Typically, when you see a mid-2000s BMW X5 in your rear-view, you get out of the middle lane and give the driver a nice wide birth before they come barreling at your position at what must be 30 over the limit. But not all X5s are driven by mad lads who can't share the road with people who drive Rav 4s, Civics, and other peasant vehicles. Just look at this one; it's so far removed from its bougie genetics that it might as well be a Chevrolet, and not just because of the LS engine under the hood.
But seriously, why go through the trouble of taking an old X5, swapping out both axles for the ones from a Ford SuperDuty truck, and slapping a stroked 408-cubic-inch (6.68-L) LSX V8 where a 4.4-liter BMW engine used to sit? Well, what reason does a person need other than how impressive the end product looks? But Mike Day, a technician at ECS Tuning in the Akron, Ohio suburb of Wadsworth, did well to ensure there was a method to the madness.
Through Mike's Instagram, we get a picture of the face-meltingly painstaking process of irrigating this X5's internals until practically nothing remained of what it once was. Only once it was a literal shell of its former self could this X5 transform with an LSX so tuned to its eyeballs that it makes Camaro ZL1 drivers jealous. The engine is hand-built by Texas Speed and Performance just north of Austin. It's backed up by a Monster Stage 3 GM 6L80E automatic transmission reinforced for heavy off-roading and a Thor billet torque converter with a dual transfer case, making for a set of internals that'd make a HUMVEE jealous.
Add on a set of Bilstein 14-inch adjustable shock absorbers sporting remote reservoirs and all the ground clearance one could ever want from a 4x4, and this is a rig that's more capable than almost anything else around it on any given trail. It's all made to work in harmony thanks to a set of Mickey Thompson 40-inch Baja Boss tires running on KMC 17x9-inch beadlock wheels that, from some camera angles, legitimately look like something out of Monster Jam.
It should come as no surprise to any of you that this truck is fresh off an appearance at the 2023 SEMA show. Even among the company of some of the finest custom automobiles ever assembled in one place, this X5 was unique, special, and powerful enough to command attention amongst a facility packed with heavyweights. Out on the dusty trails of Moab, Utah, we find that all its presence when standing still sure as heck translates into results on trails that'd make most Jeeps think twice. Check ECS Tuning's video below to learn more.
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