E39 Build: 6.0 LS. Coils. Burnouts.

[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!

[mikey G]

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

[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.

[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.

[mikey G]

Nice kills .

[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

[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

[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]

because 427whp > 282 whp

[royalife]

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

[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!

[Raoul Duke]

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

[PastaBatman]

Totally needs a supercharger in the future!


Anyways haha totally awesome build, putting american muscle in a E39, i ain't even mad!

[nsogiba]

No way, it looks completely stock on the outside minus low ride height and the vanity plate. I love rolling up to lights with the cutouts open, big cam lope, and watching peoples' reactions

[Earl]

Ultimate sleeper=)