I got a 03 bmw 325ci from my brothers neighbor. He told me it needed a thermostat replaced but I only live 2 blocks from them. I paid him $2300us and he had a hard time getting it to start but he had it sitting for a solid month and the battery way new but had needed to be put on charger after sitting so long. It started sounded great wasn't smoking at all not even a sign anything major was wrong. After 1 block the engine temp shot up and by the time I got home just 2 blocks from his house it was about to overheat. I parked it and after a hour went to check the engine. There was no coolant in the radiator so I got the suggested coolant thermostat and thermostat housing oil oil filter air filter and fuel filter soon as I changed everything and topped off fluids I started it again. It turned over for a good minute or better before it started. Still sounded good I let it idle and noticed a coolant leak at the water pump soon as I located the leak (only 3 or 4 minutes of the car running I went to turn it off and the engine temp was almost in the red and died before I could turn the key to off. I checked the oil and radiator fluids they were both chocolate milky looking. Drained them both changed water pump but I still need to check the heads and head gasket I'm positive that the gaskets need replaced. I was watching a video on bmw 3 series head and head gasket issues and noticed a L31 swap video. After seeing the beast ripping it up in the video I figured why not pull the engine out of the bmw and start breaking it down see if it's worth replacing the head gasket or if there is more that needs to be done before it's mechanically sound. If it's worth it or not to fix I'm very curious if I can swap the engine out with a engine I have sitting in my 2000 cadillac escalade it's a 5.7L L31 v8. I know it's compatible with pretty much every LS1 parts factory and after market. Along with the question of the possible engine swap what would I have to change on the 5.7L L31 to make it fit in the bmw (ie: oil pan, intake manifold, ecu, ect. ) and will I need to pull the tranny with the 5.7L too for the swap wire harness and anything else and any info I could need to complete this swap. Thank you for reading and I hope to get any information possible on this idea.
There's quite a lot of information here and on other forums, search and Google is your best friend.
Been looking everywhere best I’ve found is a short video of a 328 with a 5.3l Vortec swap but it’s just a start up and rev 45 sec clip. I have yet to find any info on the swap itself. Any help is needed ASAP please.
The most important info is here:
E46 LS Swap
Last edited by AdamBath; 08-31-2019 at 12:09 PM.
Personally, I am partial to starting on this site, so I would use this version.
Diving in at the shallow end!
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