Another N52 swap attempt!

[adam.nonis]

You have the patience of a saint. I couldn't wait to drive mine around the parking lot. Just to have it move under its own power. I was working the throttle in my hand while steering and shifting. 😂


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[Striker01]

Car is back on the ground for the first time in over a year. I forgot how low these things sit. My plan was to drive it around the block yesterday after I got the exhaust on but I realized I should probably get rid of the rust on the seat feet so my new carpet doesn't end up rust stained like the old one. Remflex flange gaskets seem to have cured my exhuast leak at the headers and an impact to the slip joint clamp seems to have cured one at the rear slip joint.

Still working on the heat situation. I can feel the heater inlet pipe is hot but my heater valve solenoid doesn't move, it is getting 12V when I turn the dial to cold so I guess I get to drain the coolant and check it out. Seems odd that it would fail with the solenoid extended but who knows. Any thoughts on just bypassing it?

Can't wait to get the front end put back together and drive this thing!!

[projectJTv4]

I'm reluctant to make this post but if my embarrassment can save someone else a headache then I guess it's worth it.

...

All seems to be good now!! Another lesson learned the hard way with this project.

Thank you for sharing!

[Striker01]

The more people do the swap, the better we get at it!

Striker01 Resetting pushed-pins basically makes you an avionics tech now!

So true about more people. I've had a bunch on hindsight is 20/20 moments for sure! That's part of the reason I try to post my mess ups, don't want someone else to deal with the same issues; they'll have plenty of their own without repeating mine.

I don't want to be an avionics tech. LOL

I tried to be methodical with the wiring process, now I'm stuck with some splices I tried really hard to avoid. Even if I had the right pins, I didn't leave enough slack to re-pin them and I'm not ordering new engine harnesses to change it all.

The pins 1355556-1, the medium ones won't fit into the connectors, they are just a little wide. I'm going to try and find the right one and post it. We need one in between the small and medium I ordered, unless digikey sent me a bag full of the wrong pins. Possible but very unlikely. Here is a picture compared to the correct ECU pins.








This is what I ordered.

[hoveringuy]

The more people do the swap, the better we get at it!

Here's a picture of my bench harness. It's literally just the big power and and ground wires, plus two signals on the X60002 plug. Wakeup signal on pin 1 (power, again) and the K-line on pin 2.

Power supply was $8 on Amazon.

The OBD plug also gets power and ground, plus the Kline, and you're in business.

Is is super-duper handy!!

Striker01 Resetting pushed-pins basically makes you an avionics tech now!

[Striker01]

I'm reluctant to make this post but if my embarrassment can save someone else a headache then I guess it's worth it. I've been chasing my tail for quite a while with the issue of not being able to flash my ECU. Last night Steve suggested I make a bench harness to try in the warmth of my house, instead of a cold garage. Super idea, wish I would've thought of it earlier. My old xbox 360s power supply was a perfect match.



Anyway, while the ECU was out I noticed that some of the pins were pushed back into the ECU. The connectors were kinda hard to secure but I didn't think much of it because I assumed I'd used the right pins when I shortened a few wires. Wrong! Here is what I happened to glance at it while it was out. All the wires I shortened and the whole X60001 connector were messed up.



The pin, Digikey P/N A123797TR-ND, is the correct one for the IVM connections but not the ECU. The ECU has wider blades but I didn't even look, they locked right into the connectors and I assumed they were good.

ECU pin on the left, replacements from digikey on the right. I searched digikey for a while looking for the correct pins without any luck so I just ended up soldering some pigtails from a spare harness, not ideal but it will work.



Pulled the pins back out of the ECU with needle nose pliers and attempted another flash.



All seems to be good now!! Another lesson learned the hard way with this project.

[Striker01]

Progress is slow, exhaust mid section is off for coating and waiting until after the new year to get my front panel and plastic bumper painted, earliest they can get it done.

I did get my fan wired up. Used 2 5-pin relays to isolate the PWM module from the fan side when AC is turned on. Reading up on how it works I was worried that having a constant ground available, if I just spliced both stock power wires together, would mess with how the PWM works. I can activate the fan with protool but won't be able to test the AC portion for a while. If it ends up throwing codes I'll cross that bridge when I get there.



Also got a box made for the IVM. ECU Wiring will have to be tucked up better or I'll have to modify the trim piece above the glove box to get the trim to fit, maybe both. I don't want to move forward with that or with putting seats back in until I get my ECU flash issue sorted.



No on to a super frustrating issue that I can't figure out, thought it was solved but I was wrong. Hopefully someone here can walk me through this flashing stuff, it's beyond me.

22RPD sent me a new flash to get rid of a couple DTCs and try to get water pump working for heat. I went to flash it and can't get it to work. The flash fails "unable to erase ECU" error at 1:13 every time I try. If I try a full flash instead of quick flash it does the same thing at 1:07.

It seems like the flash they sent for the EKP flashing after I changed to a bigger K line gauge wire was a fluke, I've probably tried 100 times in the last 10 days. I have tried the bimmergeeks expert k+DCAN cable and Jordan, 22RPD, sent me one of theirs. Same result with both.

I have tried 2 different laptops. Both are using the same FTDI driver dated July of 2021. One is a windows 11 home machine and I'm not sure what my son's is but it's less than a year old.

Flash tool can see and read the ECU and clear the DTCs but the flash isn't working. Latency is set to 1MS and I've tried standard 9600 baud, 4096 and 2048. Same result for all, COM1.

I really don't think I have a wiring issue in the car, protool can see live engine data and activate all the peripherals on the egine and the flash tool can see ECU and clear codes.

Charger was hooked up while attempting and voltage stayed around 12.6 for the entire process.

I'm at a loss here, if anyone has any advice I'm all ears.

Cleared codes before attempting.



This result every time, with the exception of the 1 time it worked, weeks ago.

[Striker01]

The other is by tapping the radiator, which pulls slightly cooler water but has somewhat less obtrusive routing.

I chose this simply because I think it looks cleaner.

Another solution I considered was to use an auxiliary pump that most new cars have for exactly this reason. I played with one off an A series Mercedes and it worked well but I never installed it It could go on either the core inlet or on the outlet side to pull coolant through (so you could mount under the radiator...). It would need to be triggered somehow when you needed heat. Maybe power to the heater core valve?

I also like this idea, especially if it’s as simple as activating a relay with the heater core solenoid power. A little more complex but would save some wear on the water pump and let the engine warm up quicker. I need to think on it.

[hoveringuy]

Heat.

Our cabin heat like most engines comes from engine waste heat. Unfortunately, the N52 is efficient and doesn't have as much waste. One of the benefits of the electric water pump is that it can be de-coupled from engine speed for extra efficiency, so our pumps only run at like 5% until the engine is warmed-up and then it will run on demand which in a lot of cases is only 20%. 80% is moving a LOT of coolant!

I found initially that I was getting almost no cabin heat.

There are two different ways to run the heater core inlet. One is the way that LukeJ did it by tapping the engine outlet directly:


The other is by tapping the radiator, which pulls slightly cooler water but has somewhat less obtrusive routing.



One of my solutions was to have Nando up my minimum pump speed to 40%. The downside is that the motor takes a bit longer to warm-up, but I get enough flow at all times for cabin heat.

Another solution I considered was to use an auxiliary pump that most new cars have for exactly this reason. I played with one off an A series Mercedes and it worked well but I never installed it It could go on either the core inlet or on the outlet side to pull coolant through (so you could mount under the radiator...). It would need to be triggered somehow when you needed heat. Maybe power to the heater core valve?

The OEM solution is that the comfort module communicates and coordinates with the ECU so that when heat is selected it bumps-up the pump speed, so there's a geek solution out there somewhere....

[Striker01]

40lbs lighter, probably 30 with the skidplate/oil pan ;). I'm guessing at least 100hp over a tired M20, 6 gears, no valve adjustments, probably better mileage. If you don't mind a year of frustration and banging your head against a wall it sounds like a win!

Hopefully I'll know soon!!

Started the car to a terrible noise today. I was in panic mode but luckily hoveringuy suggested I pull the belt and see if it went away, fortunately it did. Apparently test starting an engine with a dry power steering pump isn't a good idea Got that replaced and everything seems good with the steering.

Had a couple minor leaks; radiator drain o-ring was dry rotted and new coolant bung on the oil filter housing was leaking from the crush washer. I tried to bleed the cooling system but can't get any heat, scared to let the temp gauge get past 1/2 because I don't have a fan hooked up yet and protool wasn't reading live data for some reason. Heater hose off the radiator wasn't even warm at 1/2 on the gauge. I'm not sure if half is enough to get the water pump pushing fluid. Reached out to make sure my tune is set to run the pump at a low rate all the time.

Also realized that the blower motor wouldn't run once the car is started, window either. Looped pin15 to pin20 on C101 to basically eliminate the the unloader relay feature, another hoveringuy idea. Nice to have some adult supervision around here.

[hoveringuy]

Nice work!

adam.nonis was just asking about this so I thought I'd post the weight loss from switching to the Magnesium diet...

both of these were fully-dressed, the N52 is as I got it from the dismantler with everything but the exhaust manifold. Note that the 6 speed transmission alone is about 20lbs heavier than the G260.

An M50/S50 would be roughly 90-100lbs heavier than an N52, depending on transmission.

[Striker01]

Finally making some decent progress. I got the flash issue figured out. After trying multiple times with no luck I decided to run a heavier gauge wire from the OBD port to the ECU. I think I had 24 originally and went with .5mm wire from one of my N52 harnesses, for clarity I've had the IVM bypassed with both wires. strangely that fixed the issue, flashed on the first try after changing it. I was able to flash the updated tune 22RPD sent and now my EKP works as intended; runs for a second on initial ignition and turns off until I crank it. I don't think the wire size here was my problem. I haven't been able to successfully flash the ECU since the one time it worked. Probably tried 100 times in the last 10 days.



Had a pretty big setback with brake lines, after filling the reservoir I had leaks from the ABS unit, rear brake bias valve and the T above the rear subframe. That was just from gravity, I can't imagine if I'd attempted to bleed anything. Luckily the only paint that peeled from it was under the ABS module and the tab for the rear bias valve. I think the problem was a combination of the cheap amazon flare tool I used and some of the fittings I bought didn't have enough neck past the threads to seat the flares. I ended re-terminating all the brake lines, with a better flare tool, and remade a few of the shorter ones. Changing the rear hard lines with the subframe in was quite a project. Everything seems to be good now, brakes are bled and hopefully ready to go.

I battled bleeding the clutch for quite a while, With the N52 my clutch line is too short to pull the slave cylinder with everything connected and pumping the pedal got me nowhere. If the flare tool was my worst amazon purchase then a reverse brake bleeder was the best $60 I've ever spent there. With it, and my son's eyes on the reservoir, I had the clutch bled and ready in about 10 minutes. I recommend it for sure, but thread tape on the bleeder is a must with it.



I think I have everything plumbed and ready to start so I can let the engine run for longer than a minute. I don't really like the N52 intake manifold, it makes running anything a huge pain, ran out of real estate super quick once I started trying to get the power steering and coolant lines ready. I will definitely be switching to EPS and a different intake manifold at some point in the future. I'm not pleased with the heater plumbing and engine wiring mess on the driver's side.






Planning to pick up some distilled water and power steering fluid tomorrow so I can get all the fluids filled and ready for some actual runtime on the engine. I should probably plug in that oil pressure sensor as well, lol.

[Striker01]

Slowly getting closer to being able to drive this thing.

Exhaust is fully welded and ready to go. I have a little leak at one of my header flanges, guess it warped a little during welding. Hopefully find a slightly thicker gasket or maybe some copper spray on the gasket for final install.




Heater core port is installed on the radiator, should've put it lower to be flush with the frame rail but it'll work.



Lower radiator hose is set, had to space the thermostat housing out a little to clear the AC pulley, still only have about 3/8" of clearance between the hose and belt. Have to keep an eye on it but motor shouldn't move much on poly mounts, I hope.




Found out my ECU is indeed coded as an E85. Still working with 22RPD to figure out why my EKP runs constantly, tried another CAN-11h one and it does the same thing. CAN H wire gets around 3v and L around 1V when powered so I think I have a protocol issue between it and the ECU. They sent me a file to flash, to change the protocol but I can't get it loaded into the ECU.

Their flash tool can see and read the ECU but fails with an unable to erase ECU error every time I try to flash it. I am using the bimmergeeks expert cable with COM latency set to 1ms. I'm open for ideas if anyone may know what the issue is.

[Striker01]

I ran into the same issue both hoveringuy and adam.nonis had with the VVT limit learning. After talking with those guys I thought I would need to get my hands on INPA to see the movement limits to the eccentric physical stops, live data wouldn't work before on protool, got a not available for your ECU error. Couldn't find a copy of INPA I could get to work so got frustrated and tried my protool app again. The live data option started working after the car finally started for the first time. The only difference was I was wired to the OBD port through USB, it was bluetooth the first time. Read the limits like Steve suggested. Mine was reading from 0 to 224 degrees but still wouldn't pass the limit learn procedure. ended up using a washer just like they did. Took it from 0 to 3 and passed on the first try. Steve mentioned this procedure should be mandatory preflight before attempting to start and I agree 100%, also assembly lube like Adam suggested. The noise it was making before the limit learning passed was pretty scary.

My eccentric teeth didn't look as bad as I thought, just some shiny spots on a couple teeth. I'm going to send it for now and will change it and the actuator if it gives me any problems. There are a few spots where its harder to turn but I'm hoping that's just spring tension. The ECU turns it fast and doesn't seem to get as hot as it did before.

I can see why Steve said its so important to have INPA. The protool app seems to work good as well, now that I have live data. Verified pedal readings, intake air temp, VVT commanded position vs actual and quite a few other parameters. My only complaint is that it takes forever to load and get connected to the car, it searches for every module a newer car should have; wish you could select only to search for the DME but its in English so I'm not complaining too much.



Reached out to 22RDP to find out what they used for my base tune, not able to get protool to talk to the EKP or get it to turn off once ignition power is applied. Hopefully have that issue sorted shortly. Time to button up the exhaust and get the cooling system sorted.

[Striker01]

Thanks. I'll get a bung on the way for the radiator.

EKPM2 without the can11h is $30, one is on the way. Tried everything else I could think of. Looks like the E90 uses PT Can instead of D can, maybe that will fix the issue. I'll also try to find out what they used for the base tune, be good to know. Hopefully it won't require any other changes if it is e90.

Looks like I partially destroyed my eccentric teeth, lots of shiny concave spots on them now. Adam mentioned using assembly lube on that gear and I will when I install the new one.