e30 5.9 magnum swap

[imthanick_a]

Finally beginning my dream of building a car. I have a basically free, running 5.9 magnum 360 from a coworkers 01 Ram with 40k miles, so that will be the powerplant. Chassis is an e30: 1984 BMW E30 325e

Transmission, im not sure of yet. I know there are magnum engine to chevy trans adapters so that may be the route i go. Or just keep the stock auto trans on there, although I'd prefer manual with this build.
Wanted a manual but cost is going to be restrictive for this. Not many good options out there for this swap so it may be staying auto for now until i can afford a T56. Torqueflite 727 seems like the most available and cost effective option good to 600 hp.

Holley Terminator X and Holley digital dash if I decide to do fuel injection, from what i can find, switching to a carb or EFI is a cheap easy way to make good clean power from this motor. Maybe a Holley sniper system?

The goal for this build was originally to be a tolerable to ride in street car, stripped but painted/rhinoliner interior, weight reduction, purely for fun car. I am planning on deleting A/C, relocating battery/fuse box/radiator(?) etc to keep the engine bay clean and easy to work on as i save up money for upgrades. Starting with a stock motor and factory power level tune and upgrading cams and such in the future. This has quickly evolved into a full restoration though. While doing this, I also am trying to be as budget friendly as possible and keeping in mind that this is all a learning experience for me, its my first time doing anything past mostly basic car maintenance and mods. I have fabrication experience from work, just havent learned welding yet so thats my first step.

Any advice from people with experience in this would be greatly appreciated. An engine swap/actual car build has been a goal of mine for a long time and im excited to learn as much as possible and get started. It seems daunting now during my cautious research, but I've been watching builds on youtube for over a decade at this point and at least know things i have to keep in mind, tips and tricks, basic understanding of process... Should be fun!

 

[jimlloyd40]

How would you pass emissions with that?

 

[imthanick_a]

How would you pass emissions with that?

Not sure yet. The build is gonna take a while and by the time it's done it may be too old to need it. It's 25 years old here. Registered and emissions documented under the engine year

 

[imthanick_a]

Brought home the chassis on Saturday and tore into in over the weekend. I've got most of the interior out, now I'm working on pulling the wiring harness and what's left of the engine bay stuff. More photos to come. Next step is the remove all the old sound deadening and identify where I need to replace some metal. The firewall is in pretty bad shape and the floorboards need a little work but the rest of the car seems pretty solid.

 

[MonkeyMD]

Know a guy at autocross that picked up 2 E30's. Put in a Ford 5.0 in one. He's basically custom fabbing everything. Don't know all the details but I know widened track by 2", cut out spare tire well and welded flat panel so he could install a big diffuser for downforce. This one is going to be for autocross.

He's wanting to put a K20 in the other one.

 

[imthanick_a]

Know a guy at autocross that picked up 2 E30's. Put in a Ford 5.0 in one. He's basically custom fabbing everything. Don't know all the details but I know widened track by 2", cut out spare tire well and welded flat panel so he could install a big diffuser for downforce. This one is going to be for autocross.

He's wanting to put a K20 in the other one.

That sounds pretty sweet. If a for 5.0 can fit the 360 magnum definitely can haha, I'm looking forward to all the fab work. Planning on spending the better part of this summer and spring doing body repair and accessory/lighting wiring if time allows. Hoping to pull the motor in the next month or so and get it in my garage so I can start the fit up.

 

[bentin]

You'll have no trouble fitting that. The S85 V10 fits, there are a number of them running around.

 

[imthanick_a]

A year behind plan but.... Over the past few weeks I've made a little progress finally. Got the motor pulled from the donor truck

Garage is getting a little tight. I plan on getting the E30 parts into storage in the attic this weekend to clear up some space

to

My old mans motor stand was a little anemic so I had to take a day to beef it up. First time stick welding with my machine and it was a breeze. Really happy with my budget Tig/Stick welder purchase (AHP Alphatig 201xd)

It still sags a lot but I'm at least confident it will hold the weight now. The flat bar in the back side of this photo interferes with the mounting plate when I go to flip the motor but I knew that would happen. Not much room to get a gusset in there. I'll take the angle grinder to it to clearance it when the time comes. I want to get both heads off before I do this though because that will get around 90+ lbs off the stand and make it less top heavy. I've got the motor mounted with the center of gravity as low as I can get it without modifying the plate. Been working through the Ohio rust plague all week. Soaked all the bolts in PB Blaster last week for a few days, degreased and pressure washed the whole thing, and soaked it in WD40 with extra PB blaster on the bolts. Couple days later I removed the ones I could. Had a couple studs shear off in each exhaust manifold, and a bunch of the valve cover nuts were completely rusted into a pea sized blob with a little spindle left of the exposed stud. Luckily I was able to grab the stud with vise grips and get them out. Exhaust manifold studs will likely need welded out or left handed drilled. So far I have all the exposed head bolts out, one of the valve covers off, the intake manifold, and one exhaust manifold.

This weekends plan is to get both heads and the other exhaust manifold off, and start to work on getting busted studs out. If all goes well I'll start cutting the interference on my gusset on the motor stand so I can flip the motor over and get the oil pan off. Then I can make a decision on how far I want to go with building the motor (basically do I put a cam in it and does it need new piston rings, cylinders honed out, etc).

Its supposed to snow all weekend so I'm not sure I'll actually get out in the garage. My propane heater started leaking last time I tried to use it so we'll see

EDIT: I didn't do shit cuz it was snowing sideways

 

[imthanick_a]

Made some progress on the engine teardown. Going to start pulling the rotating assembly out this weekend and getting the block cleaned up/out. Theres a good amount of goopy coolant gunk stuck in the water channels. Got a couple studs/broken bolts to extract from the heads still. I may opt to just buy new heads so I don't have to deal with it, but that will delay the build cuz that budget would have to be shifted from the ECU budget... I'll tinker with them a little and see how hard the recovery will be. The other ones came out pretty easy so I'm optimistic these won't give me too much hassle. I'm hoping to at least have the block and heads down to bare, degreased, cleaned up, cylinders honed, and maybe even start painting by the end of the weekend

 

[imthanick_a]

I have a lot of fun parts sitting on the shelf ready to go - got a real fun package on Saturday with a little black box labeled "Holley" in it

I soaked the heads, pistons and rods, and lifters in degreaser over the weekend. LA's Totally Awesome is.. totally awesome. Seriously, the stuff dissolved the burnt on oil like it was ice in a hot tub. Spent a few hours with a drill-wire brush, soap, and degreaser on the block to get the leftover grease. Found a bunch of paint leftover that was hidden by the grease and soaked it in paint stripper for a few days. Will scrub that off today and prep the block and heads for paint

 

[Desslok]

You have to at least put a cam in. Cool project. Good luck with it.

 

[imthanick_a]

You have to at least put a cam in. Cool project. Good luck with it.

I originally wasn't going to, but I ended up buying one since I'd be inside the motor anyway. Good thing I did cuz this is what I found on it:

Thanks!

 

[imthanick_a]

Don't have any pictures, I'll grab some tonight after work. I took the heads over to my dads place and used his oxy-acetylene torch to heat and quench to remove the busted studs and rusted spark plug tubes from them. Hex rounded off on one of the plugs so we punched out the ceramic center, now I have to get some easy-outs to remove the remaining metal. Either that or drill and tap, and try to drive the plug out from the inside of the head using the screw.

Found a local engine shop who is going to clean, dry, and shot blast everything for a good price. Once my paint comes in I'll take it over there and get it cleaned and prepped for paint and rebuild. I've now got all the parts I need to rebuild it except pushrods, ignition coils, and a couple lifters that need replaced. ECU came in the mail and oh boy.. I'm going to have to study wiring diagrams for a while....