S54 Swap

Originally Posted by cj.surr

Safe, probably. Perfect, probably not.

Not necessarily "safe" in the long-term. Having a tune that is slightly off for thousands and thousands of miles can cause an engine to pooch prematurely. I'd only trust this sort of thing to people with engineering degrees, decades of experience, and access to highly sophisticated instrumentation.

depends on the tuner

The headers I bought are from England, off a Euro m3. I looked at a set off of ebay and Bimmerworlds has some nice coated ones. I looked at at these off of ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E46-M3-3...p2047675.l2557

I decided against them when I could not fine any feedback. They invited me to see what was on the web. I did a search and found mixed results. I thought about it and like I told them, I don't want a money back guarantee, I don't want to have to worry about the prospect of it not fitting properly at all so I went elsewhere. There stuff might be fine I just did not need the hassle in the event there were issues. I can create enough of those for myself. I also liked the oem flanges and don't have to worry whether the studs are long enough.

the china ebay headers, never fit right, never eligned right, this is why stock euro header looks great. this is the reason why euro models make more power, cats are moved under the car

I bolted ebay headers to my m54 with no problem at all.

why would you run cats with an s54 anyway?

From what I read it was hit or miss. Some guys had great luck with the fit. I just chose not to deal with it.

Originally Posted by JayMac

From what I read it was hit or miss. Some guys had great luck with the fit. I just chose not to deal with it.

you can clearly see the much better flow transition of three pipes collecting into one on stock header when compared to ebay header

At my age you don't see anything clearly.

Originally Posted by JayMac

At my age you don't see anything clearly.

Whatya working on now? still messing with the diff or is that bad boy finished up?

Just got the fittings in for the diff plumbing. I am going to run the Setrab cooler barbs off the diff. Might try popping it in this weekend. I have solid bushings so I need to take the cover off the one in the car rather than pull and press bushings. Found another little issue that need to get addressed. My x brace was loose. The shop that installed it fished some nut up in the cross member. I have no idea of how they did it but if I paid them by the hour it would have been cheaper to do it right. This is why I would urge people to try to work on their own cars. You learn something and you find out that experts aren't always! I ordered the nutserts and drilled the holes so i want to get at that also. Had a squeal from the front end and went searching for that. Pulled the alt but it was good so I think it is the belt and can live with it until the engine comes out. Waiting for a response from Randy but if it does not come soon I will have the bearings done here and get going. Want to clean up the header and hit them with vht and bake them. SHould keep me busy for a little bit.

I just installed my S54. The stock catalytic headers fit perfect, it is very tight fit but it fits and looks all great.

I don't know if you can answer this but can you tell if an e36 power steering pump pulley would work on the s54? My engine did not come with one and I am assuming that if the pulleys all are in the same plane it should work.

yes, 96-99 PS pump is the same as S54.

Start laughing now!

Swapped out the 3.15 lsd for the 3.91 today. Father/son project as he is home on Thanksgiving break. So I hand him the breaker bar and the e torx for the axle bolts and sure enough he rounds off the first one. He did not have it on square. I'm pissed but hey, that's what learning is all about. So we take off all the rest of the bolts drop the sway bar and the muffler and then try to figure out how to get the bolt out. Finally cut the head off. Drop the diff and bolt in the other one. I then pick up my rack of etorx and realize I gave him the wrong socket. I gave him 14 instead of 12! So I explain to him that all of the time lost on this project today is due to my lack of planning and wait for it:


AT MY AGE YOU DON'T SEE ANYTHING CLEARLY

Who knew


Ordering all new bolts as preventative measure and penance.

Priceless, Jay! Thanks for sharing.

I'm in the same condition. My glasses are focused somewhere just beyond arms length.

mmmm I like the 3.15

Originally Posted by hornhospital

Priceless, Jay! Thanks for sharing.

I'm in the same condition. My glasses are focused somewhere just beyond arms length.

It's an incurable disease that afflict's the over 50 crowd. The medical name is CSS.








































Can't See Sh1t.

I've got that in spades. Extremely frustrating when working under the car or in the dashboard. With my glasses on I can't tilt my head back far enough to use the close-up portion of the lenses, but without the glasses I can't see the tools laying next to me!

Originally Posted by hornhospital

I've got that in spades. Extremely frustrating when working under the car or in the dashboard. With my glasses on I can't tilt my head back far enough to use the close-up portion of the lenses, but without the glasses I can't see the tools laying next to me!

Try putting your glasses on upside down. When you're laying on your back they'll usually sit in place Ok and you can look up through the close up portion of the lens. The only issue is if you have a lot of astigmatism difference, then the image will be a bit distorted.

So not much to do today due to the wrong socket use so I fixed the x brace issue with the rivnuts I got in from Pegasus. If you are not familiar with these they are great and I have never used them before so I would say easy enough for any diy'er. They allow you to use a bolt into a blind tube, frame rail, etc. The bolts holding my "X" were 5/16 x 24 so I ordered the appropriate rivnut. You drill out a hole for the corresponding size, 1/2 inch for these and push them in the hole.

Rivnuts:



Rivnut with compressing tool. You can make your own but this was $11 so rather than me messing around I just ordered it. Basically you have a bolt for the proper thread size and a slightly larger nut, a knurled bottom would help but not necessary.



Slide the rivnut in and start wrenching. You feel it break right away and then you are compressing the nut to you forming a sleeve inside your rail. The larger wrench is preventing the nut from turning inside the rail so it bites and you have a solid fitting to bolt to. You get the hang of it real quickly and on the final adjustments you can do it one handed in a scissors method but be careful to turn the bolt and not the nut.




Holes drilled and rivnuts inserted took less than 1 hour.



I trashed one so you can see what is going on inside the rail. The threaded portion is the bottom and you are pulling towards you creating the mushroom.










Cost was drill bit, $11, tool, $12 dozen rivnuts, $15. Keep in mind I paid @ $80 an hour for someone to do this wrong. Easy item to work with.

Nice work and a good write-up, but I think I'd have gone metric on the bolts and rivnuts. For something that will seldom if ever be removed, I guess it's OK.

A valuable lesson learned. Good to see progress. Are you going to the VT v UVA game next weekend?

No interest in the game. Got cars to work on!
Horn good call on the metrics.
I just went with what I had readily available. Might do it differently if I planed ahead but as it was I was fixing up something and this seamed to work. Either way they are easy to use and work great. Cleaned up the old 3.15 and and getting ready to get the rod bearings done so I can get to the swap. Wanted to get the diff in while my son is home ( he is going to the game) and let him drive the car with the 3.91. Then drop on him he has about another 100 ponies to go with that feeling.
Want to get at the headers with a pad and VHT this week.

If I don't post before, everyone along for the ride have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Bah sorry to hear about the fudge up on the bolts :/ but hey, crap happens. Glad to see the diffs in and good to go. Can't wait to see some pics of the S54 going in!

Finished up the rear and filled the dif with juice and took the car out for a test run. Yup! Gave the bottom end of the engine another bath in brake cleaner in anticipation of next weekend's bearing job in Florida. Since I was at it I could not resist bolting up the headers to see how they looked. I think they look... well you judge for yourself.





I also found a small crack in the end of the short header. I don't know if this was done while in use, welding or tearing the car these came from apart. I have a welder down the street who can fill thins in without too much effort.



Not sure what to do with the exhaust from the header back. Bimmerworld sells a pipe that ties these into the e36 exhaust.


My other option is the number 1 section from an e46 M3. I am thinking that this would work as it would hook right up to the headers and flow back in the tunnel as on the e46 and it is much cheaper that the pipe from BW.

Just bought the section one for $65 on ebay. Back from Florida next Monday night and I can start pulling the old engine. Almost as good as Christmas except I know what's in all the boxes and I'm shelling the $$.