E90 Wagon Build (Probably some MR2 content as well)

Great work! The n54 seems like the modern day 2JZ. There are some crazy turner videos out there 

xflowgolf said:

Brilliant!  

I've owned an N54 135i manual with a bunch of Dinan goodies thrown at it and that drivetrain is absolutely stellar.  

I now own an E90 335D with the fabulous M57 diesel freight train engine as my daily commuter (with a tune and some mods thrown at it as well).  

Either drivetrain into a wagon would be a great swap.  A guy named Bradley Tourt recently did a full M57 swap on the Facebook diesel pages I follow into a wagon.  An N54 car with a manual would be great fun as well.  The N54's have a bad rep for expensive high maintenance needs, but are actually incredibly stout structurally and can make huge power.  It's the dumb external stuff that can chew the wallet of the non DIY crowd.  

You likely already know this, but continuing on the Legos structure, you can similarly buy full M3 control arm kits and things like subframe bushings to dial the handling and camber and such up a bit and they bolt right up.  I did the M3 front control arm upgrade when it was time for maintenance and really liked the improvement.  Not sure the rear is of any real benefit, but I've heard subframe bushings are a worthwhile upgrade.  I never got around to that.  

Do you have a link to the diesel swap info? I'd like to see what above and beyond the gas swap had to be done.

I guess the nice thing about having to replace the turbos is that 500hp is a pretty easily achieved goal. Where the insanity would stop I don't know. "scope creep" as they say in the engineering world.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. My parents sold their E9x wagon--like, sold it yesterday. It was a great car for them. They replaced it with the follow-up version. 

Small Update

MR2 is back from paint. Time to reassemble. Color is Dodge Hellcat Destroyer Grey.

Did some little piddly interior stuff yesterday. Wrapped the fake wood interior with carbon wrap. It looks much better now especially with the brown interior. See the difference between the dash and center console.

Shameless photo from morning coffee. 

Took the BMW Friday to have it's joke of a state inspection done. 2 hours later it is legal and registered for the next 18 months. 

135i gets here on Sunday. Garage space is getting tight, and the wife is pissed she is not going to have a garage parking spot for a while. At least I have nothing to be bored about now!

Three things:  (1) Dodge Destroyer Grey is a fantastic colour.  (2)  Watching the BMW(s) with interest!  (3) If your wife is pissed about her garage parking, I agree that boredom isn't going to be an issue for a while.

Few updates. 

Made some progress on the MR2. Spent a few hours reassembling pieces and parts. Progress is slow as I'm trying to do it correctly and fighting with 30 year old Japanese plastic. I also discovered that the front bumper has a nice bubble in it. So it will be going back to the paint shop.

Received the 135i last night... and the news is not good. Someone has been in there and messed around. Exhaust is missing, clutch pedal is on the floor, shifter linkage doesn't seem to be attached to anything, and most worrisome, the drain plug on the tranny was finger tight. I did hook up the jumper box and did get the motor to turn over. No start, but it did turn. I'm going to try to keep it out of mind and finish the MR2 first. That way I can at least have the ability to easily move it in and out of the garage. 

Excellent color choice on the MR2. DG is my favorite OEM paint color right now. 

In reply to dculberson :

I use E-Sys and a OBD dongle from Amazon to do my BMW coding. Lots of tutorials out there. Bimmerpost is a good place to get info.

Loving the mr2! 

Seconding Bimmerpost as a solid reference.  By the time I sold my second E90, some of those guys were really digging into the N52 stuff.  Also, if you're looking for factory exhausts, check the regional subforum for your area, decent chance you can find someone upgrading their stuff.  Alternatively, if you're spendy, AWE is in my neck of the woods and their stuff is SHARP.  

In reply to cdeforrest :

Does E-Sys work for E-series cars? What I saw from a quick google looks like it's for F-series only.

I think you mostly use NCS Expert on the E90 platform.  It's not super well organized, but this is the subforum you want:  https://www.e90post.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=368

For the few changes I wanted, I ended up using MyCarly on the E90, and Bimmercode on the F30.  

Nice looking car! e9x cars are so easy to swap everything between. You can also swap the entire rear end including subframe over from an m3 and gain a factory lsd. I think that requires a custom driveshaft tho. Also the m3 uses a coupe front end on the sedan which I think looks really cool. Good luck with this build!

The BMW project will be on hold until the MR2 is back together. I'm not really looking forward to trouble shooting the 135. The battery is totally dead even though it's only a year old. I don't have a big force charger and my trickle charge won't start charging it because it's so dead. Might have lost a cell sitting in the freezing weather in CT. Mostly though I have the sneaking suspicion that the engine and/or transmission are bad. No evidence other than what I've already stated, but sometimes you just get a feeling. 

 I've already put int 6-7 hours this week on it so hopefully it should be back together soon. These cars are small but there are a ton of pieces to them.  Tonight I mounted mirrors, belt trim, t-top stuff and gaskets, and epoxied the quarter windows back in. Hopefully the interior will be back in tomorrow which means the sideskirts will likely need to go on too. 

Front bumper had to go back to the painter because of a bubble. The door trim moulding got left out too, so those will need to get painted. 

Have another half dead battery? Jumper cables between the really dead battery and it and throw the charger on. Has worked for me many times. 

Following along :D

java230 said:

Have another half dead battery? Jumper cables between the really dead battery and it and throw the charger on. Has worked for me many times. 

 

Following along :D

Awesome! That worked. Now I don't have an excuse to troubleshoot...

Anyways, I'm making good progress on the Mr2. I got all the quarter windows glued back in, mounted the bumper and finished up several other small things including some trim paint. Only thing left is the interior and outside trim. If the bumper get redone by Saturday the car will be back together this weekend.

I did a cheeky thing with the badges. Half ricer, half tongue in cheek Porsche jab.

I think I'm going to replace the crap bride replica seats in the car. Anyone have any experience with the Sparco R100?

no experience with the seats, but i love the color on the mr2!

So I was supposed to get the front bumper for the MR2 back last Friday, then Saturday, then Monday. Now It's Wednesday and still no bumper. Same guy is also buffing out the wagon. Apparently they scratched it trying to buff it. Needless to say I won't be taking any more business to them. Unfortunately the MR2 still needs to be buffed, but I'm afraid I may never see it again. 

Anyways. This all gave me time to focus on other things. All of the interior is back in and I was able to fix a lot of small problems. I wanted to make sure everything still worked and the car still runs fine. So I took it to put gas in it sans front bumper. Still excessively turbo'd, still runs fine, and as far as I'm concerned still one of the best true sports car values out there. 

I got the 135 to turn over but no fire. It's sitting on the electricity IV drip overnight. Hopefully more troubleshooting to come soon. 

Surprise surprise no painted front bumper today. It's okay, I'll start working on the 135.... Now I'm drinking.

The transmission is not physically bolted to the car, there are tons of electrical connections dangling, and when i tried to crank it the car poured oil all over the ground because the oil feed lines to the turbos weren't hooked up. Someone has been in here. There is only one reason you swap an engine out of a wrecked car. I haven't decided what I'm going to do. The impellers have some play, but I don't think it's catastrophic. I suppose I could do a compression check, or I could offload it for a small loss and keep looking for a donor. At the end of the day I'm sure I can part it out and make most of my money back, but that is always a slow and painful process. 

Anyone need some parts?

I'm glad to see more SW20's here! 

cdeforrest said:

In reply to dculberson :

I use E-Sys and a OBD dongle from Amazon to do my BMW coding. Lots of tutorials out there. Bimmerpost is a good place to get info.

What kind of car are you coding with E-Sys? I didn't think that the E-Sys worked on the E-chassis cars, I thought it was only for the F/G chassis cars.  

After fighting with the front bumper most of the day I finally have the car back together. Now it just needs a serious bath.

Nofive_0 said

I think I'm going to replace the crap bride replica seats in the car. Anyone have any experience with the Sparco R100?

I put r100s in my datsun.  They were one of a few options for such a small car.  Overall satisfied but theyre not very comfortable.  You sit on.  Not in.  The foam is stiff... I should try to foamectomy some from the base

Love the color!

Small update. Cleaned up the fleet today. Two more parts car options have shown up. A local guy selling a 335 coupe and another auction that is local that I'm currently. Both will be less than what I paid for the 135i. I guess you live and learn. The plan is to dismember the 135i in the garage and store it to free up the parking spot. I've also decided to sell my motorcycle as it has had 400 miles put on it in 18 months. Also, the space thing again.

So the project is going to move forward as soon as I can shuffle some stuff around and get a little more productive. Hopefully soon I will have yet another car, and will be done spending money. Then I can work towards recouping some of my money.