Liam821's e46 324i k24/dct/turbo build

[Obioban]

Nice lack of fold through!

[liam821]

Man that engine looks tiny in there. Cabin air filter housing makes the S54 look like a 4 cylinder... and the K look like a 2 cylinder.

Front mid-engine! haha

And yeah, it looks tiny in there, especially with the cabin air filter housing.

Spent more time pulling out the rest of the interior and cleaning...

Found their food stores...thankfully they kept that area clean, it just had food and vacuumed right up


Everything else has been removed now


I'm happy to report that the smell has mostly left with the interior. I'm gonna do some more cleaning this weekend and see what's what. Worst comes to worst, I'll send this shell to the big crusher in the sky and pick up another one.

[Obioban]

Man that engine looks tiny in there. Cabin air filter housing makes the S54 look like a 4 cylinder... and the K look like a 2 cylinder.

[liam821]

First attempt, using the factory Honda K oil pan, hard nope. The engine sorta fits in there it has to sit on top of the steering rack, just doesn't work very well.


Pulled off the factory oil pump and oil pan...


Ahhh this is better. Fits very nicely now!




It's almost front mid-engine now!






Just over the steering rack about 10mm on the passenger side


Plenty of room for the stock e46 steering shaft


Stock HVAC air intake top fits nicely too






All the space for a nice turbo setup!


You might be thinking, but Liam, how is it going to work without an oil pump? I have a dry sump setup already for the K, but I might go with a wet sump but an external oil pump. I'm not sure what I want to do yet. Doing a full dry sump system is a massive pita having to deal with a large external oil reservoir and dozens of oil lines all over the place.


I've already done a quick 3D scan of the driver's side area so I can start working on a motor mount design, just used Kiri Engine on my iPhone - works great! Not going to put too much effort into this until I finalize the engine placement, waiting on the transmission mount first.

[liam821]

More work done today

Before cleaning


After cleaning! Simple green, pressure washer, and a lot of scrubbing


Let's get these two together!


Adamat adapter fits perfectly


Completely bolt-on process, everything fits perfectly


I got the engine on my engine lift but had family stuff so I wasn't able to get it into the car yet.

I also found out I'm missing the rear DCT transmission mount which I ordered today. Fingers crossed that the SLG dct transmission mount just bolts up and puts the engine in the right place.

[liam821]

Good to see you back on it!

Any concern the mice were eating the insulation on the wires above where they were sleeping?

That is an excellent question. If there is any damage, I'll just replace the harness - I have a spare. Not worth trying to fix, I really don't want "electrical" issues later in life.

[Obioban]

Good to see you back on it!

Any concern the mice were eating the insulation on the wires above where they were sleeping?

[liam821]

Literally been a year. sigh. I've been so super busy the last year with other projects - really I've been working on my Time Attack race car and my daughters e46 so the k46 took a backseat.

My daughter's car, which looks identical to mine, got the manual transmission, axles, driveshaft, diff, pedals assembly, clutch, etc all out of mine since we won't be needing any of that stuff where we're going.

Car has been a shelf for the last year. Was missing it's rear subframe/axles/diff since I stole all those parts. My wife's i3s on the right there


Installed the subframe from my daugthers auto car so I could roll it around and finally I was able to extract the 325i out of the garage where it's been sitting for the last year and moved it into my shop. First light it's seen in a year!


e46 parking (my M3 and my daughters car)


I started pulling apart the interior. It's super gross


Apparently, we hosted a mice condo in the glove box. That's gonna go straight into the trash!


ew perhaps we'll replace all that stuff too. All straight into the trash


Previous owner was listening to the JAMS!


It's not in bad shape, has ~100k miles, but it just stinks. A mix of black ice tree car freshener, cigarette smoke, cologne, and dog. We'll see how much of the interior is salvagable


I've only done this now 5 times or so now. Dash is out!




Finally got the HVAC and everything else out




Next steps, gonna pull it out into the sun tomorrow and power wash the engine bay. We'll get it all cleaned up.


Honda k24a - this is just a mockup engine I bought it for $100, it's goodish, I think the timing chain guide broke and locked the engine.


This weekend I'm going to powerwash the engine bay and hopefully get the DCT mated to the k24 and stuff it into the engine bay and see what fits and what doesn't fit. I'm fairly certain I cannot use the stock k24 oil pan/oil pump with the e46 since it's a front sump engine and it wants to occupy the same space as the power steering rack. But, apparently, the k24 fits in an e36 without modification so who knows. I guess we'll see tomorrow!

Once I get the engine in there I'll 3d scan the engine bay and build engine mounts in Fusion360 which I'll send off to send-cut-send to be made.

After I get the engine in its happy place, I'll start working on the exterior. I purchased all the body panels I need, e46 M3 front fenders, real quarters, OEM m3 hood, front and rear bumpers, etc. I'm not sure if I want to attempt the work, or if I want somebody else to do it yet. There is a guy I met on an e46 M3 Touring Facebook group who is willing to do the work for me but he's down in Southern California... We'll see if I can find somebody local, perhaps do it myself, or take it down south. I'm not sure. If anybody has any suggestions hit me up.

More to come!

[liam821]

What engine mounts you are using?

I'm going to scan the engine bay, the design my own in Fusion360.

any progress on this build?

You're in luck! YES!

[ejendow]

any progress on this build?

[[email protected]]

What engine mounts you are using?

[liam821]

Cool build. Do you have any idea if the engine will clear the hood? K24 is pretty tall.

Yeah, it clears the hood fine. It's not like the s54 is short and both have about the same lean angle. Hopefully, I'll get the engine in the bay this weekend and can snap some pictures.

[discoelk]

Cool build. Do you have any idea if the engine will clear the hood? K24 is pretty tall.

[liam821]

I dig it. I've been eyeing a similar swap for my '88 320i just to get a cheap approximation of the E30 M3 experience. Will be following to see how this goes on an E46.

It's an easy swap in the e30 and there are also some off-the-shelf mount kits to make it easy. On the e46, the k24 oil pump is right where the steering rack wants to live. Apparently, you can use an Xi awd front subframe/suspension and it all fits nicely, but I want to run M3 front suspension/front subframe so I'm going to run a dry-sump oil system. At least that's the thought. Hopefully, I can get the engine in the car this weekend at which point I'll have a better idea of what I'm working with.

[Albino09]

I dig it. I've been eyeing a similar swap for my '88 320i just to get a cheap approximation of the E30 M3 experience. Will be following to see how this goes on an E46.