Project Overly Ambitious

[36brua]

My wife's family lives in El Granada just over 92 and we are over there all the time. I'll have to try and get my wife on board to swinging by your place to check out your car soon!

Very cool, just let me know

[jpod999]

That sounds like a good plan of attack.

We are located in San Mateo (a little far) but let me know. I could see the HOA looking down on your little project haha.

My wife's family lives in El Granada just over 92 and we are over there all the time. I'll have to try and get my wife on board to swinging by your place to check out your car soon!

[36brua]

Thanks for the input, I was pretty jealous when I saw you guys got your car BAR'd. At this point, I've given up on that ever happening. I have friends that will help me get around that one. And if anything ever happens I figure I can just source an M60 and drop that in seeing as how the car will be setup for the V8.

I may take you guys up on your help offer, at the least we should get together when I get this thing on the road so we can do a photoshoot. Where in the Bay Area are you? I'm in Martinez but the engine is at my dad's in Walnut Creek as he has more garage space than I and no HOA to deal with.

That sounds like a good plan of attack.

We are located in San Mateo (a little far) but let me know. I could see the HOA looking down on your little project haha.

[jpod999]

This looks like a great project.

How serious are you about getting the car Bar'd because you might run into some pretty big obstacles doing an m62. first is that it starts off as an OBD2 engine which means you would have to convert the e30 to obd2. You could try to get it bar'd as a m60, which would be pretty hard mostly because of the crank sensor being in a different place on an m60. Depending on the bar ref you take it to they might automatically DQ you for the crank sensor either being in the wrong place or having a welded on crank sensor holder on the front.

Another thing is what harders are you planning on using? The x5 headers will most likely not get by a ref either for two reasons. One they are off an OBD2 motor, two they are off a truck and you can not use truck parts an a car you are getting bar'd. Modifying the stock harders is also a crap shoot de-pending on which Ref you take it to.

(Gotta love California)

We are also in the bay area if you ever need help or want to go for a ride.

Thanks for the input, I was pretty jealous when I saw you guys got your car BAR'd. At this point, I've given up on that ever happening. I have friends that will help me get around that one. And if anything ever happens I figure I can just source an M60 and drop that in seeing as how the car will be setup for the V8.

I may take you guys up on your help offer, at the least we should get together when I get this thing on the road so we can do a photoshoot. Where in the Bay Area are you? I'm in Martinez but the engine is at my dad's in Walnut Creek as he has more garage space than I and no HOA to deal with.

[36brua]

This looks like a great project.

How serious are you about getting the car Bar'd because you might run into some pretty big obstacles doing an m62. first is that it starts off as an OBD2 engine which means you would have to convert the e30 to obd2. You could try to get it bar'd as a m60, which would be pretty hard mostly because of the crank sensor being in a different place on an m60. Depending on the bar ref you take it to they might automatically DQ you for the crank sensor either being in the wrong place or having a welded on crank sensor holder on the front.

Another thing is what harders are you planning on using? The x5 headers will most likely not get by a ref either for two reasons. One they are off an OBD2 motor, two they are off a truck and you can not use truck parts an a car you are getting bar'd. Modifying the stock harders is also a crap shoot de-pending on which Ref you take it to.

(Gotta love California)

We are also in the bay area if you ever need help or want to go for a ride.

[jpod999]

man this is awesome! i know that e30 is gonna be a blast! deff subbed.

Thanks!

[Reyhan335]

man this is awesome! i know that e30 is gonna be a blast! deff subbed.

[jpod999]

Got a bunch of stuff done today. After receiving a couple of boxes of parts from Pelican I decided it was time to get started tearing into the motor.

Here's what we got done today:
-Removed OBDII harness
-Removed fuel rail/injectors (going to send them into bmwstone: http://bmwstone.com/)
-Removed intake manifold
-Removed water pump/thermostat
-Removed coolant transfer pipe and tubes
-Removed valley pan cover and valley pan
-Removed crank pulley
-Installed new spark plugs

The objective of today was to continue dressing down the engine and getting some cleaning done. Here's a shot, I'm pretty bad about taking pictures...I always forget!

You can see my wife going to town with the toothbrush and degreaser, you can also see my dad's sweet yard shoes :roll:



Going to pull off the alternator next weekend so she can finish cleaning. I need to return the M62 water pump and thermostat and order the M60 versions. I also need to order spark plug connectors, coolant tubes, knock sensors (separate connector version). Next weekend I am going to try and raid the same E34 I got the harness from of it's coolant transfer pipe and crank pulley.

I'm excited with the progress, can't wait to get this engine finished up!

[jpod999]

So I got an M62 water pump before I decided to do the OBDI swap, but after some reading it looks like I might need a M60 water pump. I haven't really been able to back this up though, can anyone shed some light?

Edit: After more research it does indeed seem like when converting the M62 to OBDI the M60 water pump and thermostat is required.

[jpod999]

I went and pulled the 404 DME and the harness from the car I mentioned above. It turned out to be a 1995 6spd manual 540i. We got to the yard about an hour and a half before they closed and were seriously cranking at the end trying to finish up pulling everything. When I pulled off the spark plug covers I saw that there were fairly new looking Bav Auto coil packs, so I grabbed those too. Anyone ever heard anything about these? I figured that if nothing else, these are newer than the original coil packs I have; I'll probably keep the stock ones laying around just in case.

I also pulled the fuel rail because it looks like the harness packs mount to it and I couldn't remember if my engine has that fuel rail.

I'm looking forward to buttoning up the engine!

[jpod999]

Got a lead on an E34 530i manual that just came into a local yard. Going to run down there tomorrow and try to get the DME and harness.

[jpod999]

Emailed Ergen Motorsport about building me a harness. After reading through MonkeyMadness's thread for a second time though it's likely I'll be going OBDI swap like ZacM829 mentioned. From what I've read, it's best to find a 93/94/95 530i manual harness yeah? I have the 6spd tranny with the hole so I am going to look into running the crank sensor off that.

[jpod999]

Thanks!

I'd love to keep it OBDII so that perhaps I can get through the California BAR but that seems like it would be super tough.

[Zacm829]

Cool story, looks like you have a plan all set in place. After driving a friends m5 I got bit by the same v8 bug. Converting to the obd1 harness and using a 404 dme is the way I went and I think it's much simpler. Looking forward to some progress!

[jpod999]

I sold the S52 etc. to a buddy of mine who has an S50 in his Z3. He bought the S52 so that he could swap out the S50 and get the car through the California BAR process. We worked out a deal where I knocked a couple of hundred bucks off the S52 and he helped me pull the M62 out.

Here is an in-the-process shot:


So now the motor/trans is in my dad's garage on a furniture dolly waiting for my Pelican order to come in. I'm replacing the waterpump/thermostat, bolting on an X5 oil block, and a bunch of assorted gaskets. From Garagistic I have the mount arms and mounts, second diff mount, chassis strengthening weld in plates, and RPM module. I think I'm going to go with their boosterless brake setup as well, which unfortunately because my car is an airbag car requires that I swap the column from a non-airbag car.

The car has a 474 DME, but I couldn't get to the EWS module, and Pick n Pull took the only key I had when they towed the car away...so I think I'm going to have to either get a DME/EWS/Key set on eBay or convert to OBDI and get the corresponding DME/harness. I am completely open to input here! Anyone know if EWS can be flashed out of the 474 DME?

I'm looking to pull the M42 either later this month or early in February so I can start getting the chassis ready. While the motor is out I want to do an E36 rack swap, no better chance in terms of access! I talked to my dad about getting a pre-1975 2002 after we finish the V8 swap to put my M42 in- again a little overly ambitious.