My S50 swap into 318i

Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:59 pm

Hello all,

Greetings from Thailand. Time for me to start my own thread as I will have a lot of questions to ask and it's a probably good idea to keep them all in one place. My car is a '90 E30 318i. I'm dropping S50B30 with 5-speed M3 transmission.

First of all, current progress:
The entire car was patched, stripped, and repainted. Brake servo is relocated to the side 6cm. The engine has been dropped in recently. Now the car is at an exhaust shop to work on the header. Haven't touched the wiring yet as I'm not sure where to find a replacement for the E36 engine plug.

I still need a bunch of parts:
- prop shaft
- radiator
- gear shifter linkage
- wiring loom
- temp sender unit
- throttle cable
- better shocks, springs
- and more

Now, on to questions that I have:

- Where should I connect the ground wire at the back of head to?
- Same question for the big wire on the engine mount arm?
- What's the white plug next to ECU for?

Thanks

Thu Dec 10, 2009 5:14 pm

Prop: E36 328i manual fitted with an E30 centre bearing... Or an E30 M3 prop.
Radiator: E36M3
Gear linkage: E36 325i worked for me with a ZM gearshift (very short throw)
Loom: Mod the E36 one if you have it.
Temp sender, as you know, fit an E3 one
Throttle cable: I recommend a ZM one (as it has a nice metal guide to kink the cable round a bit), shorten with a big soldering iron.

The wire on the back of my head grounds the coils to the engine block, is that the one you mean?
Big wire on the engine mount arm grounds to the bolt on the chassis rail on the E30.
White plug next to the ECU? You have the 3 litre so that could be for the separate VANOS controller... Looks like a big ECU plug?

Hope that helps.

Jai

Thu Dec 10, 2009 5:16 pm

1... i used a longer wire and fitted it to the bottom of the battery tray.

2... there should be a bit of thread welded to your chassis leg for this.

3... the white plug is for the vanos controller.

Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:34 pm

Thanks guys.

The engine loom came with the engine. Does the plug physically match the one on the E30 body? Or do I need to look for a matching one?

Got some updates from the exhaust shop today. The header is being fabricated as of right now. I'm trying to use the rear and center section from the stock E36 M3 exhaust. The guy said he may be able to fit the rear section but not the center section as the cats are too wide. What did you guys use for the center section? I don't want to run straight pipes as the exhaust may become too loud. Any thoughts?

Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:06 am

Found out the answer to the loom question myself. That confirms what I thought before. Gotta keep looking for an M20 engine loom.

Mon Dec 14, 2009 8:53 am

An M20 engine loom? What for? To fit my S50 I just went to a scrapyard and cut an E30 engine loom plug off, then fitted it to the S50 engine loom with new pins.

HTH.

Jai

Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:07 am

I was looking for a loom because I'm just afraid that nobody will sell me just the plug.

Did you have to buy more pins to add to the plug?

Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:45 am

Yea.. RS components will sell you the male and female pins, plus a tool to extract them easily..

Ian had the part numbers somewhere..... I'm sure he'll be along in a minute to help.

Just go find an already molested E30 (any variant that has the correct plug for your car) and lop the thing off with clippers..

Jai

Tue Dec 15, 2009 3:52 pm

I think I've seen them somewhere too. Will do a search but if anyone can post part numbers here that'll be great. Hope RS components ship abroad.

Still looking for a E30 plug for now. We don't have what's so called scrape yards around here. At least they work in a different way from the ones in US and UK. So the plug got to come off a complete loom. May be easier for me if I order a new one from the dealer.

Tue Dec 15, 2009 4:56 pm

I ordered them from BMW
61131376193
61131376195

one is for thinner and the other P/N for thicker cable. Don't ask me how many of each you need, I haven't got round fitting them yet. £0.61 and £0.57 each plus VAT

Wed Dec 16, 2009 6:26 am

Thanks UweM3

May be 10 each should cover what I need.

Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:29 pm

Some updates

A few parts sorted:
- radiator
- prop
- gear linkage
- temp sender

I still need to fit the radiator and plumb all water hoses. Also need to fit E30 center bearing on the 328 prop. I ordered a few parts from BMW which some have to come from Germany so got to wait for those. I just found someone who will sell me the C101 plug, so engine wiring will happen soon, hopefully. The exhaust should be finish this weekend. I'll post some pics once the car's back from the shop.

BTW, I'm relooming the entire car. Why? Well, 20 years ago, the only BMW vendor in Thailand wanted to save costs and make things easy for them to repair, so they modified a number of things to their own designs. Because of that, those things are different from the rest of the world including wiring which is mess in my book. So I want to make things right when I'm at it. For this, I bought a whole loom from SPADGE from the car he's breaking. Hope to receive it soon.

Now, I have some questions on plumbing water hoses.
I'm moving the header tank to the battery tray.

For the small hose that goes from the radiator to the header tank,(no. 20 in the following diagram), can I use the one form a LHD car?

And no. 10 and no. 14 in the following figure? I already have no. 10 RHD but don't have 14. Is there any better way or cheaper way to do this?

Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:41 pm

the parts 10 and 14 are the parts i used and imo are the best way to do it. but it is near enough imposible to fit with the engine in situ. some people have mouted the expansion tank on the inner wing as it is fitted there on the later m20 engined cars. for the small return pipe i used various bits of hard pipe of a e34 540.

Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:49 pm

No. 10 and 14 from LHD?

Tue Dec 22, 2009 8:10 pm

Tue Dec 29, 2009 2:55 am

Thanks penton08.
My engine has been dropped in so I'm not sure if I want to go with the LHD hoses route now. But if I keep the tank at the stock location, no. 10 and 14 still won't fit. Do you think I can fit the LHD hoses if I dropped the subframe and let the engine tilt down a little bit?

Just got the car back from the exhaust shop on Saturday. I tried to keep as many of E36 M3 bits as possible. I wanted to keep the cats but they have to go because not enough room. The shop replaced them with a pair of silencers to keep it quiet. Here are some pics.

Manifold

From rear

E36 M3 rear silencer and E34 M50 mounting hardware

Heat shield moved to over rear axle to protect the rubber from heat

Pipes replaced to match the E30 body

Retained exhaust hanger which will mount to the gear box (not mounted yet)

Side view

Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:58 pm

looks good mate! to fit the lhd water pipes i droped the gear box mounts and undone the engine mounts and lifted the engine forward a couple of inches. but this was before i fitted my exhaust! droping the sub frame might help as will taking the cam cover off, swearing will also help

Wed Dec 30, 2009 10:15 pm

You might want to change your diff to an 8 bolt.
Looking at the pics, it looks like its a smallcase 6 bolt and it won't last long.

Wed Dec 30, 2009 10:35 pm

Well spotted Rav, dont want to be pulling away too hard with that diff

Exhaust looks good

Wed Dec 30, 2009 10:44 pm

Exhaust looks good

+1

Thu Dec 31, 2009 12:37 am

Yup, got a 3.15 LSD sitting on the shelf right now. I'm just waiting for the Z3M cover to arrive.

Sun Jan 03, 2010 7:22 pm

nice work on the exhaust!

Mon Jan 04, 2010 8:21 am

Thanks all for comments on the exhaust. The exhaust shop would be happy to hear them.

Sun Jan 17, 2010 6:49 pm

Thats a very tidy looking exhaust job!

Go on, leave the small case in to see if you can better Garreths efforts with the M30 and a small case diff

Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:56 am

While we're on this topic, do I need new drive shafts if I swap the diff to an 8-bolt one?

Mon Jan 18, 2010 9:36 am

No drive shafts are the same

Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:26 pm

No, your own one will do as there's enough travel in the splines at the center bearing to take up the slack.

Tue Feb 02, 2010 7:28 am

Some updates. Not too many though because of lack of time.

I finally received the LHD water pipe from BMW. I had to move the engine forward in order to install the pipe. It's a PITA to do in the engine bay. Here are some pics. Note that the engine is lowered in the pic.

This is similar to the RHD pipe when look from this side.

But it goes around the block to the other side..

Like this...

Here's how the other end looks like.

I also installed the shifter. I have the same problem as shown in Andy's pic here. I'm using M3 5-speed shifter.

Tue Feb 02, 2010 11:00 am

Don't have a part number handy for that water-pipe do you?

Tue Feb 02, 2010 3:51 pm

You bet I do! ;)

PN 11531318403

No. 10 in the diagram from the previous page.

Wed Feb 03, 2010 2:20 am

Sweet, that cuts out a little bit on the searching for it

Wed Feb 03, 2010 6:29 pm

Does it matter which way oil flows into the oil cooler? I'm trying to mix and match the S50 and M20 oil cooler lines and I don't want to make a mistake on the direction of the oil flow.

Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:54 pm

thats some good work

Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:19 am

Some updates.

- Finished plumbing the heater matrix. What a PITA.
- Finally got time to fit C101. Hope it was done correctly. Still haven't rearranged wiring though so now the ECU's still in the engine bay.
- M20 oil cooler fitted.
- Sand blasted and painted the 3.15 LSD. This will go in later on.
- S50 radiator temporarily fitted. I need to weld supporting brackets as my car didn't come with the brackets.
- E30 center bearing fitted on E36 328 prop shaft.
- Fitted E32 25mm master cylinder. This gave me some problem because there're only 2 outputs from the MC. I need 3 as my car didn't come with ABS. I hope I can get away with a distribution block and a short pipe.

I'll post some pics later.

Now on to questions.
I'm thinking about using E36 M3 air filter box similarly to what old_skool did in his Touring. Can it go directly in or do I need to mod something? I don't have ABS so there should be some room down there. And final question. Is the evo one different from the non-evo?

Thanks.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:35 am

RoadHazard wrote: I am thinking about using E36 M3 air filter box corresponds to what he did in his old_skool Touring. Can go directly, or do I have to mod something? I do not have ABS, so it should be some space down there.
Thanks.