318ti auto to 328ti auto by way of 528i
 

Hey folks, I reckon I aught to document this since I can’t find another.

Swapping my newly acquired 318ti California Edition (bought with no compression in 3 and 4). Didn’t want to go to the trouble of finding a new head, gaskets and all, to have an adorable, but underpowered for my liking, lil rag top. But I do have a couple overpowered manual cars (1990 327s supercharged 5-speed and a 03 540i 6-speed), and I want a fun car that I can cruise in with my children.

Here goes.

Yanked the motor and trans out of the ti this afternoon.

Sub'd......Keep the updates coming.

Yeah man. I’m hoping to pull the motor out of the 528 tomorrow. 🤞🏻

Sounds good, take pictures as well

Got the m52 out! My first time dropping the subframe on an e39. It wasn’t terrible, managed to forget to detach the shift linkage the first time I tried to lift the car off of it. But so far so good. I think I’m going to need to get a harness from an e36 328i automatic. If anyone has one, let me know.

@GotSWoo, If you are reading this, I have tried to send two private messages to you regarding your PM, and appears that they do not go through for whatever reason. So I’m just gonna post this here. If your harness is in good shape minus the damage that you stated in your private message, let’s make a deal.

And if anyone on the forum needs an automatic/engine harness for a 1996 318 TI, or an automatic/engine harness for a 1997 528I, just let me know and I’ll give you a screaming deal.

The output shaft flanges are different between the ti and the 528i transmission, so you just remove the big nut and swap ‘em. You should use some locktite on the big nut upon reinstalling.

On the third day, I rested. Because it turns out that pulling two motors in two days is slightly labor intensive. But since today is the holy day for 318ti owners all across the globe, I shall get back to it.

Major thanks to GotSWoo for hooking me up with the exact harness I need. Man, what did we do before the Internet brought us all together?

Lots of work going on there, keep it up!!

The harness is soon to be in the mail, thanks again GotSWoo.

In an effort to maintain original equipmentish reliability and so forth, I was wondering if one could pull the lock cylinders from these cars, swap ‘em, and import the key from the 528 to the ti because of the ews and whatnot. I guess I’ll go find out if they are the same...��

Update: I’ve since discovered that the 528i I have is ews3 and the 318ti is ews2, and there are chassis wiring differences so I can’t just add the ews3 module and lock cylinder to the ti. I’ll have to have the DME from the m52 “aligned” to the ews2 and key from the ti. Apparently not super expensive at the dealer. Supposedly 1 hour billed and takes ten minutes.

Been slacking on the project whilst working and waiting on parts. This upcoming weekend looks real good weather-wise, so I’ll make up for it.

Back in the shop today. Got a bro coming over to help. GotSWoo sent my new harness (beautiful condition and fast shipping). It arrived yesterday and I’ll be swapping that in and working on slamming that motor in hopefully. Only variable i can foresee at this time is motor mount arms. Update pending...

Had some proper bro-time in the shop yesterday. Pulled the intake off and the old wire harness, and installed the new harness. Now I feel like I want to clean the motor real nice like. As much as I want to do this quickly, I also want to do it right. So ima slow down and take a slightly more detail oriented approach. Thanks to Chris, Greg, and Shropenshire for coming over and helping me strip the e39 (pic of Greg).

New intake and valve cover gaskets, new coolant T-pipe, thermostat, and associated gaskets. Then I cleaned it up a bit.

Well there ya go! It’s in. I used some m50 mount arms and the m44 rubber mounts (the 528i ones DO NOT work). The transmission cross member has a set of holes an inch offset from the ones it was in with the m44. That’s where it wanted to be bolted so I’m going with it. I imagine the driveshaft has that much squeeze in it. Next on to wiring and then some driveline tomfoolery. Then the dreaded ews...