S38 B38 in E28 eye candy (56k beware, 3 pictures)

[cgraff]

Hey guys,

So here's a few picts of the completed engine bay of the S38 B38 engine swap on Rob's car:







Large photos included for detail!

-Chris

[dunnojack]

awesome... difficult swap?

[tschultz]

Looks great!

[Eddie in TO]

hmmm, that's juicy.

Would you know if he used the E28 radiator and plugged the LH side outlet?
It appears that's what he did and relocated the coolant reservoir.

Thanks.

[cgraff]

hmmm, that's juicy.

Would you know if he used the E28 radiator and plugged the LH side outlet?
It appears that's what he did and relocated the coolant reservoir.

Thanks.

Well, WE did the swap in 4 days. And we used the E28 535 radiator, plugged the original overflow, and used the M5 single temp switch for the aux fan (80/88 deg), and used the remaining port on the radiator for the relocated overflow. The lower rad hose and upper rad hose are E34 units. Altho the lower rad hose was cut short a tad.

The coolant reservoir was relocated to the original airbox mount and is an E28 M5 unit.

The only NON BMW part we needed was the adapters for the overflow hose bib off the rad and the engine mount adapters. Oh, and obviously the cold air intake.

We did have to modify the B38 coolant tubes slightly to clear the rad. And we removed and rewired the motor so that we wouldn't have the exhaust air pump. And we used the M88 headers.

Obviously you guys can go to the parent directory on the website to see more picts of the swap.

-Chris


-Chris

[BDK]

Where did all the purple go?

Looks great Chris,
I bet you and Rob are very happy with the outcome...
Good Job guys...

I still want a ride in that beast!!

[cgraff]

Where did all the purple go?

Looks great Chris,
I bet you and Rob are very happy with the outcome...
Good Job guys...

I still want a ride in that beast!!

Rob will only give you a ride if you play nicely and agree with my politics. j/k

Here's a link to the DRAFT of the write-up.
http://www.m535i.org/officers/ra/38.html

We're still in process of finishing it up. Yes, we know it's taking a long time...don't remind us...

-Chris

[Scottinva]

That engine is just so serious looking. To me it just screams I mean business.

[Eddie in TO]

Thanks for sharing the information/pictures with us!!!
What an incredible write-up...well done!

It's time for some more video...

[cgraff]

That engine is just so serious looking. To me it just screams I mean business.

Indeed:
http://www.m535i.org/officers/ra/rapics ... 010375.JPG

One of my fav shots.

Also, to handle the power, we have the following suspension specifications:

1.9 and 1.8 degrees of negative camber front (L/R)
Stock toe setting
7.8 / 7.9 degrees of caster

2.9 degrees of negative camber in rear
Stock toe setting, equal left and right
(Hooray adjustable rear subframe)

Racing Dynamic springs with Koni Sports; 25/19 adjustable sway bars with M5 front mounts and reinforced rear mounts.

Oh yeah, the whole rear suspension was refurbished for the installation.

Front suspension is also all new and has 850 lower control arms with spherical bearings and the Poly UCABs.

Oh yeah, and an M5 front subframe to which we bolted on the M5 heat shields for the headers.

-Chris

[Eddie in TO]

Are you using the stock Bosch fuel pump?

[runningpanda]

How was the conversion from Gasoline to small children/ babies?

[cgraff]

Are you using the stock Bosch fuel pump?

Si senior...

E34 fuel pumps between M30, M20, M50, and all S38s cross reference. And the fuel pumps put out above the 3.5 bar pressure that the FPR is for the S38 B38. So, the E28 ones, in good working order, should be just fine.

-Chris

[dunnojack]

what kind of adjustable sways did you guys go with?

[m535is]

They are Suspension Techniques

[dunnojack]

i'm so jealous... i'm looking to do a s38b36 swap on my m5, hoping it'll be decently easy. any tips lol

[runningpanda]

Ah, very good, very good then.

[alpinewhite]

Wow. Great write-up and documentation... thanks for sharing. The Car looks great too.

[Tammer in Philly]

Rob will only give you a ride if you play nicely and agree with my politics. ;-) j/k

I guess I'm SOL. ;-)

-tammer

[cgraff]

Rob will only give you a ride if you play nicely and agree with my politics. j/k

I guess I'm SOL.

-tammer

Haha!
No soup for you.


...you know I'm just teasing...


-Chris

[m535is]

Advice. Lots of Planning! Determine if you want to make it look like and E28 M5 with just a 3.6L motor, or make it look like a 3.6L E34 test mule. The concept behind the 3.8L was to make it look like a BMW or Hartge test mule. Either way you decide let Chris and I know and we should be able to help with any questions you might have.

[Black Steel]

Where did all the purple go?

Looks great Chris,
I bet you and Rob are very happy with the outcome...
Good Job guys...

I still want a ride in that beast!!

Rob will only give you a ride if you play nicely and agree with my politics. j/k

Here's a link to the DRAFT of the write-up.
http://www.m535i.org/officers/ra/38.html

We're still in process of finishing it up. Yes, we know it's taking a long time...don't remind us...

-Chris

Excellent write up

There are a few things that differentiate your build from mine (Apart from mine being a B36) in regards to removing parts & replacing them with others but each conversion I have seen completed has been done in slightly different ways.
(Old Picture)


One question though. The e34 M5 expansion tank has a air valve incorporated into it. This is so that 17psi of air pressure can be pumped into the cooling system. How do you do this with the expansion tank that you are using?

[wkohler]

It's my understanding that later cars didn't have that. I've only seen that valve on '91s here in the US.

[dunnojack]

Advice. Lots of Planning! Determine if you want to make it look like and E28 M5 with just a 3.6L motor, or make it look like a 3.6L E34 test mule. The concept behind the 3.8L was to make it look like a BMW or Hartge test mule. Either way you decide let Chris and I know and we should be able to help with any questions you might have.

awesome. Me personally, i just wanna make sure it runs great with no worries. Definitely will shoot you guys an email about this. B36 should be a bit easier than the B38 right?

[m535is]

Chris is correct on that one. In addition we decided to run the E28 M5 radiator cap with the 1.4 bar pressure. This allows for almost the same cooling capacity without having to worry about damaging the e28 cooling system components. The car actually runs really cool right now even in the 100+ SC heat. Along with this we are runing the E36 fan switch on the side of the rad so the low speed of the aux fan comes on at 80 C or as soon as the thermostat opens. This gives us a really good starting point.

[cgraff]

It's my understanding that later cars didn't have that. I've only seen that valve on '91s here in the US.

The tank was updated and superceded. You cannot get the 'early' tank anymore. It's now the same PN as all B36s and B38s. So no, you don't need that additional breather tube on the tank itself. In any case, it makes no sense if you have a working 2 bar pressure cap - and it's not shown on the ETK. Nor are any connections to it. So not worried whatsoever there.

And the way we plumbed the overflow and breather tubes is correct as per a conversion using the E28 tank.

-Chris

[dunnojack]

Chris is correct on that one. In addition we decided to run the E28 M5 radiator cap with the 1.4 bar pressure. This allows for almost the same cooling capacity without having to worry about damaging the e28 cooling system components. The car actually runs really cool right now even in the 100+ SC heat. Along with this we are runing the E36 fan switch on the side of the rad so the low speed of the aux fan comes on at 80 C or as soon as the thermostat opens. This gives us a really good starting point.

how come you guys didnt want to use the tank that comes in the e34 setup? are you guys running the stock aux fan with the fan switch or something different? also i'm just assuming that you guys rewired it over at the fuse box so it doesnt melt the original fuse?

[Black Steel]

Chris is correct on that one. In addition we decided to run the E28 M5 radiator cap with the 1.4 bar pressure. This allows for almost the same cooling capacity without having to worry about damaging the e28 cooling system components. The car actually runs really cool right now even in the 100+ SC heat. Along with this we are runing the E36 fan switch on the side of the rad so the low speed of the aux fan comes on at 80 C or as soon as the thermostat opens. This gives us a really good starting point.

Good solution. I used everything from the e34 M5 to be on the safe side.
As I run the car quite hard (!) I had a custom five core rad built with the overflow relocated to the opposite side.
It sits in the cutout in the front panel & has 8 litres more capacity that the standard e34 M5 rad. The e34 M5 rad is the biggest BMW has fitted to any of it's cars!
To be honest it was cooling the car too much so I have blanked almost half of it off!
My twin speed fan & rad are an over kill but I wanted to over engineer the car as much as possible. In the picture you will see that you can't even see the rad!

Thanks for the reply.

[Black Steel]

It's my understanding that later cars didn't have that. I've only seen that valve on '91s here in the US.

Never seen an e34 M5 without the valve. (I live in the UK)

The two M5's that I used for my conversion were both last of the line b36's.

One left hand drive, the other right hand drive.

It might be market specific. Like other models. European cars probably get used harder than other market cars due to no speed limits in certain countries.

[m535is]

dunnojack, the reason we didn't want to use the E34 tank was 2 fold. First it is much larger and therefore harder to fit. The second is that we wanted to be able to run an E28 stock coolant pressure which the max comes with the E28 M5 and the cap is not the plastic cap of the later cars, it is a metal cap which will only work with the earlier containers.
Currently we are using the stock e28 aux fan and wiring. There is no melting of the fuse box at this point. We are looking into upgrading the fan to the E34 fan potentially and then changing the wiring at that time, but as for now the larger problem is determining how to prevent the AC fuse holder from melting. Chris and I are working on a really cool "BMW" solution for this problem. Chris can give more details on this when he is done at the end of the weekend.

Black Steel,
I also plan to run my car very hard. At this point though I am still working on the custom exhaust and have to get the 1200 break in miles on the motor before I can really start to push it. Once I get to that point if we run into a problem, like I mentioned above we will probably go to the E34 aux fan and do some upgrading to the wiring. But like it is has been said we are running an e28 535i manual trans radiator. We are using the e28 535/M5 fan clutch and black fan, e28 aux fan, and E36 coolant temp switch.