MK20 -> MK60 Swap

[bmwfnatic]

MK20 is 4 channel as well.




Having owned an S54 roadster and an MK20 car (that became S54) swapped I wonder how much of that is Z3M specific? The Z3M was always on the verge of out of control at the limit I felt like as the short wheel base really doesn't lend itself to many "mistakes."

I tracked my MK20 car when it was M52tu/6MT and it wasn't ever an issue for me, and once S54 swapped with the M3 MK20 I never noticed an issue on the street.

Its to bad there isn't an easy way to test the Z3M back to back with the MK20 vs MK60.

MK20 non-M is kind of rare, they exist only from 09/1999 until 09/2000 when someone specifically ordered DSC for the car, instead of default ASC.
Makes me wonder why BMW decided to keep the M3 on this system for 2 more years, when the non M already had the MK60.

[George Hill]

MK20 non-M is kind of rare, they exist only from 09/1999 until 09/2000 when someone specifically ordered DSC for the car, instead of default ASC.
Makes me wonder why BMW decided to keep the M3 on this system for 2 more years, when the non M already had the MK60.

All US non-M E46 pre '01 production and (IIRC '01 model 330s) got MK20

[heinzboehmer]

Can we get a recap on what the easiest and most bare bones way to do this retrofit is

I still advocate what is described as option 3. It's actually not difficult, just time consuming.

+1. Option 3 is the best one if your rear brake lines are in good shape. Most annoying part of it will be bending the new front lines, but they're relatively short so it's not too terrible.

MK20 is 4 channel as well.

Yep, you're totally right. Not sure why I had that in my mind.

Regardless, MK20 feels like a 3 channel system. Rear dances around a LOT under heavy ABS braking compared to MK60. That was by far the biggest difference I felt after the swap.

[bmwfnatic]

All US non-M E46 pre '01 production and (IIRC '01 model 330s) got MK20

I see, in Europe it was an option and 9/10 didn’t opt to pay for DSC.
So those cars don’t have anything in that bin and the module is in the MK60 location.

[George Hill]

Regardless, MK20 feels like a 3 channel system. Rear dances around a LOT under heavy ABS braking compared to MK60. That was by far the biggest difference I felt after the swap.

I don't disagree with your position of the MK60 being worthwhile over the MK20. I just wasn't sure if the difference in using an MK60 Z3 Non-M would be beneficial over an MK20 Z3M to go through all the work to retrofit and it potentially not playing nice with the car. I mean I don't think it will be an issue, but what if it is? Is the juice worth the squeeze since we don't have anything to compare it to like we do on an MK20 vs 60 M3. Along with that I was more so asking if there were any specific inherent issues with the Z3M MK20 (like "Ice Mode" on an E46).

[George Hill]

I just looked at the diagrams, apparently the Z3M and E46 M3 MK20s are the same, that would lead me to believe an E46 M3 MK60 would work correctly in a swap.

So off the top of my head if I was doing this then I would use the E46 M3 DSC, Z3 M54 master cylinder, booster and pressures sensors (in the M/C) and then wire it like an M54 car.

***This is very similar to my car. I have E46 M3 brakes, E46 330 M/C and Booster, but I have the 330 DSC right now, although the M3 DSC is on the shelf to be swapped in and then it would conceptually be the same setup as Shawns Z3M.

[Nate047]

I still advocate what is described as option 3. It's actually not difficult, just time consuming.

For the pep talk: It's winter now, so not really driving time, best time to hit this.

If it makes you feel better, you got my number. Feel free to call if you feel lost. 😉

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I'm going to just commit and do it, after I get my e36 back on the road I will have the room. I don't have a lot of spare time with a 3 month old at home LOL but I can chip away at things. And I will definitely not hesitate to bug you with questions when they come up

[Nate047]

+1. Option 3 is the best one if your rear brake lines are in good shape. Most annoying part of it will be bending the new front lines, but they're relatively short so it's not too terrible.

The rear hard lines are "alright," they are not new but they are not leaking or having issues either. So yea, in hindsight, of course I *should* have done this when the rear end and gas tank were all out of the car, and done the brake pipes too. But life happened and I had to rush to put the car back together and move house.

[Obioban]

I've never felt the need to track the car with DSC on, so I've never really desired m track mode.
The E46 M3 is not overpowered by any means...

Doesn't mean that others may not feel different. Just my opinion...

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Yeah— I said m track mode for street driving. Adding M track mode allowed me to stop being annoyed by DSC on the street, which meant I stopped turning it off. A pretty legit safety increase!

(and ice mode still activates on track with DSC off)

[Bry5on]

I just looked at the diagrams, apparently the Z3M and E46 M3 MK20s are the same, that would lead me to believe an E46 M3 MK60 would work correctly in a swap.

So off the top of my head if I was doing this then I would use the E46 M3 DSC, Z3 M54 master cylinder, booster and pressures sensors (in the M/C) and then wire it like an M54 car.

***This is very similar to my car. I have E46 M3 brakes, E46 330 M/C and Booster, but I have the 330 DSC right now, although the M3 DSC is on the shelf to be swapped in and then it would conceptually be the same setup as Shawns Z3M.

No real reason to swap to the M3 DSC - you can manually flash M3 settings to the non-m if you’re good with NCS expert. Using a Z3 (same as e46 non-m) MK60 would make it less of a hassle as the important options like brake bias and steering ratio can be set more easily in NCS, then you can follow this guide to enable the fancy stuff like m-track: https://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/show...or-non-M-MK60s

[liam821]

I just swapped my friends `02 e46m3 Time Attack race car from an MK20 to an MK60. It wasn't hard, but you need a lot of random things to make the job way easier, and lots of patience. This is how I did it.

First, I did some research on the MK60, how it works, what each wire does, and where it goes. I saved all my work here: https://github.com/liam821/e46mk60/b...s_side_plug.md

Next up, the wiring. I had a complete '03 e46 325i non-M sedan main body harness and carefully removed the whole MK60 harness/plugs from it - so wheel speed sensor wiring with plugs, etc. This makes it so much easier because half the wires are already done. Just lay them out in the chassis to each wheel, route them through the chassis gromits, and plug in and go.



With that in hand, next you need to disassemble the whole interior - thankfully his car is a full track car so there wasn't much of that left. We still had to pull the dash, hvac, steering column, dash crash bar, etc. You need complete access to all the wiring. Next, we pulled out ALL the mk20 wiring from his, which means undoing all the wiring looms, zip ties, and Tesa tape that holds all the wiring together. Then, one by one, each MK60 wire was carefully routed to the correct location and spliced in or pinned into each connector. I used a BMW WDS manual for all the pin terminations and locations (see github link above)

We had access to another M3 chassis, which was completely stripped bare, and was able to grab the OEM front brake lines from it. For the rear, we kept his stock lines, which run all the way up to the back of the engine bay, and will ran new lines from the pump to those and used OEM connectors to join them. Or he'll drop his tank and grab the rear brake lines from that other car. Future him problems.

After that, it was just a matter of programming the actual ABS pump via NCSexpert, and you're off to the races.

We also took the opportunity to thin out the rest of his harness while we were in there. So we removed all the hvac, stereo, dome-lights, etc all that stuff...,

If you're not comfortable tracing/splicing wires, don't do this mod. I HIGHLY recommend option 1) sell your M3 and buy a newer one or 2) swap the whole body harness.

Sorry for the bad pictures; I wasn't really documenting with my camera very well since it's not my car.

[CrookedCommie]

I should update on my MK20-MK60E1 Continental swap as I've had a chance to finally test the race car.

I had the harness rewired by Tulay's Wire Works (https://tulayswirewerks.com/) to work with the new race mapped Continental MK60E1 unit and sensors from Doug @ RHT Motorsport (https://www.rhtmotorsport.com/). I put in a brand new MK60 booster, master cylinder and reservoir. RHT sent over the MK60E1 unit, 4 new E46 MK60 wheel speed sensors and a MK60E1 yaw sensor which I mounted to the MK20 bracket in the original place under the seat, just cut and drill to fit. To get the smaller MK60E1 unit to fit, you will have to get a little creative to mount it in the original place as the MK20. You'll also need some M10 and M12 joiners, and some short bendable hard lines to reroute two lines.

The full aero race car was on Falken RT660's for an initial shake down, the front is the AP CP 9668 kit and the rear is AP CP 9451 kit running Ferodo 3.12 pads. The brake system worked so good, that I now have to adjust all my brake zones and brake pressures as I'm overbraking everywhere. The car is rock solid even if I try to get deep into the ABS. Pedal feedback and modulation is phenomenal. I tested with Motul 700 fluid but will be switching to Endless, so I expect that will make things even better.

A few pictures from the swap:

I snagged a MK60E1 unit from ebay UK for fairly cheap, and Doug @ RHT sent over the unit to swap to the valve body:


Here's what the MK20 unit looks like for reference:


I bent some aluminum I had laying around to create a U shaped mount to raise the MK60E1 unit to fit the lines:


Use BMW M10 and M12 unions for the two lines, along with some joiner lines:


And the finished unit:


And a few pics of the race car:

[Obioban]

I'm quite curious how the race ABS compares to the standard MK60 flash. Any seat time, yet? I guess, for that matter, do you have any real seat time vs stock MK60 (since you're coming from MK20 in your own car)?

[CrookedCommie]

I'm quite curious how the race ABS compares to the standard MK60 flash. Any seat time, yet? I guess, for that matter, do you have any real seat time vs stock MK60 (since you're coming from MK20 in your own car)?

I've raced in an E46M WRL GP1 race car with a street MK60 swap that was converted in a similar manner being originally MK20. I would say the MK60 vs race MK60E1 has very similar characteristics however the race MK60E1 will hold at threshold braking, trail braking is better, and no ice mode. I bet if I swapped units on the car and drove it back to back I would not notice much difference other than those and only if you are driving towards the limit. It's possible the race unit will take better advantage of the massive front and rear AP calipers as the piston sizes, car weight, and other parameters are programmed in. I haven't driven the new race car in the wet yet, but I expect the race unit to perform well. If I go AIM dash I will likely upgrade to a race MK60E5 unit with a programmable switch to further tune the abs for wet vs dry conditions.

Some more info on differences between MK60, E1, and E5 here - https://www.lotustalk.com/threads/co...thread.551646/

[bigjae46]

I should update on my MK20-MK60E1 Continental swap as I've had a chance to finally test the race car.

I had the harness rewired by Tulay's Wire Works (https://tulayswirewerks.com/) to work with the new race mapped Continental MK60E1 unit and sensors from Doug @ RHT Motorsport (https://www.rhtmotorsport.com/). I put in a brand new MK60 booster, master cylinder and reservoir. RHT sent over the MK60E1 unit, 4 new E46 MK60 wheel speed sensors and a MK60E1 yaw sensor which I mounted to the MK20 bracket in the original place under the seat, just cut and drill to fit. To get the smaller MK60E1 unit to fit, you will have to get a little creative to mount it in the original place as the MK20. You'll also need some M10 and M12 joiners, and some short bendable hard lines to reroute two lines.

The full aero race car was on Falken RT660's for an initial shake down, the front is the AP CP 9668 kit and the rear is AP CP 9451 kit running Ferodo 3.12 pads. The brake system worked so good, that I now have to adjust all my brake zones and brake pressures as I'm overbraking everywhere. The car is rock solid even if I try to get deep into the ABS. Pedal feedback and modulation is phenomenal. I tested with Motul 700 fluid but will be switching to Endless, so I expect that will make things even better.

I'd be interested to see if your impression changes once the RT660s start to heat cycle out. Those RT660s are great under braking when new, I'd say on par with Hoosier R7s. I used the non "+" and they would heat cycle out quickly to levels of uselessness I've never experienced.

Possible to compare the continental unit to an 818.3 MK60 unit (non-comp)? I'm starting to collect more spare parts, a big part of my 2027 budget, wondering if it is worth it to spring for an 813.3 or an RHT unit. Is it plug and play if I have an 818.3 unit? Does it require the yaw sensor?