E30 Zone

Hi, I’m new on this forum,
Recently I bought a bmw e30 318i which had an m52 non vanos swap. Not long after owning it started so show some signs of what I believe is the head gasket going, it all started with the engine beginning to misfire and the first thing I did was check the spark plugs, I came to find that 3 of them had signs of oil on them. I quickly replaced these which seemed to solve the issue for now, a bit of a short term fix. Not long after that I noticed the car began to run quite hot and that’s when I stopped driving the car. I pulled off the oil cap to look inside and It straight away smelt quite burned but it looked like it had been changed recently. I then decided to empty the oil out and have a look and when I did this there were creamy sort of lumps inside the oil.

So I believe I was led on by the previous owner who knew something was up. I’m a stuck on what to do next, I have thought about just taking the engine out and having it skimmed to put a new gasket on there and solve some small oil leaks while I was at it, but as I started doing this I realise how bad of a job the swap had been done, there are random wires everywhere, some that have been tapped into, a lot of bolts seem to be missing and the person who did the swap has done some awful welds on part of the exhaust. This is making me consider just getting a completely different engine and starting fresh with the car so I know what is what, should I go m52 again, or get an m20 or shall I go m50 for now and then turbo later on in the future???? Any thoughts from you lovely people

I take it you bought privately, not from a dealer? You say the previous owner led you on, but did he actually lie to you?

What state is the bodywork in?

Yea i bought it privately, not from a dealer. The bloke I bought it of said it has been running fine with no issues at all and that he had drove it a couple hundred miles across the country to get it home. he said the swap had only been done about a year ago by a previous owner and from the mot history it hasn’t done many miles since he drove it back, looks like he took it out for the odd drive every now and then. he did a recent service on it but has no proof, neither the oil filter or the fuel filter had been changed and the spark plugs don’t seem like they are new so it seems like he just changed the oil. When I received the v5 for the car I found out the car had 14 previous owners so it looks like it had been passed around a lot.

The body is in pretty good condition, I checked thoroughly for rust as I really wanted to make sure I didn’t have to spend a load of money on some surprise rust. I checked all the usual spots for rust and couldn’t see anything, that’s mainly what made sway to get the car. The car has also been under sealed a couple years ago so after jacking it up it’s looking okay, Appart from the fuel lines. The bloke had recently put a pair of second hand wings and a new drivers side door on the car and had them sprayed to the correct colour. He looked after the body work pretty well from what I saw, but as soon as you open the bonnet it looks like he gave up, it was all dirty and was quite messy. There was some random stuff in the engine bay from the previous engine that was in the car (a turbo engine of some sort).

I also forgot to mention that the water was going down in the radiator so I assume it was going somewhere inside the engine but I didn’t bother checking as I began to take the engine out

an m52 non vanos ? it must be an m50 none vanos [ iron block ] , m52 are single vanos .

whats your location ?

i would put an m52b28 in cheap enough (500-600) on ebay from breakers with warranty and a wiring loom from dan the man unless you feel confident doing the wiring yourself
m52 is lighter than m50 and IMHO a e30 was built for a 4 cylinder to much weight up front ruines the handling and balance of the car an alloy engine i think is a good compromise between power and balance

Hi everyone, i am also interested in swapping over to a m50b25 engine, i currently own a e30 1993 318i convertible. I also have a running e36 with a m50b25 (none vanos) which i will use as a doner car for my e30 swap.

Question i have, what other parts would i need during the swap?...i am aware i need a sump pan, apart from that what else?

Yea sorry that’s my bad, it’s a vanos m52, I was supposed to say I am looking for an m50 non vanos to turbo as it would be my first turbo engine and it would be easier without the vanos. Just wondering is it worth going all the effort to get an m50 turbo for 350-400 bhp, or just stick another m52 in it and get as much power as I can out of that by replacing cams, changing injects etc. I’m located all the way down in cornwall, so as far down as you can go really