Ok, I feel we've made enough progress on this one to start a thread. This BMW is going to be our first attempt at this event. I had heard of the Challenge a few times in the past but never seriously looked into it. Recently (about three weeks ago), I was reminded again while helping out another local Challenge participant with some welding, and I decided to give it some consideration. Not only had I been causally browsing for a new project vehicle on and off for the previous few months, my good friend Derek also recently got to a finishing point on his major project of the year, and was willing to buy in and split the cost of the Challenge. Add third friend, Dale, who volunteered the location to build (conveniently located 5 minutes from OSW for testing), we decided to shop for a car. A few days later (June 13th) we bought this:
The same day I picked it up we sold the transmission and manual swap parts for more then enough to zero the car. So the same day we got it the engine/trans came out, pulled the whole interior too.
throughout the week I picked up a core Th400 that was donated by a good friend, a new in box cage kit (Allstar 22107) for $170 on Marketplace, Dale and I went to the yard for a few hours and grabbed an few extra motors (two are for other projects but one will be donating a few parts to delete the AFM/DOD on the LH6 we are using in this car), and a new GT45 turbo that was for sale locally for $80.
That Saturday (about a week ago) we slapped it all in. It should be noted that Derek and I are both usually pretty meticulous fabricators, and are having a great time being more sloppy on this car. It is definitely enjoyable building a car you don't care about, and spending barely any money on, out of scrap and junk, and not caring much about how it looks.
Engine mounts, transmission mount, turbo hot side all made out of 100% scrap. Even the V-band still had other tubing welded to it that we just jammed in and welded over
The T4 flange started out as a piece of machined 3/8 plate pulled out of the UCF Engineering dumpster. Traced pattern off the gasket and cut to shape with torch.
And this past week I took a spare truck oil pan, water pump, and the BMW trunk lid back to my shop. Got the pan and pickup shortened 3", and modified the water pump to have forward facing outlets like a F-body pump. One of the neighborhood kids has been showing interest in this stuff so I had him cut the pan down and make the bottom plate (made out of 4x1/4" flat bar, scrap of course)
Water pump mods. The thermostat housing welds pretty terrible. The pump housing itself is not bad actually!
I also got the trunk lid skin job done, and got the panel blocking the sunroof riveted down. Lots of weight coming out of this car.
Just got the PCM sent off to Calvin for some tweaks. He has been super helpful with my questions. So the countdown is on to have this thing ready to run so we can fire it up once it gets back. We should be able to have it ready to run NA pretty easily. Only have a few things to do like build the fuel system, get the engine we plan to use in the car instead of the mockup motor, and some minor wiring and other details.
We did a half day as a team last Sunday, mostly just fiddled with some some small stuff and made plans/lists, but the truck floor got cut out, and while I was underneath looking at some other stuff I noticed one of the rear trailing arms was ripped out of the car, as if it got hit or jumped or something. So even though we hadn't planned to get into the rear end at all, as it was all "new" according to the seller, decided to pull the whole rear end out and fix the trailing arm pocket and also do a full rear subframe reenforcement. All out of rusty scrap of course, definitely not spending $200 for the full kit from Condor Speed. It was late when I pulled the rear end last week so haven't started this yet, it will probably be tomorrows project. On a positive note the bushings actually did look new, and it is really easy to remove the entire rear suspension/diff on these so not much time will be lost.
I spent the day with the car yesterday taking care of some stuff (I should note that the car is located at friend/teammate's house 15 miles from where I live and my shops where I have my machines, for not only space reasons but also because other teammate leaves further and the car location sort of is in the middle, so we have only been working on it as a team once a week or so). Got the mockup motor out of the car and torn down, it is donating its mystery used lifters (at least 250k on this motor, never heard it run, but cam looks fine) and cam to the LH6 motor to delete the AFM/DOD. Cam will mostly likely get sent out for a cheap regrind. Still deciding on what direction to go there. Got the LH6 dragged out from where it had been hibernating in the dirt for the last year, got it on the stand and started it getting it torn down for AFM delete and a few other things. It's oil pan and internals went onto the mock-up motor which went back to the junkyard for a refund since it was within 30 days still.
I got pretty much everything done for the AFM delete, still need to pull the old cam and lifters out but that is super fast and I wanted to get the belt routing/length and alternator mount finalized before pulling the balancer off. I got that done also. Pics of all that in the next few posts.
Mockup 5.3/4.8 out.
LH6 aluminator retrieved and on the stand in the "clean engine building room"
AFM/DOD delete done with only some 1/8 NPT plugs. I would not hesitate to just weld these holes shut or machine up some press-fit inserts but my lathe and TIG are on the other side of town as mentioned earlier.
Most people elect to replace with the valley cover with one from a LS2 for about $70 but that doesn't work with our budget, so I drilled and tapped the eight ports in the block to plug them. I then took the AFM/DOD valley cover and smashed all the solenoids off with a sledge hammer since I didn't have any Torx keys handy, they could sit there without issue but I'm going for every ounce here. I even cut the center of the gasket out. There are two decently heavy steel plates (each 1/8"!) that mount the solenoids to the cover that are gone now so that's great. I got the AFM pressure inlet plugged with a random bolt, the power feed hole plugged with a random bolt, and while I was there I tapped it for the turbo oil feed. I do need to replace the bolt that's plugging the underside of the cover with a set screw since the bolt head doesn't clear the inside of the block.
The ports in the block that need to be blocked off. Not sure if these are feeds or drains but I do know they need to be plugged. Tapped for 1/8 NPT. In hindsight should have flipped the motor and done it upside down so I wouldn't have to clean out all the aluminum that got thrown around from tapping with the drill 
It's fun not caring about your $150 junkyard engine!
More details, "made" some spacers for the alternator relocation, the LS alternator has the same bolt width as two of the tapped accessory bracket holes in the block, and the accessory bracket bolts are long enough to accommodate, so two simple spacers are all that's needed for a nice low alternator mount. No PS or AC on this one so belt drive is done unless we end up needing to add a idler pulley but I think we will be fine without. Other then cam/valve springs and extracting the 15 broken exhaust bolts from the cylinder head the motor should be ready to run.
Spacers are a random pipe fitting, random nut, and a piece of a AC hose end that was scrap from a DT360 diesel.
These may or may not be temporary :laugh:
Turbo oil drain from the random hose barb/NPT bucket which we draw from frequently. No AN fittings allowed on this build! :laugh:
One last thing, before I left last night I grabbed the 10ft length of round mystery soft plastic that was found on a friend's property, and hacked off 6" and brought it home with me along with one of the front control arm chassis-side bushing mounts. These bushings were pretty worn on both sides and really the only issue in the front suspension to deal with. I pressed out the old bushing and turned the plastic into a replacement on the lathe when I got home last night. Lots of BMW guys replace these with UHMV/Delrin so I'm thinking this will work great to tighten up the front end, and for free with is the best part of course.
That's all for now
I love when someone's DGAF work is better than my most meticulous best effort. Can't wait to see this one in October!
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Thank you for recognizing that this is a DGAF build. We really don’t have time or care that much to do a super nice production on this one.
Can't tell which I love more-the swap or the tractors!
In reply to CrustyRedXpress (Forum Supporter) :
Yes the Farmall is super handy for lugging engines and axles around to different corners of the property.
cruisermatt said:
One last thing, before I left last night I grabbed the 10ft length of round mystery soft plastic that was found on a friend's property, and hacked off 6" and brought it home with me along with one of the front control arm chassis-side bushing mounts. These bushings were pretty worn on both sides and really the only issue in the front suspension to deal with. I pressed out the old bushing and turned the plastic into a replacement on the lathe when I got home last night. Lots of BMW guys replace these with UHMV/Delrin so I'm thinking this will work great to tighten up the front end, and for free with is the best part of course.
That's all for now
If you still have material left, making that hole offset can get you more camber and or caster.
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
Just camber.
Have tons. like 20 or 30ft. Thought about it for a second but wouldn't know what offset to make it and I doubt it's really going to make a big difference for this car anyways.
Well so Sunday we got together to work on the car, unfortunately it rained most of the day so we didn't get as much done as we planned. However we did do some more detailed build planning and got a bunch of little stuff we needed ordered. At this point the entire car is planned and we pretty much know exactly what we are going to do to be Challenge ready. We decided to just skip the rear subframe reenforcement and just fix the one broken mount because we honestly don't really care about this car enough to spend the time on it.
We did get a chance to pull the pan off the transmission (mystery TH400 we got for free from my friend Steve who had it sitting for 25 years!) and find it to be pull of mud and rust. We're putting a new filter it, going to run it for a few minutes, flush it, and send it.
Also, Derek cut the gas tank in half. Because... reasons.
That's all for now
This is definitely a fun-looking build! It looks like we'll have two VERY different 3-serieses (not wholly certain what the plural of that is...) at the Challenge, it'll be fun seeing how differently your radical build E36 does versus my mostly stock and more AX-focussed E46. I expect you will spank the E36 M3 out of me on the strip at a minimum with that turbo (especially if you get actual drag tires for it). Keep up the good work!
Not a lot to report here, been focusing on my old Toyota Land Cruiser getting it ready for a big trip next week.
We did get the rear end fixed and reinstalled into the car and I got new valve springs swapped into the heads (Riverdale Speed $145 shipped) so still moving forwards
