S50 euro vs S50 US

[Be30mer]

What's the difference between these two engines other than displacement and ITB's? If I wanted to build a euro s50 from a US s50, what would I need and would it be worth it?

[gazellebeigem3]

just about everything

[Bimmerman325i]

What's the difference between these two engines other than displacement and ITB's? If I wanted to build a euro s50 from a US s50, what would I need and would it be worth it?

You would need the Euro S50, and it would be totally worth it.

Seriously though, the two motors share zero parts. You could hack together a ITB US S50, but it wouldn't hold a candle to the euro (infinite vs stepped vanos, head design, ......).

Or go the other route of buy an S54 ($3200 in socal on bf.c right now....) and get Bimmerworld or Alex L's kit. $6500, S54 wired in to start in your car, same price +/- $200 or so as a Euro S50 3.2.

Or, do a hack job with a US S50 and make it run like shit trying to emulate the euro motor on the cheap. Your call.

[M-technik-3]

about five thousand dollars.

[ColdAccord]

i must say the euro s50 is a lot more of a race motor and less of a daily driver than the US version. solid lifters, itb's. this shit is not comfortable to daily drive. whereas I feel the US s50 is much smoother than the m20 and much more streetable. euro s50 seems more similar to an s54

[Stu]

Aside from stroke and bore, everything.

[M3 euro ltw]

Awwwweee....

i must say the euro s50 is a lot more of a race motor and less of a daily driver than the US version. solid lifters, itb's. this shit is not comfortable to daily drive. whereas I feel the US s50 is much smoother than the m20 and much more streetable. euro s50 seems more similar to an s54

Hmmmm.... there are thousands of S50B30 and S50B32 daily drivers across the rest of the world, and other than the SMG I versions, no one has been complaining about using them as grocery getters too.....

S14 now...that is a buzzy little beast...I could see someone saying that they prefer an M50 for daily driving compared to that particular M-motor.......

Maybe you have more time driving euro motors than I do....

(that is not meant as obnoxiously as it came out.... I didn't have my 3.2 in a streetable car for THAT long, but it was a blast and fine while I could drive it on the street)

[Be30mer]

k thanks for the info, i think Ill just go with an s52 and do an OBD1 conversion. That should yield enough power for now. too damn bad US versions are always the weaker, crippled verisons of the Euro's

[erik325i]

too damn bad US versions are always the weaker, crippled verisons of the Euro's

The US ones aren't even weaker/crippled versions, but a completely different motor. That statement could work for other motors which had slightly more power in Europe.
The US s50 should never even have been called an s50. It's an m50b30 or an m52b32.

Erik

[M3 euro ltw]

Trivia for everyone....

The US ones aren't even weaker/crippled versions, but a completely different motor. That statement could work for other motors which had slightly more power in Europe.
The US s50 should never even have been called an s50. It's an m50b30 or an m52b32.

Erik

Very well put... spot on.

E24/E28 M6-M635csi/M5 owners did in fact have US versions crippled compared to ROW S38 motors. (headers, compression etc)

S14 in US never got the cool homogulation versions ROW got, but can't really say the S14 here was crippled vs ROW, most were the same.

The US e36 M3 engine pretty much first showed up as a beefed up 325 engine from the tuners in europe to fill a gap before the S50B30 came out...(Alpina, Schnitzer etc) March 2002 Total BMW details the Schnitzer S3 3.0, how they beat Alpina (and BMW) to the punch. Schnitzer had a custom crank made to stroke from 2.5 to 3 liters with an 86m stroke, and bored from 84 to 85.5mm, using custom forged pistons. Power output was (surprise) 240 HP. Think BMW wasn't watching? Numbers look familiar? These conversions were done as early as 92, well before the US spec M3 came out, or the euro M3....

Only canada saw about 50 S50B30 engined cars...NA never really got M motors in E36 M3 cars.

With the S54, we did get a slightly detuned vesion due to cats in the headers. But at least the guts of the engine were identical to ROW. We never got the CSL version of that engine.

Being Green has certainly cost the US market many of the hottest engines BMW has offered.

[M-technik-3]

The US ones aren't even weaker/crippled versions, but a completely different motor. That statement could work for other motors which had slightly more power in Europe.
The US s50 should never even have been called an s50. It's an m50b30 or an m52b32.

Erik

On this note look at AC Schnitzer's sight, they copied the US design when making their E36 B6 made it a 3.0L with smg and they sold well. The difference in price vs the S50b30 and the stroked M50 was huge.

The newer the cars get there is almost no HP/TQ difference, it's the difference in the older cars between our fuel and we had cats vs non catted cars of the 70-80's.

Would I want an s50b30/32 sure but am I happy with a s50 and a s52 sure. Night and day power difference between the m20.

[dirtysix]

Being Green has certainly cost the US market many of the hottest engines BMW has offered.

Not sure it had much to do with the US being green.
More of a cost issue me thinks.

The true S50 engine can be driven daily by my grandma it's so tractable.

[hugh jass]

Very well put... spot on.

E24/E28 M6-M635csi/M5 owners did in fact have US versions crippled compared to ROW S38 motors. (headers, compression etc)

S14 in US never got the cool homogulation versions ROW got, but can't really say the S14 here was crippled vs ROW, most were the same.

The US e36 M3 engine pretty much first showed up as a beefed up 325 engine from the tuners in europe to fill a gap before the S50B30 came out...(Alpina, Schnitzer etc) March 2002 Total BMW details the Schnitzer S3 3.0, how they beat Alpina (and BMW) to the punch. Schnitzer had a custom crank made to stroke from 2.5 to 3 liters with an 86m stroke, and bored from 84 to 85.5mm, using custom forged pistons. Power output was (surprise) 240 HP. Think BMW wasn't watching? Numbers look familiar? These conversions were done as early as 92, well before the US spec M3 came out, or the euro M3....

Only canada saw about 50 S50B30 engined cars...NA never really got M motors in E36 M3 cars.

With the S54, we did get a slightly detuned vesion due to cats in the headers. But at least the guts of the engine were identical to ROW. We never got the CSL version of that engine.

Being Green has certainly cost the US market many of the hottest engines BMW has offered.

the only thing really limiting power on the us e28 m5 compared to the rest of the world is the catalytic converter. without a cat, the us s38b35 makes almost as much power as the m88. i've got the dyno charts to prove it.

[M3 euro ltw]

the only thing really limiting power on the us e28 m5 compared to the rest of the world is the catalytic converter. without a cat, the us s38b35 makes almost as much power as the m88. i've got the dyno charts to prove it.

I thought (and I could be wrong) that we got crappy headers, and they got the "bundle o-snakes" on those cars. It was the case for the M6 at least, I had one of those, and often considered upgrading to the eurospec headers. I though compression was different as well, and I was pretty sure they ran a lighter (more dangerous!) single chain as well. Correct me if I'm wrong... I can take it.

At least a quick peak at realoem.com confirms the header issue, I'm almost positive they had higher compression as well. It is hard to believe that higher compression, less drag, better headers don't add up to more power. But I suppose a dyno of two individual cars could prove otherwise. I'm sure the de-catting of the older cars made a difference, that was well known, ie fahey track pipes etc.... But there were still fundamental differences that must have made a difference that would be noticeable.

With respect to being green costing us... yeah, earlier cars yes, later cars, not so much.... by the time E36 differences came about, I'd agree it was more $$ than green. But on the S54, cold starts and cat location, thats pure Green, not money...gotta heat the cats up fast.

[hugh jass]

I thought (and I could be wrong) that we got crappy headers, and they got the "bundle o-snakes" on those cars. It was the case for the M6 at least, I had one of those, and often considered upgrading to the eurospec headers. I though compression was different as well, and I was pretty sure they ran a lighter (more dangerous!) single chain as well. Correct me if I'm wrong... I can take it.

we did get the crappy headers, and the compression is a little lower (9.8:1 vs 10.5:1) but the power difference (30 hp or so) can largely be made up just by getting rid of the cat since it is so restrictive on the US cars. we did get the duplex timing chain, which is nice.