Dead 540i6 sport touring - engine swap advice please!

[Fr1D4y]

Right, my beloved old beast, the 540i6 sport touring '99 (pre-facelift) that I have owned, loved and sworn at in equal measure has terminally suffered at the hands of the inept.

I do 99% of the service / repair / fiddling work myself, and having previously done the timing chain, tensioner and guide rails, I recently did an engine refresh, so water pump, valley pan gasket, thermostat drive belts, PCV etc and crucially a fuel injector clean and rebuild.

Now obviously I don't have the kit to clean the injectors so they were removed and sent to a well known company in the UK to be ultrasonically cleaned and rebuilt. The car ran well for about 10 miles then popped up an engine warning light and started running rough. I got it home, whipped out the spark plugs which looked OK, put them back in and cranked it over. This lead to the truly awful noise of mechanical bits hitting other bits that they should never have come into contact with. I wept.

To cut a long story short, I diagnosed the fault to one the the injectors that had jammed wide open and was pouring fuel into #2 cylinder, even when unplugged from the ECU connector. This lead pretty damn quickly to an aqualock that has broken a compression ring, scored the cylinder walls and a destroyed the engine. Happy, I am not.

So, the question:

What do I do now?

The options:

1) Straight swap for another M62TUB44, should be pretty straight forward - boring though.
2) M62TUB46 from an X5 maybe. Some have done it and it doesn't look all that bad a job = a bit more power and a unique motor
3) S62TUB50 M5 engine - My preferred option if its feasible with the electronics integration. Would create a beast.
4) Set fire to the bastard and buy something that works.

To be considered is the fact that it recently had a full respray, its got the full facelift kit including M5 bumpers, original M-parallel alloys, angel eye xenon front lights and celis rear lights and all the trimmings to make it look the part. I also completely welded up the failed sills / jacking points and undersealed / POR15'd the entire underneath of the car including inside the sills. The body is therefore pretty much perfect and well worth the effort to save by getting a new motor.

Anyhow, what are peoples opinions? This all happened only a couple of days ago so I'm looking for some advice I guess.
And also a bat, to use on the guy that did my injectors.

[blackknight530i]

S62B50. That is all .

It's pretty easy to integrate. I have a DIY on how to do it, though it's only slightly different for a pre-facelift if at all.

http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...39-525-530-540

[Plattus1000]

I'm partial to the 4.6is swap but that's me. WagonsHo is working on a way to drop a 4.4 opened to 4.7 so he can mount his roots blower. Screw an s62 compared to that for power-$ ratio.

If however you do burn it to the ground, let's have a BB-Q!!!

[claylakem6]

I'm partial to the 4.6is swap but that's me. WagonsHo is working on a way to drop a 4.4 opened to 4.7 so he can mount his roots blower. Screw an s62 compared to that for power-$ ratio.

If however you do burn it to the ground, let's have a BB-Q!!!

I am in the same boat. Did a refresh with tcguides & Vanos.... 6 months later metal pieces on top of head. Talk about po’d!!!Found a 68k mile M62TU but not in yet. Tell me more about the 4.6is?


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[dannyzabolotny]

The 4.6 is a pretty cool swap but those engines are getting hard to find, plus there’s a bunch of stuff that needs to be done to make a 4.6 work in an E39, like swapping the upper oil pan, oil pump, OSV/CCV system, and a few other little things. Definitely not plug and play by any means.

[Plattus1000]

Almost plug-n-play

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...t-From-day-one

I have a refreshed 4.6is engine for sale. It just so happens that it comes complete with a rolling chasis, working a/c, heat, lights, windows, no rust, no dents, all works...

A 4.6is engine can cost you up to $5k door-to-door used and not refreshed. Or sometimes, $3,700 "refreshed" on ebay, I'm only asking slightly more than the door-to-door price of just an engine.

It was pretty easy, even the oil stuff was fairly basic. DME didn't need any flash to run the engine, no check engine lights.
Justinca5 and I both are running the 4.6's

Terraphantm wrote up an amalgamation of the 4.4/4.6 DME's and DUDMD rounded everything out on his dyno.

If you go s62, you'll need to s/c it or you'll always get beaten by true M5's whereas with a 4.6, you beat the 4.4's but then make the M5's work to beat you (they hate that) 4.6is or an m60 engine or another 4.4 with an s/c.

[claylakem6]

I am thinking sc with this low mileage 4.4 maybe my choice. Should be a big surprise for the M5's looking to waste a wagon


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[cheapE46]

<puts on his crash helmet> LS Swap?

[Madirishman3]

Almost plug-n-play

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...t-From-day-one

I have a refreshed 4.6is engine for sale. It just so happens that it comes complete with a rolling chasis, working a/c, heat, lights, windows, no rust, no dents, all works...

A 4.6is engine can cost you up to $5k door-to-door used and not refreshed. Or sometimes, $3,700 "refreshed" on ebay, I'm only asking slightly more than the door-to-door price of just an engine.

It was pretty easy, even the oil stuff was fairly basic. DME didn't need any flash to run the engine, no check engine lights.
Justinca5 and I both are running the 4.6's

Terraphantm wrote up an amalgamation of the 4.4/4.6 DME's and DUDMD rounded everything out on his dyno.

If you go s62, you'll need to s/c it or you'll always get beaten by true M5's whereas with a 4.6, you beat the 4.4's but then make the M5's work to beat you (they hate that) 4.6is or an m60 engine or another 4.4 with an s/c.

Can i ask , is the oil pump chain a different size? being that the x5 and e39 pumps are different. Or is the e39 pump a straight fit without the massive teardown. Thanks

[1999 540i m]

oil pump chain is different

[QtheGenius]

I'm assuming that made more S62 engines than they did the M62B46, so parts and support should be easier to get. Also, having an M5 wagon is pretty cool. If I didn't just build a '71 2002, I probably would have swapped the S62 sometime next year.

But, it's been 3 months since your first post. Did you make a decision?

[Fr1D4y]

Sure did, and that decision currently sits on my driveway at this very moment.

I went ahead and bought a pre-facelift M5. It was just missing some of the front body panels. The previous owner bought it simply because he had hit a deer with his own M5 and needed to replace just the front end.

So I've got pretty much the whole car minus the front bumper, slam panel and headlights. Its drivable when the law isn't looking, and my God these things move! The project is definitely on!

As I've got so much of the M5, and the entire front suspension / subframe and the entire powertrain will be swapped to the touring (as well as the interior, mirrors etc etc), I was wondering what most folks who go about this conversion did about the rear suspension.
Mine obviously sits on air-bags, being a touring, and the whole rear suspension system is different. Obviously the subframe is designed in such a way that it does not intrude into the cabin / load bay area, which results in an increase to the available space for stuff in the boot (trunk for those over the pond).

It would be a shame to compromise the handling of the end result simply due to not running a proper M5 rear suspension setup, so what can be done with what I have to minimise this?

I've got some time to think about options, as I am planning to move house to somewhere with a bigger work area for this and other similar projects. As far as the wife is concerned however, this is just a convenient by-product of the move, whereas we all know it the main reason!

p.s. before anyone mentions just fixing the M5 up, I should mention that the sills are totally and utterly rotten to the core. There is a hole that goes all the way along the bottom of the sill, so you can imagine what lurks beneath if that is what I can see from just having a quick look!

[dannyzabolotny]

You pretty much have to run the rear touring subframe, the M5 one will not work since the body is completely different in the rear. I would replace the subframe bushings, rear lower ball joints, and all the rear control arms to get things nice and tight— the wagons get really wallowy and crashy in the rear when everything is worn out. After that, I'd put in some shocks designed for lowering (like Koni Yellows) and lower the rear a bit with either lowering links or INPA. Then throw in an M5 rear sway bar, or if the budget allows, the full front and back Eibach M5 sway bar kit. I have an M5 rear sway bar and it makes a drastic difference in the handling.

The other thing you could so is delete the SLS system and run a conventional spring with a perch from a non-SLS wagon. You get a more controllable spring rate that way, but you do lose the ability for the rear to level out from heavy loads and whatnot, so it's up to you whether deleting it is worth it or not. I don't mind my SLS system as it's fairly trouble-free after replacing the air springs with new Arnott units.

From what I've seen, quite a few guys retain the SLS system with these swaps— the idea being that you retain most of the wagon's body harness and only wire in the applicable M5 engine bits.

[CPHES]

Go look at Jed’s M5 conversion on the m5board