325ix s54 E30 Swap

Keeping them rolling....

The owner of this wanted something that he can drive year round (lives where it snows), has classic style (e30), and has a bunch of power (S54). So lets combine them all and make something.

This car already have H&Rs and bilsteins which will stay. It will get new bushings all around, rebuilt axles, and freshened up all the way around. Interior will get swapped to black. (looking for seats if anyone has any black sports please send me a PM)

This might be the cleanest iX I have ever seen. Now I haven't seen many but those that I have are rusted and rotted.

90k s54

iX Drivetrain dropped out

Underside...man it's clean

More to come in time.

Is that a center diff behind the trans in that picture?

technically it would be called a transfer case. Since it's an -x that makes it AWD.

This makes me all kinds of happy!

Pretty cool.

How do you plan to solve the oil pan clearance vs S54 dual sump oiling system? Custom pan?

Pulling stuff apart

For the most part the oil pan lines up the the bolts in the mock up m50.

Made a locator for the oil pickup.

Did a little shop cleaning this afternoon...

moving the s54 closer to its new home.

The ix oil pan will get combined with an m50 pan. Also will run an m50 oil pump and a combined m50/m20 iX oil pickup.

Impressive as always. Keep making awesome stuff Jakeb!

In reply to Bobzilla: I knew the x means AWD. I had to avoid those in case I bought an E30 off ebay last year. I just am not familiar with awd or 4 wheel drive systems.

Let's cut an oil pan

And another <img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-bL1ukLASG3k/U77PiN9BtiI/AAAAAAAAMFI/L9ifqkTCRgo/s640/IMAGE_1805.jpeg[/img

Pretty happy with the fitment after a couple cuts...

Two will become one... https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N9mpcsyMGfk/U77Po_24XuI/AAAAAAAAMFQ/e_yN8flgoN4/s640/IMAGE_1806.jpeg" alt="" />

A few holes will have to be closed up.

All new bushings in the rear...trailing arm, subframe, diff

You're not one for simple projects. Another awesome one in the works here!

You never fail to amaze, Jake....

Yep, amazing for sure.

thanks guys!

I've got an sr20det 2002 in the works...as well as a cammed LS3 e46 m3 track car coming soon.

Making a hybrid oil pickup. Using m50 and m20 from ix.

In the jig I made off the m20. This took awhile...lots of little cuts.

Oil pan welded and on. I did forget that it is going to need a dip stick tube added

Plastic in the oil pan had to be notched a little to clear the tube.

Will probably figure a way to mount the pickup once it is on the s54. This is on a junk m50.

This is one of those builds that people have discussed forever and maybe saw once, but never saw it done well- until now.

Wow. That's awesome. Where are you located?

Brett_Murphy wrote: This is one of those builds that people have discussed forever and maybe saw once, but never saw it done well- until now.

Thanks!

jimbob_racing wrote: Wow. That's awesome. Where are you located?

Michigan

Two extra holes had to be drilled and tapped for the oil pan. Marked where my fingers are.

iX uses m10 bolts for the engine mount arms while the s54 uses m8. So.... drilling and tapping out to m10.

passenger side tapped to m10

I forgot to take a picture of the passenger side mount. It required one bolting pad to be shaved down and then I used a pan head allen bolt to give more clearance around the vband on the manifold.

Drivers side mount bolts all line up except one. So the mount arm hole was opened up some. Left the m8 bolt on that one as the hole was already opened up a good deal. Other three are retapped to m10.

Exploded view of a soon to be S54 powered e30 iX

Cats cut off manifolds and 2.5" vbands tig welded on....this pic was before the other vband showed up and it was welded.

Where is your shop and can I live there. Also, sweet project

Very nice. I take it the S54 is the iron-block variant? I'm interested to see if it reduces weight on the nose in addition to the massive power increase.

Also, I'm out of the loop on the BMW X-drive setups, is the transfer case a static split, or does it dynamically vary torque F/R like a diff would?

Be careful with that 325ix transmission. Moving/carrying one of those gave me a hernia (no joke). Those little rings in your body don't really care how strong you are, move wrong and they just pop.

e46potenza wrote: Where is your shop and can I live there. Also, sweet project

Mid Michigan. haha If I wasn't married and had a child I would live there.

jsquared wrote: Very nice. I take it the S54 is the iron-block variant? I'm interested to see if it reduces weight on the nose in addition to the massive power increase. Also, I'm out of the loop on the BMW X-drive setups, is the transfer case a static split, or does it dynamically vary torque F/R like a diff would?

Yes Iron block for the s54. It is a static split, 60rear/40front I think. It's the same all the time. It will be a little heavier than the m20. Much more valve train.

Brett_Murphy wrote: Be careful with that 325ix transmission. Moving/carrying one of those gave me a hernia (no joke). Those little rings in your body don't really care how strong you are, move wrong and they just pop.

Yes they sure are heavy. I have help to move it around. Or it's on a pallet and use pallet jack.

Trans and engine have become one...

And now in the car sitting on it's mounts.

so much room on this side

Not so much on this side though. Booster will have to go and go to something smaller. Thinking Hydroboost at this point.

In reply to jakeb:

Man that is really nice work.. what is your time frame? When are you hoping it get it on the road?

BBC

How much torque can the AWD system take? I thought the viscous centre diffs were fairly weak on these.

Also, this is an incredible swap. There is some serious effort and experience involved in this job.