2.8 or 3.5 ?????

[FormerMember]

Oh well, are we finished with this soon?

Oil cooler.. Coolant piping, most M50's just use cheap iS box/prop/diff, S50 is the ZF box requiring m3/328i prop and m3 diff. M50 can run a standard e30 325i exhaust or such like.. S50 requires a min twin 2" bore and ideally 2 boxes for noise, I paid for mine to be done, my mate made his own, and costs ended up being not far off each other.. I am happy I paid the extra for a lack of hassle.

You can get all those parts you mentioned when you break the car, that's the point in bying & unbolting one running car that you get all the bits and parts you need. There's even no need to get the propshaft shortened.

Custom exhaust, was it 1.75" or 2" in diameter costs basically the same, so the difference won't come there. You need 2 silencers with M50 also..

It is stupid odds and sods that add up.. I spent more than most dropping mine in, after upgrading clutch/flywheel, arps etc..

Costs for the S50 swap have come down, I did mine 2-3yrs ago effectively.. If you dont have room to break an E36 an engine is still 1.2k-2k for something with warrenty, so that and a decent exhaust is 3-4k.. Yet you dont even have a box/prop etc yet

Yes you can spend more than just the necessities, and that's wise (clutch, waterpump, chain tensioner, some gaskets etc). Still i don't see anyone spending 6000£ purely in a engine swap when you get the basis engine and gearbox with all the parts surely for under 2000£.

[Jhonno]

You can't use the prop or the diff.. The oil cooler is no use either as it sits right behind the solid front panel when put in an e30..

There is no denying, breaking a car is the cheapest way to do it, and you don't end up spending the same amount, however not everyone has the facilities to do so.. I wish I did, I would have known the 1st engine I bought was a dud!

The M50 only requires standard e30 325i sized pipes, so the only cost is in the attaching to the e36 manifold.. I've run/ran both with only 1.. It is noisey..

We'll I've already said that the exhaust takes up a large chunk of the budget, as it should not be scrimped on for the swap! I am in no way happy about how much they charge for the manifold, BUT they are the only ones who were willing to take it on, and in fairness have produced a work of art to match the standard manifold..

I wish I had all my reciepts in front of me, I replaced some bits that would be a sod when in the car, but never went mental, yet I remember paying about 1.5k to BMW, add 1.9k for the exhaust, 1.4k for the engine..

[Speedtouch]

1.9K for an exhaust?! We need to see pics of this creation

[Jhonno]

That is manifold and full system.. The manifold is £1200 by itself.. My exhaust is just as well made however by Zero, and much more reasonable than the BTB offering

[GeoffBob]

I paid around £800 for my custom turbo manifold with equal length headers on my 4-pot 3SGTE, so £1200 is what I would expect to pay for a properly made manifold that has half as many more header tubes.

[toby]

selling my mx5 soon and thinking of getting another e30 as the only car i've ever missed is my 327i, so i think im gonna buy a 318is and swap the engine, i've looked into the 3.5 before and seen the how to guide on here but im considering maybe chucking in a 2.8 on this one as they're newer engines and have similer torque (which is all i care about), so what i wish to know is.......

1) is there a similer how to guide, if not what parts would i need

2) is it more or less work than the 3.5 ?

3) is it much more expensive to do ? how much will all the bits i need roughly cost ????

4) so which would you do 2.8 or 3.5 ? and why ?

many thanks

1) there are guides on the zone
2) slightly more involved - especially with EWS
3) It is hard to say which is cheaper in the long run but M52 costs more than an M30 in the short term installation.
4) 2.8 as it is newer, better on fuel and physically lighter so has less impact on suspension and brakes. 318is is a good basis for an M52 2.8 swap - you can bolt the engine straight onto the 318is gearbox and it already has the better brakes and suspension.

Any M30, unless it has recently rebuilt, is so old now that it would require preventative maintenance at least before it goes into snugly fitting E30 where many routine maintenance issues would be difficult to access.

Even M52s turn out to need some work to be right.

Check out Daf318is thread for his rebuilding of an M52 in his 318is

So many variables...

[FormerMember]

Had a quick chat with the guy who has the tuned M50. I've to admit i was wrong with it, he had swapped pistons from vanos M50B25 (the engine itself is non-vanos M50) so the compression is around 11:1, "china exhaust manifold" from ebay and megasquirt. He dynoed 227hp out of it after those mods and the total costs were very low (pistons 150€, manifold 250€ shipped, megasquirt with wideband lambda and dynoing 500€).

You can't use the prop or the diff.. The oil cooler is no use either as it sits right behind the solid front panel when put in an e30..

Of course you can't use the diff because the core is different (but you can swap the internals to normal E30 typ188 diff if you want) and the E36 propshafts front section goes directly in to rear section of E30 so it's bolt on. Need to be balanced, though.

Oil cooler needs some hoses, but those are minor things, not big ones in my opinion..

Yes you can add up the bill with upgrading brakes, suspension, painting the car etc etc but those are things you shouldn't calculate in this purely engine swap - thing. Most of the things you need to do with M50 swap also if you're going to do it properly..

[baptie0]

Nothing wrong with using e30 325i gearbox, lsd & propshaft to save cash.