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1995 318i, boring to roaring in six weeks (v8 inside) CHANGES UNDERWAY SEE POST 61!!

74K views 321 replies 60 participants last post by  Fazda 
#1 · (Edited)
It starts with an idea.

"A v8 e36 would be fun"

It's an idea. It sticks in your head, but you've got a family, a mortgage, and no free time so it stays that way.

Then, your side income of flipping cars throws a basket case Monte Carlo SS at you.

Restoring it and reselling would be the smart thing.

However, for the first time in your life you decide to throw financial gain out and do something for yourself.

A junkyard bound $600 e36 stumbles into your path and things start falling into place.

It's late June, and Bimmerfest is just six weeks away.

A few phone calls later it seems possible; Small Block Chevy E36....build it in just a few weeks. Drive it two hours to Bimmerfest.

From here on out, photos will tell a story.

This car was built by Myself, My twin brother, Our Uncle, Our younger brother and the joint efforts of a handful of lifelong friends.

The goal was obviously to complete the car, and get it to Bimmerfest.

The idea came from the desire to blend our love of Bmw, and the e36 body with our uncles love of American muscle together into a car that we can all enjoy.


-June 17 2011.


Facebook post:

"When life gives you lemons, build a v8 e36"


-June 18, 2011


The car arrives, and as you can see it's seen better days.





Tearing the car down and mocking the v8 up... one sleepless night.







After looking at some ls1/ 5.0 swap mounts we drew something up and here's what we came up with:







Final Mounting:













The next several weeks consisted of taking care of various things:

-Shifter; stock E36 auto shifter with linkage customized to shift the Chevrolet trans

-Drive shaft; The local drive shaft shop had no idea what to do for me since I was using a BMW rear on a Chevy Trans

After much trial and error I figured it out....The Chevy rear has the same amount of splines as the BMW (luckyyy) I removed the flange from the Chevy rear and it slid right into the BMW rear.

Perfect. Except one small detail. The outer diameter was much smaller than the BMW flange.

Solution: I had a friend machine a ring to press onto the GM flange to make it the proper diameter so the rear would not leak. Shorten Chevy driveshaft 6" and we're in business.

The body and paint were just plain awful, so that was addressed.

The interior was borderline not sanitary.... removed it all, replaced some parts, cleaned what we could, and re-installed it after paint.

Rear: the stock 318i rear can't handle the v8. We swapped it with an auto rear from a 93' 325i. Also swapped the axles to 6 cyl. axles as they are beefier.

Trans Cross member, was mocked, and fabbed, and modified until it worked as we wanted.















Headers/ Exhaust.

Headers are Block hugger shorty headers. This was one of my brother's masterpieces.

He cut the collectors off, extended the headers and re welded the collectors so that there was easy access to the collectors and that the steering shaft wouldn't be in the way.

A custom dual exhaust set up to exit like an other BMW was made by him as well.









Other loose ends:

Wiring.

Wiring a carbureted V8 is simple, a few hours and everything was hooked up, a few switches inside and she fires right up.

Ecu and ecu wiring were removed, all other electronics are factory, and work.

Speedometer works off of the rear so it works as it should.

Fuel gauge works as we eliminated the factory pump and replaced it with a flexible hose. The factory Chevy mechanical pump then draws the fuel and things work well.

Cooling

The radiator from a Fiero fits between our frame rails, so we used that.

A trans cooler from an e36 M3 keeps the trans cool.

A factory Ac fan does the secondary cooling.

factory windshield washer reservoir was converted to a coolant reservoir.

Suspension

Bilstein Shocks and H&R sport springs hold the car up

Braking:

Abs was eliminated and fresh lines cut, flared and hooked up to save space...and simplify the car.

continued....
 
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#176 ·
Don't worry, It'll be at Bimmerfest East in August.

Hopefully by then I've got everything pretty much where I want it to be.

Thanks for the kind words Dale, but I can't take all of the credit for the work. Without my brother and my friends a large majority of this project wouldn't be possible.

My brother has a knack for looking at something and making it happen, this car is just as much his as it is mine in my eyes. If you ever see a feature in a magazine I'll be sure that both of our names are listed as the owners.

His greatest work as of late is the brake lines. It's amazing that he's got it worked out that you see nothing but the two main lines off of the master, even the clutch line is moved and hidden! I've been focused on interior, suspension, and figuring out how to pay for all of this mess and he's just been parked in the engine bay making awesomeness.
 
#178 ·
True enough Fazda, I do recall you expounding on the efforts of family and friends that were all part if the project.

I own a only slightly modded 318iS for which my biggest tweak is going to be fitting a Downing Atlanta Supercharger ... If I can ever find one - so to see what you and your brother have undertaken is truly remarkable. Just goes to show what can be done with imagination,ability and a belief that all problems can be overcome .... oh .... and money of course - that helps I imagine :D

Looking forward to seeing this develop.
 
#181 · (Edited)
Hey fazda you have a great build I cant argue with u but I was just looking for some help i.gound all the info I needed and have 75% all down

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Bimmer
Found*

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Bimmer
What the????

gijoe, you do realize you can edit your postings, right? (or maybe not from your SGH-T989)
 
#182 ·
Generally I'd like to think I'm as helpful as I can be. I've done plenty of write-ups on various forums to share information. However this isn't exactly something where what I did will work out for someone else, so I can't just tell you how to do anything. You can use my photos and descriptions as a guide, but that's about it as everything here is one-off. I told you it'd be summer until I'd have time to make another set of mounts. If you can wait that long I'll see what I can do.

I get pms on multiple forums on a daily basis asking "how to do this swap." I think my original postings pretty much sum it up, so it gets very frustrating. I see it this way; If someone doesn't take the time to read the thread, look at all of the photos and put together a series of seriously thought out questions for me I doubt they'll have the initiative to get the ball rolling on this swap.

For those of you following this thread, here's some photos of what I got done this morning:

Heater control valve mounted, main cross-member in, engine mounts in.



Suspension put together, (don't mind the rotors they won't be staying) The raceland coils will be used only in the front, and I'm hoping to replace them with an ISC setup next year. But at $26 in junkyard gold, I'll take them for now!



Four wheels on the car for the first time since October. Notice how much better the ///M moldings look compared the the original molding still on the fender!

 
#185 ·
yumm!! :thumbup::roundel:


almost makes me want to do this...

but i have no garage...

or sbc...

or monies for swap...

but, then again, it wouldn't be the first time that i did something without considering the above notions.:eeps:



srsly tho, i dig, but it's not something i would be able to do. i'll just live vicariously through this thread...:p

see you @ b'fest east!! :D



df
 
#187 ·
Thanks guys.

The more you enjoy it, the more we want to make it even better.

Just a note though...I have no money, haha. I have no idea how I've managed to fund any of this...

We're remodeling the kitchen in the spring, so that's going to put a damper on boost but I hope to find a way to make it happen by Bimmerfest somehow.
 
#189 ·
I'd love to just upgrade the house, we have a garage here but it just doesn't accommodate my projects so I rent the large place down the road. But, the real estate market here is awful so our house sat on the market for a long time and I just gave up.

I was joking with a few of the guys this morning about credit cards. None of us have ever used a credit card to build a car like many do, hell I don't even have a credit card. We've built some pretty sick cars just off of extra cash we've scrounged up, we'd have lots of fun if we could just swipe it and forget it haha!
 
#190 ·
Credit cards.... that would be an awfully dangerous way to go about a project I reckon ... you'd be better off taking a loan from a loan shark - at least when you'd paid him back the capital and the exorbitantly high interest rates, he'd leave you alone and not continue sending you invitations to take even more loans through the post !!

We are lucky here - the property market is still very very dynamic - hey ... want to come and live in Australia? .... build some awesome stuff here...... got some awesome roads and lots of wide open spaces :D (although the speed limits are a bit restrictive and the cops are b*stards - s'okay, I can say that cos I'm one of them :D)

Anyway, sorry for the threadjack - consider it an interlude until the next update :D
 
#192 · (Edited)
What are you waiting for ? :D in the words of Lara Bingle (she that did the "visit Australia" advert that caused so much of a furore) "Where the bloody hell are ya?" :D

Hey if you really do want some info, PM me and I can tell you all the good stuff and the bad stuff as well (like the Cops ... did I mention we are b*stards?)

And to avoid possibly angering those (like me) vicariously living through your awesome E36 build..... how is it coming along? What plans have you got for a blower - Supercharger or Turbo? Cos over the past couple of days I have been doing a hell of a lot of looking up superchargers.... and there are a good few places about that offer some REALLY interesting stuff. Particularly Vortech who do some interesting centrifugal superchargers (www.vortechsuperchargers.com) and Magnuson Products (www.magnusonproducts.com) who do Eaton Twin-Screw blowers aimed at the Chevy small Block I believe you are running. Just to finish off with another advert for Australia, there is also Harrop Engineering in Melbourne (www.harrop.com.au) who do a range of blowers that can be designed to fit almost any application.......
 
#195 ·
The bay is about 95% done. This is pretty much everything you'll see when the hood is popped.

I'm gonna have to take a real camera with me tonight, my iphone sucks with the lighting I've got in there.

I've been sidetracked working on a few cars that are paying jobs so that I can fund this, but my brother has been chugging along well in my absence...







 
#196 ·
That looks crazy with nothing else in it, and SOOO CLEEAAAAN.
 
#199 ·
#201 ·
Cosmetically. The exterior is 80% done. The Bay is 90% done. Tons of loose ends to tie up on the interior, and a few under the car and we'll be back on the road!

Give me another week or two for fresh driving vids!













My brother, and My daughter:



In the light:







My Daughter showing us how to detail a car (She'll be 2 in May):









M3 Skirts painted and installed:









Enjoy!
 
#203 · (Edited)
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