LS1 swap 318IS

[tyeler18]

One week until raceday, got a few upgrades during the week. My buddy from discount called to let me know my A052's came in so I hauled ass over after work to get them mounted on the rear. 245/45/16's and they fit about as perfect as I wanted.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Zero rubbing issues, grip has improved DRASTICALLY over the bridgestone 205 all seasons that came on these wheels. 2nd gear actually holds from a roll now, although it does still spin the 2-3 shift. End goal with these was to test fit them on the front and try and run a square 245/45 setup. I got antsy and decided to stick them on the front as soon as I got home and they fit! Kind of! They rub the front mud guards which the 205s did as well, but aside from that they barely rub the sway bar at full lock, not too concerned there. I pulled the mud guards and drove around to make sure I wasn't going to have any issues and its good to go, so I have another set coming in this week to run up front.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Spent today getting some of the tune setup properly. I've been running without a MAF on a MAF tune this entire time because I was too lazy to swap over to a speed density tune. I plan to add a card style MAF on this, but for now I've been running SD. Heres a quick 2-3 pull from 2500. Trying to record and shift on a bumpy road didn't work too well so it's a little shakey

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

And finally had to show off the cars and coffee setup, 2 folding chairs fit great in the trunk for when you want to stop for a cars and coffee :D

by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

[paynemw]

Clean car man. Looking forward to more pictures and details. What's the total weight of the car? Have you done any work to increase stability of the front end like welding in re-enforcement plates for sway bars?

[kid8]

Looking good! Do you have a thread on the montero by chance, I'm a gen 1 owner myself!

[tyeler18]

Clean car man. Looking forward to more pictures and details. What's the total weight of the car? Have you done any work to increase stability of the front end like welding in re-enforcement plates for sway bars?

Thank you, no clue on total weight. I'll have it on scales when I go to coilovers, but for now it wasn't too concerning. It's heavy though, zero weight reduction done with A/C etc. I have no reinforcements either. The entire suspension is bone stock aside from the condor subframe bushings, M3 FCABs, and e46 rack. I did inspect the engine plates this weekend while it was in the air and they still haven't cracked yet.

Looking good! Do you have a thread on the montero by chance, I'm a gen 1 owner myself!

I don't, I have a bunch of posts on mitsubishi montero owners on facebook though. None of the offroad forums have a very good Mitsubishi sub-forum so I haven't bothered to post it anywhere else. The montero purists go about as crazy over an LS swapped montero as BMW purists do over this.

[tyeler18]

So the weekend has come and gone, along with it the first race event for me in the E30. Spent saturday morning finishing the car prep since the event didn't start until 6pm. Brakes bled, witness marks on bolts all checked to torque, fluids all looked over.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

80 miles one way to the event, A/C blasting, perfect daily. My girlfriend was supposed to race my C5, but chickened out last minute again. She autox's a built 2g eclipse I built her and drag races her 450whp evo, but she's never raced W2W and hasn't balled up enough to finally do it. Sucks, I was hoping to get a point by in the e30 lol. The event went phenomenally, I was fully prepared to be fixing bugs or wrenching on the car, or catastrophic failure of some stock driveline component. In my C5 I can usually go 10 laps or so before either oil temp or coolant temps get too high, or I lose power steering from boiling the power steering fluid. I was worried the power steering pump was going to boil fluid quickly since it runs the hydroboost and rack on the car, but I had zero issues lap after lap. The brakes left something to be desired, but I couldnt tell you what brand of cheap pads they are or how old they are as they came on the car when I got it and I've never looked twice at them. They did work though, I was able to stop the car no issue and they never faded, but they need replaced with something better.

Now here's where the fun began, stock suspension with 245 square sticky tires and an LS are by no means a combination I'd ever recommend anyone. I no longer have intact splash guards in the fender wells. There's so much weight transfer between power, braking, and grip that it was like piloting a Caribbean cruise ship. Every corner my tires were up into the fender wells rubbing away, one session I was out there with a pair of side cutters cutting the splintered chunks of plastic out of the wells, but we pressed on! I run low 66 second lap times in my vette here, despite having worse brakes, less rubber, and horrendous suspension I still managed a best of the night at a 66.3 with consistent 66.XX laps regardless of tire temp, these A052's are phenomenal. I have the track addict app and was watching my sector times every lap, one of my final laps I decided to really push the car using 2nd instead of 3rd most of the lap. I had a green 65.0X final sector and ran into a buddy that decided to do a cooldown lap right at the finish line which knocked me back into a 66.4 lap time hard on the brakes. The car has a lot more in it, plenty of power and plenty of grip. Coilovers and some PFC08 pads should greatly improve the lap times

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr
Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Most of our group that went. The accord is a K24 swap gutted basically full blown race car. He had a 61 sec PB this event, very fast car. The EG is a 360hp boosted B16, he runs right with me normally but broke 65's this event. My buddy ran the Rav4 which was hilarious but impressive with a 70 sec PB.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Watch that body roll lol, it was so bad!

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Hopefully this works, one of my videos uploaded to youtube, a lot more coming. This was my very first session out

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZKAUf8nVX8M" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[tyeler18]

Some of the drone footage from the night.

https://youtu.be/oq0mkVckjDo

https://youtu.be/r7G7ny61LuU

https://youtu.be/MPbL6yVi69k

[kid8]

Looks like a blast!

[mike.bmw]

Very cool drone footage.

[tyeler18]

Quick update- I have a CM5908 stereo in the car and really didn't want to add anything aftermarket for a head unit. I did however want bluetooth. Searching around I found a few modules for the CM5908 but at $200+ I couldn't justify the cost. I found BBowman's post in the DIY subforum the other day on adding a cheap bluetooth module on the cassette drive audio out and figured why not give it a shot. After a few PM's with him, I ended up with this $12 DROK brand bluetooth module from amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P94Z9XR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I wasn't sure if it was going to come with connectors, so I ordered a pack of 3P audio connectors, but it came with it's own nice connectors. This module is a little different than his. This one has a voltage converter built in, so you can feed 12v directly in to the board and it'll knock it down to 5v for you. I didn't want to add a latching relay so I wired it to a small toggle switch installed in one of the dummy button holes above the stereo. Flip the switch, module powers up, auto connects to bluetooth and you've got crystal clear bluetooth sound streaming from your device. Flip it off and the radio defaults back to FM radio. For $12 and about 40 minutes of my time I must say this was well worth the money. I just epoxied the module to the top of the radio case and routed the 2 toggle trigger wires up out one of the holes in the top. Couple of poor pictures of the install, purist look away. I gutted the cassette drive out of the head unit for this, so if anyone needs a cassette drive for a CM5908 I have one I'll never use again lol. Sadly my HVAC panel is crumbling to pieces on removal, it's on the end of the list of things that need replaced. One of these days.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr


We have a track day coming up in 2 weeks, unfortunately I'll be in South Dakota for the weekend fixing a newer 5 series, so no track time for november unless I hit up one of our autox events. Our group has booked a private event at the track for december. The plan was to do a rental car challenge as we do a track event once a year as the "fastest in town" style event. The plan this year was to rent a new mitsubishi mirage, each driver gets 5 laps around the track, fastest lap wins the trophy. The track owner heard about what our plan was and offered us his spec miata for the event instead, so we'll have the whole track to our group for the day while we race our personal cars and the miata. They're expanding the track now into a 2.XX mile track now as well, so it should be a fun road course beginning of the year. As it sits now it's basically a high speed autox circuit.

[AWDBOB]

This thread delivers- that thing looks like a handful on the track!

[bbowman]

Bluetooth mod looks solid!!

[tyeler18]

Bluetooth mod looks solid!!

Thank you again! I'm quite impressed how clear the sound is for being a 30 year old stereo

This thread delivers- that thing looks like a handful on the track!

It is quite the handful. I'll upload some of my track addict videos to show just how light I had to be on the throttle to keep from losing the back end. 3rd gear from 2500+ for most of my sessions and 30-40% throttle was the max I was seeing aside from the 2 main straights. Running 2nd gear I saw blips of 30% and had to back straight back off for traction. It's super fun to drive though. Some custom swift spring coilovers are coming up soon!

[milosav2]

I am doing the same swap on my 325e. Did you have to make some special mounts/brackets to get the Becool 35202 radiator to fit?

[tyeler18]

I am doing the same swap on my 325e. Did you have to make some special mounts/brackets to get the Becool 35202 radiator to fit?

I just bent 2 aluminum L brackets and rivnut them to the bottom of the core support. With the radiator flush with the core support bar the upper factory radiator mount fits and holds it perfectly. Very simple setup

[milosav2]

I just bent 2 aluminum L brackets and rivnut them to the bottom of the core support. With the radiator flush with the core support bar the upper factory radiator mount fits and holds it perfectly. Very simple setup

Is the upper factory mount doing much holding? Isn't it meant to squeeze over the top of two round pieces of aluminum snuggly? The Becool radiator doesn't have those two pieces? Maybe you're just using that factory upper mount to hold/press the radiator up against the sheet metal of the car?