I'm looking to join the club with the rest of you guys who are building (or have built) an S54 swapped touring. I'd been searching for a while to find the right car to start with and was recently able to grab this one from Virginia and drive it 1200 miles back to Wisconsin:
https://forum.e46fanatics.com/showpost.php?p=18402439&postcount=2344
It took a really long time to find what I was looking for but I was finally able to pick up the car that checked (almost) all my boxes. Red, manual trans, power seats, xenons and sport package. Even though I'll be swapping in a S54, 6 speed manual, and M3 subframes I wanted to be able to enjoy this car a little bit as it is before tearing it completely apart. Plus I figured starting with a car that already had a manual trans would save me the work of swapping over a manual pedal box and adding the clutch hydraulics. Power seats were also a must, because as far as I know cars with manual seats are not prewired to easily swap in power seats.
The only major downside to this car is that it has a grey interior, so my latest project has been tracking down black interior parts to swap over. Instead of doing a full black interior I'm thinking I will keep the grey seats, and do grey/black door cards similar to the factory 2-tone option you could get in europe. Basically it'll be like a US spec natural brown 2-tone look but with grey instead of brown.
Here's a euro spec grey/black interior LEDER CHAMELEON/KIESELGRAU (V3KA)
For now I'm storing the car in my garage over winter and driving my 325i sedan while I stockpile parts for the touring. I'm also on the lookout for a good donor M3... I'm lucky to have copart and IAA auction sites across the road from where I work so I'm keeping a close eye on a few salvage websites.
For the exterior I basically plan on giving it the ZHP treatment w/ Mtech front/rear bumpers & skirts with either the style 135 ZHP wheels or possibly the staggered 18" style 189 5 spoke wheels from the E9x. My '04 sedan has the sport package 17" style 119's and I dig the way those look, so the 189's are very similar but a size up.
Major respect and credit to all those who have done this engine swap before and have documented so much invaluable info here on the board. I'm looking forward to all the work, problem solving, and challenges this project will bring. My goal with this thread is to do as much documentation as possible starting with what's essentially Phase 1: Parts hording and interior disassembly. I'll get into that in future posts.
https://forum.e46fanatics.com/showpost.php?p=18402439&postcount=2344
It took a really long time to find what I was looking for but I was finally able to pick up the car that checked (almost) all my boxes. Red, manual trans, power seats, xenons and sport package. Even though I'll be swapping in a S54, 6 speed manual, and M3 subframes I wanted to be able to enjoy this car a little bit as it is before tearing it completely apart. Plus I figured starting with a car that already had a manual trans would save me the work of swapping over a manual pedal box and adding the clutch hydraulics. Power seats were also a must, because as far as I know cars with manual seats are not prewired to easily swap in power seats.
The only major downside to this car is that it has a grey interior, so my latest project has been tracking down black interior parts to swap over. Instead of doing a full black interior I'm thinking I will keep the grey seats, and do grey/black door cards similar to the factory 2-tone option you could get in europe. Basically it'll be like a US spec natural brown 2-tone look but with grey instead of brown.
Here's a euro spec grey/black interior LEDER CHAMELEON/KIESELGRAU (V3KA)
For now I'm storing the car in my garage over winter and driving my 325i sedan while I stockpile parts for the touring. I'm also on the lookout for a good donor M3... I'm lucky to have copart and IAA auction sites across the road from where I work so I'm keeping a close eye on a few salvage websites.
For the exterior I basically plan on giving it the ZHP treatment w/ Mtech front/rear bumpers & skirts with either the style 135 ZHP wheels or possibly the staggered 18" style 189 5 spoke wheels from the E9x. My '04 sedan has the sport package 17" style 119's and I dig the way those look, so the 189's are very similar but a size up.
Major respect and credit to all those who have done this engine swap before and have documented so much invaluable info here on the board. I'm looking forward to all the work, problem solving, and challenges this project will bring. My goal with this thread is to do as much documentation as possible starting with what's essentially Phase 1: Parts hording and interior disassembly. I'll get into that in future posts.