E30 Zone

Well i thought it about time i introduced the new project which came along as these things tend to when youre not looking for them. I was allready underway building the M3 touring but thankfully not too far along to stop/pause. This car ticked all the boxes for me in that i have always loved the look of the M3 but have never been a fan of the four pot but couldnt bring myself to buy one to pull apart so when one turns up in your favourite colour (i happen to really like lachs) with the donk missing and you happen to have an S50B32 you have to take the opportunity.

So thats the plan, Fit the S50 in a manner that appears it was always meant to be there but to also preserve the car so it can be returned to S14 power should i sell it on and the new owner wish to remove 100bhp for the sake of better handling when driven at the limit on a track. Im also hoping to show more detail of what is done to fit this engine to the left hand drive shell in respect of the brake servo/plenum clearance or lack of and the possibility of using the S50 manifold without giving huge wads of cash away to BTB.

Heres the victim





and one with the doner above



The doner is Busters old sport which some people thought i would restore but Andy was quite honest that the shell was tatty and it really is, Andyboy spent a short time at my unit recently stunned at the state of the shell particularly since he had had a high speed passenger ride in it at a track day.









Prep work has been done on the bay to take the engine which included new radiator mounts for the S50 rad, relocating the earth points to the o/s chassis leg and removing the airbox bracket and coil mount as these are no longer needed although can be reinstated easily enough. A little de rustifying and some fresh paint and its now ready for the lump. I have some fresh sound insulation for the bulkhead and the loom needs re-wrapping but all in good time.








took the oportunity to weld up the many holes in the inner wing from multiple alarm systems and put in some proper gromits for the screws on the existing alarm, much better than screwing straight into the inner wing.












Anyhow, onto the engine, i thought that once the bay was sorted i could get the engine straight in and then start refining the little bits and pieces but after removing it i found it had been weeping oil from between the block and head at the rear so its off with the head and on with a new gasket, sounds simple doesnt it! Ive got as far as removing the engine loom and rocker cover and eventually the vanos after deciding to ignore just about every bit of info i could find on the net which said you need special tools to do so. I had a little help from a friend who is a technician for porsche and once we figured it out it was quite simple, the system itself is straightforward once you get your head around it and i may go into a little more detail later when i have more pics as if you havnt seen one apart its hard to picture it as i found when i spoke to Danthe on the phone before tackling it.











Need a couple of pointers now as to whether or not i can fully remove the two following items, the first appears to be a vacuum solenoid of sorts which used to deliver vacuum around the exhaust side of the engine presumably to the air pump which has allready been removed, the second is attatched to the engine mount under the inlet manifold and has three pipes, one is blanked, one just has a little plastic elbow and the other T`s into the idle control valve pipe. I know the pipework wont be a problem as its just a case of blanking but will the disconnected electrics cause me problems?

Mat,

I chose to leave both those valves connected electrically to avoid any error codes getting logged by the ECU, but I pulled all the pipes and binned them.

Another alternative is to use a BMW resistor plug to trick the system into thinking they are present. You could just wire a 1K resistor across the connector pins as well.

Cheers,

Ian.

I was thinking about the resistor trick but wasn't sure about values, I was hoping to cut the wires right back and solder in resistors to the loom. I'd like to avoid multiple fault codes being present if it did develop a problem, that way you're not sorting through a list of irrelevant codes.

Do you have a wiring diagram for the S50 B32 loom? Some things have been altered and I want to see what is what.

I used to wire resistors in to remove the fault code and the bit of exposed wiring but I dont bother now, I cut the plug/wiring out as its just extra clutter under the bulkhead covers, the fault wont cause any running problems anyway, this is for the fuel tank vent valve, the last picture you posted, but I also had one of the other valves on the Alpina engine, its now removed and the plug is tucked away under the inlet manifold, strangely I get a different fuel tank vent valve fault code, maybe it runs of the same/similar circuit?

The idea was to cut them right back to their source then fit the resistors thus losing as much clutter as possible. however of its not really necessary it might just be extra work.

Thanks for that part no. Dan, I've ordered it along with a long list of other parts.

beardymat wrote:Do you have a wiring diagram for the S50 B32 loom?

I do

It's about 4.8 Megs if you want me to send a copy in your general direction.

Cheers,

Ian.

Cool, is it emailable? if so send to matt.beatson@virginmedia.com

Ive got the head off now and there is no damage so its just a new headgasket needed, we did find some evidence of water contamination in the oil so its probably a good job i spotted the leak and didnt dismiss it. we`re going to drop the sump off and fit some arp`s and whilst we`re at it we will pull the pistons and deglaze the block and clean the ring recess`s out on the pistons. The motor so far seems in really good shape with no cam wear or bore wear and i know Buster used the car properly but also looked after it so im a happy man.

Managed to track down an air con compressor today so with some custom pipes ill be able to make full use of the climate control i have . Any tips on pipe mods gratefully received.

more pics to follow at the weekend.

New bores/ring FTW

Will be getting my aircon re-gassed pretty soon so will get some pics of how its cobbled together

I've got the same problem as you with the dryer position too Dan with my car being prefacelift and the kit I have is facelift stuff, the early pipe is nla so its custom again. Pics of that cobble would be good too buddy.

Well I have actually got a late pipe to fit onto the dryer, took some bending but it does now fit without touching the bodywork and it doesnt look 'that' butchered either

You will also need an early type flexi from the dryer to condenser

thats on the long list coming from the dealers Dan along with the other two, stopped myself from ordering the dryer and condensor from them though as i can get proper quality ones from my motor factors. Does the prefacelift dryer use one or two pressure switches?

Just noticed in your sig youre doing vanos seals, just ordered them all from the dealers so its a bit late dropped the shaft from the exhaust side of mine yesterday and broke the end where the seal sits, wasnt happy especially when i found out BMW dont sell them separately but quarry motors came through with a replacement, just trying not to think too hard about why they only sell them as a matched set with the vanos unit and hoping ive got lucky.

The early dryer uses two pressure switches and the later twin switch wont screw onto it, how much is the dryer BTW?

Not sure 100% Dan but i know its a lot less than the dealers, when i asked for the prices a while ago he said there were two but didnt know what the difference was, ive noticed there seem to be three mounting points on the prefacelift and only two on the facelift. I wonder if its possible to fit the later dryer with the twin switch? i only ask as i have a brand new twin switch which i ordered for the sport but never needed.

The dryer goes in fine on the two mounts, no point going back to twin pressure switches

Personally i think the car is a shocking turd and should be fragged , more time to work on a certain red chariot then

Paul, he scrapped that idea along time ago

yeah i decided against completing the touring idea as it had far too many doors

Should be some pics coming your way this weekend Paul, spot welded wheel arch instead of rusty falling off type Still havnt tackled that petrol neck bracket, just been too hot for anything that complicated.

beardymat wrote:yeah i decided against completing the touring idea as it had far too many doors

Should be some pics coming your way this weekend Paul, spot welded wheel arch instead of rusty falling off type Still havnt tackled that petrol neck bracket, just been too hot for anything that complicated.

Cheers buddy

beardymat wrote:Cool, is it emailable?

It's on its way

Be very careful with those cams now..

Vanos unit needs shimming when refitting also, it's a tool which looks like a chicken wishbone

I know what you mean jhonno, stripping these aint for the faint of heart, Like i said i am under the watchful eye of a porsche tech and he has seen far more complex stuff than this. We had to unbolt a cam sprocket from the inlet side to get them out but left the other complete. Once the heads on and cams are back in ill be getting a guy in who can time it properly for me, hopefully ill get to see how he does it.

so we got the sump off the other day ready to fit these puppys



only to find the big end bearings had been a little warm at some point



luckily it hasnt picked up on the crank so it appears we got there just in time, the mains were checked and are fine. so im currently waiting for new bearings from BMW before i can get going again. In the meantime ive been re-wrapping the engine bay wiring loom after making sense of the spagetti like thing i found in an asda carrier bag.

will i make the pod this year thats what i want to know.

beardymat wrote:I know what you mean jhonno, stripping these aint for the faint of heart, Like i said i am under the watchful eye of a porsche tech and he has seen far more complex stuff than this. We had to unbolt a cam sprocket from the inlet side to get them out but left the other complete. Once the heads on and cams are back in ill be getting a guy in who can time it properly for me, hopefully ill get to see how he does it.

1 tooth out will end in disaster..

Any news on this baby Mat?

**This is for EURO S50B32**

E30 / E36
1 / 25
2 / Oil level static
4 / 12
5 / 23
6 / 18
7 / 21
9 / 20
10 / Oil level dynamic
11 / 19
13 / 13
14 / 14
15 / 15
16 / 24

Well after a lot of nothing happening I finally got my arse in gear and got the engine built up enough so it could go in, haven’t yet put the wiring on or refitted the vanos but all in good time, got a BMW tech coming round to time the vanos with the correct locking tools so I know that will be tip top but ive got what seems to be an endless amount of other jobs to do.

The first of the other jobs was to get the manifolds modified to suit the e30, being left hand drive that’s a relatively easy task especially if you happen to have a spare set of scrap manifolds to donate bends etc.



You may notice number six now goes in the opposite direction to how a normal S50 manifold goes so it now clears the bulkhead, this is only a rough get me on the road solution so is nowhere near as good as a BTB but is nowhere near as costly either. It is also as near to equal length as I could get so will probably perform better than the one that was on the engine in the e30 I bought, no offence Andy but the old manifold was functional but all kinds of lengths, lol. Still lots of messing to do to clear the sub frame and anti roll bar but more on that later.

The next task was to get it all bolted to the box along with some new gear linkage parts and a new sachs clutch and then get it all bolted to the sub frame and get it in, easy peasy eh? Well we started by pulling the sub frame off the car onto a set of stands, the theory being that we bolt the engine to it without moving it and then lower the car down over it.



As soon as we started to lower the engine onto the sub frame we knew this wouldn’t work as the engine wouldn’t sit level or to be precise on the p!ss at the correct angle so after a quick rethink we got a couple of pallets and bolted the engine and sub frame together and using a plumb bob we lined it all up with the hole as best we could.





And then after a small battle it was in, no scratched paint or torn sound deadening although the new lhd water pipe is a tad close to the bulkhead.








I was under the impression that the M3 prop would work without any problems but after shortening it on the splines to get it in I then couldn’t get the centre bearing to line up, it looks like I may have to fit the bearing the wrong way round as they are offset, ill let you know how this goes.

Just need to keep up the momentum now as I want to take it to the pod but there is loads to do.

Looking good Matt

I am very jealous. This is going to be one of the best cars on here. Nice work.

Top Quality as usual Matt. I am also turning green with envy. "I want that one!"

Top work as per, Matt!

was going to do an update but found i havnt took photo`s of the important stuff, ill have to get on that. Been working through the list of jobs one by one and am making steady progress, still got an anti roll bar/manifold clearance issue but i have a plan to modify the manifold round it and im a bit fed up with myself for not modifying the water pipe round the back of the engine to sit closer to the block as its pressing up on the sound deadening and i cant now get it off to sort it without more or less taking the engine out. All it needed was the bolt hole in the mounting tab slotting so it can be tucked tighter, ill have to see if i can get in with a burr and do it in situ.

more in depth update to follow.

the pipe resting on the sound deadening might transmit noise/vibration through the car?

can't you undo the mounts and ease it forward on the crane to get to it ?

Just drop it back out on the subframe, you should be a dab hand at this now

noise in the car is what concerns me, i want the car to drive like a BMW so am not happy with comprimise, i had the subframe off at the weekend to modify it to clear the exhaust manifold and if i was thinking straight i could have lowered the engine on the brace it was on and took the pipe out but i had so many other things going on i forgot. The pipe is only resting on the pad but i still feel this will transmit some noise particularly if the engine moves slightly whilst driving.

Well thats another weekend closer the pod is but ive made some more progress, got the pipe away from the bulkhead although its still mighty close. Ive also got the power steering all piped up with one custom pipe to suit.





At a cost of £20 including new pipe and banjo i dont think thats bad at all. Also got the clio servo modified to suit, the fitting on the back of the servo is adjustable on the E30 servo as is the golf one that was fitted to the car the engine was in but rumour has it you get a much better pedal with the clio one but there is no adjustment which isnt such an issue with the RHD cars as you have adjustment on the pull rod that goes across the bulkhead but on a LHD car the servo attatches directly to the pedal so this needs sorting, as it is the fitting is too long so i thought i might cut it down a re-weld it but this means you need to get the length exactly right plus there is something about welding parts for brakes that makes me a little nervous even though im confident with my own welding skills so i came up with this





Basically I cut the fork off the end, drilled a hole in it and tapped a thread into it and threaded the bar that was left in the servo which was quite a trick as the bar spins freely. The locknut serves two purposes as it not only locks the position but it will take the load from the pedal as there isn’t enough thread in the fork for my liking. I have also modified the plenum to miss the servo but once again the downfall of a LHD car means that I have had to take out a fair chunk, haven’t got a photo of that but ill get one when its painted. The Audi master cylinder which was on the golf servo is also a direct fit on the Clio servo and I topped it off with a MK3 golf fluid bottle which has the take off to feed the clutch and is nice and compact so it fits neatly, again pics to follow.

Next up the guy came to refit the vanos unit and time it properly for me, I took the opportunity whilst it was off to replace the seals which should see it functioning correctly I hope. If im honest there is a lot of unnecessary fuss made of the vanos with most peoples advice being not to touch it, After ignoring that and reading the autodata instructions which called for a ”aspecial”a tool to set the plungers I looked at it and figured if I unbolted it and left the cam gears alone I could leave it set and just bolt it back on which is fine in theory but once we started taking out the cams it became apparent we were going to ruin the timing. The way to do it is to loosen the 6 bolts in each of the cam gears which you do by starting at tdc and turning the engine until you can loosen the next two bolts and then the next before finishing with the two at tdc, that way you finish with the engine at tdc, you can then pull the vanos off taking the plungers out of the middle of the cams with you. To refit you need to make sure all the timing marks are aligned then rotate the middle of the cam pulleys fully right iirc, it could be left though but if you got it wrong the plungers wouldn’t slide in. The tricky part is setting the plunger on the vanos unit before you put it in as they need to be in the fully back position and this is where the special tool comes in as it operates the solenoids to allow the plungers to be set. After that its just a case of pushing in the vanos unit and when its fully home retighten the six bolts in the cam gears then after giving the engine another full cycle re-check the timing marks. Now if you haven’t looked at one of these closely that’s probably as clear as mud but if you study one it will probably make some kind of sense. Im pretty confident that I could remove and refit one now once I figured out how to set the plungers.

Next up came everyone’s favorite bit.



getting all this lot on and looking right, Since this had already been on an E30 and fitted in the four pot wiring boxes I thought id be in for a walk in the park but as I started stripping it out of the other car it became apparent that I had more work on my hands, Andy had took the decision to mount the ecu in his glove box so just went through the main wiring grommet on the left hand side of the car, as im looking to make this more oem I want to mount the ecu in the proper spot. So after clipping the loom to the engine and figuring out which bits are no longer required for the air pump and the carbon canister I started to unwrap the loom and trace back the bits I don’t need so I can cut them out, with that done I started to untangle it all and move the ecu plug across, I have also mounted the relays in the space provided and moved the diagnostic port across to the space on the end of the covers which meant separating it from the casing it shares with the earth leads, this all leaves you with a mass of wire which is no longer required so the next job will be to try and shorten the wires which are too long and maybe simplify some bits too but for now im left with this





It was actually a little neater than that when I left it but that was the last pic I got. A few hours soldering should see it in then I just need to get the ews in. After that ive got the radiator and oil cooler to get in then an exhaust to sort oh and re-pipe the brakes and refit the interior then we might be good to go. Not long to Santa pod

Very nice work mate. Couldn't you mount the ecu behind the clocks if Andy had his int glovebox?