Matt330LS

I haven't posted up here in awhile. Since the last post I got a lot done on the car, as well as building a detached garage which is now the home auto shop. Relinquished the primary garage to the wife and kids happily and moved my stuff into the new man-cave.

Oh, and this happened yesterday after three and a half years of tearing down and building up the car...

LSswap

Nice. Not your typical E46 sound.!!

AAIIIC

iTrader: (19)

Congrats! Sounds mean!

Matt330LS

Thanks! Next step is to get it drivable, put a low-key exhaust on it and go break it in. And hopefully surprise some of the local car guys along the way...

Doc GTO

iTrader: (1)

Your swap looks awesome!

we are coming along on our LS swap into our e46 M3. Big question. What did you use for drive by cable for the throttle body? Our M3 was drive by wire and don’t want to use that. Have us issues on the track. Any help is appreciated.

thanks,

Doc

Matt330LS

I don't have it installed yet, but I bought a cable pedal setup for E46. The early 323/328 used a cable throttle. I got the pedal and brackets and I'm adapting a Lokar cable to it. Got a stack of parts to get the car on the track, just need to get time to get everything installed. You have your swap posted anywhere? I'm always looking for ideas.

Doc GTO

iTrader: (1)

we haven’t posted anything yet. We did buy a older BMW pedal that’s designed for cable but wasn’t sure how we were going to adapt a floor mounted panel with how the cable pulled for the throttle body.

Matt330LS

Well I may be missing something, but it should just connect up. The floor mounted pedal has an arm attached and that arm is also attached to a bracket on the firewall. When you press the pedal it pushes the bottom of the arm in and the upper part of the arm moves away from the firewall toward the driver, pulling the throttle cable. Again, I haven't installed anything so let me know if there's something in that setup that isn't working correctly.

325_53

I'm following a similar route as you are regarding the e46/Ls swap, picked up a low mile clean chassis which threw a rod on cyl 6.
I was wondering which route you ended up taking with the headers on this ? I saw your last update you went with the vorshlag mounts, i ended up purchasing some from V8Schassis (TDR) and hope to get some direction on which header you ended up going with?

Matt330LS

I bought CX headers when I bought the CX mounts. After I switched over to Vorshlag mounts I kept the CX headers. They're ok, not the best fit and finish, but they worked to get the car running. I just couldn't justify going with headers that were 3x as much when I have several other purchases to make to get the car track ready.

325_53

I'm not as concerned with fit and finish, as long as they net the clearance I need in the engine bay, same as you the goal is get driving.
If you have any photos of how they ended up on the drivers side around the mounts, would really help me decide if I can go that route or not with the mounts I picked up.

Those headers will fit the budget nicely if I can make them work. Also curious for the remaining exhaust setup, did you drop it down to single 3" or keep dual 2.5" the rest of the way ?

Matt330LS

I have pics but not readily available to post here at the moment. There is plenty of clearance around the mounts and steering shaft. The only place it's tight (and it's totally header related as opposed to the mounts) is near the oil filter. I'm using the Holley pan and the header is tight enough to that area that the header wrap is just touching one of the bolts that holds the oil cooler block off plate in place. I'll have to do just a touch of clearancing to the bolt/header and will use a sandwich plate adapter for the cooler instead.

I don't have an exhaust installed yet, just header extensions to get it running. The plan is dual 3" with an x-pipe, subject to change depending on the fabricator's input.