HELP! S50 3.2 EVO INTO E30

[MOODY]

hi there all can any one tell me the difference between the 3.0 and the 3.2 s50 engine in the fitting department? i have purchased a e30 convertible and want to do the s50 3.2 evo. can any one tell me if they are different to fit and also what will i need to change,? i have been priced £1200 for the s50 3.2 evo ( smg ) engine ecu and loom does that sound right, what else will i need, its going into a 318i convertible.

[E30Mark]

£1200 sounds cheap...

You'll also need to change the gearbox, prop, diff, brakes, suspension, exhaust, also don't forget to get an insurance quote before you start !

I guess this will set you back £3.5 - £5k, i'll let the others who have done this conversion guide you

[MOODY]

£1200 sounds cheap...

You'll also need to change the gearbox, prop, diff, brakes, suspension, exhaust, also don't forget to get an insurance quote before you start !

I guess this will set you back £3.5 - £5k, i'll let the others who have done this conversion guide you

can any one tell me which gearbox,diff,brakes,suspension, i can use, and also it won't make a difference that its a smg engine will it?
i dont thinkit will cost that much as the engine is £1200 + £800 labour the bloke told me to geta engine and ecu with the loom and a gearbox and he will get the rest nd fit it but i want to make sure he use's the right parts; also the price was for a s50 3.0 engine and not the 3.2 thats why i wanted to know the difference in fitting,

[ian332isport]

can any one tell me which gearbox,diff,brakes,suspension, i can use, and also it won't make a difference that its a smg engine will it?
i dont thinkit will cost that much as the engine is £1200 + £800 labour the bloke told me to geta engine and ecu with the loom and a gearbox and he will get the rest nd fit it but i want to make sure he use's the right parts; also the price was for a s50 3.0 engine and not the 3.2 thats why i wanted to know the difference in fitting,

Physically fitting the 3.0L and 3.2L S50 is pretty much identical. The wiring is a bit different between the two, but apart form that they are very similar. You will have the exact same problems getting the exhaust manifolds to fit, and inlet plenum/brake servo clearance on either engine.

Unless you plan on installing the full SMG system (not easy), you can't use the SMG box. It will physically fit, and you can fit a manual gear linkage to it, but it's different internally. You will find the gearstick is all floppy and has no self centering. Changing gear will be very difficult, as you won't know which gear you are going to get. I believe the ECU is also different on an SMG car, and probably won't be happy if it can't see all the SMG equipment. It's best avoided IMO.

I think the best gearbox is probably the 328i/3.0L M3 5 speed box. This will bolt straight in, and you can use a standard E30 M3 propshaft, or possibly a 328i prop with an E30 centre bearing fitted. You can use the non SMG 6 speed box, but this requires a custom prop and gearbox mount to fit it.

You can keep the standard E30 suspension, but will need beefier springs & shocks to cope with the extra weight of the S50. Brakes are up to you, but you will need something very good with either of the S50 engines.

I don't know who the bloke is doing the installation, but there's no way he will get it in and running for £800 (unless he's family ). You'll need to pay more than that just for the exhaust manifold mods and system. I don't think anyone has done one of these conversions for less than 6k yet, and that was with support from the Zone. Getting the engine sitting on it's mounts is easy, but it gets very expensive from there onwards.

Ian.

[MOODY]

cheers for the help ian you answered all my questions, your a top man .
i have asked the bloke who is fitting it and has just done one for someone but a s50 3.0 in a 318i, best snap his hand off, hopefully will all be done before summer, wll comtact you if i get stuck,

[fuzzy]

whatever he quotes you .....double it

[MOODY]

no he has just done 1 for some one that i know he has paid £800 cash, all he brought was the complete engine and box and the rear diff and drove away with a s50 m3 engine,

[DanThe]

Is this the 3.0 litre we were talking about yesterday mate? RAF? I dont think its quite finished yet, just waiting for plenum to be sorted

[bigpimpin]

I agree with everything Ian has said, I used the 5 speed box as I thought using bolt on rather than custom prop would be more straightforward.

Its a good days work to remove the old motor and fit the S50 but everything else takes a LOT more time and a LOT more money!

I spoke to Ian before I started and thought I could do the conversion a lot cheaper. I didnt succeed

Engine (No1) £1200
Car £ 400
Suspension £ 400
Exhaust £ 300
LSD & Prop £ 300

Est. Total £2600

It worked out more than 3 times that amount!

£1200 sounds very cheap and I hope you know the person your buying it from. I learnt the hard way and paid that for an engine from a right twat off ebay only to find out the ECU had been crushed with the car. 6 months later when everything was ready I fired it up only to find the bottom end was totally fooked! So another engine from BMW Spares and I stared the whole process again......it was a lot easier second time around!

[jaistanley]

I'm estimating about 6K all in when I finish mine, including the brakes and £1k for a car to put it in. I got the engine from an MZRoadster crash damaged so I got a lot of the bits all at once, saving me a bit.

I agree with using the M3 3.0l box, and a nice simple install using the wiring and ecu from a non smg engine. A friend recently had no fun at all when he was sold an smg box thinking it was a manual. The gears were exactly as Ian said.

Ian: I've heard before that you can use the prop from an E36 328i. The (damaged) prop from the ZMRoadster is labled as an E36 part, and I'd wondered if it could be used. Is swapping the centre bearing easy? There must be many more 328's than E30 M3's around these days.

Jai

[ian332isport]

Ian: I've heard before that you can use the prop from an E36 328i. The (damaged) prop from the ZMRoadster is labled as an E36 part, and I'd wondered if it could be used. Is swapping the centre bearing easy? There must be many more 328's than E30 M3's around these days.

Jai,

I think it was Sooty that used the 328i prop. You can't use the E36 centre bearing, as it's too big to fit in the E30 tunnel, but you can apparently fit the E30 centre bearing in it's place. I vaguely remember him saying something about fitting the dust shields the opposite way around or something, but it all goes together.

I've never replaced a centre bearing (got Reco-Prop to do mine when they shortened it), so not sure exactly what's involved. As far as I'm aware it's fairly simple, and only requires a pair of circlip pliers.

Ian.

[Jhonno]

£800 to do the conversion!! Someone is a mug.. Manifolds to get done properly are £590 on their own.. I've spent best part of 5/6k on mine and its still not running!

[old_skool]

From what I had read before I attempted mine, I figured on around 6k to get it done. Added to that the other stuff that I am doing

I stand by the 6k, I have now bought all the kit to do my conversion and in parts alone it is £5800+. If you can do an S50 conversion for 2-3k then good for you dude.

£800 for the work involved is very little money. Is the guy that is doing the work semi retired or something? There has to be 200 hours work minimum to do a basic conversion properly. Have you researched this conversion thoroughly yourself, do you know what is involved? I'm not trying to put you off, just make sure you go into it with both eyes open.

All the best


Dameon.

[MOODY]

dude i like a challenge 3k it will all be done, just waitin for the right engine, watch this space,

[bigpimpin]

Good luck with it mate!

Any other questions regarding the conversion ask away on here, someone will have done it for sure.

[Dave_M3]

Good luck with it lad, might do the same in a few years , I'd say the e30 would be a bit of a handfull in the wet(handfull of opposite lock )

[modifiede36m3]

Forget the 3.2 engine and defo forget the SMG gearbox. Both are much more trouble than the 3.0 version. The block is much stronger on the 3.0 and the vanos is much much less problematic..Stick with the 3.0 Engine

Steve

[g57yle]

Steve is right, unless you find a good 3.2 engine (quite hard to find) your better off sticking with a m3 3.0 engine

the 3.2's suffer badly from:

1. Big end bearings going and thefore messing up you crank and conrods.

2. Vanos units malfunctioning

3. Dual mass flywheel fails

And neither of these are cheap fixes.

I bought an m3 evo lump a little while back for the conversion on my e30. A little while later i decided not to use it, luckly for me the engine was replaced by bmw before the donor car had an accident, so really i got a new engine. In the end i stripped it and sold it in parts. I was shocked when i realised how many people were after the bottom half and vanos because of problems with their ones!

I had calls on the minuite ever minuite for a while

So my advice to you is, if possible hear the engine running before you buy.

The 3.0 S50 doesnt suffer with the big end problem to my knowlegde,

Good luck

Gary

[ian332isport]

As far as I'm aware, the big end problem is only an issue when you start pushing the revs beyond the standard limit (chipped engines with raised rev limits). I don't recall reading about standard engines munching the bottom end. Either way, a set of ARP bolts will stop this happening.

I do agree that Vanos is a potential problem, but I also feel it's got a worse reputation than it deserves. Lots of units were changed under warranty due to owners complaining about a bit of noise. In reality, this noise does not necessarily mean the Vanos unit is dead or dying.

Don't the 3.0L engines also have dual mass flywheels ?

Ian.

[g57yle]

I think the do 3.0 do have dual mass but i cant back that up as ive never stripped one. but the big ends are a bigger problem than they seem, ulthough i think its probably down to the owners using 95ron rather than the 97ron. thats just a guess, but i know for a fact that a lot of 3.2's suffer from bottom ends without mods.

Just ask LOL

or the best thing to do is but up on ebay, m3 3.2 bottom end for sale! or even have a look at how many 3.2 engines are being sold on ebay with bottom end problems.

Basically if i was to use one, id strip it first and rebuild it regardless.

I say if your going to do something, do it properly, it actually saves you time and money in the long run.

and id put a single mass 325i flywheel on so you dont have any problems later on

[DanThe]

According to the parts catalouge the early 3.0 litre uses the same dual mass flywheel as the late 3.2

Ive never heard of any BMW flywheel causing problems

[ian332isport]

and id put a single mass 325i flywheel on so you dont have any problems later on

Nice in theory, but doing this reduces the capacity of the clutch. You would be dropping down from the M3's 240mm clutch to a 227mm 325i clutch. I'm not sure how long this would last on the back of an S50.

Ian.

[GermanGorilla]

Hi,

As Ian says the Vanos if maintained correctly is not a problem.
The service parts are cheap, ignore it at your peril,

S50B32 Bottom ends is due to to the standard BMW Rod Bolts stretching
and then eventually letting go.
ARP or similar help prevent.

Some of the problem is down to the fact that the engine is
revved hard but passes its ''ideal hamonic'' balance point at around
6500 rpm, hence the dual mass flywheel.

A lighter Flywheel assists.

The Dual Mass Flywheel can not be replaced with the 325i Single Mass
Flywheel.

If the rotating mass of the flywheel drops below 50-55% of the original,
the BMW Siemens ECU gets confused and will not work correctly.

I run a JB Alloy Flywheel with uprated clutch plate and cover.
The trade off is that you have to endure gearbox ''chatter'' which
can be quite noisey.

Regards,

The Gorilla.