Completed my v8 swap from 3.0L to 4.0L and love it with free-flow exhaust.

[bimerguycw]

First, thanks so much for all the trouble-shooting on the bad Cyl #1 and advice about possible repairs.

I had some posts a few months ago about what turned-out to be a bad piston ring in cyl #1 in my 95 530iA and decided to replace it with a 4.0L long-block with low miles and finished it and man what a difference in the performance.

I found that both cat convs where crumbled and replaced them with free-flow magnaflows and removed the resonator and it's even more responsive in addition to the 3L to 4L swap. The exhaust flow makes a real difference when opening-up the throttle even with my 3.0L MAF(4.0L MAF on the way).

[Tiger]

Glad you joined us 540 guys... Congrats on conversion.

[632 Regal]

definetly leave the 530 badge on it...shoot swap it out with a 525 badge :D

Now I'm wondering how the trans will hold up, only rated at a low HP figure.

[Evan]

do you have a link to the free-flow magnaflows you're using?

[bimerguycw]

I had the same concern and I spoke with Pete McHenry in NC that I now has ALOT of bimmer tuning and conversion capabilities and he said the 5HP18 would be okay as-is.

I plan to drive it moderately over-all but it will be had to hold-back. Being a recent swap and fine tuning ALL those sub-assemblies after re-assembly I will not want to run it too hard for a few weeks to be sure all things are well.

[bimerguycw]

Magnaflow site with BMW v8 4.0L univ cat convs:

http://www.car-sound.com/02product/shopdisplayproducts.asp?portal=49State&make=BMW&id=138&cat=540i

I bought (2) of the Model 94005 from an e-Bayer that had them for $52 ea including shipping and here's there info.:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=012&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=220103751527&rd=1,1

The (2) separate cats where installed at a slant to the tranny tunnel since them were oval and not round like the OEM. I had them angled on each side of the tranny tunnel at the same angle as the tunnel walls and ran the pipes to the OEM muffler from them and eliminated the resonator.

The sound is a bit louder(not much but sounds better to me) and I will replace the OEM muffler with a MagnaFlow Stainless with tips sometime to improve the "growl and flow to the next level.