Boben

This is a valid point. I will definitely be making a shield for the oil pan so that if I hit a rock or something, the shield will take the hit and the car will rise on top of the obstacle. Kind of like driving a boat on rocks. I am only interested now on the subject of ground clearance and appearance, so please give input regardless of which powertrain your running.

I've been going back and forth and scratching my head upon the subject of ground clearance of my car with the V8 swap, since my oil pan will be sitting quite low. I would appreciate some input from you guys in the form of numbers and pictures. Please specify here your ground clearance and wheel specs with an accompanying picture of your car. Also state the measurement point that you used. The most preferable measurement would be from the longitudinal frame rail bottom surface to the ground. Thanks in advance!

The dash looks really good.

These are not powered. Your question got me thinking, where did you get that idea. Then I checked the pictures more thoroughly... The wiring underneath the seat is for the side airbag most probably this is also a heated seat so the associated wiring is also there. What is more interesting, is that these seats actually came from an E90 3-series as it reads on one of the labels attached to the seat bottom and not the E46. This means they are much newer. Sorry for giving false information.

Awhile back I started modifying the floor pans around the outer longitudinal rails in order to fit the BMW E46 sport seats. To be more specific, the outer fixing rail of the BMW seat was hitting the curved shape of the floor and for this reason the seat was at an angle. To make the seats fit, I previously cut the curved shape of as necessary and just drilled the rail fixing holes to the floor pan. I finally got a round to finnish up the seat fixings. I made some reinforcement plates, which I welded on the bottom . I also asembled the parking brake lever to check clearance to the seat. The fitment is tight, but there is no collision in any position of the seat. Measuring from the surface of the seat to the ceiling at the up most position of the seat, the distance is 870mm and at the lowest setting the corresponding distance is 930mm. TeemuM measured 890mm with the stock seat, so I have to say I am quite happy with the outcome. I tried to position the seat as low as possible. For some reason there was an odd profile at the bottom of the other rail of the seat. This had to be cut off to allow the seat to sit level on the floor pan. Here you can see the profile that had to come off. After removal with an angle grinder, I applied some fresh paint on the rail. The bolts I used are fine thread and made for the purpose. This is the upmost position of the seat. The seat has all kinds of adjustments. This is where I measured the distance to the ceiling.