My E30 S50 Track car

[bss325i]

Awesome work!

[cliffybabe]

cracking thread looks really good work too, I bet she will be a beast when finished

[Reeeedish]

Monday 1st Sept

I had to take the gearbox back out as in my quickness of installing everything the other week, i'd forgot to put on the 'block to box steel gasket' on. Leaving it off would expose the flywheel to all sorts of crap flying under the car, so it had to go on.
Box off:


Gasket on:


General underside shot whilst we're there:






With the gearbox off it was perfect time to try and straighten the engine also raising it a bit higher above the steering rack. So I made some flat 2mm steel washers for the underside:


Installed, and also 1 thicker 4mm washer for the upper side of the rubber engine mount:


I also changed the rubber engine mount on the passenger side for a taller E28 one which straightened the sump perfectly and also gave me another 5-6mm clearance between the sump and steering rack so that worked out really well.

Starter cracked when going back in, so that went in the bin and another 1 was installed:


Block to g-box plate on, but empty starter hole:


Next was to block off the emissions air pump pipe that is behind the exhaust manifolds and comes out of the head. (a lot easier with the manifolds off):


Pipework off:


BMW 'ZA spec' (South African) block off plate and gasket installed:


Time to install the modified manifolds with gaskets:


Not much room, but do-able if you remove the steering shaft:


Cylinders 1-3 section installed:


I love this picture!


Both manifold sections on with new nuts and gaskets:



James

[Reeeedish]

Tuesday 2nd Sept

E36 328i propshaft came in today:



Need to change the E36 centre bearing for the E30 bearing as its narrower so it can fit on the original mountings in the E30 tunnel:


Prop seperated (and marked first):


Removing the securing nut:


Removing the dust shield and then the securing circlip: (nice and rusty lol)


Then you can remove the bearing:


Left with a rather erect looking propshaft spline:


New E30 centre bearing installed:


Complete prop again:


Prop installed:



Picked myself up an Audi master cylinder (although i'm not convinced its the correct one):



2nd hand and very dirty, full of some crusty dry crap and I was very reluctant to put it on, but only had 3 days until the castle combe shakedown and wanted to test it out so i fitted it and altered the pipe work slightly to suite:



James

[taper]

Amazing

[ric325i]

you dont mess about do you.

great work. your little video's nare well funny nice glow in light up fan....haha

[appletree]

Great work !

[wrcarter]

Great write up. Can't wait for the next installment

[HenryM3]

Great write up The coolant pipe round the back of the block, I used that so that I could mount the header tank in the same place as it is in the M3. I used a dipstick tube from an E34 as it has a little pipe coming of the side of it so you can jubilee clip on the oil return to the sump. Keep up the good work

[Taylor325i]

Any updates on your progress James?



Taylor.

[Karan]

great work

building a nice strong car there!

[White325is]

Very nice work. Swap looks amazing.

[Stany]

http://stanys.jalbum.net/BMW%20M%20POWER/

[rix313]

Very cool project will it be at combe this year? Would love to see it in the flesh.

RE that ECU box, is it just an air cooled box the ECU sits in?

[tomson]

Very cool project will it be at combe this year? Would love to see it in the flesh.

James indeed is usually at Combe keeping it real

[Auto_X]

nice work man

[ManxM3]

wrong bit !

[crossie]

this ever get finished??

[Reeeedish]

this ever get finished??

WOW thread revival!
That was interesting reading back years

Good memories ;)

Yeah the car did get finished.
I got it to Castle Combe just in time, had an amazing few laps until the inlet plenumn filled with oil (no Group N restrictor valve fitted) so I had to call it a day at Combe.

Then messed up my hand/finger badly by cutting through my little finger tendon and couldn't do a thing for months!

Took the engine out planning a nice rebuild and chassis refresh now knowing the engine was ok.

Part way through the engine strip, I changed my mind and put the car back to standard 320i M20 PBMWC spec and then sold the S50 engine to a customer.

A few years later the engine goes 'full circle' and ends up being used in an E36 M3 Race Car build I carried out for a customer:





There are some more pictures here on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/redishmotorsport

or on the E36 page:
http://www.redish-motorsport.com/BMWE36.html

I will be doing a huge complete write up for this build shortly if any of you wanted to see more pictures....

And I've still got the E30 (collecting dust)



fully built E30 Race Car and it's done approx 260 TRACK miles since 2005.......
Something not right there LOL

Cheers,
James

[wrcarter]

Great thread. How did you get the engine, gearbox and sump that clean?

[goosiegander]

Epic thread revival!

Very useful picture referance

[DMS]

Did the audi MC work? And which one was it?

Wouldn't the stock E30 one work?