E46 Touring Project Engine Delete

[Domt177]

Recently picked up a 2003 E46 Touring 330D to convert.

The car in question

It’s been a family daily driver for the last 240k miles so some touching up is needed, mainly the classic E46 rusty front arches, and a good clean. Still got a rear arch replacement to weld in. Also fitted an android touchscreen.

New arch

Gonna have my best try at the paintwork too as it doesn’t look so good

Paint

Will be using the GS450H gearbox that arrived a few days ago, will be buying a controller kit soon to get to some testing

Gearbox

Battery wise, planning on fitting as many Tesla modules as I can, hopefully 13/14 will fit so I can get a good 210mi minimum, if anyone else has an EV E46 and can share what efficiency they get that would be interesting. And will use SIMP BMS

Charging will be done by the Tesla Model 3 PCS with EVBMW Board and definitely planning on fitting that in with CCS too

Also thinking of removing the original E46 Dash and using the app RealDash on an old android tablet

[PacEmaker]

Looking to have great potential here, diesel diff ratio should be helpful - I for one will be watching with great interest!

[Domt177]

Car polished and now front end removed.

Need to finish some CAN recordings before I remove the radiator and then the dinosaur

[Domt177]

Update time:

The engine and gearbox have now been deleted

Replaced the oil pump bearings and ended up having to drill out the Philips screws which had seized up, will replace them with the Allen bolts used in oil pumps on later cars.

- Fuel tank removal next, then onto test fitting the gearbox.
- Ordered an adapter plate made from 6mm mild steel
- Awaiting VCM board arrival (expecting delays from brexit, ordered on 31st dec)

Anyone have any suggestions how I engage and disengage park on the gs450h gearbox without using a mechanical shift lever (ie an electronic actuator) I'm assuming something similar was done on the bexus. Which has a digital shift lever (?)

P.s. if anyone has twitter, I do slightly more frequent updates on my twitter account @dzte_ follow if you want.

[Domt177]

Update:

VCM board arrived, along with my ZeroEV gear selector, all wired up and reads drive, neutral and reverse.

Then hijacked throttle signals from the old ECU connector loom and calibrated after installing the new easy to use software

Then went about hooking up my mg1 and mg2 resolvers (assuming that MG1 is the resolver connector nearest the bell-housing end of the gearbox as that's where mg1 is)

Also connected up the communication cables from VCU to Inverter.

Applied what I thought was 12 volts from a car battery but was actually 9 volts and I got a little bit of movement for about 1/4 of a revolution in each forward and reverse before it conked out and wouldn't give me any more

Tomorrow going to try again with higher voltage.

(Side note, the negative terminal for the DC bus into the inverter is nearest the water hose point right )

[Jack Bauer]

You really need about 24v as a min to get it turning

[Domt177]

Tried just now with 24v and it’s doing the same thing, it giggles a quarter of a rotation and then won’t continue, I can see it trying to turn

[Domt177]

Also blew a 45A fuse at the same time so it’s drawing nearly 1kw

[Jack Bauer]

Sounds like a resolver wiring issue.

edit : can you spin the tailshaft by hand to confirm its not in park?

[Domt177]

Sounds like a resolver wiring issue.

edit : can you spin the tailshaft by hand to confirm its not in park?

Yes, I've tried it in a few different gears to no prevail.
Just noticed my MG1 and MG2 stator temps are over 100c so certainly sounds like a resolver issue

[Domt177]

Got it spinning! Turns out it was the resolvers, I read my wiring diagram wrong and only used 5/8 of the connectors for each resolver, so I connected the ones I missed and it now spins!

[Domt177]

Fuel tank is now removed, space should be big enough for a model 3 PCS, planning to reuse the Fuel filler tube to the tank area as a housing for HV cables from the charge port

This weekend’s tasks are to replace the inverter connector which I’ve already started and then seat it correctly with water tight seal, then start to lift the gearbox into place and measure up for mount fabrication.

[shirk]

Nice work.

Do you think you will fit all the batteries in the front or split some front and rear?

[Domt177]

Nice work.

Do you think you will fit all the batteries in the front or split some front and rear?

Will be split about 10/4 modules front / rear

[Domt177]

Gearbox lined up ready for mount fabrication

If anyone has a pointers / tips for mountain fabrication, it would be appreciated

[Domt177]

Quick update:

Original ECU compartment now removed, allowing easier access to mount gearbox mounts etc

Also picked up a model 3 charging port (with model 3 PCS, charging ECU and leaf chademo port on the way as i want both ccs and chademo) readying for the controller board soon to come out.

Going to try to force the AC pins down the fuel filler as the Much larger DC pins have no chance of fitting

Time to tidy up wiring, and mount the gearbox properly

[Domt177]

Little more progress on the engine delete project:

Made an adaptor plate for my adaptor plate, which locks the spline to my adaptor plate..... still needs to be welded but it is raised inwards from the bell housing to get a good grip on the spline and will be able to handle more than enough torque, speaking of which, made some torque reaction bars.

Also welded up a rear gearbox mounting bar with rubber mounts between them

Job for this week is to weld up the front cross bar which will take most of the front gearbox weight, should have my M3 PCS and CHAdeMO Port arriving too, also going to order a Brake vacuum Pump (either Hella UP28 or UP32, or the ZeroEV kit but they won’t say which pump they sell in their kit), and hopefully my PS pump cables will be ready soon

Test drive is getting closer

[Domt177]

Progress been somewhat slow lately but today has been good..

Battery day!
Got a complete 2018 Tesla 75 kWh pack, 20k miles for £100/kWh, I’m pleased with that, bonus picked up a gen2 Prius inverter for £50 from the same people and the battery pack came with the original Tesla charging cables and an adaptor

Planning to use the whole pack, 10 modules should fit in the engine (battery?) bay and then the other 4 under the boot/where spare tyre was, which will be widened, with contractor and HV Junction box under the rear seats

Just waiting to get back my metal box to mount the gearbox properly

[streber]

How did you connect the transmission to the driveshaft?

I have one of each and was going to have a driveline shop combine them once I have final measurements.

[Domt177]

How did you connect the transmission to the driveshaft?

I have one of each and was going to have a driveline shop combine them once I have final measurements.

I got lucky and managed to use the original rubber adaptor from the BMW gearbox, it bolted right up to the Lexus gearbox

[CoreyS]

Following as I also have an E46 Touring. Are you going to do any subframe reinforcement?

[Domt177]

Following as I also have an E46 Touring. Are you going to do any subframe reinforcement?

Reinforcing for what?

I’ll drop my diff and get it spray blasted and powder coated sometime soon as it’s not in the best of states and while it’s out I’ll take care of the classic e46 subframe rust if that’s what you mean

[CoreyS]

Following as I also have an E46 Touring. Are you going to do any subframe reinforcement?

Reinforcing for what?

I’ll drop my diff and get it spray blasted and powder coated sometime soon as it’s not in the best of states and while it’s out I’ll take care of the classic e46 subframe rust if that’s what you mean

Technically it's the rear axle carrier panel, but most people call it the subframe. It tends to crack due to the shear stresses of the drivetrain. My old 330i was starting to crack, but it was in poor condition.

Here is a good article on the topic:
https://cmpautoengineering.com/pages/pa ... ill-i-know

[36320e]

How will you overcome the iluminated warning lights on the instrument cluster without the engine? Have you also removed the ecu? Im currently converting a saloon e46. My understanding so far is that it will have to be done over can bus. Have you made any progress with this?

[streber]

I am also converting a E46 Touring. You'll need to emulate the right CAN messages from the ECU to make the instrument cluster happy. Luckily Damien's new Zombieverter has the code for that: https://github.com/damienmaguire/Stm32- ... an_E46.cpp

I'm not quite that far, but I'll share it when I get it integrated into the VCU software (unless someone else beats me to it).