Rebuilding a BMW intake: S52 to M50 manifold conversion, day 3

Coming to you live from my parents garage in this 7 part series, are the chronicled adventures my dad and myself had converting an S52 intake manifold to the larger M50 intake manifold.

Over the past few days I did some research to try and figure out what the part #s are for those 3 rubber heater hoses. With the manifold off, access to those is super easy and since they were looking a bit weathered, replacing made the most sense–I didn’t want to take the manifold off again anytime soon :-)

Well it turns out that the BMW ETK is completely wrong! Those part #s listed for those hoses are incorrect–they are actually other mechanical parts, which turn out to be special order and impossible to return, so watch out! Thanks to the E36M3 listserv guys for the tip :-)

To find the correct part #s you have to look on a 328i and then you’ll arrive at the #s on this picture (hover over picture for part #): http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedserbinski/1189516805/ – turns out they are only like $8 each or so, much better than $60+ ;-)

With those hoses replaced and back on (watch out for dripping coolant!), it was time to head back to the KO manifold.

Turns out none of the hoses they provide actually fit. We had to measure the hoses, place the manifold, remeasure, and recut, what a pain! This took quite a while and to see the final approximate sizes of cuts, check out the intake manifold pictures.

On a different note, still no luck finding a new stud. The dealership sent me the rubber nut cap and a stud that screws into that, but does not fit into the engine, doh!

Maybe tomorrow…

Tips from Day 3:

• Join Suzy's E36M3 Digest