M50 exhaust manifold for use with standard exhaust setup?

[Gunni]

I was thinking that I can have some flanges cut and when I get my M50 in the car I can greate a jig so that I can make E30 style exhaust manifolds so that they connect directly to the E30 M20 header pipes.

Any interest in this?

Do people normally have the one manifold or the two on their m20´s here?
I had the single flange manifold, but have only seen in here in the UK.

Wich is the more common?
I might be able to make a few so that people can get a straight fit manifolds.

[Morat]

From what I have read on here the only options at moment are DIY or Fritzbitz so a readily available manifold for an M50 would be a great thing

[E30BeemerLad]

The day someone fabricates a bolt on manifold soluton for the M50 swap, they will clean up. £250 all day long I reckon

[ImysE30]

Will it work with the M52 swap as well

[E30BeemerLad]

yep

[ImysE30]

Get it done Gunni

[Cook318IS]

The day someone fabricates a bolt on manifold soluton for the M50 swap, they will clean up. £250 all day long I reckon

Btb and the fritzs one are bolt on soloutions... just more expensive

[E30BeemerLad]

ridiculous expensive though!

£900 for a 6 branch manifold is just utter greed

[Cook318IS]

still doesnt make it any less of a bolt on solution. Any handmade quality exhaust will cost more

[DanThe]

I was going to try and do this, but came to the conclusion that a half decent manifold/frontpipes would probably cost more than a specialist would charge to modify what you already have.

[Gunni]

I don´t plan on "cleaning up". This will just be an option for people,
I am also going to make a new gearbox brace to use the Getrag 260 people most often already have. And just makes things so simple

I´ll have to base the price mostly on the cost of flanges being cut.

Again,
Wich do you guys normally have,

the single flange exhaust manifold or the normal dual ones?
Cause I have the single one, and would need to find the dual ones, so that each is available.

When I do get the M50 in there I´ll make a M50 turbo manifold as well.

[E30BeemerLad]

I have a pair of M52 tubular manifolds for sale in the for sale section Gunni if you are interested. £45 posted

[Ziggy]

AFAIK the single flange 325i manifold is much more common here... there are two sizes of the 4-bolt manifold-downpipe flange though - which I think is a pre/post facelift issue.


Pretty please, will you 'just' dump an M30 in there next, and make a nice mani for that?!

[Gunni]

you mean headers?
I don´t think I´ll ever be going back to 12v stuff.

I also don´t have TIG equipment to weld thin wall stuff neatly.

[daimlerman]

Problem with the one piece manifold(such as the cast standard M20 item)is that they warp 'banana' shape over time.BMW sorted this themselves with E34 having a two piece casting.
Other issue is fitting the thing! A two piece manifold is far easier to thread into the engine bay and onto the studs.
For the M50/52 conversion,what is required IMO is a jig to reshape the M52 stock item to fit the BMW 325i front pipe.Even if the result means slicing off the front pipe manifold flange to create a sliding joint near to the steering coupling it will give a better result than a 'home brewed' attempt at butchering the M52 manifolds and should cost far less than the Fritz/BTB offerings.
Likewise,the gearbox support bracket needs an 'off the shelf' solution,although this is far easier to fabricate DiY! I used a pair of exhaust clamps around the straight part of the manifold down pipes(where they run alongside the gearbox)bolted to a fabricated version of the standard BMW item.The BMW item is just not quite the correct shape/size to fit.
Of course,I have found my solutions to this issue,so unfortunately would not be a custiomer,unless I was to build another...

[Gunni]

Why reshape the stock M52 stuff and then sell that?

I´ll be making new stuff from scratch so that a standard E30 325i exhaust can be fully used without any issues.

[ShakeyC]

I have an affordable tubular solution already in the pipe line

[daimlerman]

Why reshape the stock M52 stuff and then sell that?

I´ll be making new stuff from scratch so that a standard E30 325i exhaust can be fully used without any issues.

The average E30 owner does not like spending his hard earned!
So a decent adaption of a pair of M52 tubular stock manifolds, maybe on an exchange basis,would earn a fabricator a decent return for only the investment of making a jig and then time to modify each manifold as the postie brought it in.
To set to and try to take on BTB/Fritz at their own game could easily end in tears.