Euro Nation

iTrader: (1)

Year: 1992
Make: BMW
Model: 5-Series
Price: $7000
Mileage: 196000
Private or Dealer Listing: Private Listing
Location (State): WA
Color: Silver
Transmission: Automatic
Drivetrain: Rear Wheel Drive
LS Engine?: Car has LS engine

As with everything I build it’s time to let go of the LS1 Touring. I built this car for my wife and daughter over the course of 13 months and really hate to see it go but as my daughter becomes more mobile we’re looking for something we can take camping. I want to be ready to buy when the perfect rig pops up so the wagon has to go up for sale now.



The car had 160,702 miles on it when I did the swap, the engine had 61,000 miles on it when the Camaro donor was totaled and I’ve since put about 29,000 trouble free miles on the car. It runs and drives perfectly, laid down 23-25mpg on a recent road trip running 75-80mph with all the windows down from Seattle to Nor-Cal and it just cruises like a dream.


The basic rundown of the swap:

1998 LS1 from a wrecked Camaro
4L60E Automatic Transmission
Late LS6 camshaft
LS2 Valvesprings
LS2 HD Timing Chain
ARP Rod Bolts (standard upgrade for ’98 motors)
Lakewood Muscle Car Motor Mounts
Custom motor mount to block adapter plates
Custom motor mount brackets
Custom trans mounts
Custom double 1” core all aluminum Northern muscle car radiator with built in trans cooler
Northern/Spal dual fans and shroud
Custom stainless/Samco radiator hoses
Rack and Pinion steering conversion (VW rack, Earls fittings and line, PermaCool fluid cooler, custom U-Joints and column support)
Flash tuned PCM
3.23 LSD diff
Functional cruise control
Details:

Exterior: The clearcoat has seen better days so the paint isn’t perfect but the sheet metal is all straight and dent free and it’s 100% rust free. It has Depo euro headlights and one high and one low is cracked. HIDs using Audi A6 ballasts and eBay capsules. It also has clear top tails although there are a couple cracks in the lower sections. I’m having a new windshield put in this week. The wheels are 17” Borbet Es all with some degree of clearcoat issues or curbing. Rear tires are less than 2 months old. Fronts are about 50%. I also have the stock 15” bottle caps with flaking chrome and decent tires that I can include if you want to put snows on them.

Interior: The front door cards were junk when I got it as it very common in these cars. I’ve installed wood trimmed front door cards but haven’t looked for rear cards to match. The headliner was junk when I got the car so I redid it. I let my 2yo pick out the material so it’s a pretty cool butterfly print. If you don’t like it it only takes a couple hours with some material, a razor and some spray glue to redo it. The stereo a Kenwood deck with an integrated ipod adapter.

Swap: I take pride in my work. The swap is among the cleanest you’ll find. All the wiring is as stock. There is a fuse block and a set of relays in the box at the passenger rear of the engine compartment and everything that isn’t factory to either the motor or the car is hidden. The only error I ever see on the OBC is the LBF indicator for the HIDs which is an easy fix that I haven’t had time to do. The fans are controlled by the PCM through the factory relays, the wiring runs into the car through the factory plug, nothing half assed, all soldered and shrink wrapped connections. I built this car for my wife to drive and she has, without issue. I’ve opened the hood at shows and had people pass it over because they didn’t realize the engine wasn’t supposed to be there. It really needs a set of Corvette fuel rail covers to stand out.

The motor mount brackets are made of A513 DOM tube, TIG welded, sandblasted then powder coated black. They were designed to be as structurally sound as possible and have been described as “tank parts”.
The radiator is a modified double core all aluminum Northern unit. The fans are twin Spals mounted in a Northern louvered aluminum shroud. The radiator hoses are sanitary stainless (top) and aluminum (bottom) with black Samco connectors I had to have specially imported. All the hard tubes have been properly bead rolled and are assembled with new stainless clamps.
The brake booster has been replaced with a smaller unit and the master cylinder has been replaced with an Audi unit with a slightly smaller bore to maintain pedal feel. The ABS system has been removed. The front and rear brakes have been replaced in the last eight months. New Brembo rotors, PBR pads all around and rebuilt calipers up front.
The exhaust uses standard cast iron exhaust manifolds for reliability. ’02 Camaro passenger side and ’04 GTO drivers side. From there it runs through dual 2.5” downpipes, into a pair of Magnaflow 2.5” stainless cats, through an 18° merge and then it’s a single 3” back to a large Flowmaster muffler with a 3.5” single tip. All of the tubing is mandrel bend 304 sanitary stainless and TIG welded.
The drivetrain uses a C3 Corvette front yoke, ’84 T-Bird driveshaft and JTR custom rear yoke. The U-Joints are heavy duty greasable units. The diff is a 3.23 LSD I had to build custom. 3.23 is the factory performance ratio for a Camaro.

Incompletes:


A/C: I didn’t get time to finish the air conditioning as the A/C compressor clutch died the day I had the A/C shop braze the switch port into the high pressure line. Everything is in place, the custom lines are laid out, I even had the switch port brazed into the line. It needs a new A/C compressor (available on eBay for $40). Once that’s in the lines need to be crimped and installed and the system needs to be charged and it’ll be done as well. The condenser is in place and it has a new filter/dryer. Everything is included to finish it right down to the seals, I just don’t have the time anymore.

Tach: The tachometer works it just doesn’t read right. When I had the PCM flashed I forgot to tell the guy to change the tach output calibration. This takes about 15 seconds with EFI Live or HP Tuners, I just haven’t had time to take it to a shop. Alternatly you can rob some parts from a 4cyl E30 cluster and change the tach calibration manually (the LS1 outputs tach signal like a 4cyl).

Check Engine light: Connected and works, but it’s on. When the tuner flashed the PCM I asked him to turn off the AIR and EGR codes but he didn’t. I’ve scanned it and these are the only codes that show up (a result of me deleting stuff on the engine). These can be shut off in EFI Live or HP Tuners as well and you won’t see the check engine light again.

Airbag light: During the swap the battery was disconnected while the driver’s airbag was out so it has an SRS light that needs to be reset. All the airbag system stuff is in place, it’s just needs a reset.

Hatch: I’ve replaced 30ft of wiring in the hatch but the glass pop typically doesn’t like to work (it's seperate from the hatch pop so we just use that), nor does the rear wiper. The wiring is all correct so it’s probably the trigger switch. When the pop does work the glass lift struts are shot. I just use the hatch. Probably a simple to fix but it hasn’t bothered me or my wife.

Overall it’s been a great car and I’d hate to see it go but it’s not so good on forest service roads or in the mountain snow. The automatic comes in handy as a family car, the functional cruise control has been awesome for road trips, the power has surprised more than a few people as has the cleanliness of the swap. I just did the plugs, wires and oil change. It’s pretty typical condition for an E34 and the price I'm asking is less than what I paid for just the car and engine. Add in the cost of parts and you’re easily over $15,000 without labor.



I had it priced at $8500 locally but my wife got home from black Friday shopping and told me the heater core had let go. I'll take $7000 for it if I don't have to fix the heater core.


Pics here including some build stuff. Note that it's on Bortbet Es now, not Style 19s: http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/bl...ut-inside.aspx

Engine pic: