Blackknight530i 530i6 -> M5 Conversion Build Thread

[computiNATEor]

Will that caliper/rotor setup clear a stock 65? Or are 19s required?

[blackknight530i]

Will that caliper/rotor setup clear a stock 65? Or are 19s required?

Clears M-pars, but don't think 65s will fit without a spacer. Need to test that with a friend's set of 65s.

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[purplecty]

Thats a serious upgrade on the brakes! Sreten seems to be a pretty stand up guy. Nice to see him helping other enthusiasts. Can't wait to see this on mpars. IMO they fit this generation of BMW the best and will flaunt those brakes nicely.

[philly98540]

Brakes sound super solid. Post up some more pics when you get time. Hauling the E39 down on repeated track stops is no small task. I did the powerflex inserts on my rear subframe and could not be happier. Tightens things up great back there and not special press tools needed.

[dtw]

Really loving this brake upgrade. Is this the W205 C63 S front caliper and 2010-16 rear Panamera caliper?

Any minimum wheel clearances? I’m currently running factory 17” M-Parallels but would go to 18s at same time as this brake package.

[blackknight530i]

Really loving this brake upgrade. Is this the W205 C63 S front caliper and 2010-16 rear Panamera caliper?

Any minimum wheel clearances? I’m currently running factory 17” M-Parallels but would go to 18s at same time as this brake package.

Correct.

I would bet that 18s would be a minimum on the front. The 18" M-pars just barely clear.

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[Iamthebull]

Those rotors and calipers are insanely beefy. How do they feel on the street?

[blackknight530i]

Those rotors and calipers are insanely beefy. How do they feel on the street?

So far, pedal feel is the same as stock M5, but the brakes never shudder after repeated heavy braking. I'm using the pads that came with the calipers since they were practically brand new, but they are cheap ceramics, so not super happy with them. I plan on changing them as soon as possible.

Here's another picture of the car in Asheville at our AirBnB.



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[blackknight530i]

So, I had a bit of a scare on Friday during our drive around Asheville. We did 151, the Parkway, and a few other roads and had a blast, but after 151, we stopped on the Parkway and I felt this weird vibration that seemed to be at idle and really bad about 1500 RPM or so. The engine itself seemed to sound totally fine and temps were all good, so I was really confused. It also seemed to go away after driving the car a little bit. I thought for sure it was because I had plugged back in my MAF sensors before the drive up (I have an Alpha-N tune that doesn't use them) and thought they were causing some bad data to be read, but unplugged them and it didn't seem to make any difference. Continued our drive and the car still did great and I only noticed the vibration again when we were stuck in traffic coming back into town. It continued all the way back to our AirBnB. I decided not to drive the following day to The Vintage as it was an hour each way and without knowing what was up, I didn't want to damage anything. Last thing I need are both my Cayman and the M5 to have engines needing rebuilds.

I ended up driving my friend's M3 convertible and had a blast anyways. I checked the M5 again when we got back and it still had the vibration pretty bad at idle, but would clear up after a few minutes. I figured it would get me home, so on Sunday, we got on the road and other than the first couple of minutes idling, it smoothed out and was totally fine the entire drive home, except when we made a pitstop and I had to restart the car. It vibrated again for a couple minutes, then was fine again for the rest of the drive.

Once I got home, I decided it could be VANOS related. I had the gaskets and o-rings for years to do the VANOS solenoids, so I went ahead and did them. Upon starting the car up, it did exactly the same thing. I checked codes and there were a couple of codes for VANOS inlet on bank 1 and outlet on bank 2, but they were not present. I cleared them and ran a VANOS test and everything came back passed. I was super puzzled at this point and was running out of ideas.

I decided to google the vibration at startup that goes away after a couple of minutes and came across someone with the exact same issue on M5board. He had tried all the usual things that I have also already done on this engine and I also tried a couple of the things suggested in that thread, but it wasn't till I got to the end of the thread that I realized it was something super simple and SUPER obvious. Someone suggested to check the clutch fan. The guy in the thread looked at his and sure enough, he had a completely missing fan blade staring right at him.

Well, guess what I found...



I'll have a new one on order and I'm 99.99999% sure it will fix the issue. It also makes perfect sense as to why I would have the vibration at startup and when the engine got hot with no airflow passing through the radiator. That's when the fan was engaged and dragging on the engine. Cruising at highway speeds would not be using the fan, so that's why it was smooth then.

I'll also be ordering some TRW semi-metallic pads for the front calipers to last me until I'm ready to purchase my track pads.

[purplecty]

I had the exact same issue with my e38 on startup when the fan clutch activated with 1 blade was missing as it was out of balance. New fan blades resolved the issue and it was smooth again on startups.

[blackknight530i]

I had the exact same issue with my e38 on startup when the fan clutch activated with 1 blade was missing as it was out of balance. New fan blades resolved the issue and it was smooth again on startups.

LOL, I guess I should have asked about it while I was still on my trip. I could have probably just remove the fan entirely for the weekend and enjoyed it even more. Oh well. At least I did the VANOS o-rings anyways as they were getting a bit plasticized. Only about 89k miles on the engine now, but the engine was built back in 2003 as a crate motor, so age has certainly caught up to it. Can't complain about much from it though as it's been super reliable over the last 20 years and 89k miles. Only I seem to have is from the rear main seal, which I'll be getting to sometime soon. Not even enough to drip on the ground.

- - - Updated - - -

I am amazed that the blade didn't damage anything. No dents in the hood, no cut radiator hoses, nothing broken except for the blade as far as I can tell. I think the blade is still sitting in the undertray as well, LOL.

[blackknight530i]

I'm almost ready to install my freshly painted and rebuilt Porsche Panamera rear calipers on the car, but unfortunately, I found out there are two different types of Panamera rear calipers. The Turbo/GTS have 350mm rotors and the standard and S models have 330mm rotors, meaning the calipers sit about 10mm closer to the center of the hub. The caliper brackets from Epytec.de apparently expect you to use the Turbo/GTS calipers and they even say that you need spacers if you use the 330mm versions. I didn't realize which ones I got from the salvage yard, but now I know I have the shorter ones. I've ordered some 10mm stainless steel spacers from here: https://www.extsw.com/products/extsw...faab3c1a&_ss=r and they should work great. Apparently this is what 996 and 997 Carrera owners are doing to upgrade their cars to use the larger 350mm rotors from the higher end cars, so it's pretty well proven.

Here are the pics of my freshly painted and rebuilt calipers, ready to go in once those spacers come in. I've since replaced the bleeder screws with brand new ones from Porsche since I got paint on the old ones and they were kind of crusty on the threads anyway.

[purplecty]

Those are some really good looking calilers you have there. Can't wait to see how they look mounted up.

[blackknight530i]

Those are some really good looking calilers you have there. Can't wait to see how they look mounted up.

Hopefully by next weekend. Spacers haven't been received by USPS yet. I was so ready to have them mounted last Saturday. I went through a lot to get them painted, LOL. Hoping that painting the fronts will go much smoother. They are already mounted though, so will just be doing a lot of masking and painting on the car, which will have to wait as I've got a Z3 3.0i on the lift getting a manual swap and suspension rebuild for a friend.