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

[liam821]

I was originally planning on painting my silver e46 325i that I currently have - the one I'm Honda swapping - but I decided spending $10k on a paint job didn't make a lot of sense. So I started looking around for another e46 sedan with more interesting paint, I wanted a white or red car or maybe blue. The idea is that I can use this new one and the silver one will go away.

I found this beautiful clean title no accidents 2003 facelift Japanrot red 330i Msport on Craigslist out in the middle of Eastern Washington - middle of nowhere Grand Coulee Washington - for a good price and just had to jump on it. So my daughter and I drove out there to meet the seller and I drove it home. The plans for it right now are fixing/maintenance/paint correction. I'm not sure what engine combination this car will have yet, I guess we'll see. But I can tell you the m54b30 and automatic transmission will be going away. (see thread above with the silver car)

Here is the car at the seller's house:




After all the paperwork and paying my daughter and I headed into town to find some dinner. Her manual 325i hiding behind mine.


The car was pretty disgusting. The interior was grimy and sticky, exterior super dirty. The paint is gonna need a bit of paint correction, but I think it's salvageable.

Checkout the grime!


Check out all the dead skin on the leather shifter, 🤮


After a few hours of cleaning, the interior was as clean as it was gonna be




Next was removing the bubbling window tint. Personally, I think e46's look way better without the tint anyway so it won't be replaced.




I had a scare on the way home that the fuel door was stuck closed, but it turned out that the fuel door ejection thingy was broken. I had a spare in my parts bin, easy to fix.


The car hasn't moved much in the last year and mouse made a nest on top of the engine, lovely. At least they didn't get inside!


A Bunch of scrubbing later...looking better!


The first wash! Hey there's a car under there!




Japanrot red and our Melbourne red i3s




So what's next? More interior cleaning/replacing. It needs a new guibo and center driveshaft support bearing, so those are on order.

[liam821]

So I keep buying and selling e46s - we're on the 5th since I've started this project and making new threads each time is stupid. So I'm going to combine them all into this one and delete the others. Hold on!

[liam821]

And just like that, it's GONE! The short version is while I really want to do the M3 widebody (fenders/hood etc) on the sedan, I don't want to drop $15-20k on paint and bodywork right now. And I'm not much of a silver car guy. Thankfully I found my Japanrot red 330i msport and will be putting my k24 package into that car.

A nice guy from Vancouver, WA came down and picked up my silver shell and is going to turn it into a pro-drift car with an LS.

The last picture...

[liam821]

Does the app your using use the front or rear LiDAR?

You can use either one, the front lidar sensor is more detailed but not as wide and extremely hard to use because you can't look at the screen very well when you're taking a scan. But the rear one is more than detailed enough for most car part design or 3d model or objects.

For instance, here is a fountain my wife liked. It's about 20" tall. From the scan you can directly 3d print it or import it into Meshmixer or Fusion to modify it.

[Bry5on]

The iPhone LIDAR is pretty garbage for scans in my experience. The rear LIDAR is useless for anything other than walls in your house and the front one doesn’t map very accurately. Photogrammetry scans seem to come out way better.

Very cool project build you’ve got going here, I hope you corner weigh it when it’s done!

[Obioban]

Yeah, It's used for FaceID and basically nothing else.

Does the app your using use the front or rear LiDAR?

[liam821]

It's funny how the iPhones have LIDAR, and it gets used for... almost nothing.

Yeah, It's used for FaceID and basically nothing else.

[Obioban]

Apple iPhone 14 ProMax! I'm using a piece of software called Scaniverse, it's pretty great.

Here is a scan of a temporary k24 I have, checkout the nice inspection window! It's accurate down to about a mm, which is fine for making motor mounts and such.


Here is an idea of what a scan looks like

It's funny how the iPhones have LIDAR, and it gets used for... almost nothing.

[liam821]

What 3D scanner are you using?

Apple iPhone 14 ProMax! I'm using a piece of software called Scaniverse, it's pretty great.

Here is a scan of a temporary k24 I have, checkout the nice inspection window! It's accurate down to about a mm, which is fine for making motor mounts and such.


Here is an idea of what a scan looks like

[Cronenberged]

What 3D scanner are you using?

[liam821]

Got 10mm spacers in the mail and 10mm longer M10 12.9 grade bolts (M10x40)


They'll go on the transmission mount like this. If I had a slant 6 bell housing (135i/e92/f80m3) dct I probably wouldn't need to do this, but the s65 bell housing is really wide


Mount installed with the spacers


Finally bolts right up!


The engine is just about right where it needs to be. There is a 1 degree up angle towards the back of the transmission. So I'm either going to have to raise the motor a few mm or lower the back of the transmission a few mm. I'm probably going to lower the transmission just a tiny bit as I'd like to keep the engine as low as possible.


All the room for a big turbo setup! I was eyeballing turbo placement with an EFR7064 turbine housing off my race car.


The engine is as far back as I can get it. Almost all behind the steering rack


Just squeezes in under the factory hvac cawl. I'll probably end up using a low-profile valve cover anyway since getting the valve cover on and off is tight with the stock one.


The dct does not stick below the frame rails, thankfully


It's a massive transmission






I've done a 3d scan of the engine bay and will start designing motor mounts in Fusion360. I'll post some pictures of how that goes.

[jpy1980]

Oooo exciting build series!

At least with pushing the engine forward 10mms you can access the engine oil fill cap without taking off the cabin filter housing. Win win! =)

[liam821]

Got the new e89/e92 non-m DCT transmission mount in the mail today! Here is the side-by-side with the e9Xm3 style mount. The smaller one is the e89/e92 non-m one. If you're wondering, yes, both mounts fit either transmission. All four transmission versions are essentially the same except for gear ratio and bell-housing combinations. They all feature the same input spline, filters, and oil pan. There are two V8 bell housings (e9Xm3 short-ratios and the F10m5 long-ratios) and two slant/6 bell housings (135/335/z4 short ratios and F80m3/m4 which was a long ratio). My gearbox is an e92m3 short-ratio because it had the best support from the DME I'll be using (MaxxECU) and has the short ratios. She's thick three c's here big.





SeemsLegitGarage trans crossmount with e89 non-m mount


aannnnddddd it just doesn't fit... the transmission is back as far as it goes and is hitting the transmission tunnel. You can see the bolt holes just don't line up.


Lifetime fill lolz


What I think I'm going to do is put a 10mm spacer on the back of the transmission mount to push the engine and trans forward 10mm. I'd rather have the engine as far back as possible, but moving it 10mm still puts the engine in a good place, will allow me to use a stock Honda valve cover, and the transmission fits. It puts the front of the engine about 21" from the rear firewall.

[liam821]

I first thought I was going to do a full dry sump system, but after talking with Robert at Tractuff I'm going to do a wet sump external oil pump solution. Basically, I'll chop the front off the stock oil pan (where the OEM oil pump lives) and move the oil pickup to the back - I'll make the back wider so I can keep ~5 quarts of oil.





Robert@Tractuff's e46m3 with a k-swap.

Nice lack of fold through!

Yes! Thanks! I wanted a non-folding rear since the chassis is much stiffer and almost on pair with an e46m3.

Just joining the thread, can't wait to see the progress!

Same! The replacement transmission mounts should come in the mail tomorrow. I'll start working on building engine mounts this week.

[b-thumper]

Just joining the thread, can't wait to see the progress!