Skeletor's Black E53 5MT Thread
 

I'm not new to Xoutpost or X5's but I'm new to posting to the forum. Thought I'd share some of my experiences.

I picked this one up just over a year ago. It wasn't our first X5 and the price was right. It was listed on craigslist and the guy answered the phone at like 9:30 and we drove down to Maryland 2 days later to pick it up.

It needed some work. Half of the lights on the dash were lit up, Found out that the check engine light was on for evap (ran it out of gas) and a cat. code. The other lights were because the front left speed sensor and brake sensor had gone out. $60 and a car lift fixed that. The passenger window was being held up by duck tape because the window regulator had been torn out of it, and a few small trim pieces were missing from around the car. The manuals seem to eat up the rear sub frame bushings as well, these were shot.

We bartered with the guy and talked him down off of the $3K asking price. (Not saying the true purchase price, it may make some members jealous). The drive home was one of the most nerve racking things I had done in a long time. Upon going for a test drive, we heard the fatal disa chatter. We were about a 2 hour drive away from safety so we tried keeping it under 3,000 rpm (which is virtually impossible for a manual x5) and babied it home.

The first thing that we did: CAREFULLY pulled out the disa valve. She was hanging on by a thread. I've piloted an e53 when the disa pin flew out, it was not a fun experience.

Many new parts have gone on since then, and I will post my experiences this weekend (thanks to me forgetting to bring my SD card with me). The whip currently has a squared set of gloss black 214's, heated sport interior, clear lens headlights (DIY halos in progress) among many other mods.

Soon to come:
Factory 4.4 black exhaust (completed)
Gloss black window trim
BSW subwoofer
Factory Xenon w/halos
Front window tint (completed)

Some time in the future:
Eibach lowering springs and sway bars
S54 engine swap ;)

Ran a set of stock plasti-dipped 17s over the winter. There was a definite difference in handling over the 4.4 19"ers. Nice smooth ride and no hunting at highway speeds.

There was a big change when recently swapped from the 17" to the 20" as well. It reverted back to feeling sort of numb at low steering angle inputs and as I found out a day later, that hubcentric rings are needed to run e70+ wheels.

I couldn't stand the yellow cornered headlights anymore so I found a set of clear lenses for a couple bucks and did the swap in a couple of minutes.

The originals are now undergoing surgery to accept CCFL halo rings. A heatgun and a few trim removal tools got the lens off

These will do for now

Glad to see you rescuing this one - nice work so far!

Congratulations on your new x5. Liking what you are doing so far, keep it up.

Curious on the S54 swap...I wonder what the wiring would involve.

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 ....

Looks good.

What about S54 swap interests you?

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:D

Mainly the fact that it's never been done before.(edit: I found out it has been done and boy was I wrong) I know I know.... "The V8's are more practical for the low end torque" but they chew up transmissions, eat timing chains, and you can't get them in manuals. I do think it would be fun to have a manual 4.4 X5 even if it was only rear wheel drive.

I recently got a bmw scanning software for my laptop and have been playing around with an R56 mini trying to get the FRM module programmed to vin, and I think it would be interesting seeing the amount of work to get an engine (The S54 since it's the same block as the M54) (edit: Don't listen to the dummy that wrote that last sentence about the S54) that bolts up to the transmission and work on programing OEM computers to vin.