On my 99 E36 LS swap I ran all the header tubes up over the steering shaft. The rear most near the steering shaft is the biggest challenge. Need to sweep up and forward to clear the shaft. Used Flaming River u-joints.

Left valve cover just clears the brake booster.

Built the headers out of 1.75 inch tubing. Did the passenger side first for practice and than did the drivers side. Had the front clip off so that made things a bit easier.

Yes you need to remove the steering shaft to remove the header. And lift the engine slightly.

Never really measured the to see if the engine is square to the chassis. I used rubber engine and trans mounts, not poly and no extra vibrations at all.

 

Doug is right. We ended up going the hydroboost route on a Cutlass build. The master cylinder is basically the same size as an OEM unit; relocating your pedals is not necessary. However you will need to run the required lines to an external source such as a power steering pump. We had a typical late 60's Saginaw pump nothing spectacular. I'm not sure if you would have issues with your OEM BMW pump (are you using the original equipment?).

 

I'm using the BMW rack supplied by a Turn One F-body power steering pump. The outlet of the pump has an in-line orifice that I can manipulate for the level of assist I want. I will also probably run a small cooler to keep the pump happy. I'll figure the booster situation out once the headers are finished.

I decided to add some gussets to my motor mounts. Probably not necessary but definitely looks more complete imo.













Finished in powder today



Also knocked my shifter out. It's a Ws6store shortstick with a delrin hardbar shift **** from Product Innovations. I love the feel of it - very positive, very beefy.



Need to order materials to make the transmission mount, but finishing that shouldn't be too far out.

 

I think the gussets were a good move. I've never been fond of a t-joint like that. They came out good!

Sidebar/hijack question- If you were only going to buy one welder, for a do-it-all affair, would you buy a MIG or TIG? Was looking at a Hobart 140 MIG and/or the Hobart 165 TIG.

 

Bad *** motor mounts!

 

Thanks!

Thanks man

Well....I guess the short answer is that I find both machines to be extremely useful. Not knowing what your needs are, I guess I'll offer my experiences and you can draw from it what's most useful to you

Mig is nice because it's relatively inexpensive and it's not terribly difficult to get the hang of. I started welding with a mig (a hobart 140 actually) and I'd say it was a good way to get my feet wet. Mig in general I've found to be great for welding out of position (like under a car), welding on stuff you can't get 100% clean, and for zipping stuff that requires a lot of welding together relatively quickly. I also find myself going for that when I'm fitting / tacking things in place since you can have one hand free to hold your work in position until you have a couple "nails" on it.

As for tig - going to that from mig is similar to trading in your prybars and hammers for precision machinist tools - it's a different animal. You have a lot more control over what's going on at the hot end of the torch - it's infinitely more versatile and precise. With tig you can dial in on aluminum, stainless, titanium, and tons of other materials in addition to mild steel. Since I've started to become more comfortable with it, I find myself pulling out the tig welder any chance I can - I just find it a lot more enjoyable and I am much more satisfied with the finished product. That being said, it's more expensive to operate, much more sensitive to material cleanliness, and has a much bigger learning curve to build your motor skills (at least for me it did). If you're welding a lot, an 80 cf bottle of argon gets knocked down pretty quickly. Add to that torch consumables, tungsten, filler rod....it adds up.

All that rambling aside, in the end it comes down to what type of stuff you think you'll be doing the most of, what materials you'll be welding, etc. For me, both machines are extremely useful and get used a lot. At this point I've kind of grown into having a need for both, if that makes sense.

Hope that helps, if you have any other questions feel free to post up or pm, whatever.

-Chuck

 

Well, this hasn't been updated in a while. Since I am so jealous of the build (I just don't have the patience, lol.) and my car will never be as prepped as yours, I figured I would add to your build the only way I could offer my services. I am going to throw a 30 minute curve ball at you. I say 30 minutes because I know you will stick with your setup but will take a 30 minute peek into this.

I was looking at the water pump and knew there were a few kinds out there. I also knew the LS1 has a big ol bell shaped pulley. Given space is a we bit tight, I started looking at options. Long story short, I came across the Pontiac G8-GT setup. It sucks all the accessories inward towards the block another 3/4" AND gets rid of that damn bell shaped pulley. On top of the pic and info below, I just found out they have a corvette wp that puts the output tube on the drivers side. From what pics I have seen, I think it can be used with the setup I am going with.

Picture of G8-GT setup:





Parts list:
G8-GT L76 Front Drive Accessories.

Waterpump assembly (Use LS2 Corvette)

A/C Compressor assembly 92157796 or 92236235
A/C comp bracket 92252927

Steering Pump 92174214
Steering Pump Pulley 92067786
Steering Pump Bracket 92067625

Balancer/Crank Pulley (Use LS2 Corvette)

Generator/Alternator 92193199
Mounting bracket. alt 92067034
Rear brace. alt 92067126

Tensioner assembly main drive belt 12569301
Idler pulley main belt 12563326

Tensioner assembly A/C belt 12595289 (it already comes with 92252927)



The only thing I am not sure of is the alternator. To get that extra 3/4" thay shove it off to the side quite a bit and it might interfere with the steering and or frame. A we bit more research is needed in that department.

 

Accessory clearance isn't a problem - pretty much every e36 I know of is running around with f-body accessories and have plenty of room for their radiator, fans, and intake of choice. No need to reinvent the wheel. I'm not a huge fan of the big bell on the water pump either but I'm over it. You're not going to see it with everything in the car anyway.

I spent some time this weekend modifying the frame x-brace that bolts up under the car to clear the bell housing / oil pan.

Started by removing the interference



Then bent a non-M model frame brace that I had lying around for the clearance I needed



Cut it, fit it, and welded it up



In the car



Bell clearance is ~1/4" in all directions.



Also since I was working on it, I decided to throw some gussets in there to beef it up some. Not sure if these will stay yet or not, execution could have been better. Messed up on the spacing of the dimples, but the ball was rolling and I didn't feel like stopping.

 

Not reinventing the wheel persay, its just that you cant find F-Body accesories alone. You have to buy a whole, worn, tired engine for $2k, unless you buy out ragious seperat priced peices "IF" you can find them. I just thought you would be interested in checking out (actually just seeing) another option since your as finicky as me. I KNEW you were not changing after all that work you did, lol, but, again, I have seen you get down and dirty with making it perfect. Also I posted it here for other people that read this and want/need options.

All is good though, carry on .


P.S. Nice idea with the press. Gave me some ideas for bending some metal to place on the sub frame.

 

Nice Progress and thanks for the updates! Keep 'em coming please!

 

Been on a bit of a hiatus from the car. Had to deal with finals for the semester in grad school, busy with work, and I'm also in the progress of cleaning up a workspace to move into over the winter and hopefully keep things rolling better than they otherwise would in my driveway.

Before:



Progress so far:



In other news, I finished the transmission mount "cradle" tonight. The tabs on the sides will serve as my tie in points for the crossmember and will help gain back some clearance for the secondary pipes that are going to be running through there. I don't have a press brake so had to cut all the pieces from plate. The baseplate of the mount is 3/8", everything else is 1/4".







Still need to decide how I want to do the crossmember for the car. I have some 1-1/4" DOM but might notch out some rectangular tubing instead - I'm thinking the latter would be a stronger design. Going to be working on that here soon.

I've also starting researching / planning out my exhaust system. Can't decide if I want to shell out the cash for pre-fabbed merge collectors or make them myself. Packaging is definitely going to be a challenge for what I'm going to try to do so I may end up fabbing them. Here's what I have so far, modeled in solidworks based on some playing around I did in Pipemax. The model serves a purpose - I'll be 3D printing a fixture to make the cuts on the mandrel bends for the collector's cluster joint.





More soon.

 

I'm willing to bet kooks or another high end headers manufacturer has been through this already with their engineers. Too bad you can't get measurements from one of their existing products to mimic for your custom application (without buying a set). You could try calling Kooks. They will probably tell you to go fly a kite or offer you a job, lol.

 

Probably the former lol

There's a couple vendors that offer headers for my application (ARH makes one of them) but I don't feel like spending $1800 bucks on them. Not sure if they'd fit anyway since I'm not using the motor and trans mounts those headers were prototyped with.

 

Finished the transmission mount this weekend





The connecting legs are .120" wall 1.75" DOM. I "ovalized" the tubing in my press so that the entire cross fit within the area of the mounting face of the "cradle" - and also slightly increases clearance for the exhaust. I should be able to tuck 3" up there and still be roughly flush with the frame rail.





Also finally got my catch can in, so I threw that on the engine. Need to get a 150 degree hose end for the dirty side inlet but ready to go other than that.



Exhaust is next.

 

Nice mount, but, are you building a car or getting ready for the tractor pulls? That some pretty thick steel there, lol.

 

Tractor pulls and rock climbing, actually lol

 

lol, sweet! Well, you have that covered!!

I am curious what your gonna find with the exhaust. I am STILL not sure what I am gonna do for LT headers and a 4l80E .

I decided I am reinventing the wheel. Okay, maybe not only because I am starting from scratch, but, I am going with the G8-GT pulley setup since there are no parts around for the bare block I want to buy new. Should pull in the belt system an inch or so. We will see how that goes.

Bonus round and some alternator fun facts (if your not in the know). Found this while looking for parts to put together: stock alts blow at high rpms (6500rpm or so). Look into the KG3 145amp AD244 alternators found on things like silverados n Suburbans as an alternative.


Carry on!

 

I had read about the alternator problems. My crank damper has a 10% underdrive though so that should help. Car will probably see 7000-7200 rpm max. As to whether or not it'll last, I guess we'll see.

 

Any progress on the headers? I'm interested to see how the merges turn out.

 

Weighing the time investment and everything else I still need to do, I chose to take the easy way out for once and order the merge collectors up pre-fabricated. I bought these from mandrel-bends.com, 2.75" outlet http://www.mandrel-bends.com/catalog...04ss-1933.html. From there, I'm going to weld on a 9 degree transition cone out to 3.5", reverse (anti-reversion) cone back to 3", then v-band it. A slightly compromised version of what Pipemax spit out but I don't think I'll be able to swing a 16" long collector in the space I have.

I have the flanges also on order along with some some mild steel mandrel bends to mock-up with since they're relatively cheap. Once I'm happy with the fitment, I'll order up the stainless. This will hopefully produce less waste of the more expensive material.

In the mean time I had done some playing around with some 1-1/2" pvc, which is pretty much 1-7/8" OD. It's going to be tight but making them from 1-3/4" wouldn't have been any easier. Won't be able to build from a full PVC mockup because the fittings interfere with each other and gap the tubes apart too much for my available clearance, but it at least gives me a quick means of developing a rough layout concept for each primary.

#1 will be busy. It will tuck in between the steering shaft and the block. The other 3 primaries will have to route around the outside between the steering shaft and frame rail.



Some of the other primaries started.



In other news, I got the transmission mount in powder along with a few other miscellaneous parts....heat shields and such. Running out of stuff that needs powdercoated.