E28 M535i Powered Drifter - Getting there!

[rob0r]

Ahoy there me maties, shiver me timbers etc

It's time for another M30 conversion! I've previously done one in my old touring...
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... c&t=204335

Soon after I finished the M30 touring I had to sell it but I've been hankering after another M30 E30 ever since. The touring was brutal, even more so than my E21 M50B25, and I have higher hopes on this next build.

Finalish spec:
Engine Base - '86 E28 M535i, 106K miles, high compression yo!
ECU - Motronic 1.3 with Speedtouch "Wild" chip
Gearbox - E30 M10
Flywheel - S14 M3, freshly skimmed
Clutch - Unsprung M20 Paddle clutch
Rad - TBC, E34 M30 / E28 M30
Fan - E39 525i electric fan, MASSIVE, trimmed housing
Mounts - Lee Parkes / 50mm worth of hockey pucks

Car: 320i auto (with manual conversion), E36 de-PAS rack, rubbish low suspension etc



It's not the zone's favourite past time but I like to drift. I've been using the car for the last year just as a 2L manual but it's come time for more power. I spent a few weeks messing around building a 2.5 high compression motronic conversion but when it came to it I had to go for the M30 instead... I've had the M535i engine for a few years now as I bought it from a mate's failed E12 track car restoration.

Here's how I bought the car




Santa pod






Norfolk





Totally stripped the E36 rack, removing as much PAS gubbins as possible and greased it all up. The end result is an amazing E36 manual rack


I did one final burnout...


And in a few hours the 2L M20 was gone. A fantastically strong engine but just not enough grunt!

[rob0r]

So onto the M30 conversion.... Not troubling myself enough with fitting a big six into an E30, I'm also taking on the conversion of the wrong E28 parts and the conversion to motronic 1.3. My mate with the E12 had 75% bits of the motronic conversion, so I needed to find out what else was needed for the other 25% and all the other bits wrong with the engine being from an E28.

So it's had Lee's mounts, new water pump, new thermostat, swapped oil housing from M535i (remote take offs not needed) to E28 525i, E34 pick up and sump, E34 rear head water blanking plate, E34 rocker cover, E30 leads, E30 325i TPS, E34 exhaust manifolds (still to fit), E34 M30 idle system, E34 M30 starter motor. Motronic 1.3 AFM, CPS/bracket, loom, ECU etc. Still to fit is the alternator when I find the E34 bracket for it!

The flywheel is off being skimmed but I have high hopes with it along with the M20 paddle clutch and M10 gearbox. I'm using the M10 box again even though I have spare M30 boxes as it goes straight onto the 320i prop/linkages the car already has and it should shave some weight off.

The E39 electric fan is huge, so much so it won't inside the slam panel. I've trimmed the housing so it just about fits. Mounting it will be incredibly easy, it has great mounting points.

I had an E34 M30 rad off Jim a while back but I will have to custom make some mounts for it as the prefacelift shell doesn't have the lower cup mount provisions. I also have rusty E28 525i manual I'm breaking so I might see if this radiator mounts in a better way.

CHAOS


A big thanks to Jim and SurprisingSkoda so far!

[Bristol_Jer]

Nice one on building another

Be interesting to see if the non-assisted rack will be much heavier to use with the m30 over it

[jimbom30cab]

nice work Rob, got any more updates mate ?

[rob0r]

Not much more work Jim, just sorting the radiator and electric fan - much easier to do this before the engine goes in!

E39 electric fan, the plastic housing was trimmed to fit, it has great sturdy mounts to work with. It's so big there is about a 1cm gap top either side to the slam panel...


In terms of radiators I had planned to use an E34 M30 rad I got off Jim a while back but I didn't plan on the prefacelift shell missing the lower mounts entirely for this radiator unlike the facelift shell. I've recently bought an E28 525i manual and the radiator went in on the E30 lower rad mounts, it then bolted in with some self tapping screws against the slam panel. Very happy with the install.







The bonnet still fits too!

[jimbom30cab]

that rad and fan will certainly keep things cool whilst bouncing off the limiter !!

nice one

[rob0r]

I've had barely any time over the last months so progress is slooooooow. I've been doing bits and pieces researching, finding and fitting the motronic 1.3 gubbins. My S14 M3 flywheel was back freshly skimmed from the engineers so it was time to drop it in.

S14 M3 flywheel, M20 unsprung paddle clutch to go with the E30 M10 box, it fitted lovely. Note my high tech clutch centring tool in the bottom right...


And in it goes


IN

[jimbom30cab]

Super job, love that cam cover also

[Rav335uk]

Looking good Rob.
Should spin over quickly with the S14 flywheel.

[rob0r]

Busy working out the finishing touches for the E28 engine wrongness and motronic 1.3 conversion. My current headache is that the E28 inlet has no easy solution for the vacuum line to the brake servo! I may have to T piece the line running into the bottom of the ICV and branching off there. Another idea is to drill and tap a fitting into the nearside of the inlet for the take off. Or I could just fit an E34 inlet....

Since this car is a 320i its prop and gear linkage bolts up perfectly using the M10 box, very satisfying!

Not long but still plenty to do.

[Speedtouch]

You could have washed the turd, to make it a bit more photogenic, prior to embarking on this conversion!

Good luck with it all...

[rob0r]

It spluttered into life last night and filled the workshop with smoke....



I had the engine upside down for a while so I think oil got into the chambers, it spat oil all up the inner wing! I got it firing on some cylinders but with no exhaust and no idle I can't really work out what's firing and whats not, I'm just happy on the first turn of the key there was life! Sticking with all E34 stuff is much easier than cobbling on motronic 1.3 onto an E28 engine, some of it I had to work out as I went along so I'm glad it (kind of) works...

[jimbom30cab]

That is a whole lot of win there mate - nice one

[SteSE]

Lots of win going on here! Love it

[ImysE30]

project.

M30 FTMFW

[rob0r]

I'm really starting to regret using the E28 engine! I read the warnings but I went ahead anyway . On top of sourcing the E34 bits/injection parts to replace E28 incompatible parts I'm also still having issues. It's still not running right and I have no easy solution for brake servo take off.

I'm sure the running right is a simple problem and I'm fairly sure it's a problem with the M30 auto loom I've attempted to adapt for the TPS - now going for M20 M1.3 manual loom. It should be simple to fix but all this time wasted when I could have just dropped in a complete E34 engine

The E28 inlet has no brake servo take off due to E28s using a hydraulic system. I've been thinking about how I could modify it to give me another vacuum line. I ended up buying an E34 inlet just for the take off and ordered/bought new inlet gaskets. It was only then I realised I would need to port the E28 head to properly work with an E34 inlet .

I'm back to thinking how I can modify the original inlet manifold to give me another vacuum line. The outlet to the ICV might be able to be used with some sort of T piece to split between the ICV and servo, but that area is very cluttered in terms of injectors, fuel rail, inlet rubber, AFM. Another idea is to bridge the two smaller vacuum ports underneath the inlet using connectors to supply the servo and other appliances, but would this provide enough force to the servo?

Otherwise I could obviously drill the inlet and stick a port into there? The inlet is off, so this is doable.

All suggestions welcome!

The car needs to be running reliably by the 15th of Feb Hopefully I'll be attending the Snetterton drift day I'm booked onto!

[jimbom30cab]

Rob,

I would drill a hole in the inlet (near the servo)

Tap a thread and fit a BSP tapered connector - like you use on a radiator, so its a standard thread and tapered which with a bit of PTFE will be a tight fit

Then use a plumbing compression fitting to give you a 15mm stubb. Then use rubber hose to connect to an OEM servo hose+fitting. Should work fine mate


BTW, i've got running issues with my M30 and am just about to change the loom to a manual loom from an M20. After doing a bit of research it looks a fairly easy swap. I'll hope to do this over the next few days and will put a guide up here with some pics

Cheers

Jim

[rob0r]

Interesting, I bought a connector like that recently to try and hook up my welders gas line, I will have to see if I can find it. Great advice, thanks.

The other thought I've had in the last hour or so is to drill a hole and use a rubber donut/bung that are fitted to brake servo vacuum port. I guess it would depend on the thickness of the inlet wall compared to the original servo. I have a few dead E30s I can nick the bit of rubber from...

[jimbom30cab]

yer, good idea

Let's face it, it only needs to take a vacuum, it's not like it's pressurised

definatly make tripple sure there is no swarf left in the manifold after you have drilled, be awful if that worked it's way into the head

[rob0r]

Yeah, I'll flood it with a hose I think!

[jimbom30cab]

Rob, why don't you fit something like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Audi-A8-D3-A6 ... 1e81ebc220

[pianist]

Just drill the b**tard and be done with it, even if it's 2mm thick it'll be enough to tap it to hold the fitting for your pipe
Similar to this:

http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewit ... 0356938334

just put the "o" ring inbetween if you see where I'm getting and stop spending more money on it

[rob0r]

Well I sorted the vacuum servo line and it involved none of the above! I started by drilling the inlet manifold on the passenger side below the "3.2 - 3.5" logo with a small drill bit, it turns out the manifold at this point is at least 1cm thick. Before I went any further I flipped the manifold over and noticed the old obsolete cold start injector.... I decided this was the best bet. I grabbed some servo pipe and found that an old PAS pipe was the perfect fit, so I cut it up and welded it to a drilled flat plate that now sits where the cold start injector used to sit.







I had previously cut all unused brackets off the passenger side wing and then fabbed and welded a fresh one to hold the bottom of a facelift M20 header tank and got that mounted



The engine is all plumbed up, including my new fancy revotec adjustable fan controller ( shiny thing bottom right). This old E28 rad has no sensor holes so this seemed like the best bet. The front exhaust manifold has been manipulated to avoid the E36 rack and the downpipe adjusted to suit.



My lovely second hand 325i scorpion exhaust has been fitted and integrated with the E34 downpipes and manifolds


It's getting there. It would be nice to have it back on the road around the start of March. I've still got to bolt the inlet back on and try the E30 M20 M1.3 loom conversion, hoping the engine then runs right...

[mcbonio]

I do like these rough and ready m30 convertions.!

Does your radiator not have a blanked hole for a threaded temperature sensor? Most others on here find that an easier less-to-go-wrong solution for activating your fan at round the 90 degree C mark.

[rob0r]

My radiator originates from an '83 E28 525i so is very old skool, it has no blanked holes or ports available. I've used thermo switches on all of my other swaps but it wasn't possible here. Being adjustable I can tune it precisely to when I need it to come on, and I'll plumb in an override switch.

[jimbom30cab]

Rob, i converted a M20B25 facelift loom the other day. I put a little guide on my build thread. It was suprisingly easy with very little adjustment needed. Not flashed the car up yet mind you !!

Great pics by the way, nice to see some old school engineering !!

I've got that black manifold off, you can have it for free if you still want it mate

[rob0r]

Cheers Jim. I'd love to have that manifold but I've since found out how different the ports are on an E28 engine

The M20 loom is on and on the whole it is running better (not rich/smoking)... Except it now only runs on three cylinders! It's only running on 2, 4 and 6 which leads me to think there is an obvious problem with the motronic conversion. My mate who's helping me reckons it's injector related as these are batch fired. Any pearls of wisdom anyone?

If nothing obvious becomes apparent I'm going to swap all motronic bits/sensors/afm/leads etc from a spare E34 M30 530i. Wish I went for the E34 engine..........

[jimbom30cab]

They are batch fired, when you pop open the cover of the wiring loom above the injectors you can trace the wires and it's pretty easy to see how they are fired as the ganged cylinders have splice joins on the cables. Might be worth giving the circle connector a clean out and checking all the connections are tight under there. Check the ECU pin out also.

It's never easy with these engines, i've just put a replacement engine in and it's got to come out again. I'm really pleased with the M20 loom though. I made a little bracket for the diagnostic connector and the 2 square plug sensors and the whole lot looks OEM now. I'd recommend a million times over using an M20 loom to swapping an x25 for a c101 connection.

[Speedtouch]

The M20 loom is on and on the whole it is running better (not rich/smoking)... Except it now only runs on three cylinders! It's only running on 2, 4 and 6 which leads me to think there is an obvious problem with the motronic conversion. My mate who's helping me reckons it's injector related as these are batch fired. Any pearls of wisdom anyone?

Check the connector under the throttle body, in particular that pin 6 makes continuity with pin 16 of the ECU:

http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/index.php/C191

[rob0r]

Yep, it was a problem with that connector! We ended up bridging one of the wires it was damaged so badly, so now it runs on all six... Happy days!

I'm busy welding up the footwells as the "jacking"/factor lifting points have gone through but the car isn't actually far away from being a road going vehicle

[Speedtouch]

Glad to hear you've sorted it.

[jimbom30cab]

nice one

[rob0r]

Finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel! The car is a week or so away from an MOT and the insurance quotes with a 3.5 are not as bad as I thought, so happy days. It's just little stuff now such as finding out why the huge electric fan doesn't work, mounting bonnet pins, welding up drivers footwell, fitting the Gaz coilovers etc.

This pic was about a month back

[Speedtouch]

Good to hear that, robor.

Try hooking the fan directly to a battery or 12V battery charger, to test the motor works...

[jimbom30cab]

Epic !!