Swap Cost- MONEY! So now that I have had the car running for a couple thousand miles and mostly got the cost in order I can pass it on so others can know what to expect. It is not 100% complete as I still need to figure out a CEL and finish the REF process to get it BAR legal.
Basics:
$2,000 - Labor
$1,000 - 98 328is 5spd 206k miles
So in an ideal world it would of cost me roughly 3k for it to get done. But the misc parts that you replace add up really quick. I chose to have a shop do it for me as it was during Christmas break, I had roughly a week and a half of time without a car, but after I needed to have the car running and reliable for work and school. Without the experience and tools I knew for sure something would go wrong and did not want to risk getting stuck without transportation.
Other/Extra $127 - New Guibo/Center Support/Bolts
$186 - SPAL Electric Fan conversion - Bimmerworld
$140 - New Mishimoto Aluminum Radiator
$475 - TRM swap tune with DME
$220 - 3-way valve job and cleaning of the head
$50 - SS braided Vanos Line
$800 - New Headgasket Job - labor and parts
$160 - New Bosch 02 sensors x4
$160 - New oil/intake filter/coolant/NGK iridium spark plugs
$50 - m3 cluster with similar mileage to stock cluster
$320 - Stock m3 midpipe/cats - donor cats where gutted
$175 - BMW dealer confirm correct DME for REF
$500 - S52 complete head + valve train + cams
Extra costs total: ~3,363
Total cost ~ 6k Yup. Six thousand dollars. Now this does not include what i got back with selling the 328is shell or the m44 that was in the 318ti, so I did make some money back but all of that depends on what the individual does when selling parts so I won't include it.
From this experience I would say make sure your donor car is 100%!! My donor m52 had low compression, hence the head job, and then it turned into swapping a s52 head on "while at it", along with the tuned DME, and other things that dinged me to death. So I basically ended up spending close to double what I imagined. But this is just my experience and I know people who are capable to do the swap themselves and end up doing it for A LOT cheaper.