E46 Fanatics Forum banner

Build thread - 2010 to Now - S54 sedan

37K views 105 replies 47 participants last post by  Levim9 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey fanatics! I've never setup a build thread so I might as well now. My 2001 325i is just about at 200k miles and I've decided to make some big changes. Honestly the car has been fun and enjoyable and I don't have plans of getting rid of it. It's about to get a whole lot funner. :4ngie: Cosmetically, the car needs some work but that will come in time. Right now I'm focused on getting it running in top shape.

I know some of the picture quality sucks ITT. Sorry - Will try to get good pictures when I have the car back in couple weeks! :D Also this is sort of a teaser thread. I plan on taking more detailed pictures of everything installed then.

Some recent mods in the past 2 years:

- 17x9 D'Force LTW5 wheels: Loved these wheels but somehow bent one. I found a set of BBS RKs on craigslist last fall within driving distance and bought them and sold the 3 LTW5s.

- Rear Shock Brace: Took a welding class in school and bought myself a Hobart 180 Mig welder. I ended up making a custom rear shock brace and had it powder coated by a local shop. I really can't notice any performance gain but it looks cool and might stiffen the chassis slightly. It's better than the cheap ebay ones but I'd love to upgrade to the mason engineering brace in the future.

- BMW Performance Strut Brace: I bought this when all the BMW Performance stuff went on sale. Looks great and is lightweight!

- Valentine 1 Radar Detector and Uniden BCT-12 Police Scanner

- M3 Tri-Stitch Steering Wheel: Bought this used from a fanatic. It's one of my favorite upgrades.

- Mtech I Front Bumper: I had some front end damage after hitting a fox. Literally right after this happened So Lowww was selling his Mtech I in Jet Black. I drove down to Philly right after school to get it lol. Thanks Khalil!

- 330 Front Brakes, Stoptech Front and Rear Rotors, Stoptech Pads, Stoptech SS Lines, Vorshlag 75mm Stud Kit : Bought the 330 brakes from a fanatic and rest of the brake parts from Anthony at Bimmerbrakes. Thanks guys for the quality parts!

- Cosmos Racing Intake: Sounded nice. I went with the Amsoil dry filter and also had the Amsoil hydro filter to prevent hydro lock. This is a great intake for the price. It's not flashy looking like an AFE or BMW Performance intake but it's a true CAI.

- ebay lip spoiler

- BBS RK wheels 17X8 - I actually found these by mistake. I found a set of steel wheels down near Philly on craigslist and contacted the seller. They were already sold but asked me if I was interested in RKs. Got a good deal so picked them up and sold the D'Forces. Turns out he's a fanatic on here too. They were too small for his M3 but fit my sedan perrrfectly. :)

------------------------------------------------------------

Now for the stuff I'm VERY excited about! :excited:

I dropped the car off at Motorcepts in NY last weekend for an s54 swap.

It's getting an s54 with 76k miles, 6 speed transmission, complete M3 rear end, JVT headers, Active Tuned ECU, UUC Clutch, and UUC SSK. I can't wait to drive it but the wait is killer.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so now I have a build thread! I'll update pictures and maybe gopro video in the next couple weeks when the car comes together. Thanks for looking :hi:

.
.
.
.
.

D'Force LTW5s after getting them on.


lol suby rally mode..


Flange design for the rear shock brace



Flanges cut and pipe.



Welded and test fitted.



Finished project - I forget who got the other but I sent one out to a fanatic. :) I don't have any installed pics. Looks like sh!t without the trunk liner but with the trunk liner installed and slit properly the bar looks amazing.



BMW Performance Strut Brace





Snow pics.





Valentine 1



Uniden BCT12 scanner picking up Pennsylvania State Police chatter. :p



M3 Tri Stitch Steering Wheel - This replaced my sport wheel.



Mtech I Front Bumper



330 Front Brakes





Cosmos racing intake - sort of the reason I took the foglights out



lip spoiler



BBS RK 17x8







-------------------------------------------------------

Some mods to go with the M conversion

M3 Rear view



Black gauge face from LEDmods. Should look good with orange needles.




Thanks again for looking! I'll keep this updated as the car comes together. :hi:
 
See less See more
23
#38 · (Edited)
Thanks for the comments!

I replaced the front and rear roundels with OEM parts. Also, got that bumper trim that was missing in the last photos. It looks much better. :)




I had a box arrive today! Big thanks to Jurrian at Modbargains for helping me out. :hi: One of these weekends I'll get this installed and let you guys know what I think. I went with the BM4-HDSS with the Streetlight flywheel. The prolight seemed like it might be too light for daily driving but I think the streetlight will be fine.


The UUC clutch that came with the swap was used and must not of been in good condition. It started slipping and rattling bad a few weeks ago so I decided to get a full kit. I'll be set with this setup if I would decide to go FI in the future. :D Anyway I've heard a lot of good things about ACT so I'm excited to get this installed!!


 
#42 · (Edited)
Thanks man, although my exterior is in need of TLC.. hence not many exterior pictures lol

:drool:
PM me how much this costed you. hehehe
I'll send a message tomorrow. :thumbup:

congrats with the swap, if you still need to get the tamper dot fixed try these guys https://www.rpmmotorsport.net/Bmw_Dme___Ews_FAQ_s.html. I know two people who've had success with them and I'm one of them.
Thank you and I don't think I've said the same for you yet. I'm very impressed with the way yours came out. :drool:

I appreciate the link. That's something I still have to figure out but didn't know where to get help. I'll definitely check them out.
 
#43 ·
Looking good.
 
#44 · (Edited)
Thanks! I hope to have some real updates soon. I've just been gathering parts the past few weeks. :p

I saw a black non-sunroof headliner from a ZHP a few weeks ago. It's the first "used" black non-sunroof headliner I've seen since I've been modding so I jumped right on it. Then on black friday I took advantage of the deals and ordered the rest of the parts to complete the black interior swap.

This is all on order and should be here any day:
51437902933 body hardware, pillars, rocker & floor, interior trim, w/s pillar trim STATION WAGON, black Left 1
51437902934 body hardware, pillars, rocker & floor, interior trim, w/s pillar trim STATION WAGON, black Right 1
51437902805 COVERING 2
51437902935 body hardware, pillars, rocker & floor, interior trim, upr ctr plr trim SEDAN, black Left 1
51437902936 body hardware, pillars, rocker & floor, interior trim, upr ctr plr trim SEDAN, black Right
51437902937 body hardware, quarter panel, interior trim, upper qtr trim SEDAN, black Left 1
51437902938 body hardware, quarter panel, interior trim, upper qtr trim SEDAN, black Right 1
63257219086 electrical, rear lamps, high mounted stop lamp, high mount lamp SEDAN, black 1


These are the parts I received from a wrecked ZHP. The headliners actually in perfect condition. The spots are just wood shavings and it'll be vacuumed before install.



All the pillars are peeling now so it's gonna be nice having them replaced with new parts :D




Got these in the mail today, used Hotchkis M3 sway bars. I believe the front bar fits non-ms so I should be able to use both. These will be a nice change because I'm running the original non-m front sway bar with an M3 rear sway bar. Hotchkis said they'd hook me up with the needed hardware. :thumbup:



Got a bunch of other little parts (mainly clutch related) and hoping to have this back on the road soon. I miss driving it lol :cry:

 
#45 ·
Excellent update bud. Looking forward to the completion.
 
#48 ·
Sorry for the lack of updates. The cars been sitting in my cold warehouse and I wasn't too motivated to work on it. It's back on the road now and I've put about 1.5k miles on since the clutch job. This was the first time I've ever changed a clutch so I'm glad it worked out. I took my time, used proper torques, and made sure everything was done right. Thank goodness for all the DIYs on here!



Dropping the exhaust, drive shaft, shifter, and the tranny went smoothly. Then I power washed the transmission on a pallet. There were leaks from every seal so they were all replaced. Also replaced the side to side reverse/5th gear pins and springs because I had the transmission out.



Changing the output shaft had me stuck for a while. It required a 36mm socket to get the nut off. Turns out my socket wasn't deep enough.




So I bought an autocraft 36mm impact socket. I was told the walls of impact sockets would be too thick to fit but the socket I found at advance auto had almost the same diameter as my short 36mm. It was a very tight fit! I got the nut off but then the flange or whatever it's called wouldn't come off. I used a three arm puller with a cordless snap on impact gun and a lot of lube and it finally came off.




After all the transmission seals were replaced I pulled the clutch & flywheel and replaced the rear main seal because it was accessible. Yep, lot's of surface rust back there. One of the coolant lines had a hole so I replaced that line and cleaned up the back of the block with scotch brite and brake cleaner.





This cap looked leaky so the gasket was replaced. The previous oil drain plug was stripped :facepalm: but luckily the threads weren't damaged so I replaced it with a magnetic plug. $5 shipped from bimmerbumco


I tried the packing grease trick to get the pilot bearing out but I didn't have any shafts that could give it a tight fit. I found a suggestion on a vette forum to rent the "Blind Hole Puller Set" by OEM from Autzone. One good tug and the bearing popped right out. It's $170 but you get every penny back when you bring it back. I'll be renting this tool the next time I change a clutch. :)




Here's a few shots of bolting up the flywheel and clutch. The slave cylinder was the original one from my 325i so I bought a new oem slave cylinder and paired it with a UUC SS clutch line.





The toughest part of this job was getting the transmission back in. I had some friends from school help me out. One of them being dano which is also an e46fanatic! Thanks guys :thumbsup:

Then I changed the constant pressure valve and got the good O rings from a member on m3forum. All of the shifter bushings were changed. Those exhaust gaskets were pretty nasty looking lol. Andddd all new fluids for the engine, transmission, and rear from TMS.






The clutch feels great and I'm glad to be driving it again. I also noticed on some quick 3-4 and 4-5 shifts at night I'm seeing a flash of light behind me. Time to hook up the gopro cam so I can see how big the flames are lol :woot:

 
#54 ·
Yes, I remember you. I figured you were on the forum but didn't know who you were on here. Maybe I'll see you at a show this summer and get to check out the zhp. :D

OMG That black headliner looks so good, i cant wait to get mine installed ones the weather changes.
Very cool, you'll love the black headliner. It changes the look of the interior so much!

:str8pimpi :drool:

This thread :luv:
Thanks everyone :hi:
 
#55 ·
Here's two quick shots of some changes. I know I need to clean all the dust..

I'm in the process of wrapping the trim pieces with 3M Di-Noc Brushed Aluminum and I finally installed the black gauge face from LEDmods. The black headliner swap along with the black gauge face and silver gauge rings with brushed aluminum trim really compliment each other. :)

The gauge face also came with the two bottom gauge pieces. They have the same shiny textured look like the main face but I thought the original pieces looked better so I kept them in.


 
#56 ·
Just read everything again. Fantastic progress man. I'm thinking about holding off on my s54 sedan just cause I'm starting to prefer my ZHP over the s54 sedan. But I'm definitely thinking about it in future. Right now some of the parts from my parts car m3 will probably go in the ZHP ;) keep up the excellent work :drool:
 
#59 ·
Thanks bro I've been keeping up on your ZHP thread. I don't blame you for spending more time with that. Looks perfect and dat power.. :excited:

That interior looks great. Black headliner is my next mod on the list.
You'll love it! Are you planning on custom wrapping or going with oem? I was planning on custom wrapping mine this summer but I found that deal on the wrecked zhp headliner and went that direction. Can't go wrong as long as you use good materials!

Great project! nice engine :)
Thanks! I like your engine as well, maybe I'll have a setup like that..a long time from now. :rofl: Very nice build though, one of the nicest on here :thumbup:
 
#60 · (Edited)
This box showed up today. Got it over half off! I had an afe already but I needed a new filter and I didn't have the heat shield. So now I have the full kit.






I needed new low beam bulbs so I searched for good quality H7s. I'd like HIDs but I'm not ready to make the move yet. I heard these OSRAM 65W bulbs have great light output without being too bright and last a long time. I've been getting tired of the Sylvania Silverstars burning out. I think these OSRAMs are made by Sylvania as well. They're quite a bit cheaper than the Silverstars which is nice. Hopefully they last.




And I thought this was neat. I stuck my gopro on the trunk the other day and got a backfire on cam. This was on a high rpm 4-5th shift. I'll make sure to get a night shot sometime :D

 
#63 · (Edited)
Thanks guys! ^^

Those Osram bulbs are very bright and I haven't had one person high beam me yet so they must not be too bright. The light quality is great for a halogen bulb. I'll let you guys know in the future what I think of them and when they burn out. From my research they seem to be one of the brighter long lasting halogens. I don't have any before shots but here's a pic I took the other night so you have an idea. If you didn't read my previous post I got these Osrams because I was tired of the expensive Sylvania Silverstar Ultras burning out so soon. The Osrams were $27.50 shipped per pair.



The brushed aluminum Di-Noc vinyl trim didn't work out so well. I had it looking perfect but the one night it was really cold and I didn't drive it next day. Another day passed and I got in the car and saw bubbles on all the trim pieces. I was able to smooth out the small ones with heat gun but the large bubbles were still noticeable after flattening them. Now I don't know what I should do..maybe paint them.


After installing the new intake and cleaning the MAF sensor the car really does pull harder than it did before. That old air filter was really dirty.

--------------

:hi: If you'd like to hear the story and see video results of a guy with an LS1 Z28 camaro that was trash talking bmws, PM me and I'll send it. I gave him a surprise. :) I won't be posting it on here.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top