Motor Swapped BMWs – Sacrilege, Furtive Desire

With the 2024 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show starting next week, I can’t help but think of the immense variety of sights and sounds I’ll miss for the first time in over a decade. SEMA is a rumbling, buzzy, fever dream of an automotive aftermarket trade show. Rivers of faces dotted against a background of painted cinder block walls, ruffled synthetic curtains stretched across metal booth frames arranged in grids over padded carpeting covering over 4.6 million square feet of exhibit space. Thousands of automobiles challenge you to determine if custom-tailored bodywork, paint, wheels, and accessories offer significant aesthetic or functional improvements compared to their original form. Some posted in their respective spots with hoods open or mirrors underneath, proudly displaying that for them, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

Why do they do it? What makes us want to? Isn’t the original motor the engineers mated to the chassis the perfect and thus only logical choice? 

The cool kids are no longer putting Chevrolet LS motors into everything. BMW produced a little car with a throbbing V8 a few years back so we didn’t have to. The 2008 BMW M3 Sedan (E90) came equipped with the BMW S65 motor. A tidy, 4-liter, 414 hp V8 covered in a relatively unassuming suit of a small four-door sedan. It was as if BMW answered our calls, saying, “You asked, and here it is – a smaller, lighter version of the sporty BMW M5, but with nearly the same engine and power!” 

But then there are the cases when a car is just so much better with just a little more power. A little more torque to push and rotate the rear through those corners. Please. Need. 

Photo by Narek Isayan, Garage Welt

We are not here to debate which motor and chassis combination is the best. We will, however, agree that technical, financial, and emotional limitations should be anticipated by those advancing to the next stage of their automotive journey via an engine swap. And yet, examples abound. BMW S54 swapped 90s M3s (E36), M50 swapped late 80s 3-Series (E30), LS swapped E46 M3s. A BMW S85 V10 from the mid-late 00s M5 (E60) squeezed into the preceding M5 (E39) would be neat, and loud. Don’t forget the YouTube videos that regress us to a state of primitive, juvenile amusement. E60 M5s howling through a tunnel or a BMW V12 engine squeezed into an E30 brings. The twisting chassis screeches sideways through a lot, all while a shaky amateur cameraman films. You know which videos I’m talking about. 

Several well-documented examples of the BMW S65 V8 being massaged into the late 00s 1-Series (E82) have made their rounds across the internet. The latest is a beloved tuner out of the UK, which removes a previously swapped S65 from its E82 1M for a unique and rare P65 – the race-tuned S65 from a BMW Z4 GT3 racecar. 

I wish I could hear it in person, and begin to wonder what the next popular BMW engine swaps will be. Will we begin fitting EVs with internal combustion engines (ICEs)? Converting ICE vehicles to hybrid or electric systems? I have some ideas but don’t plan on sharing them just yet. – Cat Choe

[Title photo courtesy of Mike Maravilla]

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