BMW Compact V8

Timothy Haynes

Timothy Haynes

New Member
Hi Guys, I live in Cape Town SA, Born and raised in UK, from oxfordshire.

New to the forum but been following driftworks for a while. Just thought I would put some pics up of my car which i currently use on track at Cape town, Killarney Circuit. Really its a circuit track car but I want to try some drifting in it and possibly change car for this, so any advice would be great as to what tyres to use and set up. It currently has moly nylon solid suspension bushes throughout, BC BR coilovers, Camber and Toe adjustment on rear subframe, E46 front control arms, 8.5j front wheels and 10j rear with Bridgestone Semi Slicks RE11s, Wilwood 6pots on front and 4 pots on rear, M3 Discs, E36 modified LSD with incresed lock up, e39 530D gearbox with DTM style short shifter and custom flywheel with button clutch, htdro handbrake and wait for it... A jaguar AJV8 4.0 supercharged from a xjr! You might all hate this set up and I do understand as it is strange but I think its different and certainly goes well, certainly sounds lovely, 400bhp and motor is stock apart from a few things, Engine fitted reasonably well except for having to cut and modify subframe as well as moving steering rack down which gave me terrible bump steer which I have sort of got round. I really need to do a dry sump set up and lift steering rack up again. At the minute im using some bump steer ball joint spacers.

Anyway let me know what you think...

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Can you please please please give me some info on this gearbox swap?

I'm big into jags and that engine us brilliant but manual swaps are very rare.

Did you buy a kit with an adapter plate to put that bmw box on or have you made all custom parts?

Any pics woukd be great!
 
woods1 said:
Can you please please please give me some info on this gearbox swap?

I'm big into jags and that engine us brilliant but manual swaps are very rare.

Did you buy a kit with an adapter plate to put that bmw box on or have you made all custom parts?

Any pics woukd be great!
Click to expand...

The jag Engine came with the original Mercedes Auto box but I wanted to do a manual conversion so I used the bell housing form the Mercedes box to make the bmw e39 zf 530d box fit. I cut off the bmw box bell housing and welded on the Mercedes bell housing. Making an adaptor plate would of actually ended being more difficult, the bmw box literally fitted inside the big round Mercedes bell housing nearly perfectly, witha lot of measuring and marking I started to spot it in position with the bo and frist motion shaft located on the engine, then when i was happy I took the box to my engineer who did all the welding, it worked out really well and is very strong, welded inside and outside, I have had no problems with cracking or anything. I had the same engineer make me a custom Flywheel which I did have to make a few changes too before the clutch worked properly, The clutch is BMW e46 M3, but the clutch plate has been upgraded to a 6 button clutch design and slave cylinder is standard e39 530d. Master Cylinder also standard E36. There were a few problems getting the clutch to work properly at start but we just had to make flywheel a bit thinner. The rest of drivetrain is BMW, e36 LSD modified Diff and e30 rear suspension being a compact.

I will try my best to get more pictures and videos up of the car. I will be over christmas rebuilding the engine, nothing really wrong with it now but it could do with a refresh as it does smoke/breathe a little bit at times which has improved the more i run it. I will get heads ported and flowed, I want to make a new exhaust system too and possibly make some pulley changes to charger for more boost but power is pretty good already. I will put pictures as I do this work.
 
Timothy Haynes said:
The jag Engine came with the original Mercedes Auto box but I wanted to do a manual conversion so I used the bell housing form the Mercedes box to make the bmw e39 zf 530d box fit. I cut off the bmw box bell housing and welded on the Mercedes bell housing. Making an adaptor plate would of actually ended being more difficult, the bmw box literally fitted inside the big round Mercedes bell housing nearly perfectly, witha lot of measuring and marking I started to spot it in position with the bo and frist motion shaft located on the engine, then when i was happy I took the box to my engineer who did all the welding, it worked out really well and is very strong, welded inside and outside, I have had no problems with cracking or anything. I had the same engineer make me a custom Flywheel which I did have to make a few changes too before the clutch worked properly, The clutch is BMW e46 M3, but the clutch plate has been upgraded to a 6 button clutch design and slave cylinder is standard e39 530d. Master Cylinder also standard E36. There were a few problems getting the clutch to work properly at start but we just had to make flywheel a bit thinner. The rest of drivetrain is BMW, e36 LSD modified Diff and e30 rear suspension being a compact.

I will try my best to get more pictures and videos up of the car. I will be over christmas rebuilding the engine, nothing really wrong with it now but it could do with a refresh as it does smoke/breathe a little bit at times which has improved the more i run it. I will get heads ported and flowed, I want to make a new exhaust system too and possibly make some pulley changes to charger for more boost but power is pretty good already. I will put pictures as I do this work.
Click to expand...

Really appreciate the detailed reply. Looking forward to more pics on this.
 
woods1 said:
Really appreciate the detailed reply. Looking forward to more pics on this.
Click to expand...

This is the best photo I can take of the gearbox at the minute, you can see the large round mercedes bellhousing though is mated to the BMW box which fits inside and where they overlap it is basically welded inside and outside.

Uploading some recent photos of the car too. I am going to post video links of testing at the track now...
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Great car and amazing job.
I found you and in Twitter, but I don't have account there to communicate with you. I operator in earth moving machines by the way and also I do earth moving works.
I just want to tell me if you pleased, which ECU and management you use to run this engine. I have exactly the same engine and I want to put it in Land Rover Defender and I can't find the the way to start with factory ECU.
Thank you

Ioannis Vlahos
 
Iwavvns said:
Great car and amazing job.
I found you and in Twitter, but I don't have account there to communicate with you. I operator in earth moving machines by the way and also I do earth moving works.
I just want to tell me if you pleased, which ECU and management you use to run this engine. I have exactly the same engine and I want to put it in Land Rover Defender and I can't find the the way to start with factory ECU.
Thank you

Ioannis Vlahos
Click to expand...
Hi, i am based in Cape Town South Africa, so I use a local company ECU. Spitronics Mercury 2 is the name. http://spitronics.com/products/index.php

Works very well the ECU but I dont do the tuning, I have a dyno tuner do that for me.

Car is currently in bits at the minute, engine is having a full rebuild, I have rebuilt the exhaust too and modified the roll cage, re sprayed inside, new chair. Will put some pictures up.
 
IMG_1950.JPG IMG_1949.JPG IMG_1951.JPG IMG_1953.JPG IMG_1954.JPG IMG_1955.JPG IMG_1967.jpg IMG_1970.jpg IMG_1978.jpg IMG_2080.jpg IMG_2081.jpg So The car has been stripped down lately and had some needed roll cage improvements and strengthening, Also Engine is being completely rebuilt as it had bad compression on a couple of cyliders, the bores and rings were not good due to oil pump failing, new oil pump, pistons, rings, bearings and sleeved block being done, Heads have already been done with higher lift cams and ported, Cometic gaskets this time to be fitted too. Should have some more power, around 350KW I hope.
 
Thank you for your answer Timothy! I really appreciate it. I try to find the courage to ask for more! As I see, you are the leader about this Jaguar modifications.
I don't want to much power like the "beast" you have. I just want to start the engine and works in factory setup, if is possible. Which is the cost of ECU and the setup? (If you want to tell me, of course)
If it works OK for you and without problems as you said, I guess a copy of your setup, will work for my engine too.
Tell me which flywheel you use and clutch kit?
 
so my car is finally up and running again with a freshly built engine, new bearings, sleeves and pistons, rings, oil pump, water pump, cometic head gaskets and bolts. Heads have been ported and polished with higher lift cams, so after tuning on the 31st I'm hoping for 450bhp to 500bhp with plenty of torque.
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