S54 Swap

I found this photo on line and it might help out. It looks like the wire bundles might not even connect to the engine. I can look under my manifold from the front and see the wires going back towards the firewall and they look like the go into a rubber shield and maybe up to the dme.
Here is the photo, I think it is the group of wire right under his hand. You can see three going back . You can pick them up right by the blue fitting for the fuel line.


I lock up when it comes to electrical. Is it possible that they do not connect to anything on the block and are part of a harness leading to the rear of the car?

DC, I think what you are referring to is just to the left of the blue hose end in the shot I just posted. I can see those connectors and have no issues with them it is the wires just to the right of that connector that are bundled to the vacuum line. I am just going to start pulling this out and see what happens.

Here is a little better shot of the group of wires. It looks like these go up to the harness that come out by the firewall from the rear of the manifold. They do not seam to be connected to the engine other than ties to the block to prevent them from moving around. Dead center of the shot and then the curl back towards the firewall and go into a lager rubber sleeve.

Got it now! In the earlier photos it was hard to see that wire bundle. Not familiar with that wire grouping. Try a PM to E36 Phantom. Chad is just finishing up an engine swap on his E36 and this might be (painfully) fresh in his memory.

Okay here is the scoop. I started pulling crap off the top and the wires are wrapped around the support for the coolant hose. Here are the dreaded wires. I removed the alt so I could try to get a better look but the lighting under there is so poor.


So I thought I would go at it from the other direction and here is what I did. I needed to get the car up a little higher on the lift to get at the panel that protects the regulator. Inserted a few hockey pucks and back up and off with the panel.
Here you can see the panel removed and the fuel lines, the vacuum hose attachment and the first connector for the three wires.


Here are the second and the third. The third one is not covered by the shield so you can see it just to the left in the shot. This is what lead me to believe that they would disconnect under here instead of under the manifold.


I think other than the steering rack I am finally ready.Slow going but I'm going. Have to wait for sleeping beauty to get up so he can help with the pull. Thought I would be done by now but don't have the clutch plug so If I just get the old out I can swap the clutch and flywheel Tuesday.

Wires for the rear O2 sensors.

hmmm...didn't realize they went under the intake....knew they were rather long, though...but jeez that looks to be a lot of wire routing...


(like i said, just cut 'em...)
df

We are making progress. Hopefully clutch and flywheel get done New Years Day and then drop the S54 in on new mounts. My mom busted out some car knowledge and gave me new intake boot, hoses, and tranny mounts from Rogue. Thanks for the support guys. I would have never thought I would get this far!

Okay today's work not a whole lot. I have a JBR flywheel on the old engine and I want to swap that out. I separated the tranny from the block, loosened everything up with a breaker bar and the proper etorx. There is a bolt holding the flex plate on and it comes from the block side, at least it did on mine. Make sure you remove this also because if you don't you won't be able to move the tranny back off the splines. It's 10 mm



Next came the pressure plate. This is held on by 6mm hex. I had read that theses are real soft so take care. I used the breaker bar and just held the head of the bar steady but you want to make sure you have the hex key all the way in. I have not received my clutch alignment tool so a ratchet extension was inserted to make sure the disc did not fall. Not a big deal on the pallet but if you eve do a clutch up on a rack you don't want the disc falling to the floor and breaking.



Backed out the bolts slowly. You can see the pressure plate unloading. That is not distortion it is the springs flexing.



Pressure plate has a dowel pin but the springs will force right off into your hands exposing the disc. Just take it out.



That should expose the flywheel. The dust is the same as brake dust, The bolts are all reusable with the JBR set up. I called to verify but they did stress the spacer ring only goes on one way so be careful to keep this straight. A sharpie comes in handy if you are not completing the task.





The flywheel is on a dowel pin but no splines so just work it a little from behind. It will come off with a little force.

I forgot to mention that I raised the front of the car about 4 inches when i pulled the engine. A set of car ramps would work well also. When you drop the transmission mounts the engine want to rock back. The firewall will stop the engine. By raising the front of the car you counter this a little and when you lift, the angle of the car act as if the firewall was moved back making it easy to slip in and out. Disconnect the steering rack (15mm) Turn the wheel to the left and the rack will start to move to your right as you face the car and move out of the way. This is a good two person job, one to slowly turn the wheel, the other to help the rack move.

I would recommend dual mass flywheel with S54, it helps when shifting at 8k

Right now I am trying to figure out how to close off the heater lines. I did not get all of those hoses that you got and am trying to find some used hoses to get the quick fitting that BMW used. I thin the return line on the e46 works but will find out at the dealer Thursday.

Okay, got the clutch alignment tool on Thursday so over the weekend bolted up the rest of that and loaded the tranny with some new fluid. Installed M3 mounts as I have no idea how long the other have been in there. They appear to be just a tick taller but I guess they could compress over time.


Removed what was left of the tunnel insulation. More like sawdust between two pieces of cloth. Waiting fro some foil from DEI to arrive and do the tunnel. Was hoping to have that before I dropped the engine back in but since the tranny is just resting on a jack I can move it down a bit to install. Waiting for a new flex disc. As long as we are in there might as well reload.

As for the wires coming out you unscrew these.
Unclip the three relays from the outside of the box, they are already gone in the shot. They slide up. Disconnect the cables to your throttle body, one for pedal, the other for cruise. The harness from the firewall and the dme box and there are a few wires up by your air pump. There is a cable on the passenger side mounting arm that needs to come off and you are pretty good to go.


I was going to run without the heater so I took all of the hoses out. I have since changed my mind since the defrost would be nice if you run early mornings in spring or fall and you get the added bonus of cooling by running the heater if needed. I am planning on running Evans in here so I blew out all the lines with my compressor and also hit them from the other direction with the shop vacuum.


Pulled the thermostat housing to see how everything looked in there. VAC makes a nice tube for this part that has a bung for real water temp so I might throw that in here.


Good thing I pull this apart. There is supposed to be an O ring in here. I can't figure out who would leave this out and how it would not leak without it.


Slowed down a little by the holidays and delivery of part.
I decided to go with the Alpha N tune and the race set up on top of that. Slow but sure.

Nice progress. Thanks for the update.

I need an idiot check on aisle 3 please! Making progress here but been distracted by the weather, going to Florida for the Rolex 24 and another car project. Hope to have this running by next weekend. Have some other parts and goodies I am waiting on. I am working on a few glitches I am running into based on what i am doing whether correctly or incorrectly.
Anyway, can anyone tell me if this should work? You might think there is nothing wrong but there is.


Here is the correct set up.

The idler is not in the proper position in the first photo. I want to run the larger pulley but it would interfere with the idler. I thought about using the same pulley as the tensioner as it is slightly smaller in diameter but then you have to fab a spacer as it is not in the same mounting plane. SO after about an hour of looking at spacers and mocking things up. I thought if I just grind off the nub on the pulley that hold it in position it would allow the pulley to rotate enough to have clearance. Since the function of the idler is to give you the needed belt contact you still get it due to the larger alt pulley and it would take less torque to turn it. It also works in the orientation that tries to push the pulley away making the nub unnecessary in this position.

Yes?

can't you simply use a smaller belt?? if all of the accessories are being driven the correct way it wouldn't matter *how* long the belt is as long as the number of ribs is correct to match the pulleys.



df

The issue is not the length of the belt. The issue is the amount of belt on the radius of the pulley. The 328 did not have the idler at all. I think it is just because of the engine power, not sure. However if you start banging on the S54 and you don't have a whole lot of belt surface on the small pulley you would should get slippage. Belt has to be shorter regardless. Here is the difference in the pulleys. I think I saw posted that the stock belt is 1555 which is @ 61 inches. Take the pulley out all together and the belt needs to be even shorter. No worries on that. I am more concerned with enough belt making contact with the pulley to prevent slippage. That's about a 47% under drive on the alt.

oh, gotcha....wasn't quite getting what you were talking about at first. i would think the idler would keep belt tension more consistent @ higher rpm to reduce belt flap (for lack of a better term...)

however, i would see if it works ok without the idler. if it does, then go with it that way.

you could probably get away with your option as well, but i would be a little concerned about addressing future parts replacement.



just my opinion, though.




df

The idler has nothing to do with tension. The pulley in the middle does that. The purpose it serves is to give you the necessary contact on the alt pulley.
Look at the first picture. If you envision a straight lien from the water pump pulley to the alt you can see how much surface area you would loose on the alt pulley. Future parts are no problem as belts come in lots of sizes for this application a 60 inch or slightly less should work fine. The pulleys are all stock BMW except the Turner one.

right, but if you were to take a belt and leave a long length (like at the top between the 2 pulleys), it may vibrate of flop about, even a tiny bit, and could allow additional slippage of the pulleys it drives.

this may not be an issue, and i really think that you may be fine without an idler. but then again, if you are able to get the parts to fit properly and not run the risk of damaging them by altering them, i would say do that.



df

If what you say is true then every e 36 without the idler, which is most, would have this issue. Since they don't I don't think that is it.

Originally Posted by JayMac

If what you say is true then every e 36 without the idler, which is most, would have this issue. Since they don't I don't think that is it.

yeah, just thinking out loud...not sure if the rpm limiter is higher on the s54 or not....

don't know much about the underdrive pulleys, though. curious if they actually make a difference or not.



df

The S54 will go to @8000. I was not looking for power I was looking for less stress on the alt. I am building this just for track use so I don't need a whole lot of juice. Normal crank to alt pulley is around three to one. I was not thrilled about having the alt spinning in excess of 20,000. From the info I found most handle 16,000. So I figured if I drop in the larger pulley I could keep the rpm on the alt down as well as the heat and wear. With this set up and the 3.91 it should have plenty of go...I hope. Want to make sure I am not burning up stuff and most places don't sell just the alt pulley. For coolant I plan on using Evans so there should be no overheating issues. Just little things I am playing with along the way. I want to run mechanical gauges so I sourced an adapter that would allow me to hook up the Auto Meter water temp to the block via the drain plug. Test fitting with the oil temp probe but it is good to go.

Anybody still out there? Well believe it or not I finally got the engine to run yesterday. No video as I did not have the time nor energy. The goal was to get it to run and this mess of wires will get cleaned up, but for now I know I have an engine that runs.




That is not to say I don't have a few issues to deal with. The first is engaging the starter. I could not start the engine with the key and was getting a ground off of this wire.


That should be the power from the key that engages the starter. So we just jumped it from B+ with the key in the on position. Since this will just be for track use no big deal and I can wire in a push button starter or spend a bunch of time going through the harness to see if I have a wire grounded somewhere in there.

The next issue was the fuel pump and relay. Could not get it to work and I have read that there are a few issues. Again since it is a track car I will cut the relay off the harness and wire it to a switch. With the car off we put power to the pump and could hear it working. I had a new fuel filter in the car so it took a little while to get it going . I only have oil in there so we just let it run for a few seconds. Got the high rev for about 2 seconds and then it settled down and idled fine. So I have a few electrical projects for this week and then I will start cutting the wires I do not need off this harness.


An added bonus to the lack of my wrenching skills is I have no clutch. When I went to start the car the first time, the pedal went straight to the floor. During the swap I never disconnected the line so I don't think it is air so I must have messed something up when I put it back on or knocked something off so the throw out is not engaging.




Any ideas or experience on this is appreciated.

So far the biggest help in this would be to get as much as you can from a donor car. Since I got the engine from a breaker, I had to source some other parts and find out what I was missing. I also had no idea when the last time this engine ran as I bought it in October.
Anyway sorry for being such a putz but the weather here sucked in March and was just not conducive for getting old, fat ass out to the garage. Hopefully we are past that now.

Additional info. I just lifted the car to start dropping the trans and found a bunch of brake fluid on the floor of the garage. Will start looking for the source but thought I would post. Will look to see if anything is loose or broken. Reservoir is about half full now.