357i

iTrader: (4)

Finally getting around to making a thread for this ongoing project.
Short background, my first engine swap was a '87 Mazda Rx7. I did this in 2007 and really enjoyed the car. It was a LT1/t56 swap. The motor was cam only and ran 12.4's all day on 235 street tires. I came across the "right" deal on a LS1 in 2008 and pulled the car apart. Later that year my son was born and I was at a crossroad. Needing a daily driver with more room I either had to make the RX7 into a dedicated race car or find a 4door rear wheel drive car to put the LS1 into. Long story short, I bought a 1992 325i. In 2010 I had it running and knocking down 12.1's at the strip. In 2012 I had built a completely home brewed s/c for the car and was making 460lb/ft at the tire. Later that year I totaled the car at the drag strip when a radiator hose split and hosed the tires down while going through the traps. 1 month later I had a new car, a '99 528i and the motor was already out of my 325.

Video of 325i wreck can be seen here.


Also here is a link to the build thread on that if you are interested.

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...d+so+it+begins

Here is the car the day I purchased it, 9/2012. Bad auto transmission and the car had been sitting for 4 years. Bought it for $900.00. Car only has 96,xxx miles on it.









Immediately removed the engine and sold it for a huge chunk of the original purchase price of the car.





Removed the LS1 from the wrecked 325i





And test fit the LS1 in the 528i





Had I just stopped there and buttoned the car up, the swap would have been done and the car would have been driving around town in a matter of a few months...but why do anything easy. The 325i never felt powerful enough. The torque curve of the s/c looked great on paper but it just felt dull on the street. After riding in a few turbo cars in was dead set on a turbo setup. Unfortunately at this time no one is making a turbo kit for my particular application, so it was brain storm time. I went with a Turbonetics TC78 because of its small frame and the piles of positive reviews on it. As soon as it came in, mock up began.































This was time consuming. Not only building everything from scratch, but also working on a fairly tight budget, so down time between being able to purchase parts was common. After the manifolds were done I decided to check compression on the engine. All good but #7 which had 70lbs of compression and 85% leak down. I assumed the motor had a broken ring land(again). The money was not there to build the motor at the time and I ha d already stuck a piston in the motor the year before. I decided to just get everything together and make it all work, then decide what to do with the engine. I continued building hot side and cold side plumbing.













A pile of other things came next. Full 3" exhaust, driveshaft , wiring, ect, ect....









The day came for the first start and I was stoked. Turbo sounded awesome and the motor even sounded good, even though it was smoking a bit. Exactly one year to the day after wrecking my 325i, I drove the new project on the road. Here is a video of it when I first got it running.


That weekend my buddy Brandon and I went to a local get together and had a blast.



I continue driving the car often, even in its unhealthy state. I had a super low timing base tune that was showing me low 11:1 AFR under boost. My plan was to run around 8psi, that plan didn't work out. Due to some wastegate design issues, I was unable to hold boost below 15psi. Being the fool I am I just beat the car up for a few months. I was having guys jumping on me and just blowing their minds. I have no clue what the car was making in this state, but it was pulling like a freight train and "hanging" with 500whp cars.

Picked up a complete Fortune Auto suspension and installed it.





Mid December was the last time I drove the car. I had been going back and forth like crazy deciding what to do with the engine. The cheap, easy plan was drop a 5.3 in there and just push it. The not so cheap plan was build the LS1. After removing the motor and tearing it down I found 3 pistons with broken ring lands and 1 piston with a broke ring. Sent the block to the machine shop to get checked out and it got the OK...so I decided to build the motor I have.

I called Tick Performance and we went nuts!

Callie's rods
Wiseco pistons
LS9 head gaskets
ARP main and head studs
Valve springs
Cam
Timing set
Push rods
Lifters
Bearings
Oil pump





Also got a new Aeromotive 340 fuel pump to replace my maxed out 255, a new baffled oil pan and a pair of 317 heads to drop the compression to 9.4:1.

That brings us to today. Still getting parts in and hoping to have the block and heads back from the machine shop this week. The clutch I'm using is an ACT 725lb/ft setup which I will be maxing out pretty easily, but that all I have rot now. Hoping that this first "phase" will be around 525-550 at the tire.

I had been using a stock 528 188mm differential with a 4.10 gear and a 1 piece driveshaft. I just picked up a stock M5 210mm diff with 3.15 gears and a 2 piece driveshaft that will be going in shortly. I'm also doing a full interior swap to black during this down time. Planning to have the car back on the street in April.

I'm sure I missed a lot in this quick sum up of 16 months of work. Feel free to ask anything and if I think of anything I forgot, I'll post it up shortly.

TPI TERROR

iTrader: (52)

What blower was that ?

dezlfrek

iTrader: (1)

very cool thread.. nice work. congrats

gofastwclass

iTrader: (2)

Looks like fun.

LS1rob00

iTrader: (9)

Awesome work and bad *** build. You have some skills. Looking forward to seeing the end result!

wayfastwhitey08

looks like an eaton m112 with the lightning case

357i

iTrader: (4)

^correct. With a home made intake manifold and inlet.

wayfastwhitey08

what lower intake did you use to put the m112 on the old motor?

how were the charge temps?

could you tell if that inlet was restrictive at all? I can't really tell, but it looks like it could have been less than ideal.

wayfastwhitey08

never mind on the intake part... IDK how I skipped right over the homemade intake part, I guess my mind dumped that for the inlet portion...

and I'm reading your s/c build on the bmw site, and in post 262, I got a laugh over the fact that when you put
"He got me... my car is SLAMMED!!!!!!!one111!!" it was dated 4-1-'11 at 11:11, and is on page eleven

convenient april fools coincidence? lol

Sales@Tick

iTrader: (3)

I was wondering when I'd see this one pop up!

74CHEVC10

iTrader: (1)

only if I could do this swap on my e39 530...how bada** would that be!!

rao

iTrader: (18)

You can

357i

iTrader: (4)

^you can put an LS in anything.... even a Prius.

Never noticed that, was defiantly a coincidence, lol.
As you have likely read already, there was no cooler at all, only a methanol injection system. Mid summer, intake temps were around 140* if I remember correctly. I'm sure the inlet was a restriction, but it had to fit under the stock hood or I wasnt going to do it.

I've been lazy. Thanks for your help with picking my components the other day! Cant wait to get this thing back together.

wayfastwhitey08

yeah, I read it, (took forever though) they were pretty high, and an intercooler would have been ideal for sure, but with such limited space what you did was already on the edge of being too tall.

And I know it's too little too late, but...

I think in the inlet you built that had you continued the curve with the pipe all the way to the opening in the blower (think snail scroll) and ported the mouth and added a radiused edge it would have been a little more efficient, I would think that the extra volume in the inlet would have created a bit of throttle lag, that and the extra metal could have acted as a brace inside it's self maybe?

visually I really liked the way it looked and have a future project in mind something like this might come in handy for, and may be copying / revising your design in the future.

although I think for the trouble the extra cost of an m122 or something of the sort wouldn't hurt anything, but since you had the blower already, I like the ingenuity.

that's real hot rodding at it's core, taking what you have and just making it work.

357i

iTrader: (4)

Even though I chopped my stock F body oil pan to work, I decided to get the Autocraft pan anyway. Cutting the other pan lost some capacity which I dont like plus this pan has baffles/trap doors in it. I'm hoping to open up the holes in the oil filter adapter to thread in a couple of -10 fittings for an oil cooler.



I also started pairing rods and pistons together. I have no plans of removing any material from either, so I am getting the weights as close as possible with what I have. the difference between the heaviest and lightest piston and rod combo is 3g. Thats a total of only 2.5% difference , not bad for out of the box.

Skunkedtsi

iTrader: (1)

Stoked to see the final results, our cars should be running right about the same time and very similar, minus the cubes. Is your plan to use the oem M5 drive shaft in place of the one piece? Or did you have a custom two piece made?

seadoo

Glad you are okay from the accident at the track in the 325! That could have been really bad.
The 528 looks great! Cannot wait to see it complete.

Side note, are there any bmw swappers keeping ac? How are you hooking it up with the stock controls?

357i

iTrader: (4)

I had A/C in my 325i and plan to have A/C in the 528 as well. I just havent gotten around to it. there are a few guys who have had it working with no issue.

Picked up the heads from the machine shop today. Had them cleaned up and had new springs and valve seals installed.
They are 317 heads from a 6.0L truck motor which lowers the compression. These heads and the pistons together take the motor down to 9.4:1



Picking up the block tomorrow afternoon, then its on...

Verz

iTrader: (21)

I always liked your 3 series but the 5 is looking good and def wanna see whatll itll do on the new combo.

357i

iTrader: (4)

My custom grind Comp cam came in today, spec'd by Martin at Tick Performance

227/233 duration .623/.634 lift



Also picked up the final piece of the puzzle. Its ready to go with main studs installed.



Now I just need to find time to get to work on it!