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So I picked up a nice 2nd daily driver for pretty cheap in February, I have always liked the style of the E38 740i.. classic lines and end of an era for BMW as most would say. I had been wanting one for years, but only started looking at BMW's as a fun 2nd toy a couple years ago.. and this one had been for sale for the better part of a year. No accidents, no damage other than some clearcoat scuffs and front lip rock chips.. except there was a bit of an oil drip. Looks to be engine front cover, and previous owner had no records from him or the owner before that for timing chain guides or waterpump or any major maintenance, so I used that to my advantage to talk the price down a bunch.
A couple weeks ago I heard it starting to make some timing guide noise, and the idea started to brew that I should just LS swap it.. an LS engine is probably a bit lighter, physically smaller, cheaper, less things to leak, and I know them much better. And I've always wanted to own something with a belt driven blower on it (future plans ).
The few E38 7-series swaps I can find are prettymuch all turbo builds, but I want to do something sleeper and maintain an OEM+ look to it, starting with it being N/A and eventually working up to an LSA takeoff blower.
I have to give credit where it's due, I've followed RVAE34's S62-swapped 740i on Bimmer-Forums (link here), and that thing is the cleanest E38 ever. And then I saw his LS1tech thread on a LSX427 swap in an E39 wagon (username SWAGON, link here) and that put me over the edge. His quality of work and attention to detail in terms of fit and finish is what made me want to make this swap look as factory as I can make it appear, and not just be another iron block LS slammed into a cheap Bimmer with a Borg Warner or China turbo thrown on it for quick thrills.. I'll attach some pics of his work below to show the finish level I'm going for.
Plan so far:
- LH6 alloy 5.3 block & rotating assembly
- AFM delete on the block
- Cam Motion Stage 2 truck cam to build low-end torque and limit the amount of noticeable exhaust chop/lope
- 853 heads... not the best, but were super cheap locally (cleaned & rebuilt with new valve guides/seals). Will do until further notice
- retain factory exhaust to keep it quiet
- likely hack out the factory cats, but maybe keep them pending what I do with exhaust manifolds
- likely have to fabricate tight block-hugging stainless mid-length headers (for steering shaft clearance)
- retain factory BMW air box, intake elbow, and engine cover for sleeper status and noise reduction
- 4L80E (funny enough a 4L80 has identical gearing to the factory ZF 5spd auto tranny's gears 2-5)
- hacked up 2011 LY6 E78 ECU & wiring harness
- LS2 intake for cathedral port heads and allow 4-bolt throttlebody options
- truck DBW throttle body
- LSA accessory drive to future-proof, but also allow low-driver-side-mount alternator (factory location on BMW M62TU engine)
I want to delve into electronics more on this, and do a super-OEM appearing wiring harness job, as well as figure out how to send the BMW body computer the CANbus signals it needs for some of the dash instruments to work without any check engine light. AKA be smart and get GM & BMW to talk to each other correctly. I may have to make my own Arduino CANbus communication box to convert between any different CAN data that the GM & BMW modules... not sure on that stuff yet.
The car as I bought it, with unknown BMW-knockoff 18" rims and winter tires...
Approximitaely 7 days later, had to get the Bavarian Beauty sitting proper on 19"x9.5" APEX ARC-8 tuner rims...
What drew me to the car was the quality of the paint, and the minty interior....
A couple weekends ago, replacing the steering center link and investigating how shitty it would be to fix several oil leaks on the existing M62TU 4.4L DOHC BMW v8 in it...
Block, rotating assembly, heads, and accessory drive all picked up off of various Craigslist seller one evening after work...
Engine bay as-is, and the BMW engine cover I want to reuse to quiet some of the engine noise as well as hide the tell-tale LS coil brackets and intake manifold...
Don't see why I wouldn't be able to reuse this factory airbox and part of the intake tube, it's definitely big enough in size for the 5.3L...
Power steering remote reservoir (higher up in pic) and the oil filter remote housing (unsure if I'll reuse this or just do standard pan-mount oil filter)...
Example of SWAGON/RVAE34's handiwork at a clean install into his E39 5 series wagon...
Man, that is one clean car to start with. It's definitely my preference these days to start with as clean of a car as I can afford! Looking forward to updates!
Man, that is one clean car to start with. It's definitely my preference these days to start with as clean of a car as I can afford! Looking forward to updates!
Andrew
I agree completely! As I get older my time is getting too scarce to have to worry about some rust repair or paint work in order to save some bucks here and there.
I forgot to mention in 1st post, but this will be a moderately slow build, depending on how busy my summer gets. I hope to be swapping the engine in maybe August or September.. possibly starting in July if I'm real lucky. But I need this car to be in one piece as a nice quiet comfy rainy fall daily driver, so if summer prep work is slow, it'll just get pushed to the sunny season in 2020.
To help chip away at the prep work, and get as much done before taking the car off the road, I'll be test fitting engine intake/accessories and wiring the engine from scratch in my apartment den, so I can chip away at it during the nights. I want to utilize several multi-pin "mil-spec" connectors on the engine/transmission wiring harness.. not so much because I'm planning to have to easily pull the engine, but instead so that I can 100% finish-wire the engine outside of the car (again.. in my apartment haha). I'll rough-cut engine bay ECU wiring on the long side based on eyeballing dimensions under the hood of the running car, then when it comes time to slam the engine in just cut the engine bay wiring to correct length and crimp on pins.
Love hauling the LS goodness home in the trunk....
I hauled the Nova LQ4 block home from the machine shop in my old '91 Nissan Sentra.. I'm no stranger to hauling GM in an import trunk
Originally Posted by Project GatTagO
Will you be using the Holley TerminatorX Max?
Andrew
I don't think so. I have HP Tuners from the original Nova turbo build with a GM ECU, I'm going to try that route to start since I have an ECU and essentially 1.75 complete wiring harnesses to hack up and customize to fit the BMW engine bay.
Given that GM and Ford are all but out of the car building business (relatively) - you’ve painted a vivid simile - like buzzards picking the carcass...
Given that GM and Ford are all but out of the car building business (relatively) - you’ve painted a vivid simile - like buzzards picking the carcass...
As I said before, this will be a pretty slow build compared to my Nova, but I did get some progress. I'm mock assembling the engine in my apartment, because why not? Will let me check accessory drive dimensions, then run downstairs to the underground parkade and measure under the BMW hood to confirm fit of things here and there. I'm also building a rough model of the engine bay as I measure things too.
I'm using a LSA accessory drive because:
- was available all new on local Craigslist, for a good price
- low driver side (tucked!!) alternator is the factory BMW alternator location in these cars
- room for low passenger side A/C compressor!
- I like the compact nature of the P/S reservoir, also having it higher up will help hide part of the LS engine to make it look more OEM
- compatible with a BLOWER!
I have no crank pulley, and am on the fence whether to run an OEM LS9 pulley ($153) or an ATI damper (~$475). I want to keep my options open from the get-go, so want to get a blower-belt-friendly pulley and pin it to the crank while everything is easy to access.
I'm unsure if I'll ultimately get a LSA/LS9 blower (requiring rectangular-to-cathedral port adapter plates) and require the 3rd row of belt grooving on the pulley, or if I'll go with a cathedral port Edelbrock E-Force blow and just run a long 6-rib serpentine belt. I personally like the look of the Edelbrock blower, but that stuff is pretty far down the road.
05-19-2019, 11:21 PM
Aluminum 5.3 in a 2001 E38 BMW 740i 
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