[rothwem]

I'm a little surprised that the transmission will stay up like that with only one side of the crossmember bolted in.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by BB_cuda

Brian, Can you give us another pic at front of diff after the driveshaft was installed? The front of your 2.35 diff is different than 2.81 that comes on a 335d. I'm wondering if you used driveshaft that was made to connect to rear of manual and front of that different youke on your diff. Thank you.

Sure, will try to do that soon. Have to get it off of the lift for the windshield guy this morning.

The front of the diff has threaded inserts and attaches using a giubo, not a splined shaft like the diesel auto diff. I am using a factory driveshaft and giubos with no modifications to either half.

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by rothwem

I'm a little surprised that the transmission will stay up like that with only one side of the crossmember bolted in.

The bolts from the transmission to the engine also help.

[tlow98]

Fantastic build. Appreciate all the documentation along the way. It helps the community a lot. Also, fantastic color choices - meshes really well.

[rothwem]

Originally Posted by Redshift

The bolts from the transmission to the engine also help.

There's only two engine mounts, I would think that the whole thing would just pivot backwards. At least that was what I was worried about when I was changing my transmission mounts. I checked the jack that was under the transmission pan roughly 47 times during the install.

Anyways, did you figure out the new crossmember?

[Redshift]

A little overdue for some updates! Been busy working on the car in between quarantine and other projects.

Windshield needed replacement, so this was a good time:





Got the front end sorted to fit the M-sport bumper with PDC on:



Realized after we had thought all the wiring was more or less complete that the engine fan on the diesel is a much higher wattage unit and the wiring needed to be swapped, so we pulled that from the donor:



Quick bolt-ins to see how things would look:





Roof rail deletes finally installed properly:



Euro center console installed:



Ordered up some tires for my Bimmerworld TA5R wheels. Specs are:

Front: 18x9.5 ET35 -- 12mm spacer -- 265/35/18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S
Rear: 18x10 ET33 -- no spacer yet but could use one -- 275/35/18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S

Now here's the cool part. Factory 328ix skinny 17" wheels and run flat tires weigh quite a bit more than the 18" stickies it will now have:







Now some shots of them mounted before any adjustments were done to the suspension:


















Toss on the front bumper and new gloss black grilles:





A remote coding session with BPM Sport:



And finally, the first start and moving under her own power was last night:

[da_trem]

First, Great work on the conversion.

I too did a full 335d swap in another e9x too some time ago.

I remember swapping the complete chassis/drivetrain wiring of the 335d to the gasoline model.May i ask why you didn't choose that route instead?

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by da_trem

First, Great work on the conversion.

I too did a full 335d swap in another e9x too some time ago.

I remember swapping the complete chassis/drivetrain wiring of the 335d to the gasoline model.May i ask why you didn't choose that route instead?

It was simpler to retrofit the diesel-only features into the gas harness that it was to take all of the features that are present in my wagon and put them back into the 335d harness. Also, a huge amount less work and complication.

[da_trem]

Yes..you are right!..i forgot that the wagon as some features not found on sedan models.

Cheers,
Dave

[dude8383]

What was your final solution on the transmission brace or haven't tackled that?

[ucsbwsr]

Originally Posted by Redshift

Here you can see the issue with converting an AWD chassis to RWD -- the transmission support won't fit. The AWD brace is shown being held up by hand.

Had the same hurdle on my E61 that went from AWD/Auto to RWD/Manual. I have seen more eloquent braces fabricated but this is nice and strong. Too bad BMW didn't have one transmission tunnel for both RWD and AWD.

Hopefully the pic works

[ki_soarer]

This is awesome. That said, Have you considered painting the lower grills gloss black to match the upper grills? Not sure how OEM you want it to look, but I had a buddy do this and it really cleaned up the front end (not that your's isn't clean). Haha. Just tossing out an idea.

[dude8383]

Originally Posted by ucsbwsr

Had the same hurdle on my E61 that went from AWD/Auto to RWD/Manual. I have seen more eloquent braces fabricated but this is nice and strong. Too bad BMW didn't have one transmission tunnel for both RWD and AWD.

Hopefully the pic works
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kh...=w1260-h945-no

Not bad at all. At least its painted to prevent corrosion. Looks beefy and I do like the use of the rubber Rogue mounts there!

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by ki_soarer

This is awesome. That said, Have you considered painting the lower grills gloss black to match the upper grills? Not sure how OEM you want it to look, but I had a buddy do this and it really cleaned up the front end (not that your's isn't clean). Haha. Just tossing out an idea.

Probably not going to do that. They take a lot of road debris/abuse and while they may look great up front, they will not look good for long. And I bought them from FCP so that I can return them for new ones once they start looking gunky.

[BB_cuda]

Originally Posted by ki_soarer

This is awesome. That said, Have you considered painting the lower grills gloss black to match the upper grills? Not sure how OEM you want it to look, but I had a buddy do this and it really cleaned up the front end (not that your's isn't clean). Haha. Just tossing out an idea.

I painted lower grill gloss black when I converted to M3 rep bumper. Looks great. I tried it out on the lower center msport grill first and it was a go.

[ki_soarer]

Originally Posted by Redshift

Probably not going to do that. They take a lot of road debris/abuse and while they may look great up front, they will not look good for long. And I bought them from FCP so that I can return them for new ones once they start looking gunky.

That is a really smart move. Makes perfect sense.

[cozzyman]

Originally Posted by Redshift

Probably not going to do that. They take a lot of road debris/abuse and while they may look great up front, they will not look good for long. And I bought them from FCP so that I can return them for new ones once they start looking gunky.

I did this conversion 2 yrs ago, you will be a happy boy.

[Torgus]

Great build. The stoptech's look great with the rims etc.

Did you ever redyno on a dynojet?

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by Torgus

Great build. The stoptech's look great with the rims etc.

Did you ever redyno on a dynojet?

Not yet. Still working out the tune. May or may not get a custom tune but still working through teething issues with current tune. Getting there! Update to come.

[Redshift]

Some big updates -- sorry for the wait!

After we got it running/fired up we quickly began to finish up details. Found a way to route the rear shock reservoirs through the cargo vents and cleanly (with a little trim) behind the fender liners, etc. Had to change out the rear bumper mounts because they were for non-M sport bumpers, so here are some photos of that. Plus, the shock reservoirs are now hidden in the cargo area behind the carpeted covers but easy to reach and adjust:









Also installed the full M-sport headliner from europe, with a little difference on the main control panel in that it didn't have the USA's "Passenger airbag off" light, so we put the electronics in place but kept the black cover:



Finally got my custom wrapped carbon/stitched trim back:



Then we had to swap the electrical harness from my factory headliner to the black one from Europe as well as cut out the rear speaker covers for the HiFi audio system:



Getting the beautiful interior installed:





Test shot with new M3 steering wheel and ZHP 6-speed shift knob:



I also obtained proper diesel stickers for under the hood (didn't get an "after" shot yet);



Cleaned up the exhaust and underside a bit (straight pipes coming soon for a bit more noise, plus probably black tips for soot control):



Rear end zipped up:



Montego in the sun:




And now, the moment you've been waiting for -- the first ever test drive!

Next, we were working through all the custom coding and realized that the entire DSC system and hard lines needed to be swapped from the 335d donor, so Nick carefully re-pinned the connector (they're different, of course) and we were able to bend both of the hard rear brake lines carefully while swapping the 2 front brake and 2 master cylinder lines for the donor car ones. Problem almost solved but more coding is necessary.





Finally, we zipped up the engine bay and interior:





















Finally, had a friend come and do a quick detail on it so I could safely drive it for an alignment and AC recharge:













And lastly for now, while it's getting tinted and PPF applied, we sent the donor car to it's final resting place:

[ucsbwsr]

Originally Posted by Redshift

Some big updates -- sorry for the wait!

Sick, stoked for you, build looks great.
That map light trim with the airbag delete is one of my favorite touches.

What exactly needed to be changed regarding the DSC? I would assume that since both vehicles are E9X + RWD that the hardlines and pump would be plumbed the same way and compatible compatible. I understand that need for coding and likely swapping the module but why hardlines?

Evan

[Redshift]

Originally Posted by ucsbwsr

What exactly needed to be changed regarding the DSC? I would assume that since both vehicles are E9X + RWD that the hardlines and pump would be plumbed the same way and compatible compatible. I understand that need for coding and likely swapping the module but why hardlines?

The wagon was an AWD car and had a totally different ABS/DSC hardware and software setup so the hard lines from the wagon body wouldn't insert (different physical size) and the module could not be properly coded to a RWD/335d setup so everything had to get switched.

What's unknown is whether the system would have been the same if the wagon had been RWD.