"90 316i 2 door M44 ITB's

[Caravanking]

Hi, Thanks for taking your time to visit my e30 thread. I can only say that I wanted an e30 for years and years but never took the plunge as I wanted trouble free motoring whilst I finished uni.

When the time finally came to buy an e30, I was looking for a 325I sport, but an unfortunate accident (non fault but other driver disputed liability) I wasn't in a position where I could justify insuring a 325.. Infact I had to spend a good few months living the dream in a 1.4 8v VW polo 6n2 that had more doors than the honeycomb maze round of Takeshi's castle. After spiralling into a depressed state, I decided that enough was enough, and if I was going to drive a slow car, then I would drive a cool slow car.. and i went out and bought pretty much the first e30 I came across in August 2016..



It's a 316I Lux with 70k miles on it. It's red and 2 door.. given the circumstances, it was exactly what I was looking for. It stands as being completely standard except for some spax adjustable dampers and 60/40 springs.

The paint had oxidised quite bad but it soon buffed up as you can see in the photo below, minus the bonnet which would need to be painted.



I drove this as a daily and it never skipped a beat or had any issues. However, one night I was driving home from a local car meet when I slowed for a speedbump and then all of a sudden, BANG! Couldnt believe it, someone had driven into the back of me.. turned out to be one of my mates too which made stuff a bit awkward. See photos of damage below.





It's not as bad as I make it out to be.. but still, having the issues with being involved in a collision in the previous March, this was all I needed. Fortunately my mate has agreed to pay for damages which is fair enough. It's just slightly tweaked the rear panel so nothing really lines up now.

By this point winter came and I was feeling skeptical about driving my e30 through the winter. One freezing evening on my way home from work I could feel that the road was slippery and nearly binned it, so the car had to come off the road and I needed another daily. This is where I repaired my other car that had been involved in a crash in the March and my e30 would undergo general maintenance.

Now I'm not naive towards old cars having owned classic minis in the past, so I decided that rust hunting was in order..



What you're looking at here isn't the surface of Mars from a telescope, but actually my inner arch. It's bad. But not phased by this, I started poking and the hole got bigger..



I pulled more and more of the rust off until I realised that I needed to more than just patch this and actually start stripping the car down to properly rebuild it.



Exhaust off, subframe and diff off, propshaft out, fuel tank out and out with the interior.



And then out with that gammy inner arch.





I decided to bite the bullet and buy genuine inner arch for the drivers side. The inner part of it is actually really healthy.

Under inspection, the arch thats on the car has has a bodged repair thats been a water trap.. If the person that did this is reading this, I hate you and i'm putting your bodge right.. I found your other fibre glass and structural silicone bodge on the other side too.. but I'll save that for later..

Here's some photos of the inner part of the inner arch.



This should easily patch up and is the worst of the inner part of the inner arch.



I'm really happy with this part of the inner arch with it being the most structural. It's solid and so is the other side in the same place so no dramas.

Now I need to cut the outer arch off to get the inner arch in. Unfortunately, with the small impact of my mate, it's slightly creased the rear wing and I cant bend it back because its being held by the bent rear panel.

Plan now is to get a new rear panel. In the process of fitting this I'll cut the wing away from the rear panel and release the tension thats holding the crease in place so I can straighten it. I'll then weld in my rear panel. When the rear wing is straight I can then cut out the outer arch to get my inner arch fitted. I also want to fit new outer arches, this is why I want to get the rear wing straight first.

Ultimately the plans for this are to change all the bushings, strengthen and stiffen a few of the suspension parts. Generally clean it all up and get the rust out. Bigger brakes. And then turbo the M40 as I have a spare turbo kicking about.

Apologies for the essay and thanks for reading so far..

[Speedtouch]

Good work - looks like a 'proper job' being done there.

[aimlessrock]

looking good- keep up the good work.

[lellis]

Nice one dude, good to see all the photos, turboing an m40 will be a fun light weight car!

It will probably put my barge to shame!

[Caravanking]

Cheers guys! I'm going to get a rear panel this weekend (or at least order one).

I've done some phoning and a genuine rear panel is £333 from bmw (300ish after I mentioned being on e30zone and them offering a 10% discount) and a Euro car parts rear panel is about £80 from what I remember but there's usually a promo code.. wish I bought one at xmas time when they were about 50quid.

Apparently the Euro car parts rear panels are a pretty good fit except for the lock hole which just needs sorting. I know someone who has one of these fitted to his car so to save £200 quid is almost a no brainier.

Hopefully be able to crack on with more at the weekend anyway!

[Brianmoooore]

Euro car parts rear panel is about £80 from what I remember but there's usually a promo code.. wish I bought one at xmas time when they were about 50quid.

Buy from Carparts4less. Same company, same warehouse, same staff picking and posting.
Use the same part number that you found on ECP, and don't miss the discount codes available on the home page.

[Caravanking]

Been a while since I posted on here.. Well I finished putting the car back together about 2 months ago. Had a lot more work than anticipated and I began my Initial teacher training.. So change if career affected time and budget massively haha! I'll post pics as soon as possible.

Plans have changed and I now wish to put an M44 in the car after buying an e36 compact and falling in love with the revvy little 4 pot.

[Caravanking]

So if anybody has an M44, please feel free to drop me a message if you wish to sell a good one.

[Foe]

Nice post but what's wrong with the 316 engine? Surely it's as good as a E36 4pot??

[Caravanking]

Just want something with a bit more poke really that's a bit more inspiring to drive.

[Caravanking]

Right. I've managed to get an M44 engine, wiring loom and ecu with 112k miles on it for £150.

Plan is to take sump and engine mounts off my current m40.
I'm also going to use my m40 gearbox for now.
Plan is to build an M44 with cams, itbs, lighten the flywheel and a nice exhaust. Dunno what sort of power it'll get but as long as the bum dyno is happy, I'm not too fussed.

[Foe]

Right. I've managed to get an M44 engine, wiring loom and ecu with 112k miles on it for £150.

Plan is to take sump and engine mounts off my current m40.
I'm also going to use my m40 gearbox for now.
Plan is to build an M44 with cams, itbs, lighten the flywheel and a nice exhaust. Dunno what sort of power it'll get but as long as the bum dyno is happy, I'm not too fussed.

Fair play, that's a good price!

[Caravanking]

So actually got this M44 engine home. He gave me the exhaust manifold also which I may need to modify. Its out of a 1998 e36 318is and has the Bosch 667 ecu. As far as I'm aware this should be EWS III and will need EWS and abs deleting from the ecu.
Plans are to give the engine a good clean up as theres plenty of grime on it. He informed me of oil leaks from the oil filter housing and from the rocker cover. He also gave me a tenner back as he was later than we arranged so it's come back at 140quid.
Im excited to crack on with this.. I also need to get some pics of the car.
I've also put a renown steering wheel in the car with a snap off Boss for extra security.

[Caravanking]

So my daily failed it's mot and needs quite a lot of work to get it back up and running and therefore I started putting my e30 back together.
I had some issues with the m40 running rich and a funny idle and looked in the usual places. Changed all the vac hoses and found that the intake boot was cracked, breather pipe from cam cover to throttle body was cracked so took it off, bunged up the throttle body end and vented the cam cover. The nipple on the throttle body that is blanked
for the charcoal canister had split so I put a new bung on there. Changed the vac line that runs from the intake boot to the icv as that was split. checked the resistance from the blue temp sensor which read 3000ohms when cold and 250ohms when hot at the ecu end of the plug. I tried a different idle control valve and even tried it unplugged to see what difference it made. Checked the throttle position switch under the throttle body and the resistance in closed and wide open throttle. Replaced the inlet manifold gaskets too.
On putting the inlet manifold on, I noticed fuel running out of the fuel pressure regulator from the vacuum side that goes to throttle body. I'm 99.9999999999% sure that after all this, this is the culpret. Torn diaphragm in the fuel pressure regulator would mean higher fuel pressure as its not operating correctly, also sucking fuel back up tto the throttle body?
Also previously replaced the vac line to the fuel pressure regulator as it had gone really brittle. I noticed the new one I put on has gone a bit distorted as if the fuel has melted it a bit.
I'll get a new fuel pressure regulator on and report back on findings. Will also replace oil again incase it has fuel contamination, certain it does.
Hope this info helps someone.

[Foe]

Excellent stuff, love detailed updates
Interesting on the funny idle. Mine has a rev up then down, for a minute or two, then fine when warmed up.
I really need to get mine seen by someone!
Fingers crossed all goes well with the fuel regulator.

[Caravanking]

Managed to get hold of an m42 exhaust manifold for this. Unfortunately no progress on the M44 swap as of yet, although I've got my head around most of what I need to do. Even had a bit of time to look at the wiring on the M44 loom. Doesn't look too bad.

[Caravanking]

So it didn't get a turbo.. In the end I swapped an M44 into it and have been driving it again for 2 weeks.
There was a few unanswered questions about this that I will try to answer now.
Wiring is basically the same as an m52 swap. Infact, it's exactly the same. All you need to do is put thr brown temp sensor in somewhere. I put it into the top rad hose.
Power steering is probably (or was for me) the toughest thing to figure out. I ended up using an LUK e36 m42 power steering pump and also used the bracket that holds the PS pump and alternator from the e36 m42. This is because the PS pump uses the same banjo connections as e30, so is a good oem solution. You just need to straighten out the bend closest to the banjo fitting on the high pressure PS line. You also need to just trim the low pressure PS fluid line that returns to the resevoir.
Brake fluid resevoir does indeed touch the intake manifold. I ended up using an e9/e10 remote resevoir, elbows and grommets into the master cylinder. A bit more expensive than just trimming the disa valve plastic but just a nice mod.
M42b18 e30 exhaust manifold was the best manifold for the job. I used a fritzs m42 exhaust system and tig welded a lambda boss into it.
There isn't a stock airbox that fits nicely due to the intake boot position. Therefore ended up just buying a ram Air filter for now and making a bracket.
The ecu does fit in the stock location. Just strip the e36 loom down and neaten it up. It's just a bit tangled from factory but can soon be neatened out.
If your car doesn't have abs, you need the limp mode limiter removing from your ecu. This is because the ecu expects a signal from abs sensors. If it doesn't have them, it has a 5000rpm rev limit.
My car started out as an m40b16 and I used the following. This will change in time as I did the swap during lock down.
M44 engine
M44 loom
M44 ecu
M40 upper and lower sump.
M44 dipstick tube completely bent out of shape to work past all the pulleys.
M42 e30 manifold and fritzs system
M40 engine arms
M40 engine mounts (will change to m42)
M44 dual mass flywheel (will change to single mass lightened)
M40 gearbox and starter motor (starter needs to match gearbox)
Use the m40 main positive power cable cut out of the m40 loom.
Wiring same as m52 swap
M40 brown temp sensor in top rad hose (use a 38mm M14x1. 5mm adapter) and ground this to engine block.
E36 m42b18 PS pump
E36 m42b18 PS pump/alternator bracket with belt tensioner
Ramair cone filter (yuck)
E9/e10 brake fluid resevoir with custom bracket mounted to strut top. Use grommets and elbows for this too.
M40 radiator
M40 viscous fan
M40 rad hoses
Custom bracket made to mount coil pack in the m40 coil location.

I tried and tested a fair few bits on this. If anybody has some questions, feel free to ask about this. I've probably missed bits too. I'll try to remember to upload pics but I'll probably forget.

I'm 2 weeks into driving this and so far so good. I got an enda ward remap on the ecu and it goes pretty well. It's really smooth and better on fuel than the m40 was. The reason for the engine swap was because of the typical m40 issues regarding being clattwry and idle issues.

[Brianmoooore]

Thanks for the follow up post. Always good to have another proven list of what parts fit together in an E30.
Should make a reliable daily driver for years to come.

[JungleGus]

She looks lovely! Despite the rust lurking underneath. Nicely done getting her back up and running...and also not dicking around with a turbo and all the hassle that would have brought. I think you dodged a bullet there.

Nice work on the lockdown project!

[Caravanking]

Thanks guys.

I bought the engine having not heard it run and I don't have the money or time to rebuild the engine fully. I put the engine in to hear it run before I started doing bits to it. This way I'd save wasting money if it was scrap. Turns out it's an absolutely lovely engine.

I also changed the front brakes to vented sport brakes. I bought brand new (recon) callipers, ate discs and textar pads. I also fitted a brand new brake master cylinder (think it was trw brand) and the brakes are the best they've ever felt. When rebuilding it, I changed all of the brake hoses anyway. At some point, I might convert the rear to discs. Drum handbrake is really very good though compared to the rear handbrake on my compact.

I have a rear anti roll bar ready to go on also.. Might as well get some pics uploaded since insomnia isn't letting me drop off.

[Caravanking]

Whilst I remember, you may need to change the input shaft bearing in the end of your crank dependant on what gearbox you're using. The input shaft bearing that comes in an M44 (and e36's) has a 15mm inner race diameter. The input shaft on an e30 gearbox is 12mm.
If you're using an e30 gearbox, you'll need an input shaft bearing with a 12mm inner diameter.
If you're using an e36 gearbox, you'll need an input shaft bearing with a 15mm inner diameter.

[Caravanking]

Thought I might as well start with the most up to date pics and work back.

Car started out as a 316i lux. Cosmetically, it's about the same as it was but I've pretty much rebuilt it over 4 years. I wanted to keep it looking pretty much as stock as possible. I wouldn't have chosen the steering wheel normally but wanted a steering wheel that I could remove for security.

I still have some odd bits to finish, but this is literally just getting odd clips that I lost or broke, or wrapping some of the wiring so it's black to match the rest of the loom (lost my loom tape).

I'll follow up to this post with a few posts about different aspects of the M44 conversion.

[Caravanking]

Brake fluid resevoir.

This is one of the issues you'll need to sort. As you can see (sort of) the standard e30 brake fluid resevoir touches the black plastic of the disa valve. I actually left mine touching and this pushed the resevoir over enough for it to leak out of the grommets. One option is to trim the plastic on the disa valve cover.

What I opted for was to get a genuine ate e9/e10 resevoir, master cylinder grommets, elbows to push into the grommets, and hose. I then made my own bracket to mount this to the inner wing. The e30 brake fluid level cap will fit directly to this also.

The e9/e10 resevoir has a third nipple on it that I'm guessing you could feed the clutch system to? I didn't and just blanked this nipple off.

[Caravanking]

Coil pack mount.

I've utilised the bolt on thr inner wing for a coil pack bracket that I made. This mounts up between the strut and the washer bottle quite nicely and neatly. It doesn't get hot from the manifold and the wiring runs really neatly here too. I didn't have the bottom support that runs to the strut initially but it was too flimsy before this and flopped about too much for my liking. You can see this support in the bottom pic. It's really stiff now and works lovely. I did this as a temp measure as I planned to cover to coil on plug, which I will cover later on this thread.

[Caravanking]

Brown temperature sensor.

On an M44 the engine uses one temperature sensor to feed the ecu and the clocks onane36. This won't work with e30 clocks. You'll need to take the m40 brown temperature sensor and put this somewhere in the coolant line of your M44. I put mine in the top rad hose, using a 38mm M14x1. 5mm adapter. It reads a bit cooler than it did originally but can see if it's overheating (never come close). You just need to wire this in to your c101 plug, and you'll also need to ground this out somewhere. I grounded it to the timing chain case via one of the bolts.

Your M44 will have wiring for a charcoal canister, but e30's never came fitted with this, so you can bung off the nipple for this on your throttle body and get rid of the hoses and lines for this under your car if you want to. You can also utilise the electrical wiring from this for your brown temp sensor as it uses the same colour wires that the temp sensor uses in an M44.

[Caravanking]

Power steering.

There could be a few options for this, but with e30 steering rack and lines, this is probably the neatest way I could think of, using oem parts.

I used an e36 m42 LUK power steering pump with the M14 and m16 banjos. I had to straighten the bend in the hard part of the PS line closest to the banjo. I just used a small ish vice that I could get in the engine bay to do this as my lines were still attached.

To fit this pump, you'll also need the bracket. It's different bolt arrangement to the M44 bracket and has a different tensioner. This os off an e36 m42 engine also. This is the bracket on the left in the pics with the damper type external tensioner. Just note that this damper and pulley wasn't on correctly on the pics.

You also need the matching pulley wheel as the offset on the power steering pumps are different.

[Caravanking]

Exhaust.

The easiest bolt on option is an e30 318is exhaust.

The issue with M44 manifolds is *they hit the steering uj* (I've read someone on here successfully using one maybe?).

I was lucky enough to stumble across an m42 e30 rhd manifold for sale. These are different to the lhd version and the e36 m42 manifold. The e30 m42 318is seems to be a very uncommon manifold.. Infact, I found more m3 manifolds for sale.

There isn't an aftermarket manifold that will fit that I'm aware of.

I also got a fritzs exhaust system. Front pipe, middle and back box. Really very nice kit. Spoke to the guy on the phone and he was mega helpful. All I needed to do was weld a lambda boss nut in the front pipe. It only came with the hangers for the back box and no bolts, not an issue. It uses all the standard mounting points and rubbers. It also mounted up absolutely perfect and straight.

The exhaust is quiet, sounds just a bit more than a standard exhaust. My experience with exhausts is that they get a little louder over time. Having driven my e36 compact with no exhaust (it snapped off just after the cat) I'm happy with quiet haha.

[Caravanking]

Just a side pic to finish on from my first drive out in it with the new engine in.

Any questions or anything that I've missed, I'll be happy to answer.

Also, is there any moderator or admin that can change the title of the thread?

[tha881]

That looks lovely and clean, the 16v swap makes perfect sense. It has a great stance aswell, not too low, what suspension setup is it running?

[Brianmoooore]

You really did have insomnia, didn't you! I think you've set a record for 'longest overnight post'.
Most interesting part to me is how you've overcome the problems of using the M44 inlet manifold and identified a remote reservoir that looks like it belongs there. Original reservoir has a spare nipple, of course, which is used on LH drive E30s. With the extra height you have with your set up, you could probably successfully plumb the fluid over to the clutch.
I can assure you that the original engine loom has wiring for a charcoal canister (or rather a solenoid valve for same), and these were fitted on cars that were supplied with cats. , etc. The regulations applied to your car are those for the oldest part (the body), not the newer engine, so there's no need to fit the canister and all its pipework. Blank off the connection on the inlet manifold, but be sure to leave the pipe to the fuel tank open. The engine will (I'm fairly sure) run happily with the plug to the solenoid valve left connected to nothing, although it will throw a fault code. If this bothers you, either plug in the solenoid valve and tuck it out of the way, or connect a resistor of similar resistance in place of the valve. BMW actually do make a resistor for this purpose for fitting to cars for the few markets where emissions equipment still wasn't compulsory when cars with these engines were being made.
I've changed the odd thread title in the past, I think. What do you want for its new name?

[Caravanking]

That looks lovely and clean, the 16v swap makes perfect sense. It has a great stance aswell, not too low, what suspension setup is it running?

Thanks! Yeah I went with a 4 pot 16v because of Having the M44 in an e36 compact and my brother having an abf'd mk2 golf. I proper rate them. My compact has 154k miles on it and it goes like a trooper.

I've got a 5 year old spax psx 60/40mm spring and shock setup. Really good setup. This is the second set I've had. I also had some on a mk4 golf gti turbo.

[Caravanking]

Very quick one.

Car was overfuelling and I worked out that I was getting about 28mpg out of the M44.

It's a stock M44 other than a horrible cone filter, stainless exhaust and an end ward map on the ecu.

There's an intake air temp sensor in the airbox on a stock M44. Because I didn't get a stock airbox with the M44 engine, I dismissed it but also thought it was an ambient air temp sensor. I've since put the temp sensor in front of the cone filter.. Not ideal, but the car feels much more frantic than before. Still need to work out overall mpg though.

[rix313]

Great documentation. I'll look to collate this and add it to the M40/42/44 swap section if that's ok?

You wouldn't do yourself wrong if you found and E30 inlet manifold in the future. That said the wiring harness mounts are slightly different between the two so would probably need some attention.

[TurtleDesignTech]

Very well documented and well executed swap.

[Caravanking]

Great documentation. I'll look to collate this and add it to the M40/42/44 swap section if that's ok?

You wouldn't do yourself wrong if you found and E30 inlet manifold in the future. That said the wiring harness mounts are slightly different between the two so would probably need some attention.

Yeah that's absolutely fine by me. I struggled to find any info when putting mine together so put this on for future to help others. By all means put info onto the wiki.