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m20 swap questions


Guest Anonymous

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Guest Anonymous

What part of the front needs to be cut and why? Is the cut made just for the radiator? Does anyone have pictures after it's been cut? Any other cutting that needs to be done other than the battery tray?

I ask these questions because I'd like to do the swap with as little cutting as possible.

Thanks,

Eric

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Guest Anonymous

It is possible to do the M20 swap without cutting anything but the battery tray (although you *will* have to bang out the transmission tunnel a bit). On my car I just cut the whole radiator support out, although it isn't completely necessary. It gives much more room to work with though. If you don't want to cut it, I think I read that you have to use a water pump from a 323 (assuming you are using a 325 engine).

Here's one of the pics shown at the 6 into 2 page at bmw2002.co.uk.

6into2h.JPG

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Guest Anonymous

but to clean it up a bit i covered it with a 1/8" polished aluminum sheet. And i plan on reinforcing the area with a straight bar across the front aswell as a strut tower brace.

It all depends on the engine mounts...but you can cut JUST enough for the radiator depending on which one you use. You can test fit the m20 with the rad support in and jugde what needs to be cut. Im sure you could customize the engine mounts enough to squeeze everything in there, but then you might have a problem with the tranny bell housing against the tunnel/firewall.

Cutting the rad support out makes life a lot easier and allows room for other things like a cone intake filter and intercooler for your twin turbos ;)

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Guest Anonymous

Tim Laskey has done a great swap..he barely notched the front to fit a 323i rad. His car looks almost factory, he did SUCH a nice job.

I took the other approach as Marco did, and cut it all out. Its a real PITA to get the engine/tranny in as well if nothing is cut out. And there is not enough room (with my combo, at least) to put the engine/tranny in separatly..as there is no room to bolt it up afterwards. Tim also used a physically smaller tranny...so maybe thats the key.

Matt

bent '72 02/m20

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Guest Anonymous

Can you drop the rear of the engine down to get to the bolts up on top of the transmission? If I could, I would like to put the engine and trans in separately.

Thanks

Eric

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Guest Anonymous

I didn't have room with mine for any of the bolts. same goes for the starter..that would have been a huuuge bitch as well. i can't see how you could do it separatly with that size of trans.

matt

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Guest Anonymous

yeah, you could probably replace the starter..but i wouldn't want to, thats for sure! I may have a close-up pic of that part of the engine bay, I'll see if I can find something

matt

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Guest Anonymous

on my 02m20 i had to put in a missing o-ring on the crank case breather tube. I had battle scars after that PITA job. If you can avoid taking the intake off for any reason try to work around it. To take it off you have to raise the engine about 2inches so the intake clears the break booster. And its 10 times harder putting it back on and lining up the breather tube.

Unfortunately i think you would have to either take the intake off to get at the starter, or raise the engine enough to get your hand in there.

Intalling the block and tranny seperately would be way too difficult imho. I dont even know if its possible...

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