Just flat out impressive work.

Wow, this thing is nuts!

Nice to see some progress.

Any updates?

Not much right now. We have been doing a Bavaria for the same owner for his mother

Build was delayed for a bunch of different reasons but things are starting to move along again. The goal is to have it for vintage in NC the endish of May.

So...back to some updates. This will be a bit of a hodgepodge until I get on a bit more of a schedule to keep up on updates.

We had taken a cut out of the drivers side frame rail to fit the e60 radiator.

So then we needed to box it back up.

And we wanted AC so to fit the compressor and lines a notch was required on the passenger side.

Will get some custom lines but the e60 ones are a start...

Fitting the air boxes and making mounts

Close to the ABS pump....

Similar setup on the passenger side.

The trans sits so high in the tunnel that there was NO room for the shifter carrier. So it got chopped and mounted a little different. Start with some raw bits...

Weld raw bits together...I am getting better at TIGing Aluminum but still have a ways to go. It's strong just not always pretty.

VERY short shifter linkage

Some captive nuts welded into the tunnel. And bolted in

A video of it working.... https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5iUQW5jXDDE/Vv2xHPEgIXI/AAAAAAAAphU/59aIVFIaVm81ea-xIXkA-wkexwC8mwF6wCCo/s144-Ic42/IMG_8644.MOV

Adapting the E30 to S85 Power steering lines... Tig some AN6 fittings on each. Then there will be a short line made to connect the two.

Fit the stock e60 oil filter. Start with some cardboard Turn that cardboard into aluminum

Weld and add a gusset (again not super pretty but not terrible...)

Mounted

Extra Steering linkage mount needed due to the extra Ujoint. Had to figure a way to be able to remove the mount so came up with this...

With the engine in the car. Hard to tell but there is more room than this pic shows.

Sway bar wouldn't fit in the stock location so it was moved in front of the subframe.

Core support is removable so need to make it so it stays in...more captive nuts behind these allen bolts.

Crazy that the value of E30 M3s has pretty much doubled since this thread started 2.5 years ago.

So the S85 radiator is more like two radiators on top of each other and the engine has 4 radiator hoses. Others have used aftermarket radiators but we want to make this as stock as possible so...we are using the stock radiator with VERY modified in/out.

Step one....cut the stock inlets off

Start fitting...

next one

And another...

Fitting hoses

Three out of 4.....

I won't say I am great at tigging aluminum but sometimes things fall into place.

4

Then there were four...

tack them to the radiator

madness....If you look close each pipe has a bit of a bead roll to keep the hose on.

It still fits...

Any experience/concern about long term reliability of having the steering u-joints so close to the header - radiant heat? I'm running into the same thing on my swap and wondering if I should try and heat shield or not.....

In reply to MichaelYount:

These joints are made to be close to a header. I have used the same ones in many other builds with no issues.

Still an amazing build.