S54 Powered 323i - Duracel79 - England

[Duracel79]

Progress has been made

Out with the old and in with the new


New gearbox all fitted up. Needed new spigot bearing for the larger pinion. Also fitted a Sachs 618 clutch cover to the lightened 323i flywheel with the six paddle solid centre.



Twisted the linkage and it broke so improvised.



back in the car with plenty of clearance in the tunnel. Not really any tighter than the E30 260 box


underneath with e30 rear mounting plate and solid alloy mounts



And my nice shiny rebuild and uprated LSD all ready to go in.



Just waiting for the propshaft to be finished (new length again but with larger donut mountings) and returned, hopfully this week.
then its refit the exhaust, wiring fuel & oil pipes.

Cheers

Ben

[Danny043]

Good work!

I can't help but notice the bolts on your shiny good looking LSD are rusty

Anyway, what LSD is it, large case E12 ?

[problemchild75]

awesome

[Duracel79]

Good work!

I can't help but notice the bolts on your shiny good looking LSD are rusty

Anyway, what LSD is it, large case E12 ?

Exactly what my dad said, "He could of at least cleaned the bolts up?"

To be fair I think my phone camera shows them up much more orange than they are. But its all getting hidden under the car which is certainly not a show queen

This is an early Sideloader LSD from an E9 in 3.25:1 ratio (note the bolt in output flanges rather than the snap in versions which come in later E12 sideloader diffs). The LSD carrier has had teh ramps modified for 40% lockup and new clutch packs fitted. the bearings where all checked/cleaned and the diff all shimmed up correctly. It'll work nicely with the E36 gearbox and its 1:1 ratio 5th gear.

Ben

[rob0r]

Awesome work. I can't imagine how fast it is!

[uwbuurman]

Great job so far! Looks like enough ground clearance?

[Duracel79]

Great job so far! Looks like enough ground clearance?

It is a bit high at the moment. Its still set for everything to be above ~100mm for the regulations I used to race to. No problems with any speed bumps at the moment. It'll be coming down once I set it up for the track again.

On that note, looks like the first blast of the S54 on track will be at the BMW CC day at Snetterton 1st March. I can't wait.

Ben

[Jeroen]

We want video coverage of that event!!!!

[mrd]

Which E36 gearbox you are using? Was it hard connecting the wiring loom?

[Duracel79]

Gearbox is a ZF unit from either:
328i
M3 5 speed
or late 323i tourers

Its a much stronger box than the Getrag units found in other E36's.

As for the wiring loom, making wire connections is easy once you know which wires come from what on the engine and you know which pins to attach to in the aftermarket ECU. It's only making about 20 connections from one loom to another.

It'd probably be easier to connect an original complete S54 engine loom with original BMW ECU. Then have the ECu reflashed to remove the EWS and any other non required functions. You'd only need to make connections for about 6 wires then.

Ben

[Duracel79]

We want video coverage of that event!!!!

Good news, I've just ordered a GoPro Hero Camera so there will be onboard video

Ben

[Duracel79]

First vid, took me an hour to load.

Keeping it around 6.5krpm max:


Ben

[cobbler2u]

sounds great

[e21-Mark]

Excellent. Sounds great as ever.

[Lars-Nord]

Like. Like a lot.