Thanks for the good words! I don't currently have any set plans for when this spec unit gives out. That said I'd love your opinion given my setup! Also, my competition car Monster unit is on it's 3rd season and will probably need replacing soon and I'd love to have a clutch partner on board for my drifting program. Please shoot me a PM if you'd like to chat further!
-Tanner

Awesome! Thank you, now I can add this to my list for future swaps. Much appreciated!


Ahhh gotcha, the 80e is definitely a heavy beast. Even the 60e bellhousing area is significantly larger, my first S13 240sx LS swap was 60e and made for some issues. Thanks for the input for sure, I was planning on running 5" off the turbo and right out but I'll have to factory in some room for a muffler of sorts just in case.
I've read all of Zombie's thread and planned on following suit, his videos of his spool time are awesome, I'd definitely be happy if I can match that or be not far off.

 

Started off Saturday morning around 9am, grabbed a couple more cans of Valspar black and grey paint. I've used several different paints, from legit spray guns to rustoleum and other brands....this stuff is by far the easiest and most durable for the price and time to spray it on. I've been using it on all my engine bay's since finding it. Mostly done the grey on everything and the black for accents, but switching it up a little on this one. Frame rails down and trans tunnel is black, rest up is the grey. Previous swaps over time get dirty around the rails and it shows up on the grey, this should help hide some of the dirt and oil and all that.



Tape in hand I started prepping the bay for paint


Majority of things taped off and the first coat of black laid down


While the first coat dried up a bit I laid paper over the fenders and finished up taping here and there




Used up a 50ft roll of header wrap doing these pieces while waiting for the black to dry


Rails dried up, taped off and I set to spraying the grey


Between coats I sprayed some high heat silver on the stock CTS-V heatshield and bolted that up once it dried


Assembled the 3/8" GM quick disconnect fuel fitting to -8AN adapter setup


Grey done








Rails mostly dry, I pulled the steering shaft bushing/coupler out and set to replacing it with the AKG unit. They sent me a poly unit, I ordered aluminum, but return hassle is a pain and I'll see if this one melts first haha. I'll monitor it and see how it does, first sign of deformity it'll get replaced.


Drill the rivets, punch the old pieces out, replace then bolt together, pretty straight forward.




Took a break and went to the gym for a couple hours, came back, ate and went back to it. Taped off the bay so I didn't scratch anything while installing everything.


Took me a little longer than usual to get the motor back in since I was being super careful, but all in all it went back in very very well and I'm super happy with my mounts and how simple everything is.


Since the alternator is super close to the manifold outlet and exhaust, I got some DEI Gold reflective heat tape and set out wrapping the back plastic part of the alternator. This stuff is great to work with, surprisingly ply-able and strong thanks to the fiberglass or whatever is in it fibers. Cutting out all the little holes took some time with a razor blade haha.


Stock truck mani flipped, a buddy had a spare heat shield so I was able to get that coated, cut to fit and on as well.






And that's where I left off at 11:30pm Saturday night haha.

 

Started off today (Sunday), by throwing the new Deka 60lb/hr injectors into the stock LS1 intake and fuel rail. From what I've found most claim to max out the stock rail at around 800whp...injectors and fuel pump should max out before then so I'll find out later haha.


I basically kept plugging away all day and really forgot to take pictures. I really spent the day doing a lot of small tedious odds and ends. Running power and ground wires, bolting accessories on, laying out and plugging in the wiring harness, etc etc.




Grabbed an Elite Engineering catch can I had laying around and threw that on. Used some Y fittings and tied both valve covers and the valley cover in. I'll switch this around later when I go boosted.




Went to assemble my clutch line, never paid much attention when stuff first came in. Long story short, supposed to be -4an line, well someone else got it, opened it, realized it was -3an. I'm assuming they sent it back to summit, the inspector didn't realize it was packaged wrong or something, then got sent to me. As you can see it's all taped up and not packaged very well. I didn't realize until I tried to start assembling the hose end fitting.
Now, that said, out of all the projects I've done and the thousands of dollars I've spent with Summit this is the first real mistake I've ever had from them, so I can't be too upset and I'll still continue to use them. The only other issue I've had is a Russell fitting being boxed wrong at Russell, wasn't a Summit issue.


Russell issue was for these fittings, bevel'd/bubble flare to -4an adapter. Box had inverted flare ends and not male bubble. Called Summit and the guy sent me these Aeroquip fittings instead, to make sure there wasn't a whole run of Russells boxed incorrectly.


Luckily I had some spare -4an black braided hose. Not sure if it's good for clutch/brake fluid but it will do until I order the right hose tomorrow and wait for it to get here.
-3an hose next to the -4an spare piece I made up for the time being


M3 aftermarket clutch line to the Aeroquip fitting to the adapter hose. You can also see the fuel line routing here as well.


Both lines routed






Left front O2 sensor in. Alternator wire left bare because I still wanna try and tap the BMW alt signal stuff into it sometime soon.


Knock sensors relocated. Not exactly ideal, but I don't have any real use-able spots on the other side. Oh well.


Fuel filter and all that jazz


Engine ground. Off block to the factory BMW engine ground location.


Since I cut the stock strut tower close off panel thingers on each rear corner, I had to make this little bracket to mount the battery power distribution block jobbie.


Bolted in. Bolts onto the ground point, attaches to plastic covering/bracket for the battery block.




Alternator to starter wire run










Ecu mounting was tricky. I had a S10 style flat mounting bracket, but couldn't fit it anywhere. Unbolted the ABS unit and moved it around, still no dice. Ended up unbolting ABS, fanagling the ecu behind the ABS, and with it bolted in it actually wedges the ECU quite nicely between it and the firewall. Gonna run it, doesn't look bad and no haggard bracket poking out anywhere.






And that's where it sits! The BMW starter wire isn't sending power when the key is turned, probably something to do with the automatic park/neutral stuff being removed and unplugged. Gonna pop the column covers off and tap into it there. Got a key power lead in the factory DME area to tap into. Basically, do that wiring, send GM fuel pump relay signal to the factory BMW relay and it should fire up. Still gotta make a base file tune, run the OBD2 wire to the factory OBD2 port, radiator, headlights, build the fan relay, etc etc. I was hoping to get a first start this weekend, but I forgot how long all these little things take haha. She'll be running soon enough!

 

Great job man, and great pictures with details. im sure its time consuming but it helps other people get motivated for these swaps. Cant wait to hear it run!

 

I should have known you were on here!

Not a lot of e46 ls swap details out there so I really really appreciate the documentation you are doing.

Cant wait to see it running and all finished up.

 

Looks so cool) reminds me my experience. (running LS3+tr6060 e39)
i've also ordered s475, but due to lack of space that might be rearmount in my case.

wish you the soonest start!

 

Sorry for the lack of updates. Car is up and running, speedo and tach work. I've been working on dialing in the tune, I think I'll have time to sit down and do a proper update in the next day or two. I'll leave this here for now.

 

car looks good! are those XXR wheels?

 

What year is your E39? If it's canbus wiring I'd like to ask you some questions!

The wheels are Ambit's. I think they're a fairly new company and extremely well priced. Around $600 shipped for the set and the quality is actually way better than I expected!


Sooooo, big delay in responses but the car is up and running! To pick up where I left off....
Continued working on random wiring


More wiring, fans and fuel pump thingers and what not


Since the power steering lines are also real close to the flipped drivers side manifold, I put a couple layers of the gold reflective heat tape on them





Fan relay. This relay was more than enough to handle the load of the fans, but it was an intermittent duty and not continuous, so after the fans cycled/stayed on about 8 times the relay fried. While installing the new one I must have touched some wires, ended up blowing the factory fan relay fuse which led me to believe the new relay wasn't wired right. Chased wires and tried all sorts of stuff before finding the fuse was blown. Made for a long frustrating afternoon haha. Regardless, new relay is in and working and mounted the same way as the one in this picture.


Radiator hoses were next. Upper hose




Lower hose, I have the part number if anyone somehow needs this exact same thing haha


Painted the stock ugly washer fluid tank. Probably use this for meth later on down the road.


Front end semi assembled


Temporary stupid stubby filter until my parts showed up haha




MGW shifter and 03/04 Cobra **** showed up


Cut a nice square in the trans tunnel, also shows shifter alignment




All installed with the factory E46 shifter boot


At this point I had a few drift events coming up and was super sick of the flat purple rubber wrap on the car so i took the next week/weekend to peel the wrap and rattle can it black and do some skiddin!






Not bad for rattle can...drift car not a show car haha





Once a few weeks of drifting/traveling was done, I had some tires show up and got to mounting them up on the wheels/car.



Started with 295/40/18's on the rear....that tire is HUGE for this chassis haha. 275/35/18 up front. 18x10.5 rear 18x9.5 front.








Sooo with these tires being huge, and the car still sitting on stock suspension in those pics I figured they weren't gonna work haha. There's one company that makes nice fender flares based off of the M chassis cars, but they're only for sedans. I ordered them anyway and figured I could make them work....way wrong. A lot more was/is different than I expected (wheel arch height, moulding location, etc) so I sent them back and decided to drop down a tire size.

With 275/35/18's all the way around this is how the car currently sits. M3 sideskirts and mirrors on. Rear rubs on bigger bumps and hard launches but not terrible. I'll get to fender rolling in the next couple weekends.










Intake is on and simple, 4" 90* elbow, 4" aluminum 45* bend pipe to K&N filter.




Went to a local VW/Audi type show and helped some buddies sell shades!


I used the Dakota Digital box and the tach was working great for a week, then all of a sudden it just isn't working. It's 4 wires in total and all appear to be fine. Gauge motor works (BMW cluster has a test you can run and check all the functions). Next up is checking the Dakota box out to see if something's wrong there.

The Spec clutch was awful. First time with everything together I couldn't get the car into gear. Order shims, shim the slave cylinder. Clutch slips over 1/3rd throttle. Over it.

Called Steve and ordered a Monster LT1 twin disk and it is easily the best clutch I've ever experienced. The pedal feel is so light and the thing grabs sooooo well. It's levels above the level 3 single discs I usually run. I can't wait to get more miles on and the turbo and see what abuse this thing will take!






That's about it for now! Just trying to drive it when it's nice out and enjoy it before winter shows up!

 

That thing is awesome!!! I still haven't had the $$$$ to start on my conversion yet..

It looks like you didtched the AC?

Now that its all together do you think a rear mounted turbo is still needed or could (1 med or 2 small) be fitted in the engine bay?

 

Yessir, no A/C. I'd like to have it eventually, but we'll see how much space I end up with once the turbo piping is in there.

I think twins might be a pain just due to drivers side exhaust routing, but you could definitely do a T4 frame turbo in the bay. There's about 2" farther back the motor could go if you REALLY wanted to, that would help free up some space. But as is I could definitely fit a MasterPower/Magnum style T70/76 or even a Precision/Turbonetics 75/78ish unit in there. Basically a T4 frame/3" exhaust outlet would be do-able mounted above the passenger frame rail, where the windshield washer tank is basically.

Rolled and pulled the rear 1/4's, that sucked. Shadowline (matte black) window trim swapped on, chrome on silver was weird).

 

Well that's good to hear! Maybe my ideas wont be too much of a pipe dream.

The car looks much better with the black trim.

 

I know you're not really working on the turbo set-up yet, but wouldn't some 2.5" pipes off the manifolds to the "Y", and a single 3" pipe to the turbo help with spool? I think it would also allow more room for a larger, 3.5" (maybe even 4") charge pipe to the intake.

And, a rear mount turbo requires a pump for the oil, anyways, so the oil drain issue of a low mount turbo in the engine bay seems rather moot. I don't have anything against rear mount turbo set-up's, but it seems like that t6 turbo could have been mounted in the engine bay with a little creativity and some frame notches.

Awesome build, nonetheless. Another rescued bimmer.

PS. That mgw shifter/terminator ****/factory bmw boot turned out F'ing perfect.

 

I just set up an E39 with a Front mounted T6, it is a very tight fit. Previously, I did an E36. There was no way in hell a T6 was going to fit in that car. I considered tube frame from shock towers forward, tube core support, etc. The car was just too small. I realize an E46 is slightly larger, but the E39 engine bay is huge in comparison. I did retain a/c by using an R4 compressor (high mounted on pass side). This certainly didn't help things...

 

Bought this for my 16 year old son few months ago-


Bet you cant guess whats running thru my mind right now.....


Cant wait to see this little car boosted-

 

Nice build you have there. I have something similar done myself in an 02' 325i. 370, PT-7675, 4L80E and working AC. All the gauges work as well. I really like the swap myself, I dd the car all over the place.

You certainly can fit a turbo in the engine bay, but I doubt anything T6 would work without making serious modifications. There really no room in the area behind the headlights in these cars and you can't do anything outside the frame rails because the tires are right there when you turn.

I need to do an updated video, this one was pretty much when I first got the car running.
Maybe this will help a bit, maybe it won't.

 

hey did either of you have issues with the stock break booster/ steering shaft clearance?

Also what oil pan are you using?

 

Brake booster was no problem at all. The steering shaft was a bit tight though, I just replaced the u-joint at the steering rack with a flaming river FR-1963. In my case there was no need to replace the whole shaft like the entire bmw community seems to believe. The part I mentioned is a direct swap, you just need to pull the slip part out of the firewall maybe 1/4" and it'll get you a ton more room.

My oil pan is a stock truck pan with about 3" cut off the bottom and a kickout on the side to make up the volume. I did cut a little out of the cross member and weld it back in inverted (if that makes sense), like that I can pull the engine and trans in one piece.

 

thanks man! When you going to make a build thread?... Or at least upload some more videos haha