S50/S52 swap... is it worth it?

[fsmtnbiker]

yes!
borrow a E36M, change the oil and immediately go on track.

check your oil at the end of track day, it will be watery and BLACK.

MMMMMMMMM delicious M power cooking!

Huh?

Maybe if you've got a bunch of blowby. My oil has a school day and 2 autocrosses on it, as well as about 2000 street miles. It's a nice golden color.

VANOS does not "cook" oil. It's a hydralic piston that moves back and forth, not much to it.

[M-technik-3]

Or buy Joey's and everything for the most part is included if you have deep pockets.

Is it worth it? I say that really depends on if you plan to keep your E30 for any reasonable length of time.

[bimmerteck]

OK I am doing the math...

M52 + Turbo.

Plus the S54 motor alone is 6K so your 'math' might be a little bit off. What about trans? What about tuning? Parts to install? Sorry but an S54 is not the best or even close to the best swap candidate at this point.

QFT- S54 swap ran just under to 12k to do right, Euro s50b32 is at 6k-ish ATM and isn't done yet but could easily come to 8k before it's complete and running

[dinanm3atl]

basically, do the math:

S52 swap (parts 3k)
s52 NA bolt on mods $3k easy (1.5k cams, .6k chips, .25k intake, .6k exhaust)

then u have a 6K S52. guess what; S54 costs the same and will walk you :) and will walk dyno tuned catless STi's on the freeway on 5 cylinders.

OK I am doing the math...

M52 + Turbo.

Plus the S54 motor alone is 6K so your 'math' might be a little bit off. What about trans? What about tuning? Parts to install? Sorry but an S54 is not the best or even close to the best swap candidate at this point.

[Bimmerman325i]

I need to get an oil cooler, at the end of the last track day my lifter tick reappeared, probably from the oil going bad.

[bimmerteck]

yes!
borrow a E36M, change the oil and immediately go on track.

check your oil at the end of track day, it will be watery and BLACK.

MMMMMMMMM delicious M power cooking!

What "cooks" the oil is the heat on the track, the reason the s54 motors don't "cook" the oil as easily is the factory oil cooler. :up:

[ck_taft325is]

Yes.

[bzboardz]

good thread. im in the same possition as OP. good read

[Wanganstyle]

"cooks" the oil? WTF, hahaha...

nice S54 in any case ;)

yes!
borrow a E36M, change the oil and immediately go on track.

check your oil at the end of track day, it will be watery and BLACK.

MMMMMMMMM delicious M power cooking!

on flip side, does anyone know if such a thing as rear sump oil pan for M20 exists?

I want to put a M20 into my E36m and boost it, its lighter than the twincam and turbo makes up for it. anti-lag will take care of no vanos and crappy head ports :P

[nando]

"cooks" the oil? WTF, hahaha...

nice S54 in any case ;)

[Wanganstyle]

Cool your jets, it was merely a question as to why people tend to boost nv motors over their newer, vanos counterparts.

It was just a damn question.

you actually asked a GOOD question. Many people dont understand why you asked it- the NON vanos head is nice because it has no vanos, higher oil pressure - nice for a turbocharged motor as the oil is being COOKED by turbo, the Vanos destroys oil.

in my S52, fresh oil would turn black in 1-2 track days unless running TWS 10-60 @ $15/quart.

in the S54, the double vanos cooks the oil also, but i only ran TWS 10-60 in that motor. oiling system is also better than anything S52/m52 family.


I asked the same question and acted upon it a couple motors ago:

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1379263

S52 car with M50 nonvanos HEAD + ADDED VANOS.

basically. keep the vanos, keep the S52 cams and S52, gain thicker valvestems (for durability not performance) and get free double valvesprings.

single beehive S52 valvespring is lighter, etc and more advanced.
BUT the dual valvespring M50 NV has a better chance of fighting coil bind at very high RPMs.



S52 is best used 100% out of the box obd2, or done up OBD1 with chip tune. Other than that, its a waste of money.
M50 family is economy motor, dont expect it to be a S54.

for real power, S54 is THE ANSWER.

old S52 with Nonvanos head installed:


S54 real power installed:




basically, do the math:

S52 swap (parts 3k)
s52 NA bolt on mods $3k easy (1.5k cams, .6k chips, .25k intake, .6k exhaust)

then u have a 6K S52. guess what; S54 costs the same and will walk you :) and will walk dyno tuned catless STi's on the freeway on 5 cylinders.

[fsmtnbiker]

Must have stumbled onto some secret as I know cars with those mods or very similar and they are not making the same power. As said before that exhaust cost almost as much as a used S/C kit so outside of making a bunch of noise it just is not worth spending that money. This is not typical gains for N/A bolt on mods.

My car is the one David is talking about.

The dyno chart/info/video can be seen here.

FWIW, same day, same dyno, car before me was a similarly modded S50 that made 230whp and after me was an intake/pullies/header/exhaust/tune S54 that made 301whp. So it's pretty average readings from what I've seen.

I think it's pretty strong for an S52. However, what he didn't mention initially is that this is a pretty fresh bottom end (40k miles) with a fresh head (2k on it when the dyno was done.) No porting/headwork, stock cams, etc.

I suspect that I might be able to get 250 dynojet hp with a little bit of cam timing tweaking and tuning. This was on 91 octane.

I don't think it is very hard to get 240-250whp out of an S52. I would suggest that with-

CAI (I like the AFE, but in an E30 you can just do a custom?) - $275
Silicone Elbow - $100
M50 manifold - $300 w/kit
Pullies - $200
Raceland headers - $250
Custom 3" exhaust+muffler - $600
Tune - $300-600

So, even buying all this stuff new, you're looking at between $2000-2500. That's close to used supercharger territory, but I would suggest that an NA car is more driveable and has less weight on the nose vs. an FI car, and will absolutely be more reliable especially on track.

[dinanm3atl]

Cool your jets, it was merely a question as to why people tend to boost nv motors over their newer, vanos counterparts.

It was just a damn question.

Not anymore... maybe a couple years ago but with OBD2 tuning available and proper parts available for the M5X/S5X with VANOS the NV is kind of dead. Still some doing it but not nearly as big as before.

Even just a year or two ago the M52 was the 'choice' as it was stronger. Now that the proper parts are out there people are just turboing the S52.

M50NV to M52 to S52... kind of how things have gone.

[dinanm3atl]

^ easy, they're reverse calculated imaginary crank #s from an already inflated dyno sheet. you can pretty much make up any crank HP # you want with a correction factor pulled from thin air..

Right... very much so. Seen these 'special' S52s before but never in person. Pretty well known that to get to 300hp you need cams in a S5X motor. This will certainly give you the power that you want but also then requires tuning and really supporting mods to go along with the cam. 300hp N/A is as much if not more than just putting a turbo on it and having more HP.

M52, gasket, studs and a well tuned pieced together turbo kit. S52 will never make 300 without FI and or major expensive internals. Hell my S52 obd1 w/ AA stg1 SC only does like 310whp

That is more inline with the common gains to be seen on these motors. I agree with the recommendation but still going to spend a solid 3-4K for the piece together kit and quality tuning comes with a quality tuning price.

[phreshkid]

ugh, I hate it when people post BS like this

who cares? the M20 has dual valve springs, nobody's doing 12v swaps? The later motors have better, lighter drivetrains, that don't need dual springs, and better, lighter bottom ends, that can rev higher out of the box. the NV motor is an antiquated relic compared to something like an M52B28.

also, I want to know where all these 300hp S50's are. The ones that didn't cost $10k to build..

Cool your jets, it was merely a question as to why people tend to boost nv motors over their newer, vanos counterparts.

It was just a damn question.