E30 Zone

Hi, newbie here

Anyway, I recently acquired an E30 320i SE with the intention of using her as a drift car. At around the same time I managed to acquire an E34 530i for £500 as it had a full stainless system (including cats) that I wanted to swap onto my 540i. So now I'm left with a perfectly sellable 530i, however I'm now thinking as I picked her up so cheap, surely I need to be donating her M60 to the E30.

I've done a quick search on here and whilst I can see a few have done this conversion, I can't find a definitive guide; can anyone point me in the direction of a guide or journal? Anyone got an idea of costs etc.?

This is the hardest of the bmw engines to put in an e30 and when people do the swap they want to make sure it's worth it so they use a 4.0 rather than the low powered 3.0. You would be better off selling the car and using the money to buy a 535i M30 for a fairly easy swap.

Big problems are:
Brake booster and M/C need relocating
exhaust manifolds due to lack of space
possibly wiring issues too
there will be more issues but I don't know too much about the swap, just read the link below afew times.

IMHO it's really not worth the effort unless you are completely capable of doing all of the work yourself.

guide here: http://uk.babelfish.yahoo.com/translate ... =yfp-t-501

like chu 346 said sell it a get a m30 3.5. infact ric325 on here has a full conversion set up he is selling

its not as hard as it looks when u first lower it in there looks to be no room but it goes in kinda easy just finishing up my m60b40'd e28 now that was tight lol

chu346 wrote:This is the hardest of the bmw engines to put in an e30 and when people do the swap they want to make sure it's worth it so they use a 4.0 rather than the low powered 3.0. You would be better off selling the car and using the money to buy a 535i M30 for a fairly easy swap.

No, it's not the hardest. M70 is still bigger.. and S62 is quite big also ;)


Anyways, the two main problems are relocating brake servo / MC and fabricating exhaust manifolds. Everything else is quite straightforward.

You can buy engine mounts at www.300mm.de , www.e30.de / 340 is worth checking ;)

Well, 3L V8 is totally different than 2L M20 you've at the moment, so why not to do the swap? The engine is later on easily changed to 4L one if needed.

The M60B30 is less lazy than the B40, and still produces slightly more power then the M30. I'm sure with a few mods it could come into its own as being fairly revvy for an M60, imagine the noise too!

Thanks for the advice guys. The main attraction to me would definately be the noise of the V8; obviously a 4 litre would be better, but 218bhp isn't too bad, and as Jonsku pointed out; it could always be upgraded to a 4 litre if I for example blew the other one up!

If you can do it cheap/easy then why not? More power than an M30B35, better noise, weight further back..

But you will always be looking at 4.0's thinking.. What if..

Again???

Right.. Issues. it does fit, but you may have to knock the chassis rail where the alternator fits ( mine was touching there). Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to butcher the hell out of the manifolds, will, not the log part anyways. Mine has had this done and it didn't need it. header tank is an issue. I'm not sure if mine is venting properly as the header is roughly in line with the top of the inlet manifold. i know there's a hose under the inlet, but I can't tell if it's higher or lower.

If you decide to lower the subframe, you can use the triangle header tank.
As for the stainless exhaust, you won't be able to use much of it on the car as it's totally different. Mine's decat but with lambdas (which i need to hook up for the LPG)


steering.
Mine slightly grabs on hard left turns, so the new slimline uni in the group buys will sort that out.

brakes.

Im running twin MC under the dash with no servo. It's a b@tch to stop when going full tilt, even with the M3 stuff on it. 4 pots are coming soon along with a possible servo/twin mc upgrade.

Wiring.. not sure, was done before, but you'll have fun trying to poke it all down through the little ecu hole.

Cooling:
get a BIG rad. The Biggest you can find!!! I've blown 2 rads, both e28 535 rads, the same that everyone uses, and they don't cope. Not with a hard charging style of driving you'll want to do to hear the noise!

Fuel economy.
depending on the diff (a 3.9 will net you 180m to a tank-full to red light on a touring. a 3.15 will get you another 60ish miles on top.. 240ish to the tank. but the 3.9 is Soooooo much fun!! I play against porkers and M3's and they get a bit shocked. Only prob is, I hit the limiter in 5th at 120mph!) But that's with an M60B40. A B30 may get you less economy as it's not as gruntier but still will sound the bollox.

tacho.
Either an aftermarket one or try a 4 cyl (yet to try this one out!) It may work. If not, there's an autometer guage waiting for me.

Suspension.
Redo ALL your rear bushes. It will wag it's tail at the flex of your toe, so anything already stressed out will get worse. (like the gearbox guibo!) Diff mounting ears- I;ve done one cover already with a powerflex bush-Found out the 2 metal plates didn't sit in the bush properly, so allowed waaay too much flex. Going with a solid rubber one next.

Fun factor:

Ask anyone at Aces who's seen/heard me drive by! ;)