E39 Build: 6.0 LS. Coils. Burnouts.

[Raoul Duke]

LS swaps are awesome. I really like what you did, the way the car looks, the quality of the build.

[Exami]

all i can say is this the best swap!

after watching the M60 and S62 guys fail over and over again making any decent numbers even with superchargers they fail cause of overheating the air etc.

This has too much win in it! go on young one make world proud!

[royalife]

such a bad ass build i cant wait for my e39 to be ls/lq powered

[nsogiba]

because 427whp > 282 whp

[speakerboy]

Congrats on the feature. The comments are too funny -
"Why did he swap? It already had a V8."

Uhh, maybe because the new one has more torque, parts are cheap, and cause it's friggin' awesome!

[nsogiba]

CarThrottle featured me

http://www.carthrottle.com/german-class-and-american-v8-muscle-combine-in-this-lsxengined-e39-bmw-5series/?utm_content=bufferb5910&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[nsogiba]

another summer on the books. Turned in the plates for storage today at the DMV.

Note the bent front plate - those touchless carwashes in Columbus are not touchless!


Sit-rep:
Now have a bit over 15K on the swap, no issues at all other than what I personally broke.
Needs rear tires (understatement)
Needs alignment. Hasn't had one since before I owned it, and I've done a TON of suspension maintenance since then
One of the front M-Parallels has a bend/crack on the inside lip (pothole damage at speed). The upside to running reps is that I can buy 5 new wheels for less than what it would cost to refinish some OEM wheels.

I bought detailing supplies (buffer, chemicals, pads, etc) a few months back and will be undertaking a slow, tedious paint correction over the winter, learning as I go. The plan is a full wash/claybar/wash/correct/polish/finish/wash/wax treatment. Despite a fresh respray just a year ago on both front fenders, hood, and bumper, I already have some clearcoat swirling on the hood - poor washing technique by me. Besides that the only big project I have for this winter is to install AC - have parts sitting on the bench.







And something fun

[mikey G]

Nice kills .

[nsogiba]

so, decided to try something new in the name of science and research (who am I kidding...). Leaving my neighborhood at around 10mph, I give her a lot of revs and sidestep the clutch - with the end of the season nearing and my tires nearly dead, I wanted to really get every last mile out of them. The usual wheel hop comes around, and I get one loud violent bang - then we stopped spinning tires Initial thoughts are broken diff, trans, or axles.

Pushed her back home and she sat for a week before I decided to get off my *** and see what was going on







Which lead to this unpleasant job. Replacing axles is seriously such a pain on these.


I have to snap some pictures, but the autopsy of the failed axle shows a broken roller bearing cage. The axle definitely didn't break as a result of too much torque, but moreso the severe wheel hop that put too much stress on the inner CV joint. My guess is that the huge stress on the CV joint while bouncing up and down broke the bearing cage, which seized that CV, which then put huge stress on the shaft and then snapped it.

The good news (other than the fact that nothing else broke) is that I have been wanting to test a theory for a while now in order to cure the wheel hop. Apparently OEMs such as GM have used axles with different diameters in IRS applications in order to prevent wheel hop - so this was a great opportunity to try that out. 1 junkyard M5 axle later and I was back in business. Didn't get a chance to actually test the wheel hop theory yet but the good news is that there are no ill effects in running one 540i axle and one M5 axle, bolted to an M5 diff, using 1 M5 diff flange and 1 E34 540i diff flange (what a mouthful)

Technician117 came to the rescue with some hardware and we were up and running.


Everything held together long enough to do some runs against friends - beat a bolt-on E46 M3 and a new Jeep SRT-8.

[nsogiba]

^ already removed the stock intake silencer on the XT. made a 10% difference in noise, but not bad for 10 mins worth of work.

The long term plan (and I'm serious) is just some sort of intake and a tune, nothing else. After 2 years of driving a car in the summer with no AC and loud exhaust, this thing is like a Rolls Royce to me. I want some mild turbo induction noises and nothing else.

[mikey G]

Those are great times for those tires haha. Your daily is nice, how long until you start chopping that up?

[MommysLittleMonster]

Goddamn it, I went to the track this past friday and forgot to send you a message. I went with a few guys from NYSpeed and Roclife.

Oh well, next year.

Looks like you've been hella busy. New XT looks like a great winter ride!

[nsogiba]

I finished reassembling the coilovers last night. Sure enough, I had somehow accidentally assembled the driver's side rear wrong the first time, placing the load bearing washer underneath the mount rather than on top. The mount had its brains beat in by the concentrated force and failed spectacularly. Brain fart I guess, but oh well. The symptoms were total lack of damping and that wheel bouncing so hard on large bumps that the wheel would leave the pavement (verified by GoPro under the car).

The brain fart washer:


This is supposed to be one pressed in piece, haha. Fell apart when removing from the unibody.



Permanently deformed on top from being smashed around




I took a quick peek at the driveshaft support bearing and it's pretty beat up as well. Since there's nothing stopping the shaft moving front to back, the soft rubber of the bearing has to hold the whole damn shaft...so, even with the quart of Window Weld that I gooped on there, it still separated. I'll have to throw some pics up when I remove it.

Also picked up a new daily. Originally this was supposed to be a winter only vehicle and sit during the summer, but I need a car that can haul stuff year round so I upped my budget a bit and found this locally. '09 Outback XT Limited with a fairly rare 5 speed.

[nsogiba]

haha, so funny you ask. I am just under an hour away and just went friday!



Leisurely ride


Crisp, cool fall evening. I wanna say it was in the high 50s








First pass of the evening. I basically sidestepped the clutch at around 2000 rpm - this usually results in the least amount of wheelspin but some significant wheel hop. Once it hooks up it takes a second to come up into the powerband of the cam which kills my 60'


2nd pass, gave it a lot more revs (3200ish?) and slipped the clutch a bit. Still hopped but not as bad. Best pass yet since the motor swap. Back in June I ran 13.5 @ 111 in 95F ambient with 3.62 gears and a 27.25" tall tire, trapping at the top of 3rd! Since then I put shorter tires on it (25.7" tall) and swapped gears. I was expecting the gear swap from 3.62 to 3.91 to make it spin even more off the line and kill my trap speed but it looks like the motor doesn't need to be spun to the moon to make power - the shift to 4th picked up a few mph. Not fast by modern car standards but fun enough for an old boat


I'm sure we can make some improvements here


Nothing broke, home in 1 piece

[MommysLittleMonster]

Congrats on the wedding, dude.

I need to get my ass out in your direction to go racing at NYIRP at least one more time this year. Are you anywhere near the track?