Skeletor's Black E53 5MT Thread

[Skeletor]

Originally Posted by Joshdub

Wow, That just ruined my year......

Just kidding. That's really awesome. Let me know where there is a thread/article about this. I'm really interested to hear about it.

Yeah, I apologize about the M54 being the same thing as the S54, I always thought that they were the same block but the S54 was bored out to 3.2. But I see that it's closer to being an S50 than anything else

[Skeletor]

The old headliner was ripped in the back, the sun roof cover had been stained from someone leaving the window open when it had started to rain, and to be honest, it looked like someone had been shot in the passenger seat (Either that or they spilled coffee on the ceiling in a very interesting way). But I wasn't digging the old headliner.

The factory seats are nice too, but the sport seats look way better, and feel noticeably different. I picked up a pair of seats and the sport headliner and brought a friend down to swap them in.

The seats were easy to install. Each one had 4 bolts and a few plugs to disconnect. The factory wiring harness is pretty much the same with most of the x's, so the heated seats plugged right in and so did the new switch cluster at the base of the dash.

The headliner was a different story, I thought I was going to be able to do the swap in a day, by myself. It took me most of the evening to pull the sport headliner out of the donor vehicle myself. The next weekend I wasn't going to mess around, I hired a friend and we drove down to get the project finished.

I've got detailed pictures on the swap if anybody is interested in seeing them. If not, here's a preview of the swap.

[Skeletor]

I mocked up the halo's last night in the headlights. There's a bigger gap then I first expected there to be. No big deal, Still not bad for $27 from china. I've seen a few other headlights that have been done and it looks like clear silicon is used to fill in the gap? I'll see what I can do with out ruining the headlights too much.

I had originally planned to leave the turn signal backing shiny, but after seeing bcredliner's headlights, I think I'm in love.

After I'm done with the headlights, I think a set of HID fog lights will be next on the topic of lights.

[Skeletor]

Originally Posted by Riggodeaux

Making progress, Skeletor. Have you swapped out those rear subframe bushings yet? I have the parts, plan to have my local indy shop do those coincident to new shocks/struts and rear control arms/ball joints; the wiggly ride won't go away and I'm riding this whip 'til I leave this mortal coil, if I can ....

No I haven't replaced the rear subframe bushings yet, I've got plans to build the tool to remove them. Keep'er running as long as you can. The manuals are fantastic machines and becoming rarer every day. Mine clunk real bad if you don't match the shifts just right, but that just makes for a smoother ride + a better pilot

[Skeletor]

I just threw a set of gloss black Squared 214's on last weekend. 275/45/20 all the way around. It's nice to have a set of slick looking rims that you can rotate with all of the camber that's in these machines.

If anybody knows anything about camber delete kits. Please let me know

I also have a set of hubcentric rings on order for the wheels. I felt like a weeble wobble when I first pulled out, and there's a shimmy at 45-70. No miles will be put on it 'till those rings get here.

[Ojai5]

Nice to see another manual. Looks like you are up to some nice modifications.
I would do the differential swap first. I really dislike the ratios on my 5mt.

differential swap with a S54 would be awesome

[Skeletor]

Originally Posted by Ojai5

I would do the differential swap first. I really dislike the ratios on my 5mt.

Same, I do a lot of commuting and I try not to run the car at too high of RPMs. The one nice thing about sitting at 3k rpm around 60 is that most of the torque is right there.

The donor 4.4 that I've been pulling parts off of still has the diffs in it and lower miles than mine. I'm thinking about pulling them over the summer and doing a thread on the results.

Also, I've been thinking about swapping the factory black exhaust tips (mufflers) on to mine. I can't decide if I want to do a resonator back straight pipe and put tips on or do the factory exhaust, because I don't want to "rice" up the X too much. I might put a poll up here soon to see what people think.

[OrangeFurious]

That sucks, but from the pictures the damage doesn't look too awful. Any cracks or misalignments?

[Skeletor]

Originally Posted by OrangeFurious

That sucks, but from the pictures the damage doesn't look too awful. Any cracks or misalignments?

Besides what you can view from laying on the ground, all I can tell is that the drivers side rubber exhaust mount broke, and the passenger side metal bracket is bent (along with who knows what else) and a few of the bumper mounting brackets are bent, but when I swapped cars for the week, I was told that the battery box is cracked so I wont know until I have it on the lift this weekend. I'll check to see the full extent either Friday night or Saturday morning when I pull the bumper and exhaust. These machines are pretty tough though. I have faith in it. Good news is that I have a 4.4 sport parts car with all of the exhaust, crash bars and brackets intact. So I'll be doing the ol' switcheroo and it'll look like nothing ever happened

[OrangeFurious]

It sounds like you came out about as good as could be expected here. Kudos.

You're right these beasts are tough. Back when I had a 4.4 I made a foolish mistake. Heading out in the morning and my kids in the back were having problems with their seatbelts. I hopped out to help and neglected to put it in park. The damn thing rolled off down the gentle hill I lived on, doors open, kids in back, no driver. Jumped a curb, crushed a small Japanese maple tree and came to rest on my neighbors Toyota. Only about 20 feet of travel, but enough to freak me the hell out.

Kids loved it, the X5 didn't have anything but cosmetic damage to the bumper. Neighbor needed a new rear bumper and trunk.