New 525iT owner! need help with misfire!

[s14brent]

planning on putting the m54b30 in the wagon end of this week! meanwhile, trying to replace a few things that were broken.

the cup holder for one was broken.



The fill hose for the washer reservoir in the driver side wheel well was broken in a few spots.....turns out this hose is $48!! I went to a junkyard with 5 e39's on hand, and all of them were in pretty bad shape or just missing completely.....damn. Waiting for this thing to arrive!



I ended up finding a pair of headers (brand new) local for under $100, ended up going that route vs welding on new flanges (just don't have the time right now unfortunately). Transferred over the o2's and put oem m50/s50 gaskets since the cheap ones are the worst. (I decided not to go with the m54 ones with the heat shield because I've heard it can collect oil (leaks) and be a potential fire hazard.)



I had to clearance one of the runners to clear the o2 sensor. ::enter:: BFH



shifter carrier installed. Can't wait to see how all this feels!! delrin shifter bushings, aluminum dssr, e60 shifter...yum! (new guibo installed also)



I also found a local guy who has chipped ms43 dme for sale (with ews delete), he was doing a 3.0 swap but into a 325. Thinking about picking it up, since it's local and can get me up and running without downtime!

will keep everyone posted how it goes on Friday!

[StephenVA]

In response to selling my CTA rearball joint tool....
No as I have two other vehicles in my fleet to do myself. Cheap enough.

[s14brent]

In response to selling my CTA rearball joint tool....
No as I have two other vehicles in my fleet to do myself. Cheap enough.

all good, i'll buy one when I get closer to that point of needing it.

[s14brent]

$50 plastic hose came in



installed all nice



after some frustrating moments, I got the motor in place with the help of a friend! I had to swap over the m54b25 coolant temp sensor and the SAP check valve that bolts onto the head.




after figuring out the wiring and vacuum lines under the intake manifold I mocked up the 528i AFE intake that I picked up.



radiator, clutch fan, with a new oem fan shroud and febi radiator hoses installed, fluids filled! (you can see the difference in check valve in this picture)



I just need to weld up two or three sections on the exhaust, and get a hold of that local guy with the m54b30 chipped dme (or just get my dme reflashed). Battery is back on the battery tender so i'll be ready to fire it up when the time comes!

[geargrinder]

Good stuff.

Bad call on trying to fix the OEM cupholders unfortunately - those things are horrible and will just break again and don't really function anyway... the proper answer to those is the awesome and cheap eBay cupholder... but next time they break (or when you get annoyed with them completely not working to hold anything anyway...) go for one of these...

[s14brent]

Good stuff.

Bad call on trying to fix the OEM cupholders unfortunately - those things are horrible and will just break again and don't really function anyway... the proper answer to those is the awesome and cheap eBay cupholder... but next time they break (or when you get annoyed with them completely not working to hold anything anyway...) go for one of these...

The ones i got were probably from china also, i wish i knew about those earlier! I ordered one up just because it was so cheap!

so i found out the previous owner didn't wire up the reverse lights or clutch switch. I did a few searches and found your threads with the info. Any tips on how to de-pin those plugs (which type of tool did you use), and do i need a clutch switch, it seems to be more for cruise control if I read correctly.

-------------------------edit..because i can't wait!!

picked up the chipped ms43 dme tonight, will give it a try tomorrow when my neighbors aren't sleeping!! Here's a pic from earlier after cleaning up the wiring and throwing on plastic vanity covers!

[geargrinder]

Yeah that eBay cupholder is one of those rare stupid-good-cheap-chinese items. Looks shockingly decent match to interior - anybody who isn't an E39head has no idea it isn't factory. And actually works great. Can't imagine not having it at this point.

IME you may or may not have to hit a sharp edge on the front w/ sandpaper for exactly 1.3 seconds if the mold flashing is messy but its no BFD at all... also on mine I believe I swapped the double stick tape for some quailty 3M and IIRC maybe I doubled it to get the height exactly right (or was it that I used thinner tape? something like that). But also super easy... 3M has 3 grades of 'permanence' in double-stick tape - the white soft stuff (only use if you KNOW you'll want to tear it out later) then 2 black-rubbery kinds w/ red peel off film. The latter are the good kinds for sure.

Re: pin removal - exact process depends on the connector, but many modern BMW connectors have tool-less de-pinning with 2 parts to the connector housing. Typically the pins insert into an initial holder, often with a little metal snap retainer but that requires no special tool other than a pick to remove. Then that holder slides or snaps into the final outer shell and in doing so locks the pins further in place. A lot of interior plugs are this way but also some engine plugs on the later cars particularly (read VANOS motors etc.)

There are exceptions to that so for AMP Junior Power Timer plugs like you get in the engine bay, you are supposed to use a de-pinning tool - I have a few of 'em from eBay.

[s14brent]

got the chipped dme from the local guy today. fired up on the first try!!! Wow that open header is loud!

https://flic.kr/p/RgsKq7

[itsbrokeagain]

Sounds good!

[s14brent]

Sounds good!

Thanks man!

----------------------------------

I have been fighting some gremlins with the car. My disa valve sounded like it was knocking super loud maybe once every 1-2 minutes and rough idle.....ended up taking out the disa valve (rebuilt prior to swap with G.A.S rebuild kit) and visually checking it out, everything seemed fine, so i cleaned the maf and reinstalled and the problem some how went away. Tried spraying carb cleaner/brake cleaner to find any vacuum leaks, completely lost on how it somehow fixed itself. I'm just glad the noise isn't there anymore, it was a pretty terrible sound!

Exhaust is almost done. bigger pain in the ass than anticipated.

I was going to bleed the clutch slave, but after getting access to reservoir, decided a brake flush would probably be a good idea. I'm glad the previous owner included these lines, the car really needed them all replaced!



The rear lines were a super tight fit, I feel like they're almost stretching...not a huge fan of the design and almost wanted to leave them hanging. I feel a slightly longer line would probably add a few years of life to the lines.



Those are the original rear lines in all their cracked up glory.

More updates as they come........ Also, Is the stock clutch supposed to feel pretty soft in comparison to say an e36 m3 stock setup? I feel like it kind of reminds me of a stock NA miata clutch. I used a motive pressure bleeder to get all the air out, and i'm not very impressed with the pedal feel.

[s14brent]

so i made a trip to the junkyard to cut out a few plugs to wire up the reverse lights. I only found one manual trans switch cut super-close to the plug, so unfortunately that's what I have to work with. soldered/extended and heat shrinked (3rd pic). cut off a few plugs at the dme which worked perfect, I actually only needed to cut one since all the pins there are the same style/length.



but then we get to the blue plug behind the gauge cluster. Not sure what happened here, but the donor car at the yard was an 01 525 sedan. The top pic with the grey plug is from my (02 525i) touring, the bottom is the one cut out from the donor vehicle. Turns out the grey plug has a slightly longer pin and doesn't raise high on one side like the black plug pins do. Kind of confused and disappointed since the 5 series are kind of lacking at the junkyards. I'm going to check out a 530i part out later this week and hopefully get the right plug with pins. I wasn't aware of the differences and hopefully I can find one with a grey connector.



I ran all the wiring through the engine bay dme location, firewall, and through to the gauge cluster. All connections soldered and heat shrinked, all i need is this last pin and hopefully I'll see the reverse lights illuminate!

[s14brent]

I ended up getting the right gauge cluster pin out of an 01 540i part out from a local shop. After some help from "blackknight530i" i got my reverse lights working. (Ran wiring from reverse light switch straight to the back of the gauge cluster.



I ordered the little plug for where the automatic shift linkage goes.



A friend of mine had a staggered set of e38 Mpars collecting dust. I ended up getting them for free since they weren't in great shape. I dropped them off to get refinished, and I ordered new Hankooks that should fit the wagon better.



Decided to run studs and spacers that step down the hub from 74.1 to 72.56 so I can run the Mpars after they get refinished!



Decided to replace the fuel filter since I had no idea when or if the p/o did this. To my surprise the filter was stamped with a 2014 date. (not bad!) I replaced it with a mahle stamped 11/16.

[s14brent]

Picked up the wheels from getting refinished...threw on some non-e38 tire sizes (235/40/18 & 265/35/18 hankook ventus evo2's) HUGE dfifference!



and I ended up trading a subwoofer that was sitting in storage for an 18x8 full size spare.



So i ended up taking it for a test drive and found out the trans leaks from the input shaft....UGH! I managed to swap/install new seal on Friday. All fixed, but what a pain in the butt!!



I picked up a new shift boot + frame from ebay, ebrake boot from a part-out, also grabbed a door trim for pass-front. I effed up though, turns out I need the driver back seat one as well. I hope its' still available by monday!




So I passed emissions but failed the test.....turns out my "service engine soon" light doesn't turn on (i think it did before..with the stock dme, i have no idea - going to take it to someone who can check in winkfp or another program.....
I also threw a P1895 code which I believe has to do with auto-trans. I will have to remove the auto-dme and reset transmission adaptations. and see if that fixes that or hopefully both issues.



it's soooo close!! anyone have tips on coding please share!

[s14brent]

I had some time tonight to pull apart the original m54b25. I was wrong, it wasn't a bent valve.....but more like it had a hole missing out of it!!



also...the upper timing chain guide was broken



--------------------------------------------
meanwhile, waiting for electronics to get back from blackknight530i (sp?). I can't wait to throw it all back together and smog the thing after trans adaptations are cleared!!

[geargrinder]

Cool. Maybe bad valve timing burned that valve?

[s14brent]

been busy with life, car is still not registered/smogged.

While the car was sitting for a while I tried to get rid of the gap in the front, but failed miserably. I ordered some H&R front springs (29791-4) from germany thinking it would at least level the car to match the rear. I'm not sure if it's actually settled in yet, but it looks the same to me....def not a 40mm drop as promised. I did put some KYB bump stops and new rubber boot kit from ECS, and new lemforder top hats and drilled out a pair of m3 reinforcement plates I had laying around from my e30's 5lug front setup.



I ended up switching back to stock dme since the chipped dme apparently has a EU2 tune which i guess disables all of my CEL/SES and basically all warnings. I had local shop southwest bimmers re-code the dme to a 530i manual, and pulled out the auto dme finally! Big thanks to blackknight530i here for selling me another gauge cluster that wasn't all tampered with, and more importantly matched my vin so it could communicate with my DME. This car is such a headache, it's getting back to its once former glory.

I do have the trifecta of lights going on though (brake/abs/tcs) not sure if its a coding thing or if my abs module needs to be replaced or rebuilt. I'll get to that eventually, I kept getting p0491/0492 codes and thought it was a bad pump, so I got a SAP simulator and did a sap delete.



removed the pump and kept the cage for now to hold the fog light HID ballast and simulator.



also deleted the valve with the oem block off plate. The codes went away but eventually came back while trying to clear my drive cycle (used to come back on instantly after clearing before).



Turns out the sap plug wasn't getting any power, so I checked the relay and the 30a side was getting power...which led me down to the fuse.
super convenient location for fuses.



got a replacement from napa....new one is clear so you can check if it's blown visually.



Now things are working again, I will start the drive cycle all over again tonight and try to smog early next week!

[geargrinder]

Good stuff brent. Glad to see working back towards roadworthyness.

Try driving the car a bit and see if that front end settles.

chipped dme apparently has a EU2 tune which i guess disables all of my CEL/SES and basically all warnings.

Well, the EU2 tune shouldn't do that exactly.

It should not disable as much as "not monitor" some things that are NorAm required but not part of Euro2 standard. But it definitely should not totally disable the CEL & warnings.

However if the tuner "deleted DTC's" then indeed it might have a ton of errors / warnings disabled. That's not uncommon... hacker slacker kiddies like to have all the DTC's disabled because they just want to hack/disable everything - SAP, Cats, Post-O2's, evap system, etc. etc.

Of course as I've frequently posted, deleting DTC's can bite you in the butthole in some jurisdictions, it's not a silver bullet if the state like mine has a sophisticated "scan and analyze the download" bureaucracy.

[blackknight530i]

Good stuff brent. Glad to see working back towards roadworthyness.

Try driving the car a bit and see if that front end settles.



Well, the EU2 tune shouldn't do that exactly.

It should not disable as much as "not monitor" some things that are NorAm required but not part of Euro2 standard. But it definitely should not totally disable the CEL & warnings.

However if the tuner "deleted DTC's" then indeed it might have a ton of errors / warnings disabled. That's not uncommon... hacker slacker kiddies like to have all the DTC's disabled because they just want to hack/disable everything - SAP, Cats, Post-O2's, evap system, etc. etc.

Of course as I've frequently posted, deleting DTC's can bite you in the butthole in some jurisdictions, it's not a silver bullet if the state like mine has a sophisticated "scan and analyze the download" bureaucracy.

Hey, so I'm finally checking into this thread. I just dealt with exactly the same issues as Brent in trying to get my wagon (530it 6-speed swap) inspected and registered in NC and I was just successful. Originally, I had an EU2 tune on mine and it absolutely does turn off the EOBD and MIL (aka SES) light. It also sets the readiness codes for SAP, DMTL, O2 sensors to permanently "not ready", which is an absolute fail in NC, even if you do code the MIL light back on, which is pretty simple and I had done that. Anyways, I fought with it for a couple weeks trying different tunes and checking the readiness codes with ISTA-D constantly until I finally got a working solution.

First of all, I'll say that my car has SAP deleted and has had a cat efficiency code for about the last 100k miles or so, which is why I ran an EU2 tune for so long. It was in my 530i sedan until I swapped it to my wagon and it was registered in AL before, which doesn't have inspections, so this was the first time I needed to get it inspected. I have a software tool that I found that fixes the checksums on MS43 tunes, and using the TunerPro XDF for the latest version of the MS43 software, I was able to flash the DME with a stock US 330i manual tune (e39 530i manual tunes tend to feel quite sluggish at initial throttle for some reason and the 330i ones feel much better) using WinKFP, then modify the CAT variant, O2 sensors and SAP settings on it and use Galletto to do the tune reading and flashing. Now, I'm not sure if it worked after I already had the US tune loaded and got good readiness codes for the O2 sensors, before loading the modified tune, but even after I cleared the codes for the cat efficiency and SAP errors and pulled the SAP relay in the ebox, the readiness codes for the O2 sensors were "concluded" and SAP was shown as unsupported (ok in NC's book). There were a few other readiness checks that still said not concluded in ISTA-D, but I decided to take it to the inspection station anyways to take my chances. I only had 2 days left before my inspection time limit would expire. Sure enough, it passed with flying colors. I basically decided that I'm not going to touch the DME tune at all from now on. I'll just keep getting it inspected in this state .

Brent, if you want me to do the same for you, you can send me your DME and I'll do it for you. You can even send me your 525iT DME and I can modify it for you so your car isn't down. You won't need the EWS delete since it's the one from your car anyways.

[s14brent]

Hey, so I'm finally checking into this thread.....

Brent, if you want me to do the same for you, you can send me your DME and I'll do it for you. You can even send me your 525iT DME and I can modify it for you so your car isn't down. You won't need the EWS delete since it's the one from your car anyways.

I will be sending you a dm later this week. I was also told my SA#'s do not match (between cluster and dme, is this an issue or one that will cause future problems, i forgot exactly why they mentioned this to me.)

I'm going to try and see if the car will pass so I'll hold off on your offer for maybe at least this next week...I'm going to try drive it around on my next day off, my moving permit expires soon, and i'd really hate to have to extend it a third time so i'm going to try my luck.
Also...I should note my EU2 chipped dme has everything set as passed.....all monitors, o2, sap, cat, etc. just every light is basically inop - primarily the SES which is why i cant pass inspection with that dme. (i think I got the abs trifecta after the gauge cluster was replaced because I'm guessing the previous owner took those bulbs out too - which is why i went with a different cluster altogether since so many things were tampered with on this car by the pos PO..it just feels better to try and wipe the slate clean and figure things out from there. this whole part was definitely not put into budget when trying to put this car together.

[blackknight530i]

I will be sending you a dm later this week. I was also told my SA#'s do not match (between cluster and dme, is this an issue or one that will cause future problems, i forgot exactly why they mentioned this to me.)

I'm going to try and see if the car will pass so I'll hold off on your offer for maybe at least this next week...I'm going to try drive it around on my next day off, my moving permit expires soon, and i'd really hate to have to extend it a third time so i'm going to try my luck.
Also...I should note my EU2 chipped dme has everything set as passed.....all monitors, o2, sap, cat, etc. just every light is basically inop - primarily the SES which is why i cant pass inspection with that dme. (i think I got the abs trifecta after the gauge cluster was replaced because I'm guessing the previous owner took those bulbs out too - which is why i went with a different cluster altogether since so many things were tampered with on this car by the pos PO..it just feels better to try and wipe the slate clean and figure things out from there. this whole part was definitely not put into budget when trying to put this car together.

Having the info in the DME not match doesn't cause any problems. The trifecta was very likely covered up (literally) in the old cluster and showed its face once you put a fully working cluster in. I can program the SES light to work again on the EU2 tune if you want, but the tune I have now from the 330i manual with cats and sap disabled feels better than any e39 tune I had.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[geargrinder]

Paul - Yeah re: that not-ready vs not-available thing... there are sometimes seem to be sequential dependencies where certain checks must complete in order - esp those O2 checks seem to 'block' the other code from completing, even if all the hardware is in place. so that makes sense, the not-ready doesn't get turned to not-available until the O2's check out. BTDT before with other stuff.

I'm surprised that an EU2 tune would completely disable the SES/CEL/MIL, that seems odd as there's plenty of errors where BMW would want to turn the light on but if you say that's true I'm sure it is (I know nuffing about MS43 really...)

Another possible tip is that on MSS54 it seems there are some times where if you didn't clear codes immediately before flashing with new program variant, the error codes could get stuck... Something like: "DTC XYZ is logged as current code, you flash w/ Euro Tune which doesn't have DTC XYZ, and now XYZ is 'stuck' in there and can't be cleared". Wonder if you might have something funny going on with that (unless you actively cleared all codes & adaptation before your WinKFP reflash?)

[blackknight530i]

Paul - Yeah re: that not-ready vs not-available thing... there are sometimes seem to be sequential dependencies where certain checks must complete in order - esp those O2 checks seem to 'block' the other code from completing, even if all the hardware is in place. so that makes sense, the not-ready doesn't get turned to not-available until the O2's check out. BTDT before with other stuff.

I'm surprised that an EU2 tune would completely disable the SES/CEL/MIL, that seems odd as there's plenty of errors where BMW would want to turn the light on but if you say that's true I'm sure it is (I know nuffing about MS43 really...)

Another possible tip is that on MSS54 it seems there are some times where if you didn't clear codes immediately before flashing with new program variant, the error codes could get stuck... Something like: "DTC XYZ is logged as current code, you flash w/ Euro Tune which doesn't have DTC XYZ, and now XYZ is 'stuck' in there and can't be cleared". Wonder if you might have something funny going on with that (unless you actively cleared all codes & adaptation before your WinKFP reflash?)

I didn't have issues with DTC codes not clearing. After Brent said his were all set to ready on his eu2 tuned DME, I'm betting it was because my readiness codes were set to "not ready" before I flashed the eu2 tune and so they were never monitored to change to "ready", while Btent's showed as ready before it was flashed, and therefore wasn't monitored to be able to change them to not ready. I'm betting that's why my US tune with SAP and cats turned off worked, because I let the stock US tune set them to ready, even with DTC codes.

EU2 disables the MIL in Key On, Engine Off and disables EOBD, so it would probably still come on for some serious issues, but not for emissions related things, especially when it isn't monitoring those. It's an easy switch to turn the MIL in KOEO mode again though.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[geargrinder]

That makes 100x more sense to me - aka partially disabled vs "fully disabled never ever can come on" - thats what I was.prerty sure it must me. .

[s14brent]

I have been super burnt out on this project "daily" with all the smog bs. Today I finally decided to install the front JOM coilovers I got from ColtonBH here on bimmerforums since the H&R springs didn't lower the car at all. I have not had the chance to drive it around but I'm hoping for the best! They had some surface rust from sitting outside during the winter I guess, so first thing I did was disassemble them and clean them up and spray down with a teflon lubricant. Transferred over the new top hats I installed on the H&R setup.



set it at about a finger gap from the top of the tire to fender which should be good enough for a daily.



kind of fell in love with the car again after this! I think I'll try to get this finished up soon. I may need to make a new exhaust after all this with a cat and maybe a vibrant canister out back. Not a huge problem, just Vegas' heat and welding under jackstands is a huge no-thanks.

[geargrinder]

Nice. They're such nice cars, let alone with the transplant... you def need to give it a shot now that you've got bugs worked out.

I just drove my car for the first time in a month myself due to being down with sunroof cassette nightmare, and was reminded - as I always am after long downtimes - how great it is to drive. And my other driver ain't shabby, but man there's something about the E39 solidity coming out of the E46 that's really impressive. Psyched to be rolling again in the supertouring rig.