I had an 07 530 6MT Touring and found it to be so good in many ways but it was a decently base spec. It started getting up in miles so I decided to sell it. I bought an M235i thinking it would remind me of my early automotive days in my 88 325iX. It was even the perfect spec - manual, red leather, Alpine white, 10k miles, etc. Alas it did not and I found myself thinking more about the car that moved me: the E61.
I had done quite a few automotive projects with increasing difficulty over the years, including converting that 07 E61 to 2WD after a chunk of concrete ventilated the oil pan. That planted the seed that leads me to today: use the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup approach to build an S85 powered E61. Obviously, the US never got the M5 Touring but the chassis is largely the same. Noted exception is the cut out for the standardized transfer case notch since all wagons over here were AWD.
I bought a great recipient car in a 2010 535xiT finished in Carbon Black trimmed out with M Sport bits. After several months of looking, I found a great donor car in an 08 M5 6MT with 76k mi on it. I wanted a known runner instead of a salvage because after careful consideration I decided the best way to complete the swap was to do a complete harness out swap, and having a complete donor car would allow everything to port over rather than buy unknown small bits one at a time. My expectation is that I'll end up with a faithful near-factory car when it's all said and done.
So... When a friend had spare garage space and offered it up for me to take over for an undetermined period of time, I couldn't say no. As such, it's time to start my E61 M5 build!
I had done quite a few automotive projects with increasing difficulty over the years, including converting that 07 E61 to 2WD after a chunk of concrete ventilated the oil pan. That planted the seed that leads me to today: use the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup approach to build an S85 powered E61. Obviously, the US never got the M5 Touring but the chassis is largely the same. Noted exception is the cut out for the standardized transfer case notch since all wagons over here were AWD.
I bought a great recipient car in a 2010 535xiT finished in Carbon Black trimmed out with M Sport bits. After several months of looking, I found a great donor car in an 08 M5 6MT with 76k mi on it. I wanted a known runner instead of a salvage because after careful consideration I decided the best way to complete the swap was to do a complete harness out swap, and having a complete donor car would allow everything to port over rather than buy unknown small bits one at a time. My expectation is that I'll end up with a faithful near-factory car when it's all said and done.
So... When a friend had spare garage space and offered it up for me to take over for an undetermined period of time, I couldn't say no. As such, it's time to start my E61 M5 build!