While You're In There... CA BAR Certified S52 OBD2 Swap

[pandaboo911]

how hard was the vanos rebuild? I wish I had done it while I had everything apart. Now its rattling...

Getting close though! I think you can use the E30 charcoal canister instead of the E36

It's super easy. Replacing the vanos "bearing" and o-rings takes 5 minutes.. Most time consuming part is re-installing the vanos unit.

[Butler]

Incredible attention to detail! Great build.

[arch4ngel]

Finished ac install and a few other odds and ends.

Unfortunately I'm a bit stuck on what to do about my throttle cable.
I tried bending an obd2 e36 cable to get it to fit next to the e32 booster but even after removing the cable adjuster and bending it till it broke it was still hitting.
Anybody else have trouble fitting an obd2 throttle cable to an obd2 throttle body with the e32/ix booster?

Rebuilt ps and evap hoses.


Custom an-10 oil cooler hoses and a bypass hose so I can break in the motor without it.


Old ac tensioner with rebuild parts (one bolt missing in this picture).


Rebuilt tensioner.


New compressor and drier with pressure switch installed.


Power steering hoses installed, slilght bending of the cooling loops were necessary to get everything nicely fitted.

[arch4ngel]

Slowly making progress.

Installing 3.15 torsen lsd.


Exposed.


Replaced my old rear set of eibach sports with some h&r races.


Got my gauges back from Greg@BavRest. They've been completely transformed into a work of art. The needles were airbrushed, paint matches stock e30 m3 gauges. All solder joints reflowed, odo rebuilt, plastic polished, installed gauge rings, all lights replaced, sprinkled with pixie dust, etc etc. Check engine light wasn't working here as I had yet to hook up power to the dme.


Did some more work that I didn't get around to take pics of:
- Got my Galletto 1260 cable to work. Pulled the 24k data section of my ms41.2 dme and started figuring out how to modify it. So far I'm planning on deleting ews, raising rev limiter to 7k and disabling the speed limiter. I'm installing all the emissions equipment so no need to modify their values.
- Refreshed driveshaft by painting one half that was missing some paint and replacing the csb. Installed it with all new hardware.
- Cleaned up and installed driveshaft heat shield.
- Replaced some rubber fuel/vacuum lines under the hood and car.
- Replaced the three engine harness relays (main fuel and sap).
- Installed the slave master cylinder and bled the system.
- Bled brakes.
- Mapped out how to connect charcoal canister and fuel tank pressure sensor and ordered parts.
- Figured out where to mount SAP and started building a mount for it.

I ran into an issue which unfortunately is going to take some work to resolve.
I couldn't get my e36 throttle cable to fit. I made a couple attempts at bending the metal portion of it up a bit so it clears the brake booster but both times the cable broke. After much research I finally decided it's not possible (or at least not easy) to run the obd2 manifold with an e32 booster installed with the spacer. There's just not enough room to install the cable without interference. This appears to be the case for both style throttle bodies.
This also means my schrick manifold won't work with my setup so i have to sell it now
Fortunately the m50 manifold fits much better with it's shorter runners so the next major job will be to get that installed. I wish I would have known all this before spending countless hours installing and modifying the s52 manifold, but you live and learn i guess.

Coming up next:
- Install m50/obd1 manifold.
- Fill trans and diff with fluid.
- Install the SAP carbon canister and FTPS.
- Replace engine mounts (ordered a set of AKG mounts after deciding I don't like how the condors sit).
- Drain the old fuel out of the tank and install fuel pressure losses valve with new fpr.
- Flash dme with software update.
- Build up some courage and finally tackle pulling the carpet and troubleshooting the body harness issues.

[TheGuy34]

Updates?

[arch4ngel]

Soon to come.
Have been busy trying to finish the car but I'll fill everyone in when I get a chance.

[Toodaloo]

Awesome progress! It was grey to meet you on Friday and check out the car, Raphael! Anytime you need help, shoot me a call or text. I'll pm you my number.

[arch4ngel]

Awesome progress! It was grey to meet you on Friday and check out the car, Raphael! Anytime you need help, shoot me a call or text. I'll pm you my number.

Thanks buddy!



I'm currently at an impasse with the car so I now have time to finally update this thread!
The thread is sorely out of date so I'm going to try and focus on a particular area for each of the following posts:

- Brake booster
- Throttle body cable
- OBD2 emissions plumbing/ fuel system replacement
- Everything else

[kamotors]

nice work

[arch4ngel]

Brake booster

The infamous brake booster.
Not sure why so many folks claim this is easy, I had a bear of time with it.

As i noted earlier in the thread I started off with a e32 735i booster and master. This seemed to fit at first but as I started buttoning down the car I quickly realized there were going to be fitment issues.

I started out by cutting off the rear fins on the m52 intake manifold.
This helped a bit but I was still just touching. Next I tried very lightly dremeling the bit that was touching but I inevitably broke through the plastic. After getting another manifold I started playing with engine mount spacers.
Again this seemed to help a bit but even with several head washers stacked under the mount arms the manifold was still touching. Back to the drawing board.

After much research (and re-research at this point) I came upon a thread mentioning that the spacer on the iX booster is shallower by 6mm than the 735i spacer. So I decided to put out for another booster when I couldn't find just the spacer for sale.
Lo and behold! The spacer was not only 6mm shallower but also offset downwards by several mm.
Didn't get a chance to measure but should be about the same distance as the spacer was shallower.
This allowed the booster to sit lower and now easily cleared the manifold.
Also the throttle cable problem, though not quite solved, had significantly more room now.



Unfortunately the iX booster's vacuum port was now very close to the shock tower.
This meant it would be nearly impossible to remove the check valve if that was necessary. Good thing the 735i booster has the port on the other side!

Basically my setup now consists of an iX booster spacer, 735i booster, e36 check valve and e30 clevis.

As an added bonus I discovered that either manifold will work using these parts. They are both practically the same dimensions.

[ncrmtrsprtsE30]

I always wondering why people are piecing together OE brake parts to rig their brake system for swaps..

why not opt for the boosterless wilwood pedal box and remote res's.. as Garagistic does.. http://store.garagistic.com/ocart/e3...ss-brake-setup

edit: nice build btw, i will be coming back here for info lol

[arch4ngel]

nice work

Thanks Kam, it's kind of sad you've done 3 swaps in the time it's taken me to do one. Well less than one.

I always wondering why people are piecing together OE brake parts to rig their brake system for swaps..

why not opt for the boosterless wilwood pedal box and remote res's.. as Garagistic does.. http://store.garagistic.com/ocart/e3...ss-brake-setup

edit: nice build btw, i will be coming back here for info lol

This is going to be a street car with occasional track use. I wanted to keep the brake feel more or less stock. Smaller boosters, boosterless setups all increase braking effort from what I've read. The iX/735i booster setup used all stock parts with no modifications necessary.

[arch4ngel]

Throttle Cable

After a ton of research and purchasing both e36 and e34 cables I decided the e36 was the way to go. I'd personally rather have too much slack (can be adjusted out) than not enough.

Originally my 735i brake booster bracket was pushing the booster too far forward. This led me try several different hack ways at fitting the cable, all of which led to broken cables. Long story short, don't modify your throttle cable if you can help it, it will probably bind and/or break on you.

Once I got the brake booster issue figured out I had more room but still not quite enough for the cable to fit properly. Next I started messing with the cable bracket on the throttle body. I basically pulled the bracket off and hammered it so the "lip" was hammered flat and the holes were angled slightly outward. This gave me a few more mm of clearance and moved the cable slightly to the side to prevent it from hitting the booster. This just about did the trick, the only modification still needed was to shorten the adjuster by about half (see pic).

With the cable now fitted and with proper clearance I had to figure out a way to adjust the cable. I found some go cart throttle cable stops on ebay that did the trick. I'm using loctite on the set screw and I bought a few spares to ensure I don't get stranded if it falls off.

Bent bracket


Chopped adjuster


Throttle cable stops

[arch4ngel]

It's alive!
I'm going to circle back to the emissions equipment installation and post swap wrap up in a later post.

This project has been frustrating, anxiety inducing and extremely tough on my wallet.
Hearing the unrestricted fury of a rebuilt s52 coming to life for the first time made it all worth it.
Scared the hell out of my dog haha.

There are so many moving parts, so much margin for error I was sweating bullets when I first turned the key.
I ran into some trouble getting the car started (detailed here).
It took awhile to track down the culprit but the car started right up when I figured it all out. The injectors froze up from sitting too long. Looking at the invoice I realized I had them rebuilt over a year ago!

Special thanks to justXtreme for getting a replacement set of injectors out to me so quickly. He didn't have time to turn around the injectors for me same day so he was nice enough to send a replacement set out so I could get to work that weekend.

Once the car started my podi.ca gauge pod came in handy helping me quickly diagnose a bad alternator. I pulled a bunch of codes but I'm not going to worry about them until I get the alt replacement and the ecu is running on proper voltage.
After a bit of research I found an alternator without the cooling vent hole. I had to grind the lip down quite a bit to make room for my oil cooler hoses and I'm fairly sure despite my best efforts some shavings fell into said hole and melted inside the alt.
It turns out the s52 mz3 came with a factory oil cooler like the euro m3. The alternator has no cooling duct and outputs 25 more watts, exactly what I need.

I have a BAR appointment coming up in a few weeks, should be enough time to get to the exhaust shop and work out any bugs.

Obligatory start up vids:

[arch4ngel]

Replaced the alternator with the mz3 unit.
The wires are relocated to the top of the back plate.
Unfortunately this puts the wires right into where the bimmerworld oil distribution block puts my oil pressure switch.
Removing the sensor and replacing it with a bolt did the trick for now but I'm going to find a way to hook it back up eventually.
The podi gauges are fine but an extra layer of security in case the gauges fail would be nice.

With the new alternator in place the car fired right up and idled at 14.0 to 14.1 volts.
The idle is smooth but I noticed a little misfiring when holding the throttle steady at around 2k rpm.
Peake tool shows codes for injector #1 and maf. Hopefully everything will clear up during the break in run.

I was able to bring the car up to operating temp.
The blower is pushing hot air and the fan turns on right before the gauge hits the middle bar, perfect.

All that's left before the exhaust shop and break in is to clean up some wiring, install the headlights, permanently install the sap and partially assemble the interior.