Here is my touring when I got it, it is a nice car but the 1.6 single cam was really letting it down.
Here is my usual ride, but comp. drifting took a heavy toll and the Nissan had to come off the road for some MOT work. I needed a spare car whilst I fix the S13.
I got an E36 compact Ti for the missus and its great, but the E30 is so pretty.
Anyway, I hated the 1.6 engine, and the flap air flow meter, so I wanted to improve with a proper MAF sensor and more modern engine management.
Didn't want the expense of an M52, not the cost of the lump (£300 ish), it's the sump, exhaust, servo and all the things to go with it mae it expensive.
Went on ebay and facebook, found 2 M44's locally, one for £100 complete with wiring loom, EWS, DME (ECU) exhaust manifold. Another for £80 which even came with an E36 gearbox but no EWS.
Drift people are ripping M44's out of compact Ti's to fit M52's and selling good engines for very cheap so it's a good time to upgrade your E30.
Bought both. Handy to have a spare lump and all those spares, also the Ti jumps out of 3rd so there's a gearbox for it.
Basically what you need is:
To have an M40 316i or 318i already to take bits from.
An M44 complete with ancillaries and fan.
MAF sensor and trunking, intake temp sensor. Dont need airbox.
Coilpack.
Loom on M44.
DME (ECU)
Exhaust manifold on M44
Cat for Ti compact and lambda sensor. You can get these reasonably cheaply from Euro if you need to.
Backbox and pipe from 318Ti (you only need the flange and 20cm of pipe to weld to your existing back box, its a different size and shorter)
The powersteering high pressure pipe (screws into pump)
EWS emulator chip fitted to your DME. I reccomend Enda at http://www.endtuning.com/
He did mine for £60, including the emulator chip, and return post, it was back with me within 48hrs of posting it to him.
Ok so you need to pull out your M40, Drain water, oil, powersteer. I think it would be easier to split the box off it but it might not be possible if the bellhousing bolts are as tight as mine were.
Remove all the wiring up to the big round plug next to the fusebox, and into the cabin romove the DME and pull that wiring and plug through the bulkhead.
Remove the old coil, keep the metal bracket.
So now you have your M44 on your engine stand and your M40 hanging in the crane with the gearbox off, or if you have no stand you can just do it on the floor.
Take the powersteer pump off the M40 sump and dipstick out. get the sump off and pickup pipe.
Same for M44 but don't take the powersteer pump off just the serpentine belt and the pulley for P/S pump.
Clean the old gasket off and brake cleaner it dry, clean sump, put RTV silicone on sparingly, take note of which bolt holes are open into the sump and make sure you don't get a load of silicon in the holes.
Cut the tab off the M40 dipstick tube and bend it into an s-shape and it can fit nicely and be cable tied to the oil filter housing. This is a trial and error job do it a little bit at a time.
You probably have to take the tensioner off to get it in too, don't take the bolt out from the middle of the pulley as it will rip out the threads, take the ones that hold the whole lot on.
OK so you have no bracket for the fuel pipes which are in a different position from the M40, chop the M44 bracket and use that. You can see the crank sensor in these pictures, its in the block which is better than on an M40 (has it at the front).
Ok So you see in this pic below, there is a bolt on the right of the black bit, on your M44 this will be a stud that holds the dipstick tube. You need to nick a suitable bolt from your M40 to replace it as it will hit your brake reservoir. You could swap them side to side if you liked.
So next you come to the clutch, you could either keep the rotten heavy great dual mass flywheel, or chuck it in the scrap skip and use clutch control like you should in an E30 anyway
So swap your flywheel, check the spigot bearing is the same size, if its not you can swap it out of your M40. Else just check it's good and leave it. See which is the better clutch plate, M44 or M40, on mine it was the M44 (dual mass clutch), it was different (no springs) but it fitted the splines on the gearbox, and it fits if you put it in backwards! It says flywheel side or gearbox side on, do the opposite.
(I was not sure if it would feel right when driven, but I much prefer it to a normal sprung clutch, and its lighter)
If you use the M40 clutch plate just fit as normal.
Use the M40 cover.
Both starters are the same so use either.
Ok so now you need to swap the engine mounts, it's the M40 ones you need. You will have to lose the support bracket for the inlet manifold. You could make a bracket to support the inlet if you like, but it seems pretty firm, if I ever get any problems I will edit this to say so.
Whilst the engine mount bracket is off and the starter is loose you want to change the heater pipes for the M40 items (they fit much better), I had to do it with the engine in and it was a pain.
Because the temperature gauge in the car won't read the M44 sensor you need to take the brown temp sensor from your M40 and fit it somewhere, I am thinking of tapping a hole in the heater take off at the back of the head, the M40 one is aluminium so I will use this. Now the engine is in it will be a pain to change.
Get your engine in the car now, you will have to take the jubilee off of the carbon canister and slide it down till it clears the engine.
On the M40, take the main battery positive cable off of your alternator and starter and get it out of the loom, cut off the spur where it goes to the starter, tape over that bit and fit some trunking so it looks nice, you need this as on a compact the battery is on the passenger side. So fit the alternator ring terminal as your starter main feed. The wire is a smaller gauge but its still pretty thick.
And local too - I've got family in Westleigh. My M44 has been on the road for a couple months now, its a great engine 
