Parting out 4.6is engine and transmission to replace with LY6 Engine

[GOFAST GUY]

Well the day has finally come and I'm looking forward to making this dream a reality. Last winter my crank case vent hose froze which pressured up my engine and blew all of the oil out of my engine. As soon as my oil light went on, I shut the engine off and pulled over FAST!! I had my X5 flat decked back to my house and the diagnosis started. At first one it looked like my one bank wasn't firing so I bought the expensive engine timing kit and made made sure my engine was still in time while re-tightening my cam position sensor. With both banks firing again, I thought I had my problems fixed but while it was still running in my garage something sounded off so I unbolted the oil pan and upper oil pan to have a look at the main bearings and found the bearing closest to the fire wall was cooked so I'm parting out the engine and transmission and installing an LY6 6.0L Chevy engine and transmission. It'll be a project and a half but I have some good friends that will help with the build. I'll post pics and updates along the way.


1. I replaced the transmission about 20,000kms ago with one straight from ZF in New York. No issues with the new tranny at all.


2. I had gotten the timing chain and guides done also right around that time so that's all quite new also.



3. I had the alternator rebuilt by my good friend at Treasure Electric in Calgary with all new mil-spec parts. He did an awesome job and ran perfect around the same time also.
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[GOFAST GUY]

Part of the tear down...

[deepblonde]

Great project; so your plan is to install the 6.0 V8 and automatic transmission?
Diff ratio remain the same?
Any other changes?
Thank you for sharing; I only noticed your post from the other LSX swap

[Clockwork]

Damn, you are in Calgary too .. would be amazing to see this beast in real life one day, if you don't mind onlookers.
Good luck with this project and the sale/part out of 4.6 and tranny. So you bought a ZF from the factory? Is it for sale?

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[GOFAST GUY]

Yes, I ordered the tranny from ZF in New York and drove down to the border and picked it up while sending my old one back in the shipping crate. I only put 20,000kms on it since installing it so it's still new.
As for this build, I've always wanted to do this to my X5 and although my timeline was sped up a little it's heading in the right direction. For starters, we're going to get the engine installed and running. Once we're happy with how everything works, we can easily start upgrading the performance while documenting the changes and performance figures.

[GOFAST GUY]

Originally Posted by deepblonde

Great project; so your plan is to install the 6.0 V8 and automatic transmission?
Diff ratio remain the same?
Any other changes?
Thank you for sharing; I only noticed your post from the other LSX swap

We're sticking with the factory 4L80 because it's so robust and shifts smoothly. The factory diff will work well for now also but I like the idea of doing an M5 swap'd rear end someday if we start putting down some major up.

[GOFAST GUY]

Well, it's been a fun adventure with this LS swap but the 6L LS fit and there was room to spare since the LS is narrower than the 4.6L. The motor mounts were easy to fab up and I picked up a set of Hooker short headers to clear the firewall on the passenger side. The wiring harness had to be ordered through Wiring Specialists and for now I'm running a HUD through my OBD2 plug so I have engine temp, speed, tac etc.
We used the factory X5 tranny mount and added 9" of bracket onto it to accommodate the shorter 4L80 tranny. We made an adaptor for the shifter linkage so the BMW automatic gear selector works fine aside from no sport shift.
We used an after market electric fan and thermostat for engine cooling.
We used the BMW rad and reservoir along with most of the coolant lines and power steering reservoir as well.

Once it was up and running and tuning was done, I decided to swap out the factory cam for an LS9 cam and delete the VVT which was also surprisingly simple. A little more tuning and it feels really good. Since the 4L80 only has 4 gears, in WOT, it shifts from 3rd to 4th at 170km/hr 'hypathically' of course.
Here's a short video of it idling.
https://youtu.be/lTnXZ1nZWKM
When just driving normal, it shifts smooth and works perfect. The amazing thing about getting it tuned, its done through HP Tuners so literally everything can be changed. We bumped the redline to 7000. It shifts in WOT at 6600rpm. The shift points were played with also so that under regular driving, its idling along in 4th gear most of the time and when you want to pass someone, i can either easy into it and it downshifts nice or I can hammer on it, and it jumps down 2 gears and takes off.
It is only rear wheel drive right now but with the factory 315 tires in the rear, it has tons of traction with plenty to spare.

[Happy]

Pretty cool!

[GOFAST GUY]

I added a lot more pics of the build on this forum thinking I would get a lot more input from LS guys and I was surprised at how little response I got from anyone.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/conversio...53-bmw-x5.html

[GOFAST GUY]

While I was working through this build, not really knowing anything about LS builds, I watched a bunch of Richard Holdener videos on Youtube and I was blown away at how much hp could be made with minor mods and how robust these motors are. The van I bought had 420,000kms on it ran and shifted like it was new. Everything still looks really good internally now that we've upgraded the cam and valve springs. I'm going to upgrade the trunion roller bearings to bushings next just because I think its something that should be done and it's not like I drive it in the winter so I might as well tackle it. I definitely want to get the gauge cluster working if I can but all of the electronics in the vehicle work without without the BMW ECU plugged in. Things like power windows, mirrors, seats, heater fan, sunroof, power locks, stereo etc. I was able to wire in a couple relays to use the BMW key and ignition also. I did replace the BMW gas pedal with the GM pedal for ease of the swap and I swapped out the BMW fuel pump for the GM one along with the float also but that was minor stuff.
I know there are a pile of BMW purests out there that think what i did isn't right but something I learnt along the way is this. When you build an LS engine to work in the vehicle you have plans for it, it doesn't necessarily have to live in that vehicle forever because that engine and wiring harness can easily be pulled from that vehicle and dropped into anything else you want in the future so you're really not limited by tackling a project like this. I happen to love my E53 X5 for it's comfort and looks. I also still love my E36 M3 also for everything that it is but I also see a rat rod grain truck on airbags in my future with this engine in it also. Whether I hit up another auction and pick up another donor vehicle or hit up a junkyard and yank another 6L for $400, I've done it once and honestly I'd totally do it again because of what I now know.