My First BMW – My First Swap – LS2/T56 into an E36

[TipsyMcStagger]

On my E36 LS/t56 swap I didn't use the stock center muffler heat shield. Instead I used the DEI adhesive back heat shield. Forms pretty easy. Provides great heat protection.

I'm familiar with it

For mufflers I used Magna Flow 2 in 2 out 2.5" center muffler. Rear muffler was Magna Flow 2 in 2 out 2.5". I did use the high flow cats. Car had a nice rumble but not too loud.

So it sounds like you have a similar setup to the parts I've bought. I've got two of the MagnaFlow 11386 2.5" X-Flow mufflers. Again, sound is very subjective but I'd say "nice rumble but not too loud" is what I'm after.

Do you happen to know the part numbers of your MagnaFlow mufflers?

[C10 LS1 1968]

Mine weren't the X type they were straight thru. My center muffler was the longer version. I wish I'd done the X type. I think LS motors sound better with a crossover after the cat. I don't know if you can get the X type muffler in the short case. The two in and two rear muffler I welded on stainless tips for kind of a stock look. Had to trim the rear valence a little since the outlets are a little wider apart.

[TipsyMcStagger]

Mine weren't the X type they were straight thru. My center muffler was the longer version. I wish I'd done the X type. I think LS motors sound better with a crossover after the cat. I don't know if you can get the X type muffler in the short case. The two in and two rear muffler I welded on stainless tips for kind of a stock look. Had to trim the rear valence a little since the outlets are a little wider apart.

I don't know how much shorter they come but the two mufflers I have, both 11386, are only 14" long.

Does Magnaflow make dual-in dual-out mufflers shorter than 14"?

[JimLev]

I'm using that same SD7 compressor for my build too. Got mine from TX.
I bought the mounting bracket from Dirty Dingo.
Have you made your AC lines yet? I bought the crimp tool to make mine.

[TipsyMcStagger]

I'm using that same SD7 compressor for my build too. Got mine from TX.
I bought the mounting bracket from Dirty Dingo.
Have you made your AC lines yet? I bought the crimp tool to make mine.

I haven't made the lines yet but I installed the Holley Kit today, so lines are in the near future. Hopefully Friday.

The Sanden SD7B10 is considerably more compact than the factory GM compressor. Routing the lines will definitely be a lot easier with this setup. Unfortunately, the rear compressor port is for the line that has to come forward to the condenser and the front port is for the line that has to route back toward the firewall to the evaporator, but that's a minor inconvenience compared to the previous setup.

Here are some pics of the bracket and the compressor:

Holley Cast Aluminum Bracket Kit 20-160









Way more room between the compressor and the frame rail than with the GM compressor









This tool with a 6mm Allen bit makes tightening the rear cap-head bolts on the compressor much easier





I also put fluid in the T-56 today. The sticker on the trans says to use Dexron III. I'm sure most of you know that Dexron III no longer exists...at least not under that name. The internet is filled with conflicting info on what fluid both works well and will do no harm. The gist of it is that Dexron/Merc is equivalent to the former Dexron III. But the ONLY thing I could find that was factual and not speculative, conjecture or opinion was that Delco 88861800 fluid is the GM recommended alternative to Dexron III. So that's what I got (from the Chevy dealer).

Dexron III label on T-56


Delco 88861800 Fluid



The next internet debate is; how much fluid to use in a T-56? Apparently, if you fill using the fill plug, the trans will take four quarts. However, there's lots of info on the web that suggests the latest GM guidance is to remove the back-up light switch and fill to 4.65 quarts using that hole. While I was at the GM dealer, I asked a tech in the shop how much fluid a 2006 GTO manual trans should take. He pulled it up on his laptop and it said 4.65 quarts. So that's what I did. I removed the back-up light switch and pumped-in approximately 4.65 quarts. It did not overflow. I'm confident 4.65 is fine, especially considering there must be tons of these running around with four quarts if they were filled to the lip of the regular fill plug.



Filling the trans through the port for the back-up light switch







With the Holley A/C bracket, the stock E36 grounding cable was just a bit too short (like, millimeters). So, I made a new cable. I think I showed this before but using a cheap eBay (or Amazon?) hydraulic crimp tool, some marine tinned lugs, 4 ga cable and heat shrink, it's easy to make high quality battery cables. I've been using the next smaller die in the crimp tool than what's indicated in the included chart.



Hydraulic crimp tool

[TipsyMcStagger]

Hopefully this will make you chuckle; yesterday I was installing the rear seat headrests and the newly covered package tray. Considering the rear interior has been disassembled for at least a couple of years, I considered it a win that I was able to easily locate the four headrest retaining pins. It's a little bit of a pain to install the pins - having to keep the front lip of the package tray lifted while shining a flashlight and inserting the pins with a pair of long pliers.

I had all four pins set-out on the trunk floor. I installed one, two, three...then, for the life of me, I could not find the fourth. I mean poof! It simply freakin' vanished! I hadn't moved. I hadn't gotten out of the car. I had done absolutely nothing that could have accidentally sent this thing flying.

I spent the next 45 minutes scouring the same spots over and over, getting more and more frustrated. This is somewhat of a specialty pin, so I'd have to order another or just forgo installing it. But that wasn't what really bothered me. What drove me crazy was - how they hell did I manage to lose this thing in two minutes after it had been in my parts pile for two plus years! Finally, I had to accept the fact that the pin was gone and I'd had have to order another. So frustrating.

Fast forward a few hours - I decided to go back into the garage to look at something under the dash. I grabbed one of the two flashlights I'd been using earlier - a folding, LED worklight with a hook on top and a magnetic base. A MAGNETIC BASE!

Guess what was staring me in the face, stuck to the magnetic base?

I had to laugh at myself.

[RulyLSX]

LOL!!!!!! been there before for sure

[Tim Mc]

Nice work in the cables...

Losing stuff is sucks...finding it later makes your day.

First heard on the 4.65 quarts in the trans. Could that be a dry fill amount vice fluid change - could see undrainable remnants adding up to about that much. Our T56 Magnum is 4.0 quarts. A fill plug is a fill plug. I suppose one won't see excess oil burning due to an overfill or not!

Anxious for a shot of the headliner!

[TipsyMcStagger]

If you Google T-56 and 4.6, there's lots of discussion. None of it seemed overwhelming convincing so I decided to ask the GM tech what his computer specified. I saw 4.65 quarts listed on his computer, so that's what I went with.

I swapped the grab handles, sun visors, front map light and visor lights for black bits. I left the original tan C-pillar lights. I think my favorite part is the B-pillars. They are just ugly painted plastic from the factory. They look much nicer covered in fabric.

It's hard to take pictures of the headliner, especially with the camera pointed up toward the garage lights. I took a bunch of pics and they all came out horrible. These three are the least horrible of the bunch. I think it looks better in person than the pics imply.

[Tim Mc]

Looks like they did a first rate job! Very nice.

[C10 LS1 1968]

I went out and measured my rear muffler. It's a 14" case. Can't really get a pic of but for the mounting bracket I welded straps to the mufller so I could use the stock mounting point. I did the complete exhaust out of mandrel bends and straight pieces. Not hard just lots of time on the creeper.

[TipsyMcStagger]

I went out and measured my rear muffler. It's a 14" case. Can't really get a pic of but for the mounting bracket I welded straps to the mufller so I could use the stock mounting point. I did the complete exhaust out of mandrel bends and straight pieces. Not hard just lots of time on the creeper.

Thanks. The two X-Flow muffler I have are the 14" case.

I'm just going to go with it. If I don't like the sound, I'll make a change.

I'm not going to do it myself, though. I'll leave it to the exhaust shop.

[C10 LS1 1968]

I don't know what your muffler shop uses for exhaust pipe bending but most are compression bend type pipe benders. Here in sunny MN there a couple of shops that have mandrel bender machines. I don't care for the "look" of the compression bent exhaust. The mandrel bends aren't cheap but if plan well they have expanded ends that allow you to piece it together without much problem. You would need a welder. The worst part is the number of times you have to creeper under the car fitting all the parts.

[TipsyMcStagger]

I don't know what your muffler shop uses for exhaust pipe bending but most are compression bend type pipe benders. Here in sunny MN there a couple of shops that have mandrel bender machines. I don't care for the "look" of the compression bent exhaust. The mandrel bends aren't cheap but if plan well they have expanded ends that allow you to piece it together without much problem. You would need a welder. The worst part is the number of times you have to creeper under the car fitting all the parts.

Unfortunately, the shop doesn't have a mandrel bender. But I asked several different custom shops in the area who they recommend for exhaust work and this name kept coming up. So I feel confident they will do a good job.

Learning to weld is high on my list of desired skills to acquire. And I'm always very impressed by the homemade exhaust systems that are posted here...especially the ones done on jack stands. But attempting to learn to weld by making an exhaust system in my tiny garage on a project that has languished longer than I care to admit is not the best way to go about it, in my opinion.

On the plus side, I'm finally getting the car to the hose shop this morning for A/C lines. I had planned to load the car on a U-Haul trailer. I figured with the help of a neighbor it wouldn't be too hard to get a non-running car loaded on a trailer. But at the last minute (yesterday) I thought to do a Youtube search for "load non running car onto trailer" and decided it would be smarter, though more expensive, to hire a flatbed. Luckily, I found a guy who said he could be here at 9am.

We'll see how it goes!

[C10 LS1 1968]

Good luck with the exhaust. If all possible have the muffler shop use band clamps instead of u-bolt type clamps. The u-bolt clamps crimp the tube making it very difficult to take apart if needed. There are two types of band clamps. One bolt and two bolt styles. Both work well.

[TipsyMcStagger]

Good luck with the exhaust. If all possible have the muffler shop use band clamps instead of u-bolt type clamps. The u-bolt clamps crimp the tube making it very difficult to take apart if needed. There are two types of band clamps. One bolt and two bolt styles. Both work well.

I've got V-Bands in the parts box with the mufflers, cats, etc.

The car is at the hose shop!

[RulyLSX]

very cool headline work! NOw i really want to get mine done lol

[Tim Mc]

The car moved down the road! Fantastic...that is a good feeling. Did you use AAA free towing?

Your car will be silent with two mufflers *and* cats. Could have sought a OEM M3 exhaust and mated it up...I wish I would have known...I gave ours away!

Cool!

[TipsyMcStagger]

The car moved down the road! Fantastic...that is a good feeling. Did you use AAA free towing?

Your car will be silent with two mufflers *and* cats. Could have sought a OEM M3 exhaust and mated it up...I wish I would have known...I gave ours away!

I didn't use AAA. I gave it a brief thought but I needed to be able to have the flatbed arrive at a pretty specific time and I figured I'd be at the mercy of AAA's scheduling. As it was, I got to the car to the shop at 9:45am and I could tell they were anticipating my arrival earlier in the morning. I got a little bit of an earful about it.

I stopped by a few hours after I dropped it off and I could tell he was having a rough go trying to get the lines routed the way I wanted. I want to keep the lines from the firewall routed underneath the heater hoses. The line from the firewall to the drier is already routed that way but it needed a good bit of modification to stay clear of the relocated heater valve. And the line from the firewall to the compressor had to be totally fabricated and needed to be a combination of hard line - so if could stay tight to the frame and away from the header - and hose - so it could have some play to accommodate engine movement.

It was a little funny to hear him say in frustration "do you know how many times I've had this in and out of the car?" LOL...um yeah, that's what I've been doing for 3+ years. He just texted to say it's done, but I can't get it till morning. Not a cheap day.

I thought about using an M3 rear muffler but Braap had always said how quiet his car was with the Spintech mid and the stock M3 rear, so I figured two small aftermarket mufflers wouldn't be as quiet. Like I said, if I don't like it, I'll make a change.

[C10 LS1 1968]

I looked locally for a M3 exhaust but being in MN everything was rusty. Welding exhaust is really quite easy if you are using overlapping joints. The mandrel bends are 16 gauge as are the exhaust tubing. just grind off the aluminized coating and weld away. Great practice for welding 18 gauge sheet metal. No need for anymore than a 110 volt MIG.

[TipsyMcStagger]

Got the car back this morning. It looks good. Both lines running to the firewall are beneath the heater hoses (which are just mocked up right now). There's no question it was worth the extra $$$ to hire the flatbed. It would have been a cluster working by myself trying to load/unload a non-running car from a trailer.

I have to travel tonight for much of the month, so it'll be a while before I can move forward.


For the pressure senor, he simply removed the Schrader valve and used an adapter to fit an M10 x 1.25 fitting.



I took the following two pics while he was in the middle of making the line from the compressor to the condenser.






Here's the completed compressor to condenser line. The condenser was temporarily installed while he was working on this.




It's hard to get a good pic but here are the high and low pressure lines running aft to the evaporator, with the heater hoses above them.



The bend in the OE high-pressure line was in conflict with the heater valve.




Here you can see the modified OE high pressure line, now routed under the heater valve. And the fabricated low pressure line.

[Tim Mc]

Very nice...quite a bit of work went into those. Care to share the $ for such cool air?

Also curious of your heater hoses - were they parts store purchases or some OEM fitments? Look nicely done. Believe we will need heat in our project soon...

[RulyLSX]

getting her done! nice work was done on those lines!! I had to use ac the other day driving home from work, such a nice luxury lol

[Liquidity]

The bend in the OE high-pressure line was in conflict with the heater valve.

A little FYI - coolant must always flow through the water pump's heater-core lines on an LS. If you're going to run your heater core valve, you need to have some way for coolant to bypass it and return to the water pump when your heat is off. If you don't, hot spots will develop and you'll boil coolant. I did not know this and I suffered the consequences.

[TipsyMcStagger]

Very nice...quite a bit of work went into those. Care to share the $ for such cool air?

Also curious of your heater hoses - were they parts store purchases or some OEM fitments? Look nicely done. Believe we will need heat in our project soon...

Like I wrote earlier, it wasn't a cheap day. $600 (not including the flat bed). He spent all day working on the lines and accomplished what I asked of him. I could have spent less and simply fabricated hoses (no hard lines) and routed them around the strut tower. But that's not how I wanted to do it.

The heater hoses are just off-the-shelf, with Gates heat shrink clamps and some-off-shelf hose splices. The 90 is a Pex fitting from Home Depot. It's all just mocked-up right now.

getting her done! nice work was done on those lines!! I had to use ac the other day driving home from work, such a nice luxury lol

Thanks! Yeah, if it all works, I'll be very happy.

A little FYI - coolant must always flow through the water pump's heater-core lines on an LS. If you're going to run your heater core valve, you need to have some way for coolant to bypass it and return to the water pump when your heat is off. If you don't, hot spots will develop and you'll boil coolant. I did not know this and I suffered the consequences.

This is the first I've heard of this issue. At least 75% of the LS/E36 build threads I've read included heater hoses hooked up through the factory heater valve. I don't recall ever seeing accommodations for any kind of plumbed-in bypass.

I always assumed the heater valve itself is a bypass. In other words, when the heat is "off," and water is not traveling through the heater core, is the coolant not pumped into the valve and simply returned through the valve back to the water pump?

Anyone with a heater valve in their build, feel free to comment.