slightly shorter, because both were about 1" too long for the 320z. Looks like we'll have to send those back for the proper ones. I believe they arrived today, so we should see what they say soon we hope.



Steering linkage from them seems to work perfectly and is super easy to install if you unbolt the driver side of the rack and slide the rack back while sliding the linkage onto the rack. Nearly impossible to do without unbolting the rack.




My turn to start with the wiring :)





Zionsville sent the e36 328i driveshaft with its original CSB and told us to remove it and throw it away and install the new E30 CSB instead. After doing a bit of searching on the web, we found that a 7" piece of 1.25" ID PVC pipe is perfect for hammering the inner race of the bearing onto the splines.



I absolutely hate dealing with those clamps on the heater hoses in such tight quarters:



Driveshaft and heatshield installed:



At this point, there wasn't really anything we could get done without additional parts being delivered, so we decided to go out for a celebratory dinner with much beer to be drank. The picture shows a Bud Light dispenser, but I assure you, we had them fill it with Stella Artois, LOL.



128ozs gone :)



Sunday was spent cleaning Brian's shop and getting the car towed back to Charlotte so we can complete it. The difficult stuff that requires a lift is done, so we can do the rest in my air conditioned garage where we all live, instead of driving 3 hours each way to work on it and intruding on Brian's home for multiple weekends, LOL. The car is now back in Charlotte and after a couple weekends of taking care of some other stuff and waiting for parts to arrive, we'll get back to it.

[JDuckets]

1989 325i M54B25/320z swap

Thank you, Paul.....we can't forget our friend Peter. We were lucky enough to have him here in our local BMW CCA chapter for a year or so and we quite enjoyed his presence.

I want to say with the Euro/USD conversion rate for the part and shipping I was in for $47 or so.

It was a lifesaver and bolted right on to the M50 oil pan. Hopefully Paul uses the dorky snapshot we took. :)

Anyway, a giant THANK YOU to our buddy in Europe, Peter K.

[cwlo]

I'll try to get some pics of the heater hose setup.

Chris