LQ9 into E39

Taking the stock junk yard engines over 900hp seems to be the new cool kid thing to do, but it’s not recommended.

are these one and the same?

strength under harsh conditions is part of why i chose the iron block (ok fine, it was also cheaper the aluminum). I really want to enjoy this motor, unlike the BMW V8 where i was always watching the temp gauge and worrying about the timing chain guides disintegrating.

No, similar but different bores and layers. The ones that J&J posted are the ones to go with for your app.

---------- Post added at 04:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:24 PM ----------

They can take a lot of abuse as long as you aren’t detonating. I will likely build another one myself. They are about as good as you can get without stepping up to the big money setups.

Eh, you’re better off ordering a tranny from tick performance. I am getting a great deal on parts and labor. I am still looking 15-1700

Great price because it takes 3 seasons to get your parts.

I only said 500-600 :lol:

4l80e i know you guys like rowing gears but i have a well built 4l80 and not alot of money in it

If my tranny isn’t done by may ill go buy a tranny idgaf.

so, here’s the trans i’m looking at. before i drive all the way down there i’d like to make sure it’s LS1 application.

i don’t think the case casting number can tell me the origin (1386-065-902).

i have the seller working on getting me pictures of the sticker and the metal tag under the bolt on the rear extension housing.

in the meantime, can anyone here with a trained eye tell me if this is LS1 application T56, and how can they tell? maybe the bellhousing?

i’m not a GM guy but the trans crossmember looks LS1 application.

Spend some time running around town yesterday picking up flange head metric bolts for the T56-motor connection. Fastenal and a local specialty contractors supply store did not stock them, but Sears Hardware did, go figure.

Mated up the motor just for fun. I’m going to mock up the mounts once I settle on an oil pan (still need to think about that one) and while I’m taking care of the harness and wiring, I’ll have it sent out to have Jason @ TDP look over it. Super nice guy, by the way.

Laid the heads down on it just for mockup. The next step is to buy all the gaskets for reassembly, the motor is ready to be put back together.

I put it in the bay just for sh*ts and giggles. For some reason at the time (maybe it was the fact that I was tired from work all day, or had a few too many beers) I was convinced that the shifter was supposed to line up exactly with the hole. I didn’t have an oil pan mounted at the time, but if I did, it would not have agreed with that idea. I’ll get into the garage tonight and play with it some more.

Measuring driveline angles will be crappy, because the nose of the car only is on jackstands. The car is too low when it sits normally, the engine hoist legs hit the lower control arms when plopping the engine in. May just have to take the angle of the car and then subtract it from my measurements.

get yourself some wood to make some blocks to sit the car on its wheels so its high up enough to get the engine hoist in there. when you setup your mounts you want it sitting like how itll be going down the road. make sure its square and center, and level left to right. i usually set them ~3-4* down front to back.

ive made motor mounts for an sbc s10, bbc s10, sbc wrangler, sbc in a dirt track car, and a flathead in the hotrod. next up will be making motor mounts for a bbc jetboat. let me know if you have any questions on it.

good call, i didn’t think of the wood under the wheels. i bought some 2x6s on lunch to cut up and stack under the wheels. only problem is that my floor in the garage is cracked in a few places, i have to play around with placement of the car.

i also bought a 2"x2"x8’ piece to mimick 2" tube steel, which is what i’ll be using to actually make the mounts. lot easier to cut the wood (take away a few degrees here and there) than the steel, and cheaper. the passenger mount will be one piece of tube steel, but due to the bulky steering box on the driver’s side, it will have to be 2-3 pieces welded together at angles going around it.

thanks for the tips, definitely good info! i may have you stop out with an angle finder to look over my work (when i get there).

Sounds like some heavy duty motor mounts haha. Look forward to seeing how it goes. I usually make templates out of cardboard when making mounts, may have to try the wood idea sometime

Yeah, seeing as it’s the iron block, it’s a HEAVY pig. I get the stuff super super cheap through work so it’s cheap insurance.

wouldnt an iron block lsx be comparable to an sbc? not terribly heavy. can you get away with not having to do multiple pieces on the driver side if you do round tube instead of square? the simpler the better.

I have no clue what it weighs, but by the time I throw on front accessories, intake, etc etc, it’ll be up there in weight. The actual mounting point to the BMW body is about 6” forward of where the motor mount plate will be on the block, so it will see bending as well as simple compression.

There’s a guy that makes the mounts for this swap but he wants $700 for motor/tranny mounts/the shifter extension. This is his picture, he blacked out the mount so nobody would copy his design, but you can see how the tube steel has to “reach” for the motor mount on the body.

Here you can see how the mounts look for the V8 subframe. You have no choice but to go around the steering box.

The 6 cylinder E39 subframe engine mount location is much more directly in line with the motor plate. This guy started with a V8 E39 but swapped to an I-6 subframe to make fabbing mounts easier (and to ditch the steering box for a rack).

Do you mean bending round tube? That’d be elegant, but I don’t have a pipe bender (and I doubt we have one at work).

interesting setup that guy on bimmerforums is selling, the weight of an engine being that far off center of a single mounting point…no thanks. seems like it would act like a lever and prematurely wear out and/or break the motor mount bushing.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. However, I kept imagining it as the only point holding up the motor, which would put a severe twist on it. in reality, the transmission is supported in the rear, which brings the force and weight back down squarely on the mount.

Just a thought; what about just using the front of the block to make your mounts off of? Similar to how a motor-plate mounting works. This would eliminate or reduce the bending load from the large offset.

In the interest of getting this thing on the road and doing heaters, I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here. Those mounts have been in use with 3 or 4 guys for a while now and nobody has had any problems. I also plan on running stiffer M5/Z8 rubber BMW isolators just to be on the safe side.