95 BMW M3 LS2 Swap. E36 LS2 Conversion. Boriksh/Bimerok

[bimerok]

Alright, here we go again. While it is all “Fresh” in my mind; Round 2. I will kick this thread off for Boriksh and then we both will be making regular updates as things progress, etc…
Just to do a quick link back before we start, here is the build thread of my 1996 (OBDII) 328 LS1 swap: http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1289987

In this current thread, as you can see from the title, we will be building a 95 m3 with an LS2 engine for Boriksh. He live in Denver, CO and I am located in Philadelphia, PA. Since I already done my car first, we have decided that his swap would also be done here, on east coast.

This swap is the reason for the following pictures from my build thread mentioned above. There was always a plan for this:






The swap candidate that he found could not be any better. This 95 M3 is in super nice shape inside-out and with some damage to the motor. Since the motor was damaged, Boriksh was able to get a smoking deal on the car. Later on, we will try to figure out if the motor is worth repairing or if we are going to part it out.

Now, since the car is not drivable, we needed to transport it from Mid West to East Coast. So off it went.





So a week later she arrived to beautiful Philadelphia.




We got it on the lift to do preliminary look around, etc…





While it was hanging on the lift, we could not take it anymore and the first thing that had to GO ASAP was that hideous exhaust that the original owner installed. So off it went.




Besides the car being in a very good shape, it came with some nice bonus too! Adjustable rear camber.



So now we will need some time to start dismantling the front end and removing that s50 and 5 speed from the car. There will be lots of prep work to do before the fun part of fabricating engine mounts and transmission mount will start.

[boriksh]

Let the Fun begin Bimerok, load more pics

[bimerok]

Meanwhile at the ranch, we are waiting for the arrival of the beast! 2005 GTO drop out with only 20K miles.







So it should be fun and more challenging to try to figure out the LS2 wiring and all. Interested to see how much difficulty it will add compared to my 96 328/LS1 swap.
More to come!

[mateo m3]

sweet

[Maynor]

Nice write up! Thanks for posting and keep it coming.

[rao]

Looks good

[lowside67]

Awesome, have fun!!

[jmil74]

Subscribed!

[SHhhhh]

Wow, very cool! Can't wait to get my swap finished....

[bimerok]

Thanks guys! If anyone has some insites and pointers that would apply to LS2 vs LS1, I would be happy to hear them.

[bimerok]

Before small update from last night I just wanted to give big props and thanks to Sunset Auto Repair in Philadelphia for letting us use their facility after hours. This is a great, clean, and bright shop. Few hours of work with lift and air tools help enormously to accomplish things that would usually take a full day and saves you lots of energy by not have to crawl under the car 100's of times.

Thanks Sunset Auto Repair!

Last night we had some easy "prep" work done prior to removal of the S50. Me and my cousin felt board around 9:30pm so we headed to the shop and started removing the front end and labeling all of the wires.










So after few hours of having fun and taking our sweet time and not rushing anywhere, it was around 12:45 in the morning. We decided it was time to start cleaning up, take all the parts that we took off away and head home.







What I noticed and was really surprised when we put the car back down on the ground is how much weight the little things like bumper, radiator, condenser and front fascia items add. The car was about ~2 - 2.5 inches higher. Amazing!



To be continued...

[Fendbass22]

Can't wait. How much was the GTO dropout shipped?

[ITINT4U]

Being the owner of Sunset auto repair i enjoy working on my cousins (bimerok) and brothers (boriksh) swaps, even after hours

[Tongboy]

jealous of shop access....

So interested - figured I'd ask about wiring before offering help one way or the other.

first - are you going to run the electronic pedal? going to make it fit the bmw pedal and run the wiring into the interior? or are you going to get rid of the electronic pedal and get the ECU that lets you run with the drive by cable throttle?

does the car have to pass emissions? is the car going to have AC.

of course you'll be swapping the goat pan for an f-body? and the same goes for the t56 shifter back to the f-body??

[boriksh]

Oh yeah Shop access is a huge benefit when working on the swap or car in general. My Cousin and Brother help me a lot with this swap and I myself cannot wait to get to my brothers garage in Philadelphia and join my cousin (Bimerok) and brother (Neil at Sunset Auto Repair in North East Philly) to have mad fun with this swap over my vocation time soon.

So far we are planning to keep DBW (drive by wire) throttle body and electric gas pedal, along with switching the fbody oil pan/suction tube and fbody shifter (probably gonna go with stock setup for now).

[Maynor]

Gotta love family for that. I need to make time to swing by and see both cars now since I'm local. Maybe trailer my ride and get a group E36/LSx pic.

[boriksh]

that would be awesome. Always wanted to see your ride.

[sdobart]

Where are you finding swap candidates like this, I've been looking and haven't found anything =\

[boriksh]

Found it locally on craigslist about 2 years ago and kept in the garage since. Apparently previous owner money shifted, that caused some damage to the engine/valvetrain that needs to be addressed later.

[hefftone]

Found it locally on craigslist about 2 years ago and kept in the garage since. Apparently previous owner money shifted, that caused some damage to the engine/valvetrain that needs to be addressed later.

My friend did that to his M3 at the dragstrip...He pulled the head, and replaced all the exhaust valves, and that was all it took. Make sure the valve guides are'nt jacked up, and it will be an easy fix to resale the engine. Pretty easy to do with the engine out of the car, the vanos is the only tricky part (unless you've done it before.)

Cool build, thats a great donor.

[bimerok]

My friend did that to his M3 at the dragstrip...He pulled the head, and replaced all the exhaust valves, and that was all it took. Make sure the valve guides are'nt jacked up, and it will be an easy fix to resale the engine. Pretty easy to do with the engine out of the car, the vanos is the only tricky part (unless you've done it before.)

Cool build, thats a great donor.

That is funny. When we glanced at the motor, it looks like this is exactly what happened. After we opened valve cover, we found one spring retainer that was just laying around (not sure how many more are off and somewhere inside the engine, couple of valve guides pushed up with one being extra high. This was on exhaust side and we haven't spent any more time looking at the intake side yet, but it sounds like you hit this one right on the head

[Kaane]

Did you guys decide what you will do with the AC system to make it work with GTO PCM? Since it uses Serial Data to Communicate with the BCM and does not have a normal LS1 AC request signal? Or no AC planned?

[bimerok]

Right now we have not decided on AC yet. We will see what we want to do about it once we get closer to that part.

Currently started digging through the wiring a little bit and have a question on the plug identification and what it is used for. It is white 26 pin connector with about 7 - 10 wires in it. It looks like it might be connector going into body control module, but I'm not sure...







It is splitting off the loom about a foot from PCM C2 and C3 connectors and go into the firewall near brake booster. Any LS2 gurus know the name for that connector and what it holds?
Thanks

[Kaane]

Is that the DBW Pedal Connector?

[bimerok]

No, all of the DBW pedal wires go to C1 on PCM. This plug is on the engine harness just down stream from C2 and C3 PCM connectors