Blackknight530i E39 Wagon Project 2003 530iT 6-speed (Evolution)

[blackknight530i]

Your build threads are ridiculously good. Enjoy the effort and information in them,even if it makes me feel guilty for not doing more on my touring.

Haha, thanks! As much work as they are, we have a blast and I couldn't ask for better people to do these builds with. Doing the write-ups later just helps me reflect on what all we did during the process.

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[jp5Touring]

Might have to tap all that knowledge after reading the S54 swap thread. I think my touring would be a good candidate. Seriously,

[blackknight530i]

Might have to tap all that knowledge after reading the S54 swap thread. I think my touring would be a good candidate. Seriously,

Cool! Just let me know when you're ready to do it. I've been antsy to do one or at least help someone do an e39 S54 swap.

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[itsbrokeagain]

Looks like it's coming along well! If you guys do another weekend of wrenching next year, perhaps I'll make the trek down.

Your build thread now has me looking at doing a B30 swap in my girls 325xi we just picked up....granted it's prolly not gonna blow up anytime soon but it is so tempting.

[blackknight530i]

Looks like it's coming along well! If you guys do another weekend of wrenching next year, perhaps I'll make the trek down.

Your build thread now has me looking at doing a B30 swap in my girls 325xi we just picked up....granted it's prolly not gonna blow up anytime soon but it is so tempting.

Yeah, we will be taking the b25 and putting it into jacash7's e30 325i sedan. The 5-speed will be swapped in as well.

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[Obioban]

Cool! Just let me know when you're ready to do it. I've been antsy to do one or at least help someone do an e39 S54 swap.

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This would be my perfect e39!

[TerraPhantm]

This would be my perfect e39!

Agreed. Better yet, with a 3.4-3.5 stroker to get that extra mass moving a little easier.

[auaq]

Agreed. Better yet, with a 3.4-3.5 stroker to get that extra mass moving a little easier.

Heheh ... how about S38?

[TerraPhantm]

Heheh ... how about S38?

Nah, gotta have the 8k revs. S54 has ridiculous torque per liter anyway, a 3.5 S54 would probably beat the S38b38 in all metrics.

[blackknight530i]

I just wanted to update the thread and say that the car has been working great since doing the swap. I have since put the rear black interior parts in and the e38 sport contour front seats I had from my e38. The rear seats were from an earlier car and didn't have the isofix holes in the seat bottom, so that made things interesting to install since I couldn't get it to slide back far enough. Turns out the isofix brackets were hitting the foam of the seat. A quick wiggle up and down with some vice grips and they came right off. Seats now fit perfectly. I still need to swap the center console, dash and door cards to the black ones, but I need to find some better quality (unshrunk leather) M5 door cards for my other car so I can steal the regular black door cards for the wagon.

I'm happy to say there hasn't been a single leak on the car since finishing the swap. There weren't any leaks when it was in the other car either, so I expected this, but you never know for sure until you do the swap. I only had to top the coolant up once after getting it back to Charlotte originally and I just checked it tonight and it was still at the full mark.

I've been driving the car more than the M5 lately since it's just so nice to drive. It's smooth, comfortable, has enough power and gets great gas mileage. It's also super useful to carry stuff around. Now that the liftgate struts work, it makes it that much better. I do notice that occasionally when going over a large sudden bump, I get a "Trunk Lid Open" message, which I'm thinking is a shorted wire going to the liftgate. I'll have to take a look at those wires at some point, but if I just fiddle with them a bit, it tends to last for a while without causing the message and making the alarm system work in half-mode.

One weird thing that happened the other day though, was the driver side seat controls just decided to stop working. I checked the associated fuses and they're good, but none of the controls for the driver seat work at all. Passenger side seat controls work fine. I'm hoping it's as simple as the seat control module. If it's the wiring that goes under the carpet, I'm going to be pretty upset. I'll try hooking up my pigtail harness first and see if it works.

[purplecty]

Love these build threads... Subscribed...

[Grim Reaper]

I just wanted to update the thread....

One weird thing that happened the other day though, was the driver side seat controls just decided to stop working. I checked the associated fuses and they're good, but none of the controls for the driver seat work at all. Passenger side seat controls work fine. I'm hoping it's as simple as the seat control module. If it's the wiring that goes under the carpet, I'm going to be pretty upset. I'll try hooking up my pigtail harness first and see if it works.

Removed a bunch of the extra stuff...

I am not sure on this but if this car had 200k + miles - might want to do an ignition switch before a whole lot more goes haywire.

Really, really like all your guys build and swap threads. I wish I lived a lot closer to take part and help out.

[dannyzabolotny]

I'd try a known good seat control panel to see if that fixes the issue. The seat controls dying is a very common issue with the E53 X5's, actually.

[blackknight530i]

Sorry, forgot to update that new seat control unit was the fix. Thanks though.

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[blackknight530i]

Removed a bunch of the extra stuff...

I am not sure on this but if this car had 200k + miles - might want to do an ignition switch before a whole lot more goes haywire.

Really, really like all your guys build and swap threads. I wish I lived a lot closer to take part and help out.

This car only has 172k miles on it and hasn't had any electrical gremlins other than the hatch area where the wires have opened and closed too many times and I occasionally get a "Trunk Lid Open" message, but I'll get to that eventually. The seats came out of an e38 sport at a junk yard, so I can't speak to the longevity of the electronics from it. I haven't had any issues with the ignition switch on my 218k mile 530i (M5 converted). Still works like a champ. The one in the wagon doesn't seem to be having any weird issues either.

[Redshift]

"only" 172k miles LOL

[blackknight530i]

"only" 172k miles LOL

Haha, well, he said if it had over 200k on it to check the ignition switch.

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[blackknight530i]

Well, had quite a scare in the car today on the way to my work training. I was driving along the interstate at about 75 or so and all of a sudden, the engine went into failsafe mode and was losing power quickly. I was able to safely make it over to the right shoulder from the far left lane and the engine just shut off. Tried to restart and it started for a few seconds, then died and wouldn't restart. Ugh.

Happened to have my laptop and an old INPA cable, so I hooked it up and read codes, but my INPA only reads codes in German, so it was iffy at best, but I got one for MAF and one that repeated for combustion valve, cylinder 2 fuel injection shutoff. This really worried me, but I knew it couldn't be anything majorly mechanical, since the car was running perfectly before it just abruptly went into limp mode.

Against my better judgement, I got out of the car and popped the hood (with cars whizzing past me at 75 MPH and without much regard for my safety), and I immediately realized what the problem was. The other day, my car had failed it's first NC inspection due to some not ready codes for secondary air and rear O2 sensors. This is because I was running an EU2 tune that turns it all off, but it was supposed to just show as not applicable instead of not ready. In any case, I attempted to remove the SAP relay to get it to show as not applicable and was successful, but I decided that while I was trying other tunes to get the O2 sensors to work, I would leave the ebox cover off. Well, I left it off for about a week or so and over the last few days, we've had a ton of rain. It turns out, the connectors going into the DME were completely soaked and the sockets on the DME were filled up with water partially. I was 99% sure this was the problem, but there was no way I was going to deal with it on the side of I-85 in Charlotte, so I had AAA tow it back to my house and I took the other car. When I got home, the wires had mostly dried, but not completely. I took the DME out and dumped the water out of the sockets and used my air compressor to dry out the remaining water in the sockets and reinstalled it. Fired it up and it ran for a few seconds and died. Started it again and this time it stayed running for a few minutes. Then I was about to put the ebox cover on and it died again. While it was running, it was running great, so I still felt like it wasn't anything mechanical.

I took the connectors out again and apparently they were still so full of water that it had just seeped back down into the DME sockets. Since I couldn't get the car close enough to my compressor, I decided that MAF cleaner would probably work well to dry it out. I sprayed the sockets and connectors and let it evaporate and I cleaned off some corrosion that had started to form in the wetness. Fired it up again and this time it started on the first attempt and ran fine. I pulled it into the garage and worked on the other thing I discovered.

Turns out that my rear left floorboard is full of water again. AAHHHHH!!!! How can that be? I siliconed the crap out of that door. It shouldn't be leaking through the vapor barrier, but it was full of a couple gallons of water again. I pulled up the carpet on the back and stuck a couple wood blocks to lift the carpet up and turned a fan on it. I'll let that do it's thing for 2-3 days as needed. I've been meaning to swap over my black door panels from the 530i anyways, so while I'm at it, I'll see what's up with the vapor barrier.

Also, while I have it in the garage, I'll be swapping the SAP with a spare one to see if I can get it to clear the SES light (as I'm sure that will cause it to fail the inspection again). It's not hooked up to the engine at all, but hopefully just running it will be enough.

[cnsorial]

Wow, Paul. What a sequence of events. Hopefully those connectors don't corrode and everything turns out fine. Worst case scenario you replace the DME but I think you'll be fine.


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[blackknight530i]

Connectors weren't corroded, just some blue-green slime formed on the plastic.

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[purplecty]

Damn Paul that blows... Hose down the door and see where its leaking from...

[TxDarth]

Maybe time to look at the rear sunroof drain on the driver's side.

[blackknight530i]

Maybe time to look at the rear sunroof drain on the driver's side.

Unlikely, this is a wagon, but who knows

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[JimLev]

That's some chain of events. Good to hear everything (except rear leak) is fixed.

[philly98540]

Damn! That's some episode of pain right there. I'm glad your dme was ok! Now you just gotta find that pesky interior leak.