Procharged ls e90

Mdraysen

9 Second Club
Nov 2, 2018
7
22
75
Ride
E90
Long time reader, new to the whole write-up thing so take it easy on me. Many of you already know my car, it has had many setups and combos on it and is one of 4 in the 9 second club, previous build was a Ali Barakat built/David Shoup tuned n54, on3 hotside w/precision 6766, 4L80 and 8.8 rear end car was fun, went 9.90s but still had the annoying BMW nannies that come with making power in the range of 800 on stock dme.
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Well i decided i wanted to do something different, i know ls swaps arnt unique but ls swaps in late model bmw's are. There seems to be a theory that if you cut a wire or remove a module from these cars they will instantly implode. With the help of Michael Page(has a turbo ls e90) and a small group of us working together I have finished my swap with minimal headache and issues. my car is full interior, stock shifter, stock paddles(thanks to Andy at ADE), functioning dash, functioning heater, no a/c as i didnt ever use it anyways. I have taken the car on a weekend trip 3 hours away, raced it all weekend and drove back with no mechanical failures or issues, went 10.91 first time out and drove it back home loaded down with track supplies. Huge huge shoutout to Michael Page for all the help and supplying all the brackets from the 8.8 brackets to the engine mounts.

First things first i pulled the n54, sold everything in the engine bay which paid for a huge chunk of my swap. i bought an L33 5.3 due to the aluminum block and aluminum head and took it strait to Ali as i have an issue with going all out first time around. The 5.3 got a TSP forged crank, TSP rods, Weisco custom flat top pistons to achieve the higher compression ratio i wanted, ca625 head studs, athena head gaskets, PAC 660 springs, ARP hardware, custom grind cam motion cam blah blah blah.
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While the engine was in the hands of Ali i did what i could without the engine, ran the fuel system, ran the holley terminator x max stand alone harness mounted the stand alone in the glove box, went through the trans, upgraded the clutches and ordered my circle D 258mm pro series triple disc converter. For fuel system i didnt want to deal with trying to get as much flow out of the stock tank needed all while trying to retain sending unit functions and fuel transfer function. I decided to spend alittle more and do a surge tank setup with twin 525s. Luckily when you remove the stock DME the ekp runs 100% all the time, that allowed me to use a stock 335i fuel pump to feed the surge tank while the 525s use a -10 feed and -8 return to the btr fuel rails, should have fuel for well over 1000 on full e85.
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Now to the part i get the most questions about, wiring and engine management, most of us are using holley but any ls engine management will work and the concept will be the same. First off, car needs to think its a manual trans before you do/remove anything if you want the stock start button to work. most people doing this swap are going manual trans anyway but if not you will have to run the wiring for the clutch switch and tie pin #4 from the brake and clutch switch together so when your on the brake the CAS thinks the clutch is engaged allowing the car to start. Nothing, I repeat NOTHING needs cut, ripped, pulled or yanked out of the engine bay, all of the stock harness you dont need will simply unplug and come out without a fight, only plug from the stock DME you will need is connector X60001, it will have the outputs and inputs you will want/need. to find the stock starter wire simply find it on the stock harness and trace it back to the dme box, remove it from the loom and save it for later. Holley terminator comes with a whole plug and play harness for any ls configuration you will want, i mounted my standalone in the glove box and ran the harness through the firewall so all the slack is in the stock dme box. the holley instructions on hooking everything up are very simple so I will not get into that. now that the stock dme is out and the holley is ran the only things that do not work like factory is the tach, cruise control, a/c button, oil temp gauge and traction control, everything else is fine. For the stock cooling fan you simply find the one little wire (its a PWM signal) and hook it to an output on the standalone, later you can set up a pwm signal to contol it making it come on, turn off and run what ever speed you want at any time you want. Some people prefer the feel of a drive by cable but i wanted to keep the stock BMW pedal, thanks to Michael again that was super easy to do. all the gas pedal wires you will need if going this route are located in the X60001 connector you have in the dme box, not going to go into detail on this but its as simple as putting the BMW pedal wires to the ls throttle body wires, calibrate the throttle and your done.

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Acouple months later I go an pick up the engine so now the fun part begins, setting it in. Since I have a procharger kit I did not use the same accessory brackets as the others but all the brackets needed can be purchased at www.lse90.com. He has engine mounts, different selection of trans mounts, ford 8.8 mounts and accessory brackets with different spacing to fit a variety of combos. So i get my engine and set it in the engine bay, it fits awesome with tons of room, engine brackets fit awesome and have the ability to slide for perfect engine placement. it set the engine in a and pulled it acouple times while cutting to make my procharger fit but it was a breeze, i had the assembed engine and trans in setting in under its own weight in a day.

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Assembly of the LS was very easy, hundreds of threads on line, hundreds and hundreds of parts available for just about anything you can dream up. i used a gm power steering pump and just had new lines but the brackets from lse90.com allow you to use stock power steering pump. After the engine was in, harness plugged up and accessories on it was time to throw the front clip on and make hoses for the stock radiator and make charge pipes. I was feeling spicy so thought i would do AN upper and lower radiator hoses using -20 fittings and hoses, learn from my mistake and dont do it because there is not enough room for a filler neck, fittings and hoses. It took me over 2 weeks just sourcing parts and coming up with a way to do the upper radiator hose. As for the lower of the the stock upper hoses fit perfect.

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Now that the car was fully assembled i drove it around acouple days to find the flaws while I waited to get in at the exhaust shop. Didnt really have any issues, didnt over heat or anything.Took it to the exhaust shop and thanks to the 335s big brother being an m3 dual 3" to an x pipe to dual 3" out fit perfectly fine tucked up nice and neat. I put about 300miles on the setup and it didnt skip a beat then Michael let me know he had reverse engineered the holley can bus id and had a test unit for me to try. Got the magic box next day, simple install and tach worked just like stock. He has recently gotten the oil temp gauge to read coolant temp as well i just have yet to implement the code. In total I have about 600 miles on the setup and besides working though some little things to reach my 900+ power goals the setup has been awesome without a single missfire, hiccup or breakup. I am sure i missed something or will have more data later and will add it as it comes. Thanks for reading my first write-up. If you want more updates on the car you can follow my instagram account @_sum1_

www.lse90.com for all the brackets/mounts needed for the swap.

 
Last edited:

Mdraysen

9 Second Club
Nov 2, 2018
7
22
75
Ride
E90
What do you think the net weight change was for engine swap alone?
I don't think it was much if any. Felipe has a full interior turbo ls e92 with th400 and it was like 3580 with him in it.
 
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Davidwarren

Corporal
Nov 6, 2016
203
109
0
Louisville
what headers and oil pan are you using?
and what drive shaft?
Does the speedometer work?
Details on the magic box to convert Holley to canbus?

I blew my n54 and seriously considering dropping a LS3/T6060 in with a dry sump and calling it a day for my track car.
 
Last edited:

Mdraysen

9 Second Club
Nov 2, 2018
7
22
75
Ride
E90
what headers and oil pan are you using?
and what drive shaft?
Does the speedometer work?
Details on the magic box to convert Holley to canbus?

I blew my n54 and seriously considering dropping a LS3/T6060 in with a dry sump and calling it a day for my track car.
Holley 302-1 or similar oil pan, custom drive shaft from a local shop, yes speedometer still works and the can bus converter box should be for sale soon. It's simply an Arduino with code to make coolant temp read on the oil temp gauge and the tach to work.
 

Milan

Sergeant
Dec 24, 2016
413
241
0
jebi se
Ride
your mom
Cool build. Get rid of that turbo guard that’s a huge horsepower loss especially on a procharger.
 

Torgus

Brigadier General
Nov 6, 2016
2,671
2,193
0
Boston
Ride
ACF 6466 E92 + METH
Cool build. Get rid of that turbo guard that’s a huge horsepower loss especially on a procharger.

What really? Why? How? It's just a screen.

It looks like the fender is in the way for a normal filter. even if you made a custom offset piece I would think the turbo guard less restrictive.
 

J. Dub

Lurker
Dec 12, 2019
10
1
0
Ride
e92 N54
what headers and oil pan are you using?
and what drive shaft?
Does the speedometer work?
Details on the magic box to convert Holley to canbus?

I blew my n54 and seriously considering dropping a LS3/T6060 in with a dry sump and calling it a day for my track car.
How did you blow it?
 

socaln54

Private
Jul 25, 2018
39
4
0
Ride
535i
dam man congrats, I wish I had the time, money and ability to do this, this is basically the best of both worlds, perfect car
 
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Cornfed54

Specialist
Feb 6, 2018
80
31
0
Ride
E92 335
Any updates on this project? would it be possible to mate the bmw 6mt trans to an LS swap or would it be more work than its worth vs going 4L80 or similar?