Progress will hit a wall soon. I still have to source a trans and clutch/FW, which is $$$$. Also, I can’t begin actual fitment until I take this off the road, which can’t happen until I find a winter beater ($$$$). It also doesn’t make sense to take a perfectly good fun/running car off the road in August.
Nice start Norb! cant wait to see some more progress and GL!
Bit of progress this weekend. No pics, I spent all of Saturday moving to my new apartment in North Buffalo so my camera is buried somewhere.
Big thumbs up to Mike93 for letting me borrow his engine hoist. Works like a charm.
Got the garage itself closer to where I want it—air compressor mounted, bench in place, lights installed, power strips/electrical, the usual. Started to disassemble the motor a bit more on Sunday but my Craftsman Air ratchet took a dump on me. I have a pile of tools I need to have warrantied by them next time I go in.
Got the engine mounted on the stand
Pulled off both motor mounts
Removed 3 broken exhaust manifold studs via welding a nut on method (1 broken stud still remains. It’s 2mm below the head surface. I’ll have this done professionally as I don’t want to screw it up).
Pulled all 8 plugs, they are original and didn’t look too bad.
Cleaned up the heads with a razor blade
Tried to remove the crank pulley bolt with my impact gun, didn’t even budge. Those things have to be insanely tight.
I plan on having the heads off by the end of the week. Would like to have them cleaned and milled .030” to bring compression back up to around 10:1 or so. I’ve read that the 317 heads are very similar to LS6 heads, minus having a larger combustion chamber. Rather than buy new higher comp heads, I want to just mill them to reduce the size of the combustion chamber (to 66cc). Have also read that usually .006” material removed is about 1cc of chamber volume.
My source:
http://lsx4u.com/lsxinfo/heads.html
Casting Numbers 241, 806, 853
Head: 1997+ LS1 5.7 Liter Passenger Car
Material: Aluminimum
Part Number:
12559806 (1997-98) Chambers = 69cc
12559853 (1999-00)
12564241 (2000-03)
Combustion Chamber Volume: 66.67cc
Casting Number 317, 035
Head: 2001+ LQ4 and LQ9 6.0 Liter Truck
Material: Aluminimum
Part Number:
12562317 -LQ4
12572317 -LQ9
12572035 -LQ9
Combustion Chamber Volume: 71.06cc
Compression Ratio: 10:1 LQ9 Flat top pistons
Compression Ratio: 9.6:1 LQ4 Dish piston
Intake Port Volume: 210cc
Exhaust Port Volume: 75cc
Intake Valve Diameter: 2.00 inches
Exhaust Valve Diameter: 1.55 inches
So, I know how much I need to mill to go from 317 head (71.06cc) to 241 head volume (66.67cc), but how do I calculate compression ratio from that?
I guess the other option would be to buy 241 heads or 243 heads and sell the 317s, but who knows if 317s are a hot commodity.
Anyone recommend a good machine shop that can do this? I read online that TSP does this service for $75, but they aren’t local.
Are you planning on changing the cam?
i am. i forgot to ask that question also. how will milling the heads affect cam sizing? i don’t want to limit myself on cam size because of PTV clearance problems.
due to budget i planned on throwing in a stock LS1 or LS6 cam, and down the road doing the whole ‘aftermarket lopey cam, springs, and pushrods’ deal
You kindof answered it with the PTV clearance. Without changing pushrod length a higher lift cam could cause clearance problems since the geometry had changed. On my Mustang I had to run a shorter pushrod due to my heads/piston/cam/rocker combo.
gotcha. anyone have a stock ls1/ls6 cam laying around?!
Nitroinsane might.
just texted him, he gave it to someone else last night. shit
Spent most of yesterday after work moving things to the new house and unpacking. I really hate moving, because you do so many little things, and it doesn’t look like much…
Pulled the truck oil pan, baffle, and pickup tube off, scraped the block surface with a razorblade
Pulled the valve covers on each head and removed all 16 rockers, pushrods, and rocker bolts, bagged and tagged everything
I realize how crappy my pictures are coming out, I need to bring my good camera over.
Pile of stock parts continues to grow.
My workspace (work in progress in itself)
That desk looks like it came out of my old office.
I was gonna dump it along with the other desk against the far wall, but they were in really nice shape, and made for perfect workbenches. My previous garage had a built in workbench that was about chest height, and it wasn’t that comfortable/convenient. This is perfect because I can sit in my chair, work on the motor, and have tools within an arm’s length on the desk. Also much easier to lay down nuts/bolts in the order you take them off this way.
Nice garage! I cant wait till I start my build with ya 
Looks so much nicer than your old garage 
Yeah, no more broken down snowmobiles and other peoples shit in the way.
Two things.
A: I am very jealous of your workspace haha
B: This such a cool build! I have always wondered about LSx swapped E39’s and thought it would be an awesome build. But with me being some-what new to the BMW community I didn’t know that it has been done and after I saw your build thread I went and found them all over the interwebs haha.
But this is a cool build and will be worth the effort in the end!! :tup: Good luck, I’d love to check it out sometime. If you need any info for the engine, schematics, torque specs, clearance specs etc…give me a shout. I was a GM tech, and have access to all that jazz.
Thanks man. Garage is always a work in progress. It’s a bit more cramped than I’d like but I’m just renting here for a year until I buy a house next year, so I’m making do with what I have. Unlike my old house, I’m very close to stores, groceries, etc, instead of the 15 minute drive everywhere I had last time.
Yeah, it has been done. Not as common as E36 LSX swaps, but they’re out there. I was inspired by reading through those threads—I never even knew the LQ4 existed, and how far the LSX family tree really went until I discovered those threads, and started researching. Now I’m fairly well versed in the years/materials of production of the Gen III, etc, it’s fascinating stuff.
If you want to come over and help me work on the motor sometime, feel free. Before I start to reassemble the motor, I need to:
Scrape the block of all rust and paint and repaint it
Clean the piston faces
Buy some sort of stockish cam (LS1, LS6, whatever)
Mill the heads to bring the compression up
Buy headgaskets (don’t know what thickness to use, I’m told I should stick with MLS)
Buy ARP head bolts
Buy front timing cover gasket
Buy new timing set (LS2)
Buy valley pan gasket
no pics yet, have to upload them, but recent updates:
welded a 3" QTP Y pipe in the exhaust system, now the M62 screams, love the sound. This is probably my 4th exhaust configuration on this car
removed the middle valley pan, need a new gasket for that
removed the heads on the LQ4. 10 long bolts, 5 short bolts per side. Need to buy ARP head bolts and new headgaskets. Any recommendations on headgaskets?
Removed the front crank pulley with a puller from Vatozone, need to buy a new bolt for that. Removed front cover (need a new gasket), timing set (chain was pretty floppy, vids to follow, need to buy a new LS2 set) and oil pump, followed by cam plate and cam itself.
Found a low mileage (16K) LS2 cam out of an 05 C6 Vette on LS1Tech…$90 shipped, I thought it was a good deal. That will be installed as soon as it arrives since I don’t need anything to accompany it.
Stock Cam Specs:
LQ4: 196/207 .467 .479
LS2: 204/211 .525 .525
I’ll try to upload pics of all of the above when I get a chance. My girlfriend is taking me on a surprise 3 day trip for my birthday so I’ll be away from the computer for a bit.
haven’t updated in a bit…waiting on parts to come in
went to the dyno with a friend…made 282 whp, 302 tq. M60 Manifold, cone filter, open cutout before the Y-res, and 3.15 open diff.
made some purdy sounds while on the rollers
best friend’s El Tee Juan T/A put down 325whp/355tq. f*ck yeah 'Merica
scrubbed the heads, got more gunk off them. need to find a machine shop to mill them for me.
wirewheeled the valve covers. before and after.
installed LS2 cam. installed timing set (new HD LS2 stuff) and oil pump. timing this thing was…too easy…felt like i was doing something wrong as there were like 3 steps.
Donezeee 
now finish that motor and get it in!!!
Why arp head bolts? Are you going to boost or spray it? I’d go cheap if you’re not upgrading the bottome end.