What's going on in my shop currently...

[nextelbuddy]

such good content. really can’t go wrong with an s54 swapped zhp. On a side note, how did you source that m3 clutch switch?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's a little more than just s54 swapped zhp lol. It's a full m3 conversion drivetrain and body. 🧐

Funny how people still miss that.


Great work George, imagine getting a car on bat and then finding out how much additional you have to fix and charge out 😓😓 she's in good hands it looks like.

I'd be stressed having you look my car over 😂

That seat belt issue really knocked me on her floor wtf.

[ejendow]

It's a little more than just s54 swapped zhp lol. It's a full m3 conversion drivetrain and body. 🧐

Funny how people still miss that.

I wasn't trying to underplay the build at all. I'll be sure to say it's a 4-door M3 next time just for you.

[nextelbuddy]

I wasn't trying to underplay the build at all. I'll be sure to say it's a 4-door M3 next time just for you.

you do that lol.

i was mainly getting at the fact that I have a chip on my shoulder in regards to the M3 Sedan nomenclature. I also have an imola ZHP sedan converted to M3 sedan and to this day so many m3 enthusiasts still refer to it as an S54 sedan

[George Hill]

Great work George, imagine getting a car on bat and then finding out how much additional you have to fix and charge out 😓😓 she's in good hands it looks like.

I'd be stressed having you look my car over 😂

Lol, I just was this. I try to take everything with a grain of salt. He was looking for a quality swap and thought that was what he was buying, but it was far from it, we went over it with a fine tooth comb at his request. There are lots of swaps out there that "work" but just aren't how we would do it, but since you did it for yourself, it doesn't really matter what I think as long as you are happy.

[George Hill]

Ok, been a little while. We've had a bunch of big projects come into the shop and quite a few little jobs that aren't that "interesting" so this is the reason for the extended update as you all know I usually don't like to present a car until it's done, we just have a few of those going now.

The V10 wagon is "done." It got delivered back around the beginning of December. Last I recall we had changed up the oil cooling system and think we have a handle on that. The next step was getting the AC operating. We wanted to have an OE look inside the cabin and as it is the AC system is a bit of a standalone in that it doesn't interact with the DME or IHKA at all. We had been controlling it with an external on/off switch but it was just out of place. So I had seen where the E39 LS guys were using the LED from the AC button to control the compressor relay. We attempted to mimic that setup, but I don't know if the E39 system is different or they just get lucky because it was much much more complicated to make it work. Believe it or not but the LED for the snowflake button is actually pulse width modulated over a small voltage window and is even influenced by the photocell for the instrument cluster auto dimming. Luckily I have a buddy who is a retired electrical engineer and he came over and helped us build a circuit off the LED to control the compressor relay.




With that sorted out I spent a bit of time driving it around and shaking it down and it was fabulous. So the "last" item before giving it back to Ryan was to address some cosmetics. We had fitted a "ZHP" bumper to the car but needed to address the fog light/brake duct openings. The wagon is originally a no fog light car and with the oil filter housing on the RH side and the oil cooler on the LH side there was no space for brake ducts. I wanted something OE so we took another center grille and chopped it up to fill out the brake duct openings. BUT with the OFH on the RH side it was a bit unsightly so we add a solid panel behind the grill and it gave us the exact look I was after and hid all the unsightly items.








And then we added a grill to the backside of the porkchop to exhaust the air from the oil cooler.




Ryan has been driving it now daily and enjoying the car a ton, I think I might have to build one of these for myself some day....


Marc sent us his 3.0 swapped and ESS TS supercharged touring all the way from West Virginia because it was having some drivability issues and we were thinking about swapping the auto trans to a DCT. After arriving we drove the car a ton and made a to do list for it which we started chipping away at.




A bunch of warning lights were on due to aftermarket lights and components installed, those were all corrected with coding.






The DCT project was shelved because the aftermarket software to control it is just not where it should be at this point so the decision was made to swap a S6-37 6MT
from a ZHP in it. Marc got a complete kit shipped in and we replaced a bunch of wear items and converted his wagon to 3 pedals.














Next, a long time customer sent a S54 for us to go through and have ready for a back-up to his endurance race car M3. It had been sitting awhile and generally what we do for him is tear it down to a long block. Go through all of the Vanos, replace the rod bearings and address any other minor things that need to be done so he can just throw it in the car and go when the time comes.

As we started taking it apart we found a little creature had been living in the coolant passages of the engine. I didn't get a pic of everything we removed but it filled a plastic solo cup up about 2". We ended up pulling the head off to clean everything out.






Someone had already been into this engine before as there were head studs installed, which made pulling the head a much quicker option. But they had also left behind some shoddy work. Instead of replacing this coolant pipe o-ring they just slathered on a bunch of black rtv which severely restricted the coolant flow.






And then they had re-drilled the vanos pump disc, but it was still much to large. The stock holes were in excellent shape and the redrilled were starting to wear ironically. The customer had a turbo toy hub in his pile of parts so we installed that and re-used the original tab holes.

[George Hill]

Pt2
We've also started on a ZHP/S54 conversion, we've just been disassembling, assessing and cleaning parts so far. This is going to be a really extensive build. New everything in the suspension, all the maintenance, euro exhaust, CAI, tune, etc. It should be a real nice driving hot rod.

Disassembly of the M3 donor, you'll note almost everything under the car is removed as there are a bunch of small items that are M3 specific that often get overlooked with these swaps.






And the donor car was a SMG that had some intermittent gear position sensor faults so the preivous owner had bypassed the all the failsafes and was directly hotwiring the starter to get it started. LOL, but it worked.






I met up with some guys who a starting a company to offer some more products for the E46 platform. One of these is a new take on replacement shifters, I can't go into any more detail than that, but it looks like it could be a very cool product. During our conversations I found out they were wanting to 3d scan a S6-53 6MT transmission (what would come behind a E9x N54) and I had one loose for another project so I offered to let them scan mine. I've never seen the process in person and it is so cool to see this technology in work. They used a Faro ARM and it was so precise you could read all of the casting information in the model, very cool tech!






This is a video....




I bought a new (used) trailer for the shop. We had been borrowing a buddies, but I was borrowing it more and more and then I stumbled upon this one and I jumped on it.




My truck with the trailer. This is "Ron Burgundy," he was purchsed by my GrandPa new in '95 and was passed down to me when he stopped driving about 9-10 years ago now. It's funny to see how things have changed and all of these new 1/2 ton+ trucks (and even the ranger/s10/etc) trucks blow this thing out of the water on paper. But it's such a good truck and pulls well as long as you are mindful of the load, it just can't be replaced.




Then new tires for RB and the trailer (along with some for a buddys SBF swapped Volvo wagon).




Along with mobile mounting and balancing.




Machined another batch of SMG conversion bell housings.




A friend of the shop happened to be at the junkyard and posted a pic of a ZHP, I saw it still had a shifter and... the complete transmission. It was to late in the day, but we were there first thing in the morning the next day and scored big. Almost everything was there that made it a ZHP. It was a bit precarious as the car had been pillaged a bit already, but we made it happen without incident.

[George Hill]

Pt3

I needed to change the oil level sensor on one of my own wagons. It had recently had an oil change so I didn't want to drain and refill so I used this trick that I was taught a long time ago. First, you have to make sure there are no vacuum leaks, if you so you are about to have a mess. You insert the suction line of a shop vac into the oil fill hole and seal it tightly. Next turn on the vacuum and you can unbolt AND remove the oil level sensor without draining the oil.







This is a video....




I've been hoarding M3 donor cars, but ended up finding two of them a forever home. I pulled the parts I needed and sent them on their way to a new life.

Car#1, 10yrs ago vs when I got it vs now. It is getting a Ford Coyote engine and going to become a dedicated track car.


















Car#2 is getting a LS and will be a street car.








And to wrap up this update, I got Eileen over to the dyno to see what her little 2.5L makes. I was pleasantly surprised at 171whp.








This is a video...

[George Hill]

As usual the shop has been jamming away on really cool projects.

We had an E46 M3 come in so we could address some RACP issues. The car had previously been fitted with plates, but they were not welded and prepped after the fact as we would like and there were some popped spot welds and cracked seams that were not repaired.








We started by stripping all of the old undercoating off, identified what need to be done and finished the welding for the plates. Then we stitch welded the wheelwell seams, trailing arm pockets and upper spring perches. Then seam sealed and painted.




Next moved up top and added bracing from CMP auto engineering.








Then reinstalled the subframe with some upgrades including a very cool 4.10 gear diff from diffsonline.






And lastly added new wheel bearings with Core4 Motorsports press-in studs.




We left off with Eileen on the dyno, the reason for that is she is getting a new heart. I loved that little M54 and it was a seriously good engine that gave me 0 issues but it just didn't make enough beans for these long straight tracks. Now that I've been tracking a bit more I usually run in the advanced or so groups and I just can't keep up with corner speeds alone. Now it's not a race but at CoTA I will get 116/117mph on the back straight but other cars in my group will do 140+. SO, there is only one choice ... S54.

Out with the M54. It's incredible the exhaust didn't fall off, literally half the manifold studs/nuts were loose or missing.








I prepped one of the S54s I had on a stand. Vanos rebuild and a set of rod bearings later its ready to go in.












So I kind of lied a bit, there were other engine choices that made sense for this build, but I have a set of these Kromer Kraft headers I pulled off a customers E36. We installed them on his S54/E36 build but found they just were to hard to work around in the heat of the moment at the track (the car is an endurance racer), so we traded labor and I kept the headers. This car had the most incredible sound and I fell in love with them. So because I had these headers sitting on the shelf that is really the primary reason for this build, that's really it just to run this exhaust. Lol








Next, I've found that with our swaps often times unless someone is a S54 fan they don't realize the car isn't stock so I wanted to do something fun to highlight the swap. Liam provided a file to 3d print an adapter to mount the stock plenum velocity stacks to the ITBs and I decided to give it a try. I know that everyone is going to say the heat soak is real, but I want to play with some different ideas and see what we can come up with. If it truely kills a ton of power we'll swap to a Karbonius V1 plenum I have here.








SMG harness thinned of excess wiring.








Normally I wouldn't pull the front end to swap the engine but I knew the headers were going to be a bit of work so I did it to help facilitate that.








The headers were designed to use the E36 support arms which would work on this setup, but it would also move the engine back. Which normally wouldn't be an issue but I wanted to keep the engine in the stock location to try out a GS6-53 (E9x 6MT) swap kit we are working on. So we had our fab guy make an engine support arm with the E46 pickup points but the E36 form factory and that got it all where it needed to be.










Custom driveshaft for the GS6-53 conversion.




And running albeit with some details left, but at least she moves under her own power again.




While I liked the Harlequin theme it sure made the car stick out, but it was time to be all one color again.






Also, swapped doors with a street car project. The street car had a crunch door and while I don't like Eileen having a beat up door, I'd prefer that car to have the nice one of the two. I should have just painted another door when I was doing the paintwork, but it didn't occur to me until later, lol.




Getting there...




This post is getting pretty long, so I'll wrap it up and continue on at a later date.

[George Hill]

Lack of updates but not lack of progress and shop fun. I mostly post on Instagram now, but I need to keep up my forum posts as at the end of the day I DO prefer this media. So, here's a long but condensed update on some of the highlights that came through the shop in the last year.

We left off with Eileen getting some paint work, and now all back together.




After some datalogging I decided to put on my Karbonious CSL plenum and after some tuning the car made a bit less than I hoped for but the sound was incredible. We were chasing some issues with the combination that most thought were the header design, so I swapped back to a stock intake and MAF tune and started running that setup. My goal was to do whatever it takes to keep the headers because of their sound.




The KK headers gave me some issues and so I swapped them temporarily (although they are still on now) for a set of Euros and then put the CSL plenum back on... so many changes are you keeping up? lol Tracked the car with that setup and the S6-53 and it was really good, definitely happy with it.




Then we changed it up and took the car to Hot Rod DragWeek which is a 5 day long drag and drive event. Starts at a dragstrip on Monday and then every day you make at least one pass and drive to the next track, typically 275 +/- miles away. You do this until eventually ending back at the first track on Friday. Car with the lowest average wins. We were not competitive, just doing it to do it and prove the car.






We did have to put a clutch in the car (to be fair I had a feeling it needed to be done and should have replaced it before the trip). Luckily there was a guy following the event with a mobile lift and that made it a bit of an easy swap. We also "sealed the hood," which means over the entire event we never opened the hood. So a dozen or so 1/4 mile passes and over 1000 miles with no issues other than the clutch, very happy with that.






We suspected the engine was heat soaking and so after we completed the event we pulled the hood and ran our quickest time of 12.89 @ 107mph which was a bit off what I hoped for but overall I was super happy with the car and the experience. And then on the way home stopped at Hallett Motor Racing Circuit for some road racing... love this car.






Since then I did some more driving with the setup as is and proved the S6-53 combo and swap as a worthwhile option against other transmission swaps. But this car is not just to have fun but to also test products and ideas, so... Out with the 6MT and in with the ZF8 automatic transmission.











This is an 8HP45 auto transmission from a 2014 535i F10. It is controlled by a standalone TCU by TurboLamik. Combined with an F10 shifter and SSG steering wheel with paddles, this is a ridicuously fun combination.

We then loaded the car up and went to Florida to attend another drag and drive event called Sick Week, same format as Drag Week, just a different promoter. This combo was basically unproven but went fabulously. Ultimately we didn't run as fast but it's got potential to be much quicker. We found the torque converter is just to tight and won't let the engine rev up on the launch. When we made passes with the 6MT, I'd launch around 5-5500 RPM, but with the auto we leave about 2200 RPM so the engine just bogs until it gets some RPM. Once its revved up, it flies. Looking at the split times, if we can make the car launch as fast as the 6MT it's going to pick up 2-3 tenths overall. The auto gave us NO issues and its an excellent option at this point now that we can see where we need to modify the setup.








This post ended up being much longer than I had planned... I guess I'll continue it with customer cars next.

[George Hill]

Back to customer work...

Built an E39T with a S62 swap. Slate green metallic on black and at first I wasn't impressed with this color combo but after it was done the touches Francis added really made me a believer, I am super in love with the look of this car. We did all the usual freshening, installed KW Coilovers and kept the rear self leveling. SuperSprint headers, aftermarket cats and dual exhaust out the back. Francis had the all the seats redone and the rears where patterned after the M5 to complete the look.












An E90 M3 in to replace the DCT transmission and install BE rod bearings.








Hail threat had the shop stuffed and this is a pretty cool grouping of cars.
1. E39 Touring with S62
2. E30 Touring with Euro S50
3. E46 M3, well setup HPDE car
4. E36 M3 with S54
5. E36 Track car
6. E46 Touing in line for S54 swap
7. The shops Fox Turbo S52 project






Rod bearings on an E60 M5, again BE's when in here.








We started producing parts for transmission swaps. If you want to install a transmission from a N5x car they just about bolt up without issue but on those engines the starter bolts to the block and on the M/S5x engines the starter bolts to the transmission. So when you mate a M/S5x engine to a N5x trans there is no where to attatch the starter. Some companies make adapter plates that sandwhich between the block and trans but then those require custom flywheels as well. Our solution allows these transmissions to be used with an OE design clutch/flexplate kit which makes these swaps operate very much like a factory car. We've got these now in HPB cars, but also in some DCT, S6-53 and 8HP swaps around the world.








Here's the E30T with the Euro S50 swap, came in with some drivability issues related to failed intake hoses. But once we started down the rabbitt hole we found a bunch of issues with the swap and really started sorting out this car as best as possible which ultimately led to another set of injectors, a DME, custom tune by Mark D'Sylva, reworking the throttle linkage to get WOT, new wheel bearing and hub, rebuilding the drivesahft and a new transmission crossmember and shift lever.

[George Hill]

I know, 2 posts in one day, lol.... Continuing on...

Scrapped George's 330i sedan donor

Video: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQJItm5Jf4S/


Vanos service on Mpower04 LSB M3










The shop picked up an E53 X5 that had been sitting for a long time... Normally a titan silver with gray interior X5 doesn't interest me but this one happened to have a manual transmission. Luckily it was misdiagnosed and it took longer to fix what they had done (trying to start it) than it did to actually get it going. The plan was to sort out its issues, swap the interior to black and small lift with all terrain tires. Here we are 9 months later and its still not on the road, lol. The black interior is almost done and some other add ons created a huge time suck (as most projects do).










HPB started working with a company to produce Carbon Fiber slicktop roof skins for E46 tourings. It's been a long journey but we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

IMG_7274 by George, on Flickr










Built another S54 touring, this one turned out real nice. It was a pleasure to work with Paras as he is a true enthusiast and we have similar view points on how these cars should be built. His car was already VERY clean (and nicely sorted) and now we just made it that better.








Empty....








He already had the RACP reinforced but we addressed a couple spots that were missed.










The usual on the engine.






90k mile rod bearings.




Broken Vanos hub tab.




Wiring modifications.








Modern Sanden A/C compressor conversion for Bob's E28 and evaporator replacement while we were at it.

[lvm3sm46]

love the E30 touring, maybe one day

[George Hill]

love the E30 touring, maybe one day

It is a sweet car and a hoot to drive with the S50.

[George Hill]

I'm still way behind, we left off in August of '21...

Did a bunch of work on a pair of E65s, I know most people don't like these for whatever reason but I think they got a bad rap and I while I wouldn't want it as my only car they do drive nice.












Then drove 750 miles round trip to pickup a basket case of an E46 M3... 218k miles, no start, SMG issues, hadn't run in years and very neglected. Lots of work to get it "sorted" but finally got it up and running. It had some sketchy "custom" wiring to the SMG pump that didn't work, replacing the pump got it to and start. Once running it had lots of Vanos faults which ended up being a faulty vanos unit that was worn and creating to little pressure to properly operate the system. I then sorted everything to make it a "complete" donor and now I need to sell it... ideally to someone wanting to DIY a sedan/touring conversion.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSzA1uArwDu/

Timing just a bit off...




Broken tab...






Backwards diaphragm spring...




Filth...




Stripped (now fixed) bolt threads...



But, all clean and going back together.






Only to find the system fails the Vanos test after (2) consecutive runs. After a bunch of parts swapping to know exactly what the issue was and with the help of Rajaie at Beisan Systems we found the vanos oil pump shaft was worn, the shaft diameter should be 26.070mm and we measured it as low as 26.04mm. According to Raj, just a .01mm loss would be a problem.

A new (to the car) and freshened vanos unit was installed and now the engine is running like a sewing machine.


Ivan brought his touring in as he was having some electrical issues which were traced down to a burnt contact on the ignition switch. At the same time we knocked out some other maintenance including coolant pipes, crankcase vent valve, coils, interior trim and wipers.








Then Aldwin brought in his touring for a misfire and vibration on acceleration. Found it had a cracked spark plug so he got new spark plugs and coils too. The vibration ended up being a wasted center support bearing.








Crystal dropped off her new (to her) M3...




The RACP had been previously reinforced but this crack in the LR wheel arch was missed, so a quick repair got it cleaned up.








The rear shock comes out for that repair and was found to be missing the paper gasket between the mount and the body. This will cause an audible noise and even when these cars were new people would complain about it, BMWs fix was to just add a second gaskets so for her we added (2) new gaskets per side.






Also found the front springs not oriented on the struts correctly.






The car was also due for a valve adjustment and while the Vanos had been "done" before there were some overlooked items so it came all back apart to correct these oversights.




Next, Mike brought his 38k mile M3 in for a Vanos lookover... only 38k miles and the vanos bolts were broken.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTVrHe7JrVx/

This post is getting long so I'll wrap it up here.

[oceansize]

I've said it before buy my pocketbook is damn lucky you don't live close to me because I would be horrendously lazy if you did.