1997 BMW 318i 6 bolt swap

[Quick92RS]

So a few months ago, my room mates BMW spun a rod bearing. We drove it for a couple weeks after the fact, because it wouldn't start knocking until about 3500 rpms. After about 2 weeks of that, it started knocking at idle. We kicked around the idea of finding another M44, but they were hard to find, and would've gotten freshened up anyway. We eventually decided on a 4g63 narrow block swap.

First I had to tear the BMW apart






Once I got the blown m44 out, I had to start tracking down the swap parts. I knew one of my friends was trying to sell a running and driving auto 1g talon cheap, so I picked it up and brought it home, and immediately pulled the motor

[Quick92RS]

After getting the 6 bolt torn out, I decided to tear it down and replace gaskets all the way through it, head stud it, water pump, timing belt, and just generally clean and paint everything.









While waiting on a bell housing, I decided to handle some of the wiring. Pulling the engine harness out of the talon wasn't too horrible. Pulling the wiring out of the BMW on the other hand.....



This is what came out of the talon harness


And this is what was left


But this is just the beginning of the BMW wiring haha


Then we took a day and drove up to Toledo and picked up a bell housing from Bill and proceeded to shoot the shit for 2 hours and check out the shop on some of the cool projects. Quality is, as expected, perfect. Fit beautifully and absolutely no complaints.





Sourced a w series from a 1994 Toyota pickup and mated everything up

[Quick92RS]

Once I had the trans bolted to the motor I could start mocking things up to figure out where the shifter was gonna sit, clearance for the CAS, etc.



I didn't like the idea of using the front sump pan and either having to push the motor farther ahead of the crossmember, which put the shifter in the dash anyway, or having it sit so high over the crossmember and having the cam gears not clear the hood. So I decided it needed a rear sump pan.

I screwed the pan down to a piece of plywood to keep it from warping too bad and got to cutting.








Of course then I had to make a new pickup too. I still need to put some supports closer to the screen.



Had to do some more modifying, but it clears

[Quick92RS]

I decided I needed to pull the dash to get the rest of the wiring out and make some new holes. So I pulled the dash and got to look at the disaster that is a 318i wiring harness. Words cannot describe how much I hate German engineering sometimes.



This is the hole right where the blower motor sits


Just a little idea and checking fit again


Shifter sits about 4 inches too far forward, but I should be able to make up for it with the shifter itself

[Rotorhead95]

looking good

[77amc]

KEEP GOING!!

UPDATES?

E

[Quick92RS]

I've still been going on it. I do have a shop to run and with it being winter in ohio I've been doing a ton of remote starts. I have been welding all the seams in the engine compartment since I plan on doing a mild wire tuck and getting rid of all the unnecessary brackets, holes, etc. The issue I was researching tonight is my intake manifold. Because of how far back I shifted the motor when I made my mounts, I have some pretty serious clearance issues with the brake booster. I was looking into running a hydroboost setup on it. Info is kinda hard to come by though since as far as I know, this is the first e36 with a 4g63 that's actually getting documented. Matt Arruda did his in an e30, but my motor is sitting considerably farther back than his. Even with the hydroboost, I'll probably have to make an intake mani, but it'll free up a lot of room. I still need gaskets, head studs, timing set, water pump, and a good turbo for my motor too. Still quite a ways to go, but the wiring harness is pretty well done, with the exception of extending some wires for some of the things on the intake side, but I won't know by how much until I get farther in the build.