S50B30 3.0l Euro Motor Transplant Project

April 3, 2001

Call me crazy but we decided to take on putting a 3.0l euro engine in the E36 M3.  We had a nasty oil leak in stock engine and we suspected the rear main seal as the source.  This was going to necessitate removal of the transmission to get to it.  As chance would have it a 3.0l euro motor from AKG Motorsport had just become available from a wreck in England.  The motor was an ugly duckling but the salvage records indicated that it was a running motor.  The price was right and since we had resolve the oil leak with the existing motor we decided to do the swap.  As promised when the motor arrived it was pretty grubby but nothing appeared to be damaged other than the air box and HFM.  As describe by the salvage yard the car had taken a right side impact so the damage to the air box and HFM made sense.  So, with what looked like a decent motor we began the project.

We spent the first couple of days preparing the motor before we began the removal of the old motor.  The new motor needed to be inspected, detailed and prepared for installation.  The car was from England we had to convert to left hand drive.  This meant installing some country specific parts and a left hand wiring harness.  As we inspected and prepared the motor we found several surprises along the way.  Since the car is primarily setup as a track car we opted to remove some of the emissions control devices and install the GT dual pickup oil pan and pump.  At a later point we may convert the car to the GT International specification after we complete the parts search and do some more research.  For now we are content with just adding the oil pan and pump.

The basic installation took about 80 hours of shop time.  The first 5 days were dedicated to engine preparation alone.  The engine removal and another to drop the new engine in the car.  The last three days were devoted to connecting the transmission and exhaust as well as installing the cooling system and placing the wiring harnesses.  The project took a lot of hard work and a pound of flesh as I picked up seven stitches as I sliced my knuckle across a sharp edged bolt installing the fuel lines.  Unfortunately I had rely on extra help the last few days when two hands were needed on the project.  On the last day we turned the key and the engine easily came to life.  As promised it was a running motor.  It smoked quite a bit as it had been shipped full of oil but as the engine heated up it dissipated and the engine began to settle down and run smoothly.  We cleared the ECU of error codes and monitored the engine.  All signs looked good but we did notice that all cylinders were firing consistently.  We believe that that will shake out as we break in the engine.  If the problem persists we may need to change some spark plugs.  Right now we are waiting for some more euro parts to arrive before we start seriously shaking down the motor.  The extreme cold weather here in Chicago does not help the process either.  Once the parts come in we will finish the section on motor installation and add quite a few new pictures.  Other areas will be expanded so please check back from time to time to see how we are doing.

Outlined below are the major steps we took in this project:

Inspection

If you received an engine from salvage then you should spend extra time to inspect the condition of the engine.  An engine from a wreck is often sold "as is".  Therefore, you should look for potential problems before going to the effort and expense to install the engine.  

Inspect the condition of the belts.  Look for cracks in the "V" grooves to indicate if the belt is brittle.  Look for any frayed edges on the belts.  This will tell you if any pulleys are out of alignment.  Look for any leaks around the oil filter housing and around the water pump for any coolant leaks.
Check the fuel rails and injectors for any gas leaks.  Check the condition of the rubber washers and seals around the head cover.  Look for cracks in the seals and washers.  If they they are cracking or brittle then they should be replaced.
Inspect the headers and look for leakage around the header gaskets.  The bolts may have loosened.  If a connection is loose or deteriorating you may see some black soot around a gasket it may be worn or the header nuts may need to be tightened.
There are quite a few hoses under the intake manifold.  Check them for wear and tear.  It is a good practice to change all hoses every five years so you may want to consider replacing them before installation.

Detailing

I highly recommend that you detail your engine.  You do not have to take it to Concors D'elegance level but cleaning up the engine will force you to go over it in detail and may help you find any leaks or loose parts.  Also by cleaning the engine you will be able to spot any problem leaks after you install the engine.  You also spent some serious money to get this engine, you might as will have it look nice when people want to look under your hood.

There are lots of smelly caustic cleaners out there but I found two that were very friendly to the environment and kept you from getting stoned and sloppy on fumes.  I got lots of tooth brushes and other mild scrubbing tools and hit the engine section by section working top down.  Be sure to put wads of paper towels in any openings, ports or tubes before you begin to prevent cleaning fluids from entering the engine.  I used citric orange like tooth past on a tooth brush and started scrubbing.  Nothing takes the grease off your hands like this and it works really well on an engine and is friendly to the rubber parts.  I would scrub a small sections then spray that with a foaming engine cleaner and wait 30 seconds.  This would lift up the grease and it would ooze down the engine block onto a waiting baking pan below.  I would repeat until the area was as clean as I could get it.  Don't be surprised if some areas just don't come completely clean.  The throttle bodies are very difficult to clean and be sure that they are stuffed with paper towels to avoid having cleaning fluids enter the engine.  For really sticky areas I used brake cleaner or goof off to remove old sealers and other gummy substances.  Keep these fluids away from any rubber parts, o-rings or gaskets.  Detailing supplies:

Left Hand Drive Conversion

Close to half the cars BMW produces are right hand drive.  Chances are good that the motor will come from one of these cars.  Mine did.  In this case you will have to take several steps before installing to motor to ensure a successful installation.

The steering column on a right hand drive car passes by the exhaust headers.  This is one of the hottest points in the engine bay and the steering column needs to be protected from the heat.  This is not needed on a left hand drive as the steering column is located on the other side of the engine.  The heat shield should be removed and it unbolts easily.
To reach the expansion tank and the interior heating system a key pipe (11-53-1-318-403) from the water pump must be replaced.  The pipe is metal and after temporarily removing the oil separator the old pipe slides out and the new one slides in and is bolted to the engine block.  The pipe will wrap around the back of the engine.  This branch is needed to support the coolant expansion tank that is located on the right hand side of the car near the battery terminal.
If you choose to reverse the wiring harness you will face two challenges:  1)You will have to cross over the ECU connection and many of the wires are not long enough to reach to the other end.  This means you will have to cut and splice 30-40 wires of various gauges.  Get out your soldering iron!   2) You will have to cut the ends of the cross over box and compromise the water tight seals.  This will increase the risk of water leakage into a box, already full of wire splices.  3) if a wire splice is bad you may create a short or generate a false feedback to the ECU.  If you have a problem you will have lots of wires to test.

I chose to purchase a left hand BMW Motorsport wiring harness from PTG.  The plug and play installation was a simple plug and click process and you can use the old wiring harness as a guide as to which engine connectors go where.  The only tricky part was spending the time to remove the engine covers to install the ignition coil and  injector connections.

Basic Maintenance

The ideal time to perform basic maintenance on the engine is while the engine is out of the car.  The 3.0l euro engine is very sturdy and durable but depending on its age and or mileage it may be wise to replace common wear items.  I chose to replace the following items:

The euro engine typically runs at much higher rpms than the US engine and keeping the engine cool is a greater challenge.  Given the unknown status of a salvaged engine we thought it best to to ahead and replace the water pump.
The hosing for the water temperature sensor is an integrated part of the water pump.  Since we replaced the water pump it was an ideal time to go ahead and replace the water temp sensor.
At any point where we removed an item from the engine we replaced the gasket or seal that went with the item.  In some cases we found that the new gasket or seal was much improved over the original.  For example the head cover gasket now has ridges on both sides.  Since this gasket has to cover a wide area this new design will significantly reduce oil leakage that was common around the head cover.
It is a good general practice to replace hoses every 5 years and given that this motor was from a 94 production car these were due for a change.
It is a good idea to inspect the belts and look for signs of wear such as cracks in the "v" grooves or frayed edges.  Since we remove the ancillary items from the engine only one belt remains and it appears to be in good condition so we chose to use the exiting belt.

Surprises

While performing basic maintenance and inspecting a salvaged engine you should be prepared for some surprises.  In our case there were a few.

Our first surprise occurred when we tried to remove the center portion of the head cover.  It is held in place by four hex nuts.  Unfortunately two were stripped beyond recognition from being over tightened.  We drilled holes in what was left of the bolts and had to use screw extractors to get them out.  It took a long soak with penetrating oil and some serious torque to loosen these bolts.  
It is smart to inspect the cams before trying to run a salvaged engine.  The gasket was leaking upon initial inspection and it was replaced with a newer one.  Clearly the old one was inadequate.  It had ridges on only one side and at some point during a previous opening some sealant had been used.  This sealant had hardened and compromised the effectiveness of the gasket.  Inspection showed that the cams looked fine.  We did notice that the head of one of the bolts holding the Steuerhause was stripped.  We figured that some Vanos work had been done on the car in its past life.  If we install the GT cams and GT Steuerhause we know we will have to drill this out and replace the bolts.  As we break in the engine we now know to pay special attention to the Vanos performance as we do not know the nature of the work done.
Our next surprise came as we attempted to bolt down the head cover.  The bolts used are only to be tightened to 10nm as they have stops and the bulk of the hold is done by the integrated rubber washers.  The bolts use a fine thread and go into the aluminum head unit.  Aluminum is very soft and you have to be careful when you retighten these bolts.  We found that many of these had been over tightened and the threads on the head were stripped.  You can clearly tell when you have a stripped thread when you tighten down the bolt to 10nm and it just keeps spinning.  You have to remove the head and re-tap the offending recess.  Evidently this is a common repair mistake made by less that skilled mechanics.  We had to use a Time-Sert kit to drill out and re-tap the holes and fill with the proper inserts.  Fortunately this kit leave the head better than new as the inserts are steel vs. aluminum.  The ugly thing is that next time I remove the head cover I know that I will have to re-tap some more of these holes.  Before you put the nuts back in be sure to check the threads for any aluminum in the threads.  You will strip the good threads on the head if you don't clean these out.
After installing the engine and filling it with oil we noticed an oil leak on the exhaust manifold.  We could easily see that the source was a small port near the rear of the engine block.  This port contains a small screw style plug that is the Constant Pressure Valve (11-11-1-318-185).  This device contains a small spring loaded ball bearing that maintains a constant pressure between two portions of the engine.  For what we are not sure.  We removed the offending valve and found that the rubber o-ring was hard as nails.  This is not surprising as the rubber o-ring must take the heat of the engine.  We ordered a valve that includes a new o-ring.  There is no part number just for the o-ring so we ordered the whole valve.  Installing this valve corrected the leak.  If you click on the picture you can see where the old o-ring is compressed and the new one is round for a tight seal.

 

GT Conversion

If you are serious about driving your car on the track e.g. Drivers Schools, Club Racing, and Autocross you will want to consider bringing the engine up to GT specification.  The GT specification included several goodies that improve the reliability and life of the engine under harder driving conditions.  BMW produced several hundred GT Models for Europe only and the US saw some of the GT specification parts on the LTW.  If your 3.0l engine came from a GT car then you are in good shape.  My engine was from a stock M3 so it did not have these parts.  If you plan to use the engine on the track you should at least install the GT oil pan and pump. 

Removal of the oil pan on a Euro engine takes a few extra steps over the US counterparts.  You must first dismount the power steering pump.  You must remove the fan belt and then dismount the pump (do not disconnect the lines).  This will make way for the removal of the pan.  You will also release one end of the emissions control pip that feeds underneath the oil pan.  Remove the second screw holding the pipe to the oil pan and the pipe will swing free.  You can now remove the oil pan.
Removing the oil pan will give you access to the oil pump.  Remove the sprocket (screw mounts counter clockwise so turn clockwise to remove).  Unbolt the oil pump.  You will also unbolt the crank guard to the right of the pump.  You do not use the guard with the LTW oil pan.  Note that the stock engine has the single oil pickup at the lower right of the picture.
Here is a picture of the the GT oil pump included with the LTW oil pan kit.  It has its own pickup (the brass end on the right).  The pump has a higher capacity and heavy duty bearings.
Fit the sprocket on the chain with chain taught on the non-tensioned side.  Slip it onto the pump and then bolt the pump into place.
You will remove the single bracket that held the pickup for the old oil pump and install the two brackets on the crank shaft mounts.  Be sure to torque those bolts back to speck.  This is an excellent opportunity to inspect the crank and the brackets for any unusual wear.  I could still see the original milling marks so things look good.
Install the pickup and return pipes.  Be sure to coat the small o-rings with oil and install in the proper receptacles.  I also coated the ends of the pipes with oil to make sure they would slide in without damaging the O-rings
If you look inside the oil pan you will see various baffles and channels that are not in the stock oil pan.  It is quite a bit different than the stock oil pan.  Be sure to clean the surfaces on the engine block and oil pan.  Use a new gasket for the oil pan installation.  This is a must as I could see bits and pieces of the old gasket and had to clean them off the engine block prior to installation.  A super clean installation will save you lots of grief later by avoiding unnecessary leaks.
Install the oil level sensor blank and the oil pickup strainer.  Coat the O-rings with oil and make sure the surfaces are dry and clean before bolting these on.  These are common leakage areas.  A number of oil pan kits came with a simple washer for the oil level sensor, however, you will want to make sure you have correct washer (12-61-1-227-129).

If you want to bring the engine to full GT specification you will need to locate and install the following parts:

The GT used different intake funnels to help feed more air to the engine.  The GT funnels are larger in diameter, have shorter stems and the intakes are flared to improve air flow.  The GT funnel is on the left.  These are the same funnels that were used in the 3.2l engine.

(2) 13 54 1 404 637 Cylinder 1, 3
(1) 13 54 1 404 638 Cylinder 5
(3) 13 54 1 404 639 Cylinder 2, 4, 6

Cams The GT has a different set of intake and exhaust cams.

(11-31-1-404-660) Intake Cam
(11-31-1-404-662) Exhaust Cam

Steuergehause This consists of a sturdier set of brackets and bearings used to guide and support the cam shafts.  This is the successor part for stock 3.0l engines.

(11-12-1-404-966) Steuergehause

The emissions control pump draws air in from the air box on the other side of the engine. One part of the intake consists of a metal tube that passes underneath the oil pan.  Since the oil pan for the for the GT has a different profile a different air intake tube is needed.

(11-72-1-404-626) Air intake tube

Chip The GT did have its own software profile.  The speed limiter was raised to 155mph and the horsepower was increased to 295hp @ 7100rpm from 286hp @ 7000rpm.  Torque was increased to 238lb @ 3800rpm from 236lb @ 3600rpm.  These are the BMW figures but rumors indicate that the actual performance gains were greater.
The GT used a heavy duty gasket set for the engine block.  The kit included a heavy duty oil pan gasket and main engine seals.  The rest of the gaskets and o-rings appear to be stock.

(11-11-1-402-381) Gasket set engine block

? There may be some other GT parts to used that we are unaware of.

Track Preparation

The sky's the limit!  You could prepare the car to stock spec by having the engine blueprinted.  Blueprinting involves breaking down the engine and making sure that parts are as close to factory specification as possible.  Some things that are checked include cam profiles, valve seating, ring and piston diameters and so on.  Although BMW bills a certain level of performance for an engine they actually vary quite a bit and most fall a little short of the engines potential.  Blueprinting helps ensure that you are not leaving power on the table before installing the engine.  You could take the car to the next level by preparing it to a Group N specification or fully race prepare the engine for Group A or other race spec such as the Motorola Cup series (which allowed the 3.0l euro engine).  Each of these classes have various rules for what engine modifications are allowed.  

Since our car is primarily a track car I chose to eliminate the emission control pump and air conditioning.  The emission control pump helps control emissions during engine startup.  Once the engine is warmed up the unit disengages and is no longer needed.  Eliminating the emissions control pump, bracket and related items saves about 15lbs.  Removing the AC pump and related items saves about 40lbs.

The pump and bracket are located just below the timing chain sensor in this view of the engine.  You can see the loop of one of the emissions tubes just to the right of the exhaust header lower heat shield.
The pump and bracket are located just below crank timing wheel.  Disconnect the hoses connected to the emissions pump.  One hose runs to a hard pipe under the oil pan.  Remove both the hose and the hard pipe.  Remove the other hose that runs to a flow back valve just behind the exhaust headers.
Here is a picture of the emissions control system after having been removed.  The system weighs a good 15 pounds.
Remove the exhaust headers and unbolt the tube from the head.  Then unbolt the assembly from the engine block.
Two hanging studs will remain.

I acquired a gasket (11-72-1-318-467) and blank cover (part number ?) from PTG and bolted it on.  You could fashion one using stainless steel or aluminum using the old gasket as a template.  
I chose to leave the studs, however, you could remove them and use new bolts instead.  It might provide a slightly cleaner look.  Since the head is aluminum I try to avoid adding and removing bolts as much as possible.
Since emissions are not a concern for the track we also removed the idle control valve bypass.  This valve taps into the idle intake past the throttle control valve.  We plugged the bypass with a stainless steel bolt and a clamp.

Engine Removal

Removal of a US engine is well documented in the Chilton and Bently Guides and is not covered here in detail.  In general you have to perform the following major steps to remove the engine:

Some major points to watch out for.

Use a high quality engine balancer.  There is a cable based one that lets you make fine adjustments.  Screw based ones may look hefty but are are too hard to adjust.  

Disconnecting the transmission was probably the trickiest and most difficult portion of the engine removal.  With the engine mounts loose (not disconnected) you can drop the transmission at a angle.  Using a 3' 3/8" socket extension with a swivel head you have to loosen and remove the torx bolts that hold the transmission to the engine.  Reaching the torx bolts at the top of the transmission is very difficult.  One person would reach up and guide the socket onto the head of the bolt and hold it there while the other would break the hold and unbolt the transmission.  The top bolt holding the starter motor is very difficult to reach.  We were lucky as it was not there.  It must have fallen out at some point.  We did not remove the intake manifold but I would suggest it.  All the stuff that had to be disconnected underneath it would have been much easier to get to.  We don't have any pictures as it took both pairs of hands to extract the engine.  There just wasn't time to say "hold this while I run over and take a few pictures" while the other holds a 100 pound transmission in the air.

Engine Bay Preparation

This is one of the few times that you will have a chance to detail your engine bay.  I highly recommend that you take the extra few hours to clean things up.  If nothing else a clean engine bay will help you spot any leaks after you install the new engine.

Here is a shot of the engine bay.
Another view of the empty engine bay.

Engine Installation

Installing the engine was a fairly straight forward process.  The real trick to an easy install is to use a cable based engine balancer.  You want to make sure the engine is as vertical as possible.  Several tricks would have made it easier for us.  

Once the engine was in the flywheel and clutch were installed and then the transmission and so on down the line.  This was an excellent time to inspect the condition of the clutch and flywheel or to install new ones.  For the exhaust system we selected the Supersprint Euro resonator and Euro exhaust.

The engine installation was fairly straight forward.  The installation of the ancillary pieces was another story.  The euro models come with different brackets welded to the engine bay and various bits and pieces are mounted in different locations.  After a lot of research and some trial and error we were able to find solutions to each of our problems.

Install ECU and Vanos Control Units:

Installing the ECU was the same as it was with US motor.  However, the Euro motor includes a Vanos control unit.  This needs to be located inside the cage that secures the ECU.  The US model cage does have a slot that is normally used to hold the control unit for cars with automatic transmissions.  A cage from a Euro model may have done the trick but we opted to work with what was there.

pic The trick to installing the Vanos unit was to turn it upside down.  This way the wings of the unit have full contact with the underside of the top of the control unit cage.  We took 1"x3" strips of Velcro and attached them to the wings.  We slid the control unit up into the cage and applied pressure to secure the Velcro adhesive.  We used a wedge to hold pressure on the unit, which is upside down, until the adhesive on the Velcro had cured.  We did a dry fit of the unit of the unit as you have to navigate past some tabs and you only get one shot to secure the Velcro.
The wiring harness for the Euro is completely different than the US model so we had to install the Euro control box cover (12-51-1-401-211).  Unlike the US cover the batter cable passes through the enclosure and back out near the fender to attach to the terminal.  The cable for the diagnostic plug also comes back out of the enclosure on the right hand side of the cover.

Relocate Battery Terminal:

On the E36 M3 the battery is located in the trunk.  However, the battery + terminal is located in the middle of the old battery tray in the engine compartment.  The terminal must be relocated as this is where the coolant expansion tank goes. 

The battery + cable comes through the engine firewall as well as a smaller power cable for the engine electronics.  These cables are too short to make the move so they have to be extended.  We obtained a 1 gauge 18" battery cable and some 10 gauge wire from NAPA.  The battery cable had terminals but we had to add them to the 10 gauge wire.  We used heat shrink to ensure an water tight seal for the terminals.
We bolted the extensions to the existing wires.  The 10 gauge wire we could bolt end to end.  We doubled back the 1 gauge battery extension.  There was not enough room to bolt the cable end to end and leave enough slack needed to reposition the battery + terminal.
We covered each connection with electrical heat shrink insulator and then for good measure gave a good wrap with electrical tape.
Somewhere BMW has a bracket for mounting the battery + terminal but we were unable to find it.  We opted to fashion our own bracket out of some heavy gauge L shaped aluminum from the local hardware store.  We used some nut-serts in some pre-existing holes in the fender wall to mount the bracket. The aluminum was thick enough for us to tap some bolt holes to hold the battery + terminal to the bracket.
We installed some rubber washers between the bracket and the fender wall to avoid rubbing that would scratch the paint finish. 
The cable extensions easily fit through the gap between the fender wall and the battery tray and there is enough slack that the cables are not rubbing against any fittings. 

Mount Expansion Tank:

On the US model the expansion tank is attached to the radiator.  On the Euro model it is located in the empty battery tray.  The Euro model has brackets welded to the shock towers and the fire wall to support the tank.  We identified these brackets and installed the tank.

The clip bracket is normally welded to the shock tower and has has slots to hold the diagnostic terminal.  If you have access to a good welding source you would cut of the old bracket and weld a the whole new one into place.  Since the US model already has the diagnostic terminal welded to the car we trimmed the bracket, finished it and riveted it to the the existing bracket.  We cut of the old post and drilled a hole 1" to the right.  The Euro bracket mounts about an inch around on the shock tower so we had to compensate by relocating the mounting clip.
Here is a picture of the bracket riveted to the exiting diagnostic port bracket.  We used a 1" square of Velcro to hold the other end in place.  
The lower water bracket (41-12-2-256-492) was a much easier installation.  We drilled three matching holes in the fire wall and riveted it in place.  Note that it rides high as the euro models fit the carbon canister underneath the expansion tank.
Here is a close up of the relocated mounting clips holding the expansion tank.  The tank snaps into the clip.  The clip is screwed onto the bracket with a stainless steel sheet metal screw.
Here is what the completed installation looks like.

Relocate Carbon Canister:

The carbon canister filters air that is needed by the fuel tank to keep it from collapsing as the fuel is pumped out and as a clean source of air into the engine when the idle control valve is closed.

The carbon canister is located right under the single throttle body in the US setup.  The euro engine uses a much larger intake requiring that the canister be relocated.  On the euro model it is located right under the expansion tank on the other side of the engine bay.  It proved difficult to obtain the OEM parts to relocate this so we came up with our own solution.  Since we had removed the cruise control we had space to locate the canister in its place.  The tank can be mounted horizontally so this turned out to be an ideal location.
We wanted the couplings to face towards the engine so we had to sacrifice the old mounting bracket.  We trimmed it off using a band saw and then a standard file to clean off the rough edges.  We were careful not to slice into the main canister.
Using a strip of thick aluminum we fashioned a bar that could be bolted between the two posts that hold the cruise control and air box to help hold the canister in place.  We used large hose clamps to hold the canister to the bracket.  We clipped the hard blue tube and used the appropriate size fuel line to extend it to this new location.  Since we eliminated the vapor intake bypass on the throttle control valve we used a short length of fuel line to extend and plug off the corresponding nipple on the carbon canister.

Relocate Heater Control Valve:

The Euro engine uses some different tubing to support the heater and AC in the engine compartment.  There are two solutions to this problem.  The quick and dirty solution was to use the existing hose from your old engine and disconnect the heater control valve from the engine wall and let it hang free.  This is not the Euro factory solution but it works.

The coolant hoses also feed the passenger compartment for heat and defrost.  I used the hose (yellow) from the old engine block to connect the new engine block to the heater control valve.  I also used the old hose (red) from the engine to the the passenger compartment.  I did have to shorten this hose to meet the connection with coolant pipe (11-53-1-318-403) that was installed while converting to left hand drive.
Unless you relocate the heater control valve you can not install the intake plenum.  If BMW had only located the bracket about 1/2" lower.  To solve this problem we detached the valve from the bracket and drilled a hole in the top mounting pin of the control valve.  This allowed us to pass a zip tie through the bracket on the fire wall and through the bracket on the control valve.  This allows us to lower the assembly and hold it in place.

A more elegant solution is to obtain the proper set of tubes that relocates the heater control valve over by the left shock tower.

To relocate the water control valve you will need the Euro hose (11-53-1-401-728) that runs from the engine block to the water control valve.  You will also need the hose (64-21-8-391-239) to run from the fire wall to the water control valve if you have AC.  This is a dual hard pipe with rubber hose extensions.  The part looks nothing like the part listed in the BMW diagrams so don't let that fool you.  If you do not AC in your car then you will the need single hard pipe hose with rubber extensions (64-21-8-391-240)
We attempted this installation but abandoned it after we determined that a number of supporting brackets are needed that are welded to the body on the original Euro version.

Replace Instrument Cluster:

The ECU looks for a Euro cluster and signals a check engine light if it can not find it.  You could us the US cluster but if you did encounter a real check engine code you may not be aware that it occurred.

The US cluster was replaced with the euro version.  The euro version is needed to properly converse with the ECU.  The euro version has an oil temperature gauge.  This is very important as the 3.0l euro engine has to warm up before it is pushed.

Throttle:

The euro engine requires a cable that spans a different length to actuate the multi-throttle body mechanism.

You must install the euro throttle cable (35-41-2-228-504).  

Exhaust Installation:

The euro exhaust installation presented a minor challenge in that Supersprint only provides mounting parts appropriate for installation on a euro body.  The resonator needs to be stabilized by attaching the supplied brackets to a cross member that attaches to the transmission housing.  The US bracket only accommodates the smaller diameter of the exhaust so we had to order a euro bracket.  Since we maintained the US transmission the mounting holes in the bracket did not line up for proper fitment.  We had to drill two holes in the bracket so that it would mount shifted one inch to to the left.  This allowed for a proper fit.  The high quality manufacturing usually found in the exhaust did not carry over to the Supersprint mounting parts.  We had to obtain a metric tap and clear the threads of the nut-serts in the mounting parts.

We had to modify the BMW Euro bracket (18-31-1-404-477) by drilling two holes so it would shift one inch to the left.

Fun Stuff

This was a major project and involved lots of hard work but we had fun along the way.  It's hard not to when you are doing something this exciting.

Another 12 reps as I train for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
This is the ultimate green car, powered only by my hot air.
The wiring Octopus has found its lunch.

 

 

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