My E36 318ti Hybrid

[1ofakind71]

Well after playing with many different cars over the years, I always wanted to throw a turbo 6 in a e36 chassis. I had been looking at the hatchbacks for a couple of years and bought one with automatic and a california top. Kind of like the sun tops on the early 70's skylarks. After driving the car around for a year I decided to start disassembly and start this journey

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[1ofakind71]

First was to fit the block in place and make up some mounts.

 

[1ofakind71]

The idea here is to make the mounts fit into the existing locations without modding the frame, ect.. so if I had to reverse this setup
back to a bmw setup, it wouldn't be a huge pain

 

[Pittsburghkid]

Sweet but I have a feeling your exhaust is gonna be a big pita.

 

[trixdout]

Will the stock style headers for? Looks like not a lot of room there for them. Also will you run a/c? That would be right too.


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[Rafs-T-Type]

F'n awesome! I like beemers more every time I see one, and this is a dream I had. If you ever sell the sucker let me know!

 

[1ofakind71]

After making up the mounts, I found that some mods to the cradle area and the oil pan had to be made due to the center sump setup
I took the car to a friends shop called rod and comp to get the welding done as I do not have a strong enough welder for this bigger stuff
and i know it will be done right. Here are the mods and the clean up after it as done. After notching the cradle area, it was braced underneath with some crome moly tubing for strength

 

[1ofakind71]

Here are some shots of the engine sitting in its place and for the headers, they were modded to fit, the drivers side was a bit of a pain due to the
steering shaft being in the way. The rest of the exhaust will be interesting. And yes it will have a/c, power steering and abs

 

[1fastcobra]

Looks f--n awesome.
I'm in the process of gathering all the parts for my 540i.
LS2 turbo though. Cant wait to see it done

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[Grumpy]

lookin great !! the fun has just begun

 

[Jay J]

Subscribed.

 

[1ofakind71]

Had some time to get the exhaust set up and its looking good, I have most of everything else set up
as far as power steering goes, as for a/c I just need the end of the lines modded and will be good to go.

 

[longball]

cool as hell.......... ​

 

[Jay J]

What size is your downpipe?

 

[1ofakind71]

Thanks for the kind words from all, and the downpipe is a 3'

 

[87chrisss]

This is awesome!

 

[Grumpy]

how heavy is it ???

 

[Rafs-T-Type]

Updates?

 

[1ofakind71]

The car weighed around 2700 with the stock motor and trans combo, I don't know how much now but it should'nt be too far from that now
I was waiting for some radiator hose transitions I ordered to come in from jags that run and it took longer than expected, but they are finally here now so
I can continue on. Right now I will be working on wiring and intercooler mounting but that will not happen till saturday.

 

[pistonhead76]

This is great thread. Im wanting to do the same swap but with my 2000 323i. My 2.3 liter is a pig and I see kids putting turbos and thousands of dollars into their cars just to get 275hp at the rear wheels. I mentioned the idea of this swap over in a BMW forum and they werent too receptive. Go figure. My goal is to mate the bmw electronics to the buick motor and retain full traction control and whatever goodies the germans included with the car. Its funny because I will be able to sell my current engine and trans to recoup the entire cost of the swap (sans tuning).