Quick Question - M52 Auto Tranny DME?

[wake74]

Quick question, I've gotten the engine swap bug, and going to look at an M52 tomorrow. Maybe an early B-day gift to myself.

Anyways, it's an M52b2.8 from a 97 328i convertible with an auto-tranny.

I know I can get the DME reflashed to remove the EWS, but can I swap a manual tranny onto the engine and still use the auto DME, or is an auto DME and a manual DME different?

I'm still reading the stickies, but haven't seen that one answered yet.

Glenn

[Strawman]

I swapped an auto-equipped M52 from a '97 328i into my manual '96 318ti. I had to have the DME reprogrammed to remove the ECS (electronic brain for the auto trans). It is pretty well explained in J!m's swap manual, which I highly recommend. Good luck!

[wake74]

Thanks. What did you pay to have your DME reprogrammed?

This engine turned out to be a bust. I was very specific that I wanted to visit the car before it was parted out, and even double checked that it was in running condition before I left. Get all the way over there, and the definition of running was a bit different. The kid said it would run if she hadn't already sold the coils, plugs, battery etc. It was a 90 minute drive each way. Probably was still a good price on the motor, but it didn't leave me any confidence that it would be removed correctly, and with the harness in one piece.

Her explanation, "it's not my fault, you trusted someone to tell you the truth about it running". Classy, very classy......

[Strawman]

It ended up costing me $600 at a local BMW specialist (German Auto in SLO, CA -- not a factory dealer). I probably could have bitched and pushed the price down, because the guy who did the work was a junior technician and the guy who I spoke to about the work when I brought it in had already completed two swaps and likely could have completed the work in fewer shop hours. But they've been good to me working on a couple other BMW cars I own so I let it go.

I would definitely recommend buying a crashed/running car -- there are a lot of parts/pieces that you'll forget to grab from a junkyard.

[wake74]

Got a lead on a fairly local 1996 328i crashed car. Some interior trim pieces have been removed, front end is trashed. Car still running but no wheels, so I would need to use mine to tow it home, and to the scrap yard when I was finished. It's a manual car with 145k on it. Has the keys, etc. That seems like a reasonably price to me.

Thoughts?