N52 Swap Discussion

[nando]

Nice, I have an extra bed plate for the same purpose.

The only thing about it is be careful if you use it to weld your pan, since obviously catching magnesium on fire is not a good thing.. :p

Dig the Lego set in the background too! We currently have the London Tower Bridge in our living room, and my son is building the Hogwarts castle (the big one).

[hubcapboy]

Your warning is fair. There’s a huge risk of fire from magnesium grinding or machine work tailings, but magnesium is TIG-weldable so I think with some basic safety I should be able to tack some MIG welds nearby. I read up a little on the AJ62 alloy that BMW used just out of curiosity and there’s no indication that it’s *more* flammable than pure Mg. (There’s certainly a significant heat sink in the whole block)

Don’t worry I’ll post photos of the block on fire if it happens.

https://youtu.be/tausy8soPzU

This has a pretty interesting demo of how to tell Al from Mg.


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[cwlo]

The X3 uses the same ekp, and they will be much cheaper than a z4 one. I think I paid $15 for mine on ebay.

[nando]

Cool, I knew that but had forgotten about it.

Funny thing, when I was originally doing an S54, I bought what was supposed to be an E46 S54 EKP. It turns out I got one from an N52 Z4. lol. I didn't notice until recently when I was digging through a box of parts in the garage..

[hubcapboy]

Monkeying around. There’s no way to test-fit the engine with the sump on, I’m not going to leave it open during the inevitable delays, and I need something steel to temporarily locate the engine in the car... so this is a windage tray/oil pump guard with a steel flange around it. This is going to mount to the bottom of the engine while I jiggle the engine/trans around into the right spot, then I can mount the “guard” to the frame in a few locations. That will establish the position of the engine block relative to the chassis.

Unbolt those fixtures and remove the engine/trans and swap this pan back to this mock-up block. Bolt the whole thing back in and I have the engine in the right spot with nothing in the way, and plenty of room to build arms out to the motor mounts.

The steel sump is off to the side, and the red circle is where the crossmember needs to go through it. It feels like there’s going to be tons of room for a front sump without any ground clearance problems.






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[nando]

That's cool. Nice mock up of the pan. I feel like the only truely difficult part is coming up with an oil pickup, since the original is plastic.

Any chance you could throw the block on a scale? I'm interested to know how much lighter it is than the steel blocks. I have a bare S52 block and IIRC it was ~120lbs. The S54 block should be even heavier (taller deck, more internal bracing, etc).

[hubcapboy]

N52 Swap Discussion

I’ll absolutely weigh it. I was interested to know the difference myself, but it’s hard to know what components are included in peoples’ claimed weights (with crank? Without crank?). I can tell you that it’s not a struggle to pick it up with one hand.

I have a few bits and pieces to play with for the pickup. The plastic pickup is just a press-in fit with a generously sized squishy o ring. Since the plastic is so much thicker than a steel equivalent would be, it shouldn’t be hard to get an equivalent ID and still turn an adapter to slip over the end of the tube and hold the correct size o ring. That can all be built upside down on the dummy block and spare oil pump.

Sorry... I realized that it’s not clear that the “sump-y” part of the guard is just to protect the oil pump on the complete engine:

[nando]

Mine's just a bare block with the main caps, nothing else. Looks comparable to what you have there.

[nando]

I found it.. S52 bare block is 108lbs. No crank or anything.

[cwlo]

I would work on the oil pickup before spending more time on the pan. You will need to elbow down which will take some space.



I looked into different steel tube when I was doing mine, and actually ended up using 3/4 emt, which I bent with an emt bender. Worked very well believe it or not. You'll want a hold-down or two as well.

[hubcapboy]

N52 bare block and girdle without rotating assembly weighs 72.3 lbs (in case this photo disappears 10 years from now)

I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I’m planning on using what’s in the photos above as the sump. There’s no room for any kind of pickup under there. It’s just so I don’t have to worry about the oil pump while I’m dangling the engine and shoving it around.




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[jwal]

Seems like a similar weight to an M52/4 aluminum block. Kinda disappointing

[hubcapboy]

Disappointing but probably not surprising. You only have to look at the direction BMW went with the engines after this (V8 or turbo) to figure out that they didn’t think this was worth the trouble.


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[digger]

I guess the thing that's important is the total dressed engine and trans weight . Comparing apples to apples though which is not always easy or convenient

[wazzu70]

Do we have the weight of a similar M54 block? Jaker probably knows it, or PEI330CI.