E30 Zone

I got the s50 conversion on the dyno this weekend and was well chuffed with the results , it made just over 300 bhp and 335 nm of torque , the tester said that it was running a little rich up top and would make an other 10 bhp when this was sorted out .
I couldnt beleive it made this power as the exhaust was a bit of a tempory job , using e36 six branch manifolds onto a e30 scorrpion system , no crossover .
we also chopped the inlet plenum as the lad i was doing the conversion wasnt gone on moving the servo,
The air filter was nothing to write home about either , but we will be losing the abs and making a proper airbox .and thinking of trying to make a new plenum.

I will be making up a six branch and system soon and will be copying the orginal e36 with regard to sizes and lenght with straight through boxs to fit the e30 from stainless ,
If they dont take too long I will probably start selling them .
the all welds will be tig welded and purged with argon .

It will be nice to see how much hp we can get with the exhaust alone.

Nice work, get some pics of the conversion and power graphs up mate

will do I am waiting for my lap top back from the fixers.
will be doing a write up over on the irish site e30 owners first ,propably tomorrow evening , then one on here.

Interesting mate. Will be good to see what you've done. I'm currently in the proccess of building my exhaust (an right pain in the arse on the driveway!) so will be good to see your take on matters.

This manifold you're making: How do you propose to match the tight (hydro-formed) radius bends of the BMW system? Obviously there is more than one way to skin a cat, but it's very tight in there to be able to get any kind of volume in the primaries. Hence we got a group buy from BTB who modified the standard ones (at a huge premium!) to not collide with the RHD steering columns. Easier on your LHD car, but still a bit of a pain surely?

Keep the info coming...

Yes the exhaust is a right pain in the arse alright , and hence why I am going for a complete custom one ( can go through that heart ache again .
I have a s50 to go into my own right hand drive 320i so will try and build it to miss steering coupling , but as you say there is not much room so if its going to be too restrictive I will make a new steering link .
As for bends I will be using preformed bends that would be normally used in the food industry pipe work , you can get nice tight bends at small bores like the primarys on the s50 , It will take alot more time but once its purged when welded it should be smooth inside as well as out ,
.I am tig welding not mig so welds are nice once you take your time.
I am hoping to run the primarys forward a little so the secondary start before going under the car to free up a little room between bulk head/floor pan and bell housing .

I will keep you updated should be starting next month.

are you going for the btb manifold , i hear only good things about them but its crazy expensive

it is easy to fit an s50 manifold on to an m50 engine, with not a lot of effort. i cant see the s50 being too different.

I have a BTB strapped to my S50 at the moment (see my build thread in this section). It was a work of art alright and every car I've seen with one is making good power and torque. In fact they generally compare to factory. About 286 for 3 litres and 310ish for 3.2's.

I've also got the BTB X pipe going into a simpson (jetex) centre box that is 50.8mm internal. That's going to a Supersprint E30M3 Race backbox. Keeping it 50.8mm internal x 2. Gives a seriously nice sound, if a little loud. I'm hoping the gas velocity will aid the torque throughout the rev range and it'll flow nicely. I've also lagged the manifold and all the way back and over the cross pipe. No doubt the centre box will get hot (and louder over time probably) but the added energy in the gas should keep the pressure down and inertia up for extra scavenging.

I'm MIGing unfortunately, with stainless wire and argon/co2 gas. For butt welds I've been back purging with pure argon and for welding things like hangers I've just been using CO2 gas. My welding has got a lot better, though a friend had to teach me. I'd love to buy myself a nice TIG inverter but the cheap ones will just screw me over..

Get some pictures up!

I bought a TIG welder of Ebay made in China (with a german Label on it)

HF start, Pulsing and rod welding as well. £285 delivered and one of the best TIG welders I have used for up to 3mm thickness. I wish I would have coughed the money up back then and bought the AC/DC version of it. But that was £400is and I wasn't too brave with an unknown brand.

And Jai, stop using Argon/Co for Stainless, will you!

baptie0 wrote:it is easy to fit an s50 manifold on to an m50 engine, with not a lot of effort. i cant see the s50 being too different.

I must be doing somthing wrong but cant see what ,my main problem was with the front branch , had to cut the colector off and reweld at an angle and then got stuck for space between arb back branch and bell housing ? .

I had a 160amp hf tig bought off ebay from some german crowd but they went bust and had to go through the cedit card to get my money back, have a 200 amp dc hf start now i bought from wolf , and touch wood its going great.

At last some video

sounds nice, have you any pictures of the s50 manifold?

Will have a look tomorrow , was your manifold off a 3.0 or a 3.2 , would love to know why it was such a pain in the arse for me and not you. did you have to alter the colector on the front branch?

no mate, i only rotated the secondary pipe to clear the lolipop bush & lowered the arb

also the bulkhead was massaged a wee bit, & i made a steering coupling.

there are some pictures of it in beemerlads thread in photo gallery.

What mounts are you using ?
my front branch was hitting the subframe .

mounts are e28 m5 i think.

Hey, would you be able to post up some pictures of your manifold? Im planning this conversion next year and want to know what I'm up against.

Hopefully gonna buy my first MIG welder soonish and start practising for when I have to make one of those!
Although after all the manifolds/wire/CO2 i get through might just be cheaper to get the BTB one

tomcat2040 wrote:Hey, would you be able to post up some pictures of your manifold? Im planning this conversion next year and want to know what I'm up against.

Hopefully gonna buy my first MIG welder soonish and start practising for when I have to make one of those!
Although after all the manifolds/wire/CO2 i get through might just be cheaper to get the BTB one

no disrespect but if this is your first MIG welder you better try a more easy project first. The S50 manifold is a work of art for a mass produced item, nothing you quickly modify/replicate with a MIG welder in your garage. And forget about using CO to weld a Stainless Steel manifold (or even a mild steel one). Unless of course you make it out of 3mm thick tubing

it made just over 300 bhp and 335 nm of torque , the tester said that it was running a little rich up top

Nothing a hot exhaust tip cannot burn!

thats fanstastic! get somes pics up....

I think I have figured out why Baptieo fitted the s50 exhaust on the m50 with out cutting the colector off, It was annoying me and I was out in the shed were I have my m50 and two s50,s sitting . The S50 head is a little bigger than the m50 by about 10 mm this must be why the S50 wouldnt fit . I nearly have my thread finished over on the irish site so will post up a link when finished here.

Here is a link to my write up on E30 owners .com.
I cant bring my self to write it all out again!

http://www.e30owners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6808

got the power graph?

don't want to sound rude or disrespectful but if you are going to make a whole 6 branch manifold we will have to work on your welding. Holy crap!

Oh dont worry your not being rude the welds are crap but aleast i didnt do them

I didnt have my tig welder at the time so the lad that I was doing the car for got someone to weld them up using gas
In fairness to him they are only tempory and were done in a rush .

Do you mind if I ask you a welding question ( I am only a novice)
when i go making the six branch I will tack up the primarys then finish weld them seperatly , what sort of flow rate would I need to purge these I will be using 40mili pipe about 600 long

dicko wrote:Oh dont worry your not being rude the welds are crap but aleast i didnt do them

I didnt have my tig welder at the time so the lad that I was doing the car for got someone to weld them up using gas
In fairness to him they are only tempory and were done in a rush .

Do you mind if I ask you a welding question ( I am only a novice)
when i go making the six branch I will tack up the primarys then finish weld them seperatly , what sort of flow rate would I need to purge these I will be using 40mili pipe about 600 long

I am afraid that's a trial and error thing. first you need to make some suitable connectors and pipes etc. to control flow. In the end you can always run loads of gas through it, but you know £££££.....
rule of thumb I would start with 8litre/min

You do know that the BMW manifold is stainless?

I don't want to discourage you, but do you really want to tackle a six branch manifold as your first TIG project?? How are you going to keep it straight? Can you mill some jigs?
TIG and stainless = loads of movement when welding. The gaps need to be 100%, Tig welding will 'close' every gap during welding (meaning it will distort a lot of you have loads of uneven gaps).
I am welding for a long time and I do not want to make a whole manifold if I can avoid it or somebody else is offering one for reasonable money. You can make your life really difficult when your manifold needs to come out afterwards for a few times because it cracks or leaks.

Yea I had realised the bmw manfold was stainless ,I reckon its 304 grade though.
I have done a good bit of welding now with the tig , I am just finishing a m50 conversion for an other lad , I used the m52 stainless log manifolds and a e36 328i system and cut and modified that so I have done a good few ackward welds .
I no what you mean about it pulling if the cuts arent prefect .
As for jigs I will tack them up on the engine and then when finish welding I will use the same old cast iron manifold of the m50 to stop them warping .
Dont get me wrong I apprectiate its a big difficult job of a pro never mind an amature , but I cant afford a btb one and If I try and fail well at least I will have learnt something .

I have to say I am really enjoying using the tig , the last m52 manifold I done I had to use my old stick welder ( what a pain)

Am I right in thinking tig welds are less prone to cracking than stick and mig welds , I noticed that when I tacked up the manifold with the tig I could adjust the tacks with out them breaking .


Oh back to the purging I was going to make a rubber bung up to fit the pipe and the put masking tap on all the joints I am not working on ?
but should I vent the top of the pipe for a few seconds to clear all the air out of it before welding ?

Thanks for your advise Its much apprecitated ,it great to talk to a professional.

I am far from a professional, just good 30years of trial and error

strictly speaking you need to monitor the oxygen content in the pipe before you can start welding.....(but that's for the pro's)

I would try to keep a little bit of "flow" of the ARGON inside the pipe. You will need to vent one pipe, when you have closed the welds the hot gas need a vent to escape!

Would't bolt manifold to manifold. Can you not drill a piece of boxsection or an old RSJ or whatever beam you find at the scrap yard? If nothing is available the other manifold is better than nothing.

I appreciate that you can't afford the BTB and encourage you to give it a try. But keep in mind, if you fail you've spent all the time an money and you still need to buy a BTB...

Good luck!

PS I believe the BMW manifold is better than 304, need to ask my spies

Cheers Uwe I will keep you updated I have loads of bit of rsj lying around so might try what you said .

Thanks again