Simple M3

[bwwaaaa]

Oh. well, Bravo on the color choice.

Thanks! Sorry for the lack luster update haha. A long pause for not a lot of news, but that's how projects are sometimes I guess. I'm hoping I can get the car back by the end of the year to start reassembly though.

Oh my I can not wait to see it in that color.

Thanks man! You and me both, I hope it looks as good in person as it does in my head.

[hinrichs]

Oh my I can not wait to see it in that color.

[saturnstance]

Oh. well, Bravo on the color choice.

[bwwaaaa]

It’s been a minute…

An update from the grave! It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to check in here. To be honest, progress has been non-existent. The paint shop I’m using is great, but he’s a one man operation and things can move slowly. When I dropped off the car, there were a few other projects ahead of me in line that took some time to complete. He has started some work on the bay, he ground out the seam sealer and started shaving brackets. But that’s not what I want to focus on with this update.

A few of you made some guesses on what color the car is going to be. No one got it. But I got a spray out of the color when I dropped off some parts yesterday.

Here it is, Stanceworks forums saw it first. My M3 is going to be Millennium Jade, a Nissan R34 GTR color. Well actually since dropping off the car with the body shop, Nissan has announced it’ll be an R35 color too, but we can just ignore that. This has to be one of my favorite colors of all time, I remember seeing photos of the R34 GTR Nur Spec in MJ back in the day, and loving it. And I feel like it’ll suit the M3 very well too. It has a lot of depth in the color, it’s silver in some lights, bright green in others, and almost a gold in dim settings.

I also decided, you know what let’s just paint the whole damn car. So he’s working on that now. I’ve asked for update photos along the way, we’ll see if he delivers. But needless to say I’m extremely excited.

[mgpdoc]

Needless to say we want more updates.

Cheers

Mike

[G535]

Keep it up! Sick engine, props man!

[saturnstance]

Dakar...

Quality updates ! Love it.

[bwwaaaa]

While I'm in there

So I've been waiting on parts to show up for a while now. Thanks to this last year, everything is back ordered, everything is hard to source. Mainly I couldn't get my rod bearings from VAC for the longest time. After not so patiently waiting for what was coming up on two months, they finally showed up, so I could get some progress done.

(don't worry, I did put assembly lube on it)

As you can see that was very much worth doing. The VIN from the chassis this engine was pulled from indicated that the rod bearings were done under warranty some time ago. So this is the second set of bearings this car has gone through at least. According to the Blackstone oil analysis the seller included with the engine, they indicate that there was acceptable levels of bearing material in the sample they got, and from talking to a few people the general consensus is these bearings could have been worse, but also could have been better. Of course I did ARP rod bolts as those came with the rod bearing kit as well. Everything was doused thoroughly in assembly lube as well.

We started to do the Vanos and head gasket that day as well, but realized I was missing some pieces and had to quit early. I am going out of town soon, so that means the engine is on ice for at least a month until I return. I'm a little frustrated progress is going so slow, I feel like I could have had this swap done by now if it weren't for parts delays and some real life stuff getting in the way. I did take the vanos off to send back as my core charge to Dr. Vanos, but otherwise we didn't go any further.

I also bought a part I was on the fence about doing, but figured it's now or never. I ordered a CAE Clubsport shifter, and frankly I may be more excited about this than the S54 at this point. It is *so* well made, it's insane. If you know me you know that I'm a bit of a stickler for original (or at least non-replica) parts. I got a lot of suggestions too run RTD, Coolerworx or other shifters that did roughly the same job, but a few people who had run both all said the CAE is better. Given everything else is a copy of the CAE, may as just go with the OG design. I opted for the clubsport, which is shorter and has a slightly longer throw than the normal one they sell, and I got it in anodized black. The logic being, it's a little less dramatic in the interior. There is no passing this for OEM, but this disguises it just a little bit more.

With that I'm out of town for a few weeks, but when I come back it will be a scramble to scrub the engine bay aaaaand send it off to paint. I'm only doing the engine bay right now, which I wasn't even planning on doing in the first place. But it makes no sense not to when the engine is out of the car.

So here's the real question: what color do you think it's coming back with?

[bwwaaaa]

Out with the old

Right so, I am at best an idiot and decided that peak Summer in Arizona is the best time to start an engine swap. But this weekend I decided to rip off the band-aid and just get on with the project. So out came the S52. It took two days basically, as I spent most of the first day by myself working, and at a pretty leisurely pace. The second day I had a few friend's by to help and we got the engine out. I've pulled a lot of E36 engines before. I've never had it go this poorly to be honest. It got caught on everything on the way out, and my Garagistic brace really made it a nightmare to get the oil pan clear of the front subframe.

There is a fair bit of "oh good god what did I do" setting in right about now, but no turning back now. A few things to call out, the S52 is pending sale as we speak. Someone is supposed to get it a couple days, so long as they don't flake I'll have cleared a significant amount of space in the garage almost immediately. So that'll be nice. Right now the plan is to spend a bunch of time getting the chassis side ready where I can (wiring, fuel pump, misc.) and I'll be taking it to the body shop to get the engine bay painted at the end of August. That was the soonest they could take it in. While that is going on hopefully the backordered parts I've been waiting on finally show up and I can get the S54 all prepped to drop in. After that I think things should go pretty quickly to be honest. This isn't that complicated a swap, just time consuming.

Bonus photo, a very exhausted me sitting in my engine bay.

[saturnstance]

Thanks! This has definitely been the goal from the beginning, and had a false start once. I was starting to think maybe I'd never get around to making this happen, so I'm stoked to finally be diving into this project. I guess so much for "Simple M3" anymore though haha.

I mean, it depends on your definition of "simple" lol

[hinrichs]

Damn that a great collection of parts. Glad to see how oem you are going to make it with the cluster and such. I wish I was closer to help.

[bwwaaaa]

this is exciting. I Love the natural progression of the car.

Thanks! This has definitely been the goal from the beginning, and had a false start once. I was starting to think maybe I'd never get around to making this happen, so I'm stoked to finally be diving into this project. I guess so much for "Simple M3" anymore though haha.

[saturnstance]

this is exciting. I Love the natural progression of the car.

[bwwaaaa]

S54 No Shit

Well, I was finally able to get my hands on an S54. Some backstory to this, because outside of this build thread I have been hunting quite a bit for an S54. But I thought it'd be interesting to document the whole story of how this came about. After my trip to install the new coilovers, I came to the conclusion that really I like my M3 more than any S2000, and I was being an idiot splitting my time between two projects. For the money I tied up in the S2000, I could have very easily swapped my M3 and then some. So without any hesitation, I listed the S2000 for sale and off it went. It was a no brainer to me, and as good as an S2000 is overall, it doesn't resonate with me nearly as much as my E36 does.

I started posting everywhere, and had a few S54s pop up here and there, but it seems the current market for them is hot and finding one is difficult at best. I put a deposit on one in Oakland with the plan to fly up and drive it back to Phoenix. It was a total builder, but was arguably going to be worth it as the end result would have been a 0 mile S54. I sent a deposit, booked a flight, and then the seller disclosed some information about the headwork that was done that completely killed the viability of the engine for me. Essentially it was a gnarly race-grade head, and the only way to run it was to delete Vanos. Not something I was willing to do, and not something he seemed to fully understand. So I bailed on that and kept posting everywhere I could. Finally a WTB post got me a DM on Instagram, @wtcc_e46 reached out to me about selling his engine package that he had been debating selling for some time.

The deal was take everything (carbon intake box and all), and frankly put me in a position to get this swap done faster than originally planned. So I rented a van, and drove out to LA for nearly the third weekend in a row to pick up the engine.

The last shot there is his gnarly race car he's building. The engine was destined for that, pulled from a donor 2002 E46 m3 he had purchased, but after some thought he needed to finish the chassis prep first and the S54 was another project he didn't have time for just yet. I understand the struggle completely, same reason the S2000 is now gone. We loaded up everything into the van, as sketchy as that loading looks the engine didn't budge the 6 hour drive back home. Included with the engine was all the wiring, cluster, DME and so on, then the stock intake as well as a Turner Motorsports CSL style intake plenum. He even included the engine stand in the purchase price.

I have also been quietly stock piling parts on the side since I started my swap hunt. I've been buying general things I know I'll need or want, to avoid running into issues with delays.

So far I've sourced nearly the entire cooling system, I'm going with Z3M units across the board. I have a new radiator, a Euro E36 expansion take (with OE weld in brackets), and all the bits to make that work. For wiring, I have a Redline Motorsports adapter harness, and a brand new S54 Z3M engine harness to locate the DME to the correct location. I also purchase the Bimmerworld exhaust adapters, to allow S54 headers to meet up to my Stromung catback with no issue. I've been purchasing every gasket, o-ring and seal I can possibly get my hands on, and I also had a Z3M gauge cluster cloned. I got this made by @busterhax to essentially retain OBD2 functionality as well as AC. The S54 Z3M cluster is usually the go to, as the canbus routes through this to make those functions work. However these units are NLA and extremely expensive even if you can find them. Kyle can clone this functionality into a Z3 non-M cluster (specific part number: 62116901516), and then swaps the gauge faces for the appropriate S54 redline. The end result is a cluster that will make the swap work without hacky work-arounds. Two small things to note with this, he no longer offers gray gauge faces (that's fine, I prefer the black ones anyways) and you have to supply your own red cluster needles. Non-M clusters come with clear/white needles, and all M cars have red needles. To fix this problem, I purchased another E36 m3 cluster locally (so I didn't have to use my own), pulled the needles and sent them out to Kyle to install.

A lot of time and effort, but I would argue well worth it. Small details like this are what I enjoy the most haha. So now the Z3M-clone cluster is back in hand and all ready to go.

Of course I am an idiot for deciding to start this whole process just as Arizona starts Summer. So I'll have to suffer through this whole build process in 117F temps, but I suppose it's all worth it. Current plan is to bullet proof this engine by doing VAC coated rod bearings and all new Vanos throughout. I'll reseal the whole engine so it's fresh and free of any leaks, and clean up the engine itself so it's shiny and ready to go in. I have some more parts to order obviously and I'll be sending out some pieces for additional work to prep for the swap. But I think the end result will be worth it. I'm particularly excited about the Turner carbon airbox, though I have heard some mixed reviews on it. I think the CSL intake makes the whole swap worthwhile, that induction noise is to die for.

Progress may be slow, but as with any of my projects on this car I will deliver one way or another. Since I bought it, an S54 has always been the goal for my M3. So having one in hand is extremely exciting.

[hinrichs]

Nice swap to the "new coilovers", glad to see them back on the car they originally were ordered for. I bet they are a big performance upgrade.