1987 BMW 325e motor swap project

After an Alaskan vacation sidetracked my progress I was able to get back at it and work on the intake manifold. I had an old racing buddy shorten up the runners by one inch and rotate the plenum 180°. Today, I clearanced the plenum for the brake master cylinder and vacuum booster. I didn't have to take much out, which I was happy with as I was concerned with starving cylinder 4. I'll have it finish welded and then figure out the cold side piping as the throttle body elbow dumps out pretty near the radiator.

Bent up some steel tubing last night so I could plumb the engine into the heater core. I deleted all the heater core stuff on the racecar, so I'm having to add it back in for the BMW. I should be able to find a heater hose at the parts store to cut apart and complete the connections with the correct bends.

Impressive work. I changed out my brake fluid yesterday... and by that, I mean I had our senior tech do it. Your skill level makes me sad lol

Got my 11" rotors back from a machinist friend, had to open up the hub bore 1mm to fit. I also ordered all of the -3an lines and necessary adapters from Pegasus racing to fit the wilwood calipers. Only thing left is to get bar stock for the caliper mounting bracket and I can get the front brake upgrade sorted.

Made a caliper bracket for one side of the car using 1/4" plate last night. The caliper lined up really nicely with the caliper carrier mounts on the strut so I didn't have to step the plate at all, just kept it flat and drilled some holes. I had to drill out the holes on the chassis to pass through the bolt I wanted to use but aside from that it was pretty straight forward. I also taped two washers under the caliper with the orange duct tape to ensure radial clearance to the rotor. Aside from that it was just spending time with a sawzall, bench grinder, and the drill press. Wheel in the final picture is 17x7. Only thing left to do is remove the excess on the bracket and smooth out any rough edges.

What part number are those calipers and rotors? I've got a friend with an E30 that may be interested in doing something similar.

Wilwood forged Dynalite calipers 120-6806

11" Corrado G60 rotors with the center bore opened up 1mm

14" long -3an brake lines

Chassis side brake line fitting

Caliper side brake line fitting

After a sad realization that I won't be driving this car before the snow flies, I haven't worked on the BMW in a while. I got back to it today and pulled the motor so that I could paint up the engine mounts, install the power steering delete block, and clearance the core support for the intercooler piping.

I tried cutting the passenger side of the core support with the motor in the car and basically made a mess of things. Once I had space to work without the motor in the way, things went much more smoothly. I don't think the 2G throttle body elbow will work with my setup though, it dumps right into the radiator fan. I think the best thing to do will be to make a TB flange out of mild steel plate and then I can weld piping to whatever angle I need as the cold side piping is so short.

This is awesome, great work!

Made up a throttle body flange which will make the cold side intercooler piping easier to route. I can weld the piping directly to the plate at the exact angle I need, which is crucial since the distance between the intercooler and throttle body is so short.

Good work! I had that exact dynalite/corrado brake setup on my old 318is. I cheated and used a CNC mill to do the brackets though. You got very good results with the torch/drill press/grinder method although I do remember having to face a step in the bracket to get the caliper centered over the rotor.

Thanks for the nice comments, I really appreciate them. I like dumb motor swaps and I'm glad to share mine with GRM people.

Got the motor back in after painting the motor mounts, here's what the engine bay looks like currently.

Noticed the camber was off on the RF tire and looked into it, the control arm bushing has seen better days and is allowing things to move where they shouldn't.

Got started on the intercooler piping tonight. I was extremely happy with how the cold side turned out, the angles didn't work out as well as I had planned on the hot side. I said berkeley it and ground down the welds to make things look a bit better, I don't normally do that but it bugged me on the piping. I'm undecided on running a hump hose on the hot side, I'm not sure if I need them on both sides? I also still need to plumb the bov in yet, I need to mount up the intake piping and see where it makes the most sense to put it.

Looking at how your intercooler is mounted, I'd say probably? But since you've got that large elbow right there, you may be fine.

Yeah, I think I'll hold off until I get it running and see how much the motor mounts flex. I can cut the pipe whenever to add one, a lot more work to take it out.

Made a cover up panel for the oem shifter location and a spot for the new shifter boot to mount to. I'll have to remake it, but I wanted to rough out my ideas to see if the end result worked. It doesn't fit the coin tray as snug as I wanted, the bends aren't exactly where I need them, and I misjudged the shifter location by 3/8", all easily remedied on the next one.

This turned into a huge information dump, so it's really wordy.

I didn't do anything too exciting to the car this week, it was all finishing up little things on the car. I installed the clutch slave, bent the hard line to clear the motor mount, and bled the air from the system. I also installed the final fitting I omitted from the original order for the front brake and then bled the front calipers. The pedal feel was good, I was unsure how the master cylinder would react to the different calipers so I'm happy that turned out well. I also remade the shifter patch panel but left it in primer until I decide whether to put a gauge or a push button start in the center. That decision hinges upon me figuring out why the starter signal wire is showing 12 volts in both the start and run key positions. I found a heater hose at the parts store that had the bends I needed for both hoses once I cut it in the right spot. Intercooler piping got painted but I screwed up on that one by primering the hot side pipe before installing the blow off valve flange, whoops. The fuel pump hanger got reinstalled and I got the wiring for the inline Walbro 255 run into the trunk where I'll put a relay wired up to the battery.

Great work! Cool project.

You didn't happen to make that front caliper adapter into a pdf template did you?

I haven't yet and I put it back together with blue loctite so you'll have to ask very nicely for me to bust out the calipers on it. I don't know jack about making a machinists drawing so you'll have to settle for various caliper measurements.

I wasn't thinking anything that fancy. Last time I made some metal bits, I just put them on the copier at work and emailed them to myself. Turned the contrast way up and hit send. Worked pretty well.

In reply to CarRacer:

Stop being a girl and get us the schematics

I'll make you a dimensioned print. Just give me a picture of the part next to a ruler, or better yet, set the part and a ruler on a scanner.

Like 4/5 pics aren't showing up but the ones that are are really exciting!

Here's the caliper bracket, hopefully this helps you guys out. Length measurements are inside to inside on the bolt holes. Excuse the one photo being upside down, I was holding the caliper upright and the camera must have tilted forward too far. Sorry.

While I was out there I also made up an ecu mount today. I was unable to fit the ecu plugs through the hole in the firewall so I couldn't mount the ecu above the glovebox like I had originally planned. This spot by the power distribution block was the next best thing so I made up a mount to bolt it in place. Welding it was a pain in the butt because I couldn't do it with the ecu in place for fear of damaging it with the welding current, so it had to mark where I wanted to bolts really well then tack it and then check the fitment.