E30 Swap Content
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Alright I made some progress on the engine! Rings, rod bearings, and bottom end. Head gasket with ARP. I installed the 288/280 cams and vanos. New oil pump is on. I also ceramic coated and wrapped the headers. I found a spot on the block the e30 cluster temp sensor screws right into, I'll see how it goes(may read too hot?). I have the adapter harness ready to install, as well, with a CAN module. I'm setting up my oil coolers in front of the condenser fan with some brackets. 2x 10 row coolers linked together. I'll also be running a puller on the radiator.
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The steel breaded AN hose is a challenge to work with, very tight. The setup fits on the original condenser mounting points, no modification to the radiator support or valance.
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Clever oil cooler mounting.
What is the plan for the tune? Remote dyno tune or an off the shelf tune?
I sent my DME to Kassel Performance for a full CSL hardware/firmware conversion. They have awesome products and customer service. The cat cams have the same duration as CSL, but more lift. I'll also be running a CSL MAP sensor from them.
https://www.kasselperformance.com/product/mss54-mss54hp-full-csl-hardwarefirmware-conversion/
I built a flash harness and can do some adjustments as needed, as well.
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Decided to paint the block white.
White block, I see you like to live dangerously lol
Oh man, don't get me started on white engines... I love seeing when people go 100% OCD and spend hours smoothing out the casting and then spray the block pearl/metallic white. Not that I have the ambition for that kind of stuff. I also considered painting my block white, but then Ben talked me out of it. To make up for it, I cleaned the hell out of all of the aluminum castings and then just left them bare, uncoated metal. Shiny stuff is nice, but the patina that comes with age and use can be nice too.
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I've made a lot of progress since my last post. I ended up replacing the oil pump with a new unit. I got my oil pan and subframe back from Bayside Fabrication(Ben Sipson). I wired in the CAN module from gpetersen(r3v). I built a steering shaft using 2 e46 knuckles. I found a 3turn 712 zhp rack at a junkyard, e36 outer and e46 inner tie rods. I had to extend a few harness to fit into the glovebox, lots of soldering. I'll need to tuck the wiring. My DME came back from Kassell. I ended up having an H bridge installed in an mss54hp, MAP sensor, and csl tune. I used ecuworx for the swap coding. I went with the e46 m3 driveshaft and e30 CSB. 1 1/8" was removed from the front and I installed a 4 bolt e36 flange on the rear(32") for an overall length of 1374mm with the guibo. The shifter is an ebay AC Shnitzer euro e36 m3 6 speed spin off. I shortened the dssr to 109mm. I used a premade s54 3" exhaust adapter and it just so happened to bolt right up to the rest of my exhaust. I modified the airbox to clear the booster. I installed the fuel pump and FPR with some fresh fuel line clamps. The oil cooler AN lines are done. I briefly started the engine and it runs good! I need to finish up the cooling system and break in the rings/hone before running the engine anymore.
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E28 m5 motor mounts, I spaced up the drivers side. Underdrive pulleys. I need to hook up the power steering lines and a handful of other things.
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I successfully seated the piston rings last weekend. The engine sounds amazing. I installed my s54 swap cluster from "e30 clusters" on Facebook. They did an awesome job. I installed a check engine light and hooked up the oil temp sensors.
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I installed the velocity stacks from the s54 manifold. I need to build a catch can next. The oil pan on these engines offers a drain for the oil, allowing a maintenance free setup.
With the possibility of snow tonight, the roads may get salted. Needless to say, I wont have the e30 back out until spring.
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The E46 tach is the same size? That's cool. My OCD wants the gauge faces to match though...
It's an e30 cluster and tach. The mismatch makes that rev range pop lol.
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I got more creative and used stainless steel sink strainers to keep big things from getting sucked in the engine.
Motorcycle guys used to call them "bird strainers" back in the day. The engineer in me feels they'd function better on inlet side of the stack where air velocity would be lower though...
https://www.mcmaster.com/mesh/stainless-steel-wire-cloth-9/
Browsing around a bit, it looks like the "open area" on a mesh like that is maybe 50-60%? All the effort of going through the swap is going to be a bit disappointing if you're limited to the equivalent of 50-60% throttle opening.
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