E30 M50 swap

[rosphill]

I just started my M50 swap on Friday out in the middle of my getaway farm shed in the Boonies i.e. no internetz so I am playing catchup with the thread.
The farmhouse I am staying in has no Air conditioning, no phone, and a lousy low pressure shower with no curtain. It's like camping, except camping is more convenient and more comfortable...but it has plenty of workspace to do the swap in.

Picked up a 1994 Vanos M50 engine, getrag 250, manual wiring harness, red label 413 dme back in April from an R3Ver in Ann Arbor MI.

Installing all of this in my Burgundrot 87 325 eta that I affectionately call "Brownie". Been driving this car on and off since 1989 when I took it to the Junior prom. I am now on vacation for 16 days and going to do my best to get the swap running before I go to back work.

I also recently did a full bumper tuck front and back, then installed a front IS spoiler recently which is my fav modification I've done to the car so far.

My contact with the internetz will be sporadic, but I do have a fair amount of questions regarding the swap.

[rosphill]

M50 engine prep work

The M50 engine was missing alot of accessories. All of the mounting hardware nuts bolts for alt, pwr steering, A/C, intake, you name it.
If it weren't for Ebay, ECS tuning and Bluntech would never have got this motor back together. I know you all like detailed pics and I've got boatloads of em.

[rosphill]

Dismantling

Started dismantling the car on Saturday morning. It felt weird and I've had these crazy guilt pangs for completely gutting out a car that has been running great. The eta 2.7L M20 had lost alot of compression though and it was getting hard to climb hills. Not sure it could ever really climb hills great anyway due to only having 121 bhp hence the move to the M50 engine.

[rosphill]

More dismantling

I had more prep to do than usual because the engine was kind of a 'medium block'. The AC compressor bracket was cracked and the front AC pulley was bent a little, but I am deleting AC for now (maybe forever) so no big deal.
The M50 looked pretty haggard when I got it back to Indiana so I sprayed two cans of degreaser on it and carefully hosed it down with a pressure washer. Painted the block, exhaust manifolds and valve cover black.
Replaced most of the gaskets on the engine. Water pump replaced with the metal variety.

[rosphill]

Empty engine bay finally

Had a lot of trouble getting the M20 engine out. The tranny was getting snagged on the swaybar and the shifter was not letting the tranny move forward. My seasoned mechanic friend wanted to drop the swaybar and front subframe down so we could get the engine/tranny out. I decided to take the shifter off and I jacked up the rear of the tranny slightly as he raised the boom on the hoist and the engine lifted out.

[rosphill]

Gearheads

The tall dude in yellow is my elder mechanic friend Garry. He is an oldskool Mad scientist gearhead and has been a great aid in my first M50 swap.
I owe him Bigtime for his assistance.

[rosphill]

Carpentry and schizz

My Dad is the carpenter of the family and I am the Gearhead mechanic.
He built this badass skidcrate for transporting the engine/tranny back from MI. His woodworking skillz have been helping tremendously in supporting the engine through the various stages of prep.

[Unearth078]

Hey, do you by chance remember what belt you used to delete A/C?
should be fun after ther the m50. any plans for suspension down the road?

[rosphill]

AC delete

The AC pulley bolts to the front of the crankshaft pulley and so the belt for the AC is separate from the main (alternator-waterpump-pwr steering) serpentine belt. If you are going to delete AC you just take off that little pulley on front of the crank pulley and then only run the regular serpentine belt.
Hope that makes sense..tired as hell from working on the E30 all day. :)

Attached some pics to illustrate

[rosphill]

Suspension

My lower balljoints are worn out and there is a lot of side to side wobble in the front tires, so I ordered a pair of controls arms with bushings tonight.
Figure it will be alot easier to swap them out with the engine not hanging out above the subframe.
Replacing control arms should be a nice first step towards tightening up the front suspension. There's quite a vibration and wobble in the front end at 55mph+ when you change lanes so that should help.
I plan on installing lowering springs and better shocks at some point.
All of that 'while I'm in there might as well' stuff is really wiping out my finances currently. The slipperly slope is some slickery stuff indeed...

[rosphill]

Brake bleeding question

Ok is it necessary to bleed the brakes when you change from the stock E30 brake booster to the modded E21 BB? I was able to just take the two lines on the MC loose and pull the MC forward in car enough to get the new E21 BB into the car with just spilling a tiny little bit of brake fluid. Everything is hooked back up and brake pedal feels good. Is it necessary to just bleed the MC or do I need to bleed all four wheels as well? That is one thing I was never sure on before I started the swap. I have the Pelican parts power brake bleeder and blue ATE dot 4 fluid because I was set to bleed all of the systems.
Thx.

[z31maniac]

If you've cracked open any of the lines, you'll need to bleed the brakes.

But if it's been awhile, it wouldn't be a bad idea to just go ahead and flush the entire brake/clutch system while you are doing the swap.

[rosphill]

Engine bay cleanup and control arm removal

Had a very productive day on the E30 project.
Cleaned out the engine bay with degreaser and foaming cleaner=huge improvement. Also removed both control arms in anticipation for the new ones coming this week. One control arm came off easily, but the other one was quite stubborn had to bang it out with Thor's hammer (My mini handheld sledgehammer) Cleaned and painted the transmission mount brace and that other S-shaped brace. Tomorrow I have to hit the hardware stores and find some missing hosery and also missing most of the nuts that connect the wires on the starter and alternator. :p

[rosphill]

Lots of parts, and fan wiring issues

My new control arms and E36 slave cylinder are coming USPS today.
Hit the hardware/auto parts stores hard yesterday. Needed some more fuel line hose, heater hose, and lots of metric nuts and bolts.

Most of my planning and research at the moment is on the radiator and electric cooling fan. I have a used late model M42 radiator I got on R3V, everything looks great on it except the plastic threads where the temp sensor goes in aren't in very good shape so that's going to take some TLC and ingenuity.
I bought a SPAL 14 inch pusher fan to go in front of the radiator (took the AC stuff out). I have been unable to acquire Stock AC fan wiring from a late model 318 which would make dressing up the cabling to the other side of the radiator much easier :(
I guess that's my biggest hurdle at the moment is I don't quite understand yet how to wire up the new SPAL fan to the stock AC wiring. On the AC fan there are two red wires so not sure where the ground goes into it. The whole being red/green colorblind thing isn't helping me much either :???:
Any help on fan wiring would be supremely appreciated.
THx.

[rosphill]

Videos of M50 engine install

We took some iphone video/pics of the M50/Getrag 250 install today.
Replaced both front control arms this morning. Had to shave some paint and a little metal off the control arm back rod in order to get the new Ebay rubber bushings to slid onto the arm. Used dish soap on the rubbers in order to get it to slide on.
Got the engine and tranny bolted in and also got the shifter linkage installed as well. Still have to find a manual E36 driveshaft and an E36 o2 sensor, but I was very happy to get the engine/tranny physically mounted into the car.
It went ALOT smoother than I thought it would, but I had three other dudes helping so that made a huge difference.
I also got the radiator and SPAL fan installed, but they are not wired/hooked up as of yet.
Exciting stuffs!!! :-D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7mG7ezzeSU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1qTln9F4ls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck5hBbkggjY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbB3I2AwBd8