'88 325is M30 street car-->S54 -->S50 -->M54 Enduro Race car

[nando]

e30 s50 2 by Jonathan braswell, on Flickr

e30 s50 by Jonathan braswell, on Flickr

2nd pic is top of #6 piston through a borescope

Getting close to sealing the deal on an m54, hopefully going with a ZHP if we can sort out the specifics with the ms45.1 to ms43 ecu swap. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of gaining some torque and losing a ton of weight over the front of the car.

Why not just keep MS45.1? I can delete the EWS.

[Jb325is]

That sucks to hear about the S50 but I'm glad you're looking forward to the M54, such a perfect engine for an E30. Only flaw I've seen is protecting the block from high rpm harmonics, do you plan to run a low redline / heavier flywheel / dampener?

Only plan for now is to not raise the redline and make sure the stock damper is in good condition. If I don't get better at shifting, harmonics won't be our biggest problem! :)

*Just wanted to add- the ZF that's in the car does have the detent issue, just sayin

[MX339]

Only plan for now is to not raise the redline and make sure the stock damper is in good condition. If I don't get better at shifting, harmonics won't be our biggest problem! :)

*Just wanted to add- the ZF that's in the car does have the detent issue, just sayin

*I would also like to add that the detent issue causes it to lean from third to fifth, not third to first. Also that the detents seemed to be fixed at the time of kaboom.

I also find it funny that the only picture you've posted is of me ghettoing up the car with duct tape.

[LJ851]

only plan for now is to not raise the redline and make sure the stock damper is in good condition. If i don't get better at shifting, harmonics won't be our biggest problem! :)

*just wanted to add- the zf that's in the car does have the detent issue, just sayin

*i would also like to add that the detent issue causes it to lean from third to fifth, not third to first. Also that the detents seemed to be fixed at the time of kaboom.

I also find it funny that the only picture you've posted is of me ghettoing up the car with duct tape.

lol !

Looking forward to the next engine swap in this thing.

[Jb325is]

*I would also like to add that the detent issue causes it to lean from third to fifth, not third to first. Also that the detents seemed to be fixed at the time of kaboom.

I also find it funny that the only picture you've posted is of me ghettoing up the car with duct tape.

Wonky is wonky.

WTB: Pop-out window hardware

lol !

Looking forward to the next engine swap in this thing.

Me too! Making my way through all of the BMW engine swap options!

M20-->M90-->S54-->M20-->S50-->M54? Seems logical.

I do think the M54 is going to be pretty good for what we're doing though. Getting the weight off the front end will be a huge improvement, as will the added torque and data stream for race dash options. The pace of the car already seems to be really close to our goal without any sort of development, so we'll see how it goes. I just need to get fast, fast.

[2mAn]

<3 Aluminum Block motors. You will love the M54 torque. I will never forget when I drove Steve's (Hoveringuy) M54 car a few years ago. So much low end

[Jb325is]

20161216_163204 by Jonathan braswell, on Flickr

Goodbye S50 :(

Made a huge mess because I wasn't expecting water with the oil... Pulling the head should be interesting. I'm trying to get everything back together for Jan. 21 @ Barber, but it's going to be tight. Not too much is changing mechanically with the M54, but we don't have the right oil pickup tube and I haven't started on/thought about the wiring yet.

We are looking for a 3.23/3.25/3.38 diff if anyone is selling, can be from e34/e28/e36/etc... Needs to be 188mm (medium case) and it'd be nice if it was a limited slip.

[pputkowski]

Glad to see you are making such great progress on the car!

[Jb325is]

Glad to see you are making such great progress on the car!

Few steps forward, then a few back, but we're slowly getting it back together. The m54 is in the car finally, but I haven't done much with it yet. See you in Daytona??

Forgot to post this pic of the S50 apparently, I was pretty proud of it

2016-12-21_07-59-22 by Jonathan braswell, on Flickr

[Kershaw]

Wow, even the block is cracked.

[Jb325is]

Yeah I was pretty confused when I drained the oil and got coolant... but that'll do it!

Hopefully more M54 updates soon. We are not going to make AER race @ Road Atl in February, now shooting for WRL dual 7 hour in April. I need to start sucking less at driving pretty quickly, but don't know if there's time before the WRL weekend, so we'll have to have someone else in the car

[LJ851]

WOW, impressive carnage !!

[Jb325is]

Haven't updated in a while, I took a break working on this car to do rod bearings on my M5... Not fun.

Re-focusing on the e30 now- m54 is in the car and bolted up to gearbox. I haven't really messed with it much but it looks like we're going to run the e46 engine harness, routing it through the heater core hole to mount the ecu on the tunnel or thereabouts. We don't have and won't have a heater box, so no issue there but this obviously wouldn't work on a street car. I haven't started wiring yet, but looks like I might do that this week

I need some opinions on diff stuff. We're building a 3.25 right now, bought 4 new porsche clutches and wear plates, but I'm going back and forth between 3 clutch and 4 clutch. My friend's at work and I have been building some 4 clutch diffs over the last few years, usually on the cheap using different combinations of used and new clutches... They actually feel pretty good, and the diff that was in this car previously is a two year old 4 clutch diff using all worn clutches. However, the porsche clutches are .5mm thicker and machining for a 4 clutch diff using porsche clutches doesn't leave much material left on the carrier cap. I think I can take 4mm out of the cap and 2mm out of the housing to make it work, but there's no going back at that point. Currently I'm leaning towards machining 1.5mm out of the carrier cap and trying out the 3 clutch first. Anyone have an experience with 3 clutch vs 4 clutch on a track car? Longevity is a concern, but I also don't want to tighten up the car on entry at all. I know that's mostly an issue when adding pre-load, which we are not going to do yet, but I was under the impression that with adding clutches will increase the locking force (not sure if that's the right term), and with equal ramps we may actually feel that.

Cliffs: 3 clutch vs 4 clutch, stock pre-load, who has actual on track experience that they can share?

[Jb325is]

6mm removed for 4 Porsche clutches and wear plates. We'll see what happens

2017-02-22_10-31-35 by Jonathan braswell, on Flickr

2017-02-22_10-32-33 by Jonathan braswell, on Flickr

[ngampleh]

How thick porsche clutch is?