s38 transplant

[madrid]

I have a very basic 89 520i originally imported from germany and i've had it for 6 years. I am currently looking at transplanting an s38 3.8l motor into my baby. A contact of mine says he has already found a possible source for the powerplant i wanted and will keep me posted as he scouts for more possible sources.
My question is how difficult could the swap be? Honestly? What I love about my car is its simplicity. My car has very very few electronics as compared to the higher end e34 models and i'd like to keep it that way. Now:
1. If the electronics of the donor car is bad, is it possible to run the engine with a non-standard ecu? I know motec is expensive but will this work? what other options do I have?
2. Would the use of tripple side draft webbers work? i'll have to sort out the ignition part with Electromotive ignition to run with the crank sensor.
3. If the original ecu and harness is still good, is it possible to simplify the system and get rid of all other electronics such as the check control module? Again, this is just to make it as simple as possible.

I know i'll have to upgrade the brakes and suspension as well. That part is quite straight forward. what worries me is really all the essential electronic stuff that comes with the engine.

Please help...

[VentoGT]

The S38 Motor swap is far from simple--do some searches here and on bimmerforums.com and check out m5board.com. Most everyone is going to tell you that you should just pony up and buy an ///M5. From what I have read about S38 transplants, you would basically need an entire ///M5 donor car to get all of the necessary parts off of it to transplant, and then you still have a 520 with an ///M5 powerplant.

[madrid]

M5's are very hard to come by in my part of the globe. There are only a few and are either hardly affordable or hardly running. I'm actually looking at buying the front part of an m5, everything from the front bumper to just aft of the a-pillar. Of course i do have to take into account the unknown condition of the car before it was chopped.

[bimmerd00d]

Brandon J has performed this swap on his '93 525i, i'm sure he'll have a few words of wisdom for you.

[madrid]

Any other inputs? Brandon J?

[Toomas]

Just get M5 imported from Germany or something.
Salvaged engine and tranny will propably cost you an arm and a leg anyways and you have like no clue if they are even working.
Engine rebuild can cost you like $7k or more, there are no official repair parts for the tranny and new one costs something like $4k, good used trannys are hard to find because they are rather problematic.
Not to mention 3.8 is a rather poor choise, the block has been taken to its limit bore wise and thus the cylinder walls can crack.
I would rather get 3.6 and bore it to 3.8.
Also 3.6 is not as complex, it has no vanos etc.

Anyways good luck.

[Brandon J]

Next time do a search. I found this searching under "M5 conversion."

http://www.bimmer.info/forum/showthread.php?t=22444&highlight=conversion





Any other inputs? Brandon J?

[madrid]

Just get M5 imported from Germany or something.
Salvaged engine and tranny will propably cost you an arm and a leg anyways and you have like no clue if they are even working.
Engine rebuild can cost you like $7k or more, there are no official repair parts for the tranny and new one costs something like $4k, good used trannys are hard to find because they are rather problematic.
Not to mention 3.8 is a rather poor choise, the block has been taken to its limit bore wise and thus the cylinder walls can crack.
I would rather get 3.6 and bore it to 3.8.
Also 3.6 is not as complex, it has no vanos etc.

Anyways good luck.

I didn't think the 3.8 had vanos. i'll see if they can get me the 3.6 instead.
Thanks!

[madrid]

Next time do a search. I found this searching under "M5 conversion."

http://www.bimmer.info/forum/showthread.php?t=22444&highlight=conversion

Thank you!

[Toomas]

Sorry my mistake, it does not have Vanos.