Converting 135 to an awd

[tglazed]

So I was pondering the traction issue on the way home from work tonight. Has anyone ever tried to convert a 135i to awd. Wouldn't it be pretty simple using a 335xi donor car.

[EINS]

I have thought about it too but if you have not already installed a limited slip diff do that first. The 50/50 weight distribution and limited slip works very well together.

[edisapimp]

sigh

[tglazed]

I'm not saying I'm going to do it. I love rwd to much but if someone wanted to, what parts would be required

[hau_nguyen91]

.....

[tracer bullet]

Originally Posted by tglazed

I'm not saying I'm going to do it. I love rwd to much but if someone wanted to, what parts would be required

A drivetrain, room to put it which doesn't currently exist, and more ECM mods than you can imagine. Not even worth the time to daydream about.

[AB M2C]

I actually looked into this pretty deeply. Didn't do calculations with a donor car, but doing the work myself I was looking at close to 20,000, and thats before the plethora of unseen complications, i figured it would take 25-30k when all was said and done. So if you've got a donor car lying around plus 15000 in cash and want to do this. It can MAYBE be done.

Just do what I did and buy and evo and put your 1er in the garage for the winter

[Freon]

Or buy a new M235i xDrive.

[Vigilante375]

Anything is possible but the time, sweat, blood and money is the thing to remember.

A car has to be made to conform to accept a certain platform for drive train. It has to fit correctly and work properly. While I might be nice to have an AWD 1 series, by the time you get the car ready for its first test drive, it's going to cost way, way more than you could have imagined. Then it could be a hack job and things constantly needing repair.

But what parts? The entire AWD drive train, proper fit with I bet a lot of cutting and relocation of things, re-wiring, correct suspension.....stuff like that. Its more complicated that you think. AWD for the 1 was introduced in the last year of its production, I believe. So either way, trying to make a RWD and AWD car when it wasn't made for it is the dilemma.

Better off trying to import a 1 series 3 door with AWD.

[darkrom]

Reminds me of the guy who spent a fortune and butchered his Evo X trying to swap it to RWD. You guys should just trade cars

[MightyMouseTech]

I say go for it!

[LYCANtreo]

Originally Posted by darkrom

Reminds me of the guy who spent a fortune and butchered his Evo X trying to swap it to RWD. You guys should just trade cars

+1

[flinchy]

Originally Posted by darkrom

Reminds me of the guy who spent a fortune and butchered his Evo X trying to swap it to RWD. You guys should just trade cars

but converting an AWD car to RWD is as simple as pulling the driveshafts and capping the output on the front diff

uhhhhh

But seriously, $20k for an AWD swap? no way. $5-10k likely

but for the money, you could do a DCT swap with dodson internals... i'd say the DCT would be faster

unless you can get AWD DCT

[MightyMouseTech]

Or just buy an M235 XDrive. Would be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier.

[AB M2C]

Originally Posted by darkrom

Reminds me of the guy who spent a fortune and butchered his Evo X trying to swap it to RWD. You guys should just trade cars

There are several guys that have done RWD conversions on their evos...

[darkrom]

Originally Posted by ThatOneKid

There are several guys that have done RWD conversions on their evos...

Evo x?

The evo is is much harder than the 8 or 9 to do rwd conversion.

[AB M2C]

Originally Posted by darkrom

Evo x?

The evo is is much harder than the 8 or 9 to do rwd conversion.

True, but there are two that I know of. And many, 8's.

[dd135is]

So it seems that nowbody has been stupid or brave enough to do this mod.. until now.

i did a little crash with my 135i e82 and at the same time i started to repair it, i decided to do a awd mod to it.

best possible option is to find same age crashed 335ix as donator and there i was lucky, find car crashed enough with airbags blowe, bodu trashed enough, but without any damage to subframe or hit to front tyres.

the swap, driver side transmission tunnel must be modifyed on some 60 cm lenght, easiest to take that part from 335 and weld it to 135.

remember on this stage to swap auto trans activator wire from 335 because it`s connected on passenger side in a 335.

swap also steering wheel axle on engine compartment because ix has some 10 cm lenght difference on that.

remember to shorten rear prop shaft by 99 mm too.

exhaust must be modified cause bend under car is mented for shorter transmission and rwd downpipes can be a real paine too.

front suspension ride height is to be adjusted to ger right drive height.

then it`s to bolt engine and transmission to the car with subframe and everything.

tcu unit, abs unit and a bunch of small parts must be swapped too and on that tcu unit the problem is that there is no connector for it on a 135i.

i have a bunch of mods on my engine and swapped those too at the same to xi engine, engine compartment is tight as hell and front half shafts does not do any more space to that compartment so calculate it as nightmare.

without donator, it`s ridiculous expensive project caused on tractorload of small parts needed for the job.

i will have first start of that car propably tomorrow and if you are intrested, i can do some report of that too

[JCip91]

Sub'd for results.

[dd135is]

Little update.

first thing really can make a issue is dxc module, it`s not only software
difference, it`s whole different unit with different connector to car harness.

i`ll do a inspection of that maybe tomorrow how it`s connected and where.

:-)

[Gangplank]

Originally Posted by dd135is

Little update.

first thing really can make a issue is dxc module, it`s not only software
difference, it`s whole different unit with different connector to car harness.

i`ll do a inspection of that maybe tomorrow how it`s connected and where.

:-)

Interested to see how this works out.

[Gangplank]

Originally Posted by MightyMouseTech

Or just buy an M235 XDrive. Would be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier.

This... now that the price is down via depreciation. With a used M235ix add a mild tune & suspension and it is an //M in sheep's clothing.