Journey to S65 1M Clone!

[drummonds3318]

1Addicts,

I figured it was time to start a thread on my journey to converting my 2013 128i to the beloved 1M clone with the glorious S65. Let me just start by saying that I have drawn inspiration from numerous members here on the forums who have completed the conversion from either their 128i or 135i and want to thank them for not only their inspiration, but their detailed threads of their own builds. That is one of the many things I love about the BMW community is the willingness to share thoughts and ideas while simultaneously offering up advice and guidance along the way. While there is no doubt I will be drawing from the builds of others, my goal is to build something unique that will act as both a track car and a street car, with a heavier focus on the track side.

There are a couple important questions answered earlier on that I think are noteworthy of sharing.

1. Why a 128i?
2. Why the S65?

To answer the first question, well that one is easy. My dad had a 2013 128i that had roughly 120k miles on it. He recently upgraded to a truck and was going to just keep the 128i for the heck of it but said he was never really going to use it. What better to do then with a 128i just sitting there than turn in into a 1m S65 monster! The overall condition of the car...not great. Clay was caked on the undercarriage of the car, rips in the seats, and paint chips all over. However, functionally the car worked and for the purpose of what I would be doing with the car, none of that concerned me. Nearly every piece of the interior was coming out and mechanically the car would be getting a major overhaul. So again, question number one..well, it worked out perfectly that the 128i was there and it fitted the criteria of what I needed for the build as a starter car.

However, if you are embarking on a 1m build yourself, do you start with the 128i or the 135i? The answer to that question, like many other questions, depends on your end goal, budget, etc. If you are planning to strip the car and swap the engine, then the 128i likely makes more sense as it will be more cost effective and the chassis are essentially the same. When determining which model to start with, I think there a few questions to consider:

Is this a track car or street car (or combo)?

• What is my budget?
• Is my goal pure hp?

If you do not plan on swapping the engine and are looking for pure hp, then I think the 135i likely makes more sense as you can use the stock n54 and modify to gain tremendous Hp. I have seen many conversions on the 135i to a 1m and there are certainly some pretty sweet builds out there.

This leads me to my second question, which is why the S65? Well, again (at least to me), the answer was quite simple. The sound of the S65 is a thing of beauty. Sure, the n54 modded can make more power, but I am not chasing the fastest lap times on the track. Is the car going to be more geared toward a track car..sure.. But with the weight reduction and the S65, I have got all the power I need. Now, this is not to say I did not consider swapping with other engines, I certainly did but at the end of the day there is a level of uniqueness and rarity to having the S65 in a 1 series, the sound of the V8 is amazing, and while I won’t go into details in this thread about it as there are many others out there, I wanted to shy away from heat issues on a track of potentially going with another engine and modding to extreme hp. Could I have gone with an LS swap..absolutely and it would be cheaper as well. However, I think the value of keeping the engine within the BMW family makes the car more attractive if I ever were to sell the car.


Now..onto the actual build and where am I today in the build?

As of right now I am currently stripping the car pretty much down to the bare chassis. I am selling all of the unneeded parts (most everything) and plan to use the cash towards purchasing a salvaged e92 M3 as my parts car. Another great thing about this build is that the 1M is essentially a parts car from the e9x series. There will be a ton of parts from the M3 that make their way onto the 1 series including the subframes, steering column, wiring harness, and obviously the engine! While in the process of selling these parts, I am in search of an e92 salvaged parts car. Hoping something matching my criteria pops up on copart or another auction site (or ebay, craigslist, etc). In searching for the parts car, there a few things I am looking for:

• Manual Transmission- I have a DCT E90 M3 right now and while I absolutely love it, the goal for this build is to build a drivers car (not that DCT isn’t a drivers car but you know what I mean
• No frame damage-body damage is fine but I want to make sure subframes a structurally sound when swapping over.
• Ideally an engine with 80xxx miles or less. Likely will go ahead and do rod bearing when doing the swap but that is TBD and depends on the parts car I can find.

Let me know if anyone has a car in mind for the build

I have pretty much stripped out all of the interior and the project for this weekend is to go ahead and remove the engine and the transmission. Following that, its sell, sell, sell until I can get these parts out of the garage. Oh yea, forgot to mention, this swap is taking place in my garage and driveway so needless to say my wife does not love the fact that I have car parts all over the place, not to mention when the parts car comes I will have double the parts. Hence another reason why I need to sell all these parts ideally before purchasing the parts car. Not only does the money help towards the parts car, but I will still have a project to work on because my wife won’t kill me.

I am currently working on a spreadsheet with all parts needed for the build and what the specs of the entire car will be post build so I will share that in my next post and everyone will hopefully then be able to envision what the car will look like and function like. I realized I have not gone into a ton of detail about the parting out of the car but I am happy to elaborate on any aspect of this process if anyone has questions. This seems to be the easier part of a build whereas installing everything seems to be a little more difficult so my plan is to go into much more detail on each aspect of the build as parts go on.

I look forward to continuing on with the build and welcome any and all feedback as well as any questions anyone has.

-Journey to the S65 1M

[champignon]

Better you than me, and good luck!

[eeghie]

That is the formidable build, kudoos! I probably would have left most interior trimmings in, just to simplify the project as these parts are equal for all e82. Unless you’re really set on painting the full bare chassis of course.

[drummonds3318]

@eeghie

Completely agree and something I pondered quite a bit. Ultimately decided that I would paint the full bare chassis to give it a fresh clean look. I have seen other similar builds and a lot of corners have been cut. My goal for this build is to leave no stone untouched. Not that leaving trim in is cutting corners but I think the luxury I have in this build is time. While I would certainly love to get this thing out on the track asap, I understand the doing things such as removing trim, painting chassis, etc will take more time, but for me would be worth it.

[CarJunkie]

This will be fun to follow!