E30 Zone

I'll get my flame suit out for this one

Has anyone ever seen this done? Would it fit?

Would it actually bolt in?

Yeah, no problem I would have thought.

Will it run?

That's where the fun begins, the modern diesel management systems are unbelievably complex, electronic throttles for example and if the donor had traction control then the ECU needs to see the readings from both front and rear ABS sensors....

So a similar amount of work as say an s54 engine would be to fit?

I've not really looked into it, I just built myself a nice grunty 2.8 then fitted LPG to it... 58p/litre = if I was spending the same on petrol it would have to be doing 44 MPG

Waste of time. And the end of the day its just a run of the mill BMW diesel engine. Thats why you never see people putting them in E30's. I'm guessing it will be more complicated then the a S54 conversion with all the other diesel extras, Turbo, inter-cooler.

anything's possible if you want it bad enough

Best to buy a crashed donor then to take all the sensors, clocks, ECU, ignition barrel, keys etc?

glenn wrote:anything's possible if you want it bad enough

I totally agree mate, but as with everything it's the cost/time/effort weighed up against the benefits of doing it.
In this case, unless you could do the whole job yourself including fabricating parts then the op would be better off putting a similarly powerful petrol engine in the car then fitting an LPG conversion to mirror the diesels fuel costs.....in my opinion anyway.

Im not after economy really more the torque and tuning potential, been scouring the net for a while now and not seen it done so im guessing it will be pretty unique too?

One of the things that is concerning me is the weight of the m57, the short engine weighs 168kg

gatesy23 wrote:Im not after economy really more the torque and tuning potential, been scouring the net for a while now and not seen it done so im guessing it will be pretty unique too?

One of the things that is concerning me is the weight of the m57, the short engine weighs 168kg

If you want tuning potential, I'd either keep it all BMW and look at turbo-ing something like an M52 or maybe even try a different manufacturers engine altogether. The Saab turbo lump is tough as hell, pretty easy to find and can return big power numbers without breaking the bank.

S54 would be awesome

Can you not run a modern engine on a complete custom engine management, like make a new engine loom and use other parts and basically make your own engine managment which is more basic? do away with extra sensors and all that bollocks

yes, theres about 2 diesel stand alone managements on the market with acceptable resolution atm.

part of the difficulty with that is finding a man that can map it.

Alex wrote:Can you not run a modern engine on a complete custom engine management,

http://www.specialist-components.co.uk/ ... ageDisplay

gatesy23 wrote:One of the things that is concerning me is the weight of the m57, the short engine weighs 168kg

Where did you get that info from?! That is more than an M30 with 2 extra cylinders! In an era where BMW are claiming lighter and lighter engines..

that must be with full accessories and all the pumps etc.

torque is the other issue, you be ripping the diff out in no time

Jhonno wrote:

gatesy23 wrote:One of the things that is concerning me is the weight of the m57, the short engine weighs 168kg

Where did you get that info from?! That is more than an M30 with 2 extra cylinders! In an era where BMW are claiming lighter and lighter engines..

Here

http://www.unixnerd.demon.co.uk/enumber.html

According to this it's 168kg without oil, manifolds, starter motor, alternator etc

I think i mis-quoted when i said 'short engine' as this weight include the head. but nothing else

Someone on here did the single turbo 3.0d.. Into a Tech 1

Jhonno wrote:

gatesy23 wrote:One of the things that is concerning me is the weight of the m57, the short engine weighs 168kg

Where did you get that info from?! That is more than an M30 with 2 extra cylinders! In an era where BMW are claiming lighter and lighter engines..

The latest N57's are alloy block with a whole new level of complex electronic wizardry iirc