BMW motor swap. 2001 323 Ci car. With a 2003 S62 4.9L V8 from an E39 M5

Friend (and GRM board member) has a lead on this car. The motor and the 6 speed are already in the car however the car is not running. He as done a little homework and was told that he will need at a minimum.

(Plan A)

• ignition key and magnetic pickup ring

• EWS module

• ECU

• gas pedal

(and I would assume the wiring harness or harnesses)

A quick question about this is what if you can not get the parts from the car that the motor can trans came from. Can we get the parts from another car and then hack the ECU's to make all the parts play nice with each other?

This method of the swap is my preferred as it would maintain the OBD2 and down the road could in theory be diagnosed with standard OBD2 scan tools.

What other issues are we going to run in to trying to make this work?

OR (plan B)

Since I think that in a matter of a year this car will only have to have safety inspection and a visual on the dash lights for inspection we could forgo all the OE computers and stuff and do this the old fashion way and put an MS on it and a manual throttle body?

I would prefer Plan A. I like the OE look and feel to this one when it is done but if Plan B is significantly cheaper and easier/simpler I would consider it.

What sais the GRM brain trust?

Anyone done this swap?

In reply to dean1484: There is more than one of these engines swapped into an E30. I think there is more required than your short list, ABS module perhaps. You can have the ECU modified to not require the key and EWS, that's probably the best scenario.

For plan B, it has 8 throttle bodies, I don't know if there is a kit to convert them to manual, it's expensive if it exists. You could run it on megasquirt, but, in such a modern car like an E46, you're going to be hacking a lot together to make other things work. (The dash mainly)

The way BMW makes the linkage and actuator, converting to DBC should't be too hard. Check out the Turner kit for the S54 for some inspiration.

MS has been used to run the BMW dash as well. Peter Florance has some details on exactly how. The only "big" thing you lose is the traction control. Which, might be fun, or dangerous, or both.