MK20 -> MK60 Swap

[Nate047]

Nice write up. Appreciate the cheek too lol.

So let me ask the 2 million dollar question(s). How mush was all of this in total? And... Was it worth it? Tell me about the difference in drive experience.

[heinzboehmer]

If you’re looking for junkyard brake lines, Heinz and I discovered that the passenger front brake line is slightly different between the M and non-M MK60 cars. The non-M runs right on top of the front longitudinal frame rail (where the M3 heat shield is) and the M3 runs a couple inches up, against the fender well sheet metal. Subtle difference, but it does prevent using the M3 heat shield on a non-M due to interference.

Oh right! But actually, now I think I might have done that incorrectly. I copied the MK20 line, which runs up against the fender well, so that's why mine looks like that. MK60 cars do have it exactly like your wagon does. Plastic brake holder clip goes on top of the heat shield.

Guess you could use the heat shield, but you'd still be missing those two other studs.

See page 15 and 16 of this doc: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Fp...w?usp=drivesdk

[Bry5on]

If you’re looking for junkyard brake lines, Heinz and I discovered that the passenger front brake line is slightly different between the M and non-M MK60 cars. The non-M runs right on top of the front longitudinal frame rail (where the M3 heat shield is) and the M3 runs a couple inches up, against the fender well sheet metal. Subtle difference, but it does prevent using the M3 heat shield on a non-M due to interference.

[thegenius46m]

Thanks! You bring up a good point. IIRC, the only differences between the non-M and M3 MK60 systems are the master cylinder, the electrical module and that TPMS was optional on non-Ms (although that's just one wire and coding).

That being said, it's practically impossible to remove/install bent brake lines with the engine, transmission and gas tank still in the car. Even if you find a car in a junkyard that's missing these things, you'll probably end up deforming the lines when installing and will still have to do some work to get them back into shape. I guess it's a matter of preference, but, like you said, brand new (unbent) lines are cheap directly from BMW.

Good point! I was a little lazy looking that up but valid point about breaking them. I personally would buy brand new. At the minimum, junkyard is a great place to experiment with this stuff before you commit on a project of this magnitude if you don't know your way around as you get to decide if you really want to commit on your own car before you have it apart and are in a can't turn back situation lol

[terra]

Still unsure what “motorsport” ABS program gives you. Can you put a switch in the cabin and dial it up and down? Do you get the tuning software to make adjustments yourself?

Spending that much money I would at least want the ability to change the program based on tires and track conditions.


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I don't know what the MK60 motorsport versions get you specifically, but the Bosch M4 Motorsport kit lets you do precisely that

https://www.bosch-motorsport.com/med..._m4_ait_en.pdf

Contintental has this: https://conti-engineering.com/domain...otorsport-abs/

Apparently based on the "MK100" stability control modules. Perhaps in the past there was a listing for an MK60 variant, but I cannot find them now. Honestly at $7k for a full kit new with software support and tunability... I think that'd be well worth the expense over a $3-4k mk60 "race" kit if I were actually building a race car.

Where things could get interesting is if the consumer variants of those newer modules can be flashed with the respecitve motorsport software without having to pay some guy in Germany a few grand to do it. Contintental RSX = MK100 (and various variants are like $60 on ebay), bosch M4 = bosch 8.1, bosch M5 = bosch 9.0. The bosch 8.1 apparently has an MPC555 CPU, so that might actually be feasible to flash even for us mere mortals if we can get the software dump.

But I digress. Sorry for taking thisthread off topic.

[eacmen]

Still unsure what “motorsport” ABS program gives you. Can you put a switch in the cabin and dial it up and down? Do you get the tuning software to make adjustments yourself?

Spending that much money I would at least want the ability to change the program based on tires and track conditions.


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[heinzboehmer]

Nice find. Does seem to match up.

The one other difference I just noticed is that the M3 MK60 has two 2.5mm² power wires feeding it that come from 30A fuses (F56 and F61). The Z4M one has one 2.5mm² wire coming from a 20A fuse and one 4.0mm² wire coming from a 40A fuse. However, F56 and F61 only feed the MK60 on the M3, so should be easy to deal with.

Would need to swap out F56 for a 20A fuse and then run a 4.0mm² wire to F61 —in place of the 2.5mm² wire that's already there— and swap out F61 for a 40A fuse. Shouldn't be any extra work to run the bigger wire since the wire for pin 17 needs to be run anyway.

Had a quick look on eBay and wow those Z4 modules are expensive. Cheapest I found was ~$600. Guess I'll have to wait until a car pops up at a junkyard.

[terra]

Yeah I'm on the east coast

Think I found an accurate pinout from TIS. Attached PDF. Seems to match up with the pinout you made

[heinzboehmer]

The Z4M module isn't flashable by WinKFP as far as I can tell. When I tried invoking commands manually to gain security access, it didn't respond to those, so I suspect those routines don't exist / are disabled like on the E46 DSC modules.

The can-bus and K-line communications are the same basic format as the E46 module. What I'm not 100% sure about is if the module wants some extra information that the E46 doesn't normally broadcast (I have heard the Z4 instrument broadcasts the rain sensor status over the can-bus for the disc brake wipe feature), but any differences should be minor and adaptable.

I did run into the same wiring differences you found earlier. Overall I think it's feasible, but never got around to it because A) the car used to be my daily driver and B) I'm busy with work. A is no longer the case for me. As for B... when I start a real job next year I anticipate my income quadrupling and my schedule becoming 7 on / 14 off... so I might actually be able to work on some shit.

If you are searching for modules, you don't technically need a Z4M module. Facelift Z4 non-M module would also work IIRC, they just have different coding parameters. Non-facelift is just a standard non-M MK60 tho.

The other thing I've always found interesting but could never find more info on is the Z4 2008 Motorsport catalog mentioning a race version of the MK60 as well as a readout cable and software

Nice! Excited to see what you do with it. And good to know about the non-M modules, I'll keep that in mind.

You're on the other side of the country, no? My harness is still running across my engine bay, so super accessible for swapping pins around and experimenting. If you were closer, it would have been interesting to repin my harness and plug your Z4M module in just to see if either the car or module get angry.

[terra]

Will keep an eye out for Z4M modules/partouts and swap one in if I can get it for cheap. Only unknown is if it'll communicate and not throw any errors with the rest of the modules in the car. Are Z4M modules flashable via WinKFP?

The Z4M module isn't flashable by WinKFP as far as I can tell. When I tried invoking commands manually to gain security access, it didn't respond to those, so I suspect those routines don't exist / are disabled like on the E46 DSC modules.

The can-bus and K-line communications are the same basic format as the E46 module. What I'm not 100% sure about is if the module wants some extra information that the E46 doesn't normally broadcast (I have heard the Z4 instrument broadcasts the rain sensor status over the can-bus for the disc brake wipe feature), but any differences should be minor and adaptable.

I did run into the same wiring differences you found earlier. Overall I think it's feasible, but never got around to it because A) the car used to be my daily driver and B) I'm busy with work. A is no longer the case for me. As for B... when I start a real job next year I anticipate my income quadrupling and my schedule becoming 7 on / 14 off... so I might actually be able to work on some shit.

If you are searching for modules, you don't technically need a Z4M module. Facelift Z4 non-M module would also work IIRC, they just have different coding parameters. Non-facelift is just a standard non-M MK60 tho.

The other thing I've always found interesting but could never find more info on is the Z4 2008 Motorsport catalog mentioning a race version of the MK60 as well as a readout cable and software

[bigjae46]

The one I have sitting around from when I thought about doing this swap turns out to be an 813.3. What’s a reasonable amount to ask for one?

I'd guess $500-$800?

[heinzboehmer]

• Electrical connector looks the same and pinout is almost identical. Made a quick thing to see the differences (highlighted in bold): EDIT: I don't trust this diagram, see a few posts below.

• Not sure what "Activation, left bi-xenon headlight", "Activation, right bi-xenon headlight" and "Conditioned wheel speed, front left" are for. Also slightly confused as to why there are pins for the pressure sensors if the Z4M module does not use those.
• Besides those, the rest of the wiring would just involve moving pins around in the MK60 connector.

Actually, I'm not sure I trust the pinout page on TIS. It shows the brake pressure sensors and it has different pin mapping to the wiring diagram. Example:


This mapping comes from the wiring diagram. I trust this one a lot more than the pinout:



More stuff is different, but still mostly just a matter of moving pins around in the connector. The processed front speeds are used in the Telephone/HiFi system (?), so probably no need to run those wires. Z4M pin 17 is the only thing that would need to be run. Might need to add an extra 5A fuse in the fuse box for that, but not a huge deal.

[heinzboehmer]

The one I have sitting around from when I thought about doing this swap turns out to be an 813.3. What’s a reasonable amount to ask for one?

I volunteer to take it off your hands since it looks like it's just taking up space for you.

[DoubleSidedTape]

The one I have sitting around from when I thought about doing this swap turns out to be an 813.3. What’s a reasonable amount to ask for one?

[heinzboehmer]

They all report different internal software versions.

I'm not sure newer modules are plug and play with the valve body, but in theory it wouldn't be difficult to just get a whole new module + valve body combo to sit in there. Once upon a time I was thinking of retrofitting the Z4M DSC module (MK60e5) (which I still have lying around in a bin somewhere) to get some of the newer features like hill hold, brake wipe, individual circuit pressure monitoring and such. It would require adapting the physical mount a bit and a little rewiring, but it should be able to sit in the same location as the factory Mk60, and the physical brake lines would still go to pretty much the same spots. There might be some WinKFP readable / flashable MK60 variants out there in some lower end early E6x/E9x generation cars - which could be useful if we were able to disassemble software as well as dump software... but I haven't looked too deep into that.

I have a hard time believing they'd invent an entirely new instruction set for something like this, but who knows.

Damn, I wish I had talked to you before doing everything with the M3 MK60. Just had a quick look at the differences between the two and everything is VERY similar.

• Brake lines all route to the same spots on the valve body, so no messing around required there.
• Master cylinder is the same, so no messing around required there.
• Valve body seems to have the mounting screw points in the same spots. Only modifications that would be needed to the M3 bracket are two holes for those protrusions on the underside of the Z4M valve body.
• Front wheel speed sensors are the same between the two cars, so no messing around required there.
• Rear wheel speed sensors are different part numbers, but they look extremely similar. Their appearance —combined with the fact that the front ones are the same— make me believe that they're electrically identical. Probably just a difference in length/where the clip in points are because of the different trailing arms between the two cars.
• DSC sensor is the same, so no messing around required there.
• Electrical connector looks the same and pinout is almost identical. Made a quick thing to see the differences (highlighted in bold): EDIT: I don't trust this diagram, see a few posts below.

• Not sure what "Activation, left bi-xenon headlight", "Activation, right bi-xenon headlight" and "Conditioned wheel speed, front left" are for. Also slightly confused as to why there are pins for the pressure sensors if the Z4M module does not use those.
• Besides those, the rest of the wiring would just involve moving pins around in the MK60 connector.

Will keep an eye out for Z4M modules/partouts and swap one in if I can get it for cheap. Only unknown is if it'll communicate and not throw any errors with the rest of the modules in the car. Are Z4M modules flashable via WinKFP?


Also, agreed that a new instruction set sounds unlikely, but that's kinda sorta what it sounded like. Honestly didn't ask too much about it.