(Continued from OP)

In March of 2022, I bought a high miles L92 (6.2 L all aluminum truck motor) out of an 07 GMC Yukon. The seller showed me it running and it just had the hint of a sticky lifter. Easy fix. Once I got the heads off, though, cylinder 5 showed signs of poor compression. The last thing I wanted to do was shove a bum engine in the car, so I broke the motor down and sent it off to the machine shop. I want to make it clear, I didn’t originally intend to do this. I wanted to do an engine swap. That was ambitious enough for me. It was the bad looking cylinder and the fact that the machinists that would actually answer my calls had a minimum 18 month wait to build a motor that I reluctantly gave in to the classic project car blunder; scope creep.

In the months that followed I did some shopping. Bought a mild cam and all the normal stuff to replace when rebuilding a motor and waited. I also received some news from the machine shop. Cylinder 5 must have been getting washed from a leaky injector because it was eccentric. They ended up boring the motor 10 thousandths over to bring it back into round. New rods and pistons were added to the list. The car sat for now because another thing I needed to do before starting the swap was build an actual place to do the swap.

January 2023 rolls around and I start building the motor in my basement. At the same time, I build a concrete driveway stub for the eventual engine swap. I do not have a garage. By June, the short block is done. By the end of the summer, the long block is complete. Half measures being a thing of the past, I also picked up a brand new T56 Magnum during this time. In August of 2023, the old M20 comes out of the bimmer. Things move pretty fast from here and by early November, the motor is in its new home. But that’s just the beginning.

Not much progress happens during the winter because New England winters make car work miserable, but come May of 2024, I’m back at it again. Work continues around kids, actual work, and vacation for the next 5 months until October when I have the first firing. Angels sing, and it sounds very similar to an open header LS with one cylinder bank not firing.

Lots of gremlins to work out including a fuel pump leak in the tank, and poor cylinder coil grounding. Finally, though, the car comes back from the exhaust shop and I can drive it around. I schedule a date at the tuner and exalt in my success. The exaltation is short lived however because I’m chasing some electrical gremlins and discover I built the engine with the wrong head gasket (it was sold as a direct replacement for an L92 but turned out to be a 4.000 bore gasket for a 6.0 motor). Heads come off and it’s December 2024 when I get it back together. I take it for its first test drive after the heads go back on and the oil pressure drops to zero. WTF. Demoralized, I park it for the winter.

Spring 2025 comes around and I pull the oil pan to investigate. I would have started with a mechanical oil pressure gauge but I happened to video the entire engine build and when I reviewed the footage from attaching the oil pickup, I noticed that I had placed one of the diverter plate nuts on only finger tight. This happens to be the one that also holds the pickup’s support brace. With the pan off, I even pull a rod bearing to look for damage. Totally clean (still had the factory coating on it). I put everything back together (again this takes time because of actual life happening around me). Finally, in May, I attach a mechanical gauge and the oil pressure is perfect. Excellent. I replace the electronic sender and reschedule with the tuner. I’m one mile from my house on a glorious May morning with the tuner as my destination and the axle explodes.

Tow the car back to the house, replace the axles (and the subframe/trailing arm bushings for good measure). Why not add a coat of paint? You’re in no rush /s. After a miserable experience fighting with 40 year old BMW suspension parts, I finally make it to the tuner in June of 2025. A week or so later, she’s ready. 423whp and 410tq.

I kind of can’t believe it’s real even now. It’s so much fun, so worth it. If I can impart some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way here they are in no particular order.

• You will have periods of low motivation. I broke out of this by making a plan for a day and putting in my calendar. This was usually what was needed to prime me to get back into the work cycle.

• Scope creep is inevitable. I wasn’t the best at preventing it, but it helps to have an actual goal that’s attainable (big or small).

• How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. In the beginning, especially after I committed to building the motor, the task just seemed insurmountable. But like climbing a mountain, you just focus on the next small step. Forget what comes after it. Just solve the next problem.

• Setbacks are a given. Tell yourself that going in. You will have to redo work, often multiple times. That’s all part of it. Manage expectations. There are simply too many points of failure to expect you will do everything flawlessly, especially if you’re doing it for the first time.

• Take care of your regular life first and be candid with your spouse/significant other about cost and timeline. No project is worth upsetting those that you love.

• Try to enjoy the journey…but not so much that it’s never over.

• Righty tighty, lefty loosey

Thanks for reading!