Spec [05/01/07] |
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Exterior
Interior
Chassis
Engine
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Project Build Diary 5th January '07 Today is the day the M52 engine finally made its way into the E30 engine bay. It's a very tight squeeze to fit the engine with the gearbox attached but I didn't fancy trying to reach into the gap between the gearbox and the top of the transmission tunnel as would be necessary if you fitted the gearbox to the engine in situ. Anyway, with the gearbox attached and with some careful manouevering and help from expert mechanic Brian Clarke the engine and box assembly was eventually lowered into position. Despite starting in the morning it was dark before we were done.  It was very hard to get the engine mount arms to line up with the E28 M5 rubber engine mounts and when the engine was finally lowered down onto the mounts it sat at a skewed angle along the front to rear axis of the car. Comparison with other e36 engine mount arms used on an S50 converted E30 showed my nearside arm to be different despite supposedly being the correct arm. 6th January '07 I traced another nearside engine mount arm locally and collected it. Here you can see the difference between my original arm and the replacement. The correct arm has a 'ridge' cast around it's width about 1/3rd of the way down. Strangely both arms had the same BMW part number cast into them.  I swapped the arm for the correct one and lowered the engine back into position. There's still a lot to do but it's a good milestone to see the M52 engine finally in the E30.  8th - 12th January '07 With the E30 loaded onto the trailer and my brother-in-law Neil lending his tow-car and acting as chauffeur we made our way up the country to BTB exhausts in Northamptonshire.  We left the car with them for the week so they could develop an exhaust system for the 24 valve E30. Unfortunately adapting the hydroformed 6 branch S50 exhaust manifold proved more work than we had originally anticipated. We are booked back in for 2 further weeks in mid-March to have the work completed. In the meantime BTB have adapted my M52 manifold to work on the E30 and connect to the new exhaust system so I can get my car up and running. This is the BTB 24v E30 exhaust system: Downpipes  Centrebox and 'X' pipe  Centrebox fitted  Backbox  It's a 2x2" twin-box system with very subtle 2x2" outlets. Essentially it looks like a very well made, stainless, standard BMW system which is the stealthy effect I was after. 14th February '07 From the factory the M52b28 was artificially limited to 192bhp for German tax reasons. BMW achieved this by fitting a restrictive inlet manifold. The M50b25 inlet manifold flows much better but is not a straight fit as there is no provision for the M52 ICV. Luckily a cunning engineer in Essex that goes by the name of Alpina527 has engineered a solution. I drove over to collect one of his manifold kits and a bored M50 throttle body. This pic shows how restrictive the M52 inlet is in comparison to the M50 inlet:  Here's the bored M50 throttle body:  16th February '07 Mk1 Golf GTI brake servo fitted (needed to clear the inlet manifold). The standard E30 Master cylinder fits straight to this and is still in the correct position to save you re-making brake pipes.  Inside the car the push rod is the same length as the E30 one, so all that was needed was the bore for the E30 pin to be drilled out slightly and then everything bolted up in the correct position.  The M50 inlet was then trial fitted, the plumbing was trial fitted and all of the engine wiring was connected back up.  Next job was the steering, the E36 tie rods were fitted and the E36 steering rack pipes along with some custom made E36 to E30 pipes (supplied by Ian Haynes) were fitted.   Finally the WMS brake kit was fitted.  The big problem was that the BBS RS003 wheels didn't fit over the callipers. A quick measurement showed that a 27mm spacer was needed to clear the caliper. Essentially that would leave me with an ET-02 front wheel. A re-think was in order and the BBS were put up for sale and subsequently sold. 4th March '07 With a new centre bearing fitted the E30 M3 prop was ready to go back on the car. To do this I had to remove the exhaust and the heat shields. The prop then slipped into position and I re-fitted everything and used the opportunity to fit new stiffer Powerflex exhaust rubbers. I next tackled the wheel issue. I'd decided to fit a set of Porsche Design 90 wheels. I settled on 8J front and rear. These are ET52, so with a 30mm 5x130 PCD adaptor would come bang into the required E30 offset (standard is ET24). I chose H&R adaptors and bought them from the helpful G-Werks.  A trial fit showed I needed a bit more to clear the front struts safely so I added a 3mm spacer. The WMS brake kit reduces front track by 6mm so these spacers make this width back.  5th March '07 Big thanks to Ian Haynes for once again offering his time to come and help on the project (he's easily bribed with offers of curry). Ian got stuck into modifying the loom while I fitted the oil cooler pipework.    A very nice chap called Andy (S50 engined E30 owner, aka 'Buster' on the e30zone) machined an M20 water temp sensor so it would fit directly into the M52 block. Many thanks Andy! This was screwed into place in the block.  17th March '07 Engine ancilleries fitted, wiring and plumbing finished. Time for the moment of truth... would she start?  The answer was unfortunately no. The timing seemed to be 180° out. We were getting fuel and spark but not at the right time. Bexley Motorworks's Nigel tried to diagnose down the phone, and my petrolhead neighbour Sean plus Ian and I scratched our heads as we tried various different things. Our efforts were unfortunately fruitless. 19th March '07 Sean and Ian donated more of their time, and despite me being at work for the day they continued to troubleshoot the problem. We were convinced the timing was 180° out, so they decided to drill another dowel locating hole in the crank pulley 180° around from the factory one. Lo and behold she fired up! How this situation has arisen I do not know. The engine was bought from a chap who had been running the engine and had crashed the car it was in. I can only think he damaged something on it in the craah, stripped part of it down to replace and built it back up timed up incorrectly. Whatever the reason, it now runs, which is another milestone in the project reached. |