the one and only e30 s52 engine swap
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update:
Parts were pretty dirty and brake cleaner wasn't cuttin it. dropped off the oil pan, timing cover, and thermostat housing at the machine shop and picked them up the next day.....
Although the acid tank did a hell of a job getting rid of all the gunk, it still doesn't get rid of corrosion and there is only one true fix for that on cast aluminum.......bead blasting
New seal installed...
Oil pan primed and painted. Used self-etching primer for better stick on the aluminum
I knew something was up when I torqued the bolts down. All that's going through my head is "Why the hell are the studs 2 threads short??" So, after spending a half hour reading forum threads and researching I found that arp, for some reason made their studs to short. Some people mentioned they threaded the stud a few turns out so that the nut reached all the threads. Others mentioned they took the washers out. I didn't like the sound of neither of these and instead got a handful of steel balls, 1/4 inch in diameter from bicycle bearings and dropped them in each of the holes, you could say it did the trick.
Before:
After:
On another note I received my gaskets from ecs tuning. Everything looked good except for something I noticed on the oil pan gasket.
Now, I know I didn't order a victor reinz and I even double checked on the website and the order receipt. So I gave them a call, and they confirmed that a mistake was made and they will send me another gasket right away and I can keep the gasket they sent, so i thought "excellent, no problem there." two days later I got the gasket in the mail, pulled it out of packaging and checked the same spot on the gasket, and once again it said victor reinz. After thinking it over I decided I'll give the gasket a try and not go through the hassle to get a third gasket. If you wanted to know, the gasket I ordered was a febi and the price differences from that and the victor reinz was like 2 bucks so big whoop, as long as it don't leak.
Back when I disassembled the motor, I ended up breaking one of the chain guides clips that hold it to the stud. So last weekend I spent my Saturday morning at my local junk yard pulling a m50 apart on an e34 to get another chain guide...It also still had its oil pan...and it was cracked.
It was well worth it cause it saved me 30 bucks from buying a new one.
pump installed, nut tightened to 18 lb ft and wire tied to the sprocket....safe and secure.
chain guides installed and good news! nothin broke.
Timing cover installed with new gaskets and some right stuff by permatex to keep them sealed. All the bolts torqued to 11 lb ft...
Question....got troubles with the oil baffle.
As you can see, the baffle won't bolt down because the arp main studs are interfering. Do I need it? I can modify it so that it does work but I wanted to check if its necessary to have, for some reason I couldn't find any info out there on this piece.
Next things on the list...
Install rear crank seal
Possibly Getting my cylinder head back this week sooooo...order head gasket, as well as
Stewart water pump
gasket for oil filter housing
vanos gasket
Obd1 coolant hose adapter
aaaaand maybe a few other things I can't think of at the moment.
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So progress on the motor has been slim, got a few things done here and there, still waiting on the cylinder head from the machinist (losing my patience though)
Last Friday I and a friend stopped by the junk yard to go scavenging around and while I was out there I was surprisingly able to round up the last of what I needed for my obd1 conversion including...
obd1 throttle body
Oem MAF sensor
obd1 fuel rail
obd1 valve cover
6 coil packs
obd1 intake manifold ( yup I know I already have one that I had plans to repaint or bring back but the one I found on an e34 was in pretty amazing shape and I couldn't pass it up, still planning on re doing the manifold I have though)
Vanos solenoid off an e34 m50, read up that I will need this as the wire is longer vs. the obd2 solenoid.
One quick question for the obd1 sensors I will be needing...Should I go all genuine bmw parts for those? I honestly really don't want to spend close to $400 on 5 sensors, there's also a m50 out in the junk yard with 220,000 miles but its got all the sensors I need and in good condition, just looking for recommendations here. Thx!
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Crank and cam sensors, yes get BMW OEM. This is based on both personal experiences and many posts of newer non-OE sensors failing within the year or providing poor starting/cutting out at high rpm.
I always keep spare fuel pump relay, dme relay, and crank sensor with me in the car just in case. You could chance it with the junkyard sensors and get extras to keep in the car as spares and replace them with new OE units when its more convenient, just an idea. Temp sensors are just fine to go with non-OE
Oxygen sensor: definitely bosch, or if you for some reason have a hatred for bosch, get NTK at a bare minimum but nothing else. These old style narrowbands are pretty cheap as it is.
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Agreed with OEM sensors
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Crank and cam sensors, yes get BMW OEM. This is based on both personal experiences and many posts of newer non-OE sensors failing within the year or providing poor starting/cutting out at high rpm.
I always keep spare fuel pump relay, dme relay, and crank sensor with me in the car just in case. You could chance it with the junkyard sensors and get extras to keep in the car as spares and replace them with new OE units when its more convenient, just an idea. Temp sensors are just fine to go with non-OE
Oxygen sensor: definitely bosch, or if you for some reason have a hatred for bosch, get NTK at a bare minimum but nothing else. These old style narrowbands are pretty cheap as it is.
Knock sensor? BMW or bosch? the price difference is quite a bit.
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For sensors I always use Genuine or if I know who the OE was I would buy that because it is cheaper and usually has the BMW logo ground off. FCPEuro for the crank position sensor has Genuine for 148.99 and one listed as OEM for 64.99, and also a Meyle one for much cheaper that shows made in China. I would for sure NOT buy the Meyle one but I would probably buy the OEM one, a review said it had a spot where a logo was ground off. I'm not sure why they don't specify the actual brand, maybe they are requested not to? Dunno?
https://www.fcpeuro.com/BMW-parts/325i/Crankshaft-Position-Sensor?year=1994&e=177&m=20&page=1
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Is be willing to bet the Genuine BMW knock sensor is a bosch sensor with an absurd markup. I’d run the bosch ones
I would put money on that as well. Go with the Bosch. Much cheaper and likely the same thing.
https://www.fcpeuro.com/BMW-parts/325i/Knock-Sensor?year=1994&e=177&m=20&page=1
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I'll confirm. Buy OE. I've had too many sensors fail out of the box to buy cheap sensors anymore.
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obd1 throttle body
Oem MAF sensor
obd1 fuel rail
obd1 valve cover
6 coil packs
One quick question for the obd1 sensors I will be needing...Should I go all genuine bmw parts for those? I honestly really don't want to spend close to $400 on 5 sensors, there's also a m50 out in the junk yard with 220,000 miles but its got all the sensors I need and in good condition, just looking for recommendations here. Thx!
You need to come to my 24v parts stash good sir. I'll round up the remaining stuff I have.
I think I have sensors (need to double check if obd)I keep 24v stuff around for some reason, but now I have zero vehicles that can use it. Should really clean the shelves off lol.
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You need to come to my 24v parts stash good sir. I'll round up the remaining stuff I have.
I think I have sensors (need to double check if obd)I keep 24v stuff around for some reason, but now I have zero vehicles that can use it. Should really clean the shelves off lol.
Alright, well if you want to throw me a text when you have time of what you got that would be sweet!
Here's a list of all the rest of the stuff I will be needing to have the motor ready to put in the car (or at least 98% of it)...
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I have the belt and I think I should have a spare set of rad hoses depending on the radiator you're using.
I have a set of delrin bolt thru trans mounts.
I had a set of e28 motor mounts floating around. I'll see if I can find them.If you need help rebuilding vanos I have done it a couple of times now, it's not complicated, and the manual for it is quite good.
What flywheel are you using?
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I have the belt and I think I should have a spare set of rad hoses depending on the radiator you're using.
I have a set of delrin bolt thru trans mounts.
I had a set of e28 motor mounts floating around. I'll see if I can find them.If you need help rebuilding vanos I have done it a couple of times now, it's not complicated, and the manual for it is quite good.
What flywheel are you using?
Probably gonna do the Mishimoto e36 radiator. Delrin is a bit stiff for me, was planning on running something a bit softer like a 95a poly for the motor and trans mounts.
M20 flywheel
Where did you order your rebuild kit for your vanos from?
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Don’t forget the cam sensor o ring
New valve cover rubber grommet things are also nice. Old ones are usually rock hard
FWIW I ordered beisan systems stuff as well for the vanos
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So the other day I was experiencing some issues cleaning my ps pump. Brake cleaner just wasn't cutting it.
As I have the availability to a good parts cleaner I decided I would take advantage and just rebuild the whole unit at the same time.
New rebuild kit on the way, got the pump all dissembled last night...
All in all the disassembly was fairly easy. One thing that did give me shit was the little snap ring that held the shaft into the casing. Took 2 pricked fingers and a small flat head partly up my finger nail to get it out.
Luckily the refresh kit does come with a new ring as I did end up slightly bending this one to get it out.
Things also ordered and on the way: All needed Sensors, aluminum water pump pulley, and some misc. sensor o rings. Also received my vanos seals the other day, gonna try to get to rebuilding it this weekend possibly but the rush isn't to large as I am still waiting on my frickin cylinder head to get back!
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Motor is no longer in the basement!
So the shop is now ready to go for the winter project. I decided that its time the motor comes out of the basement before it gains any more weight. No plan was made prior to this attempt. Simply called a friend up telling him I needed a hand with something for 10 minutes. Half hour later he showed up and we carried the thing right up the stairs. Now I'm not gonna say it was a piece of cake cause it honestly wasn't. It was still very heavy and trying to handle it while walking up the stairs backwards was as bad as it sounds. All I can say is that I'm really REALLY glad that the head was not on that thing. Not sure we would have gotten it up the stairs if it had been.
As for the cylinder head, I talked with my machinist and he has been swamped with work lately and was confident that he was gonna get my head done by the end of this week so we will see.
Brought the car over this last Friday!
\\Saturday I had other items to attend to but luckily I got all that stuff finished and out of the way.
This morning had a tasty breakfast and headed on over to the shop to begin tear down...
Got a pretty decent chunk of stuff done today. Almost have everything on the motor disconnected from the car except for the A/C lines and shifter linkages from the transmission underneath. I would have been able to get to the A/C today but the system still has refrigerant in it. I did talk to one of my buddy's dad on the phone today who's in HVAC and he's gonna find out tomorrow if they have a refrigerant recovery system around their shop and get back to me. As for everything else, the car seems to be looking good so far. Everything except for this...
Had to disconnect the ecu from the engine harness so Idiot me decided that I would remove the hangers from the glove box before disconnecting it from the hinge in the back. Well, when I did the box hit the floor and I heard a snap as it completely broke of the hinge. Looks like I'll be looking for another glove box.
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