Your experience: what was the hardest part of your 24v swap?

[325e10]

dealing with a angry fiancee who hasn't seen me really for 9 days :hitler:


getting the motor in and seated correctly was probably the hardest part. The rest is just time consuming small stuff tbh.

[cmybimmer]

hardest part was narrowing down why my fuel pump wasn't sending out gas to the motor.. Also finding the motivation/energy to work on the car everyday, just to come home to tell everyone it still didn't start..

solution to fuel problem was my ecu not being grounded lol. Stupid thing

swap itself was easy, looking forward to some other future swap :up:

[Matt-B]

bleeding clutch

[rThor432]

^^Lol, must have been a real tough swap if bleeding the clutch was the hardest part.

[TimKninja]

Hardest part: Getting engine to sit right in bay.

Surprisingly easiest part: Wiring. I did it all in two hours, and one I got the rest of the car back together it started and ran. I was VERY Suprised.

What Im stuck on right now: An exhaust. I have NO welder...and no pipe bending tools, probably gonna have to drop it ff to be fabricated. Thats another $400 -_-"

My advice to anyone who stumbles apon this thread and actually reads my post:
-The Flywheel NEEDS TO BE SHAVED DOWN, check it before you bolt the tranny up and shove it in the bay. I had to spend another day pulling my tranny to get my flywheel machined. but pulling the tranny is a peice of cake with an m50.(Getrag 260)

-Have a good 2-3 Grand set aside if you want to do this swap. Its Very hard to get it done on budget. Im now Really really poor due to this swap (Granted Im on a college budget)

[giantkeeper]

My advice to anyone who stumbles apon this thread and actually reads my post:
-The Flywheel NEEDS TO BE SHAVED DOWN, check it before you bolt the tranny up and shove it in the bay. I had to spend another day pulling my tranny to get my flywheel machined. but pulling the tranny is a peice of cake with an m50.

This is exactly why the swap thread that is stickied does not work for noobs. Qualify your statement by telling people what your transmission is.

[nrubenstein]

The biggest annoyance was the exhaust and all the time and effort and money I wasted on Magnaflow mufflers.

[nando]

magnaflow =

[trackjunkie21]

The biggest annoyance was the exhaust and all the time and effort and money I wasted on Magnaflow mufflers.

This, getting the exhaust right is the hardest part and depending on your location, finding a decent exhaust shop can be even harder.

[N2MYE30]

The hardest part by far was time to do it. Money was already allotted for the swap minus the exhaust. I didnt see a $500 bill coming but it came out sounding perfect.

What I learned was that the "while your in there" clause will eat you alive! Also, it helps having someone around that has a swap under thier belt.

I was very prepared for my swap. I didnt touch the M20 until every single part that was needed for the swap was in my hands. This made the swap smooth even with my M3 rack swap. Organization is key! I had one miss-step but one call to Blunt made all the difference. Thanks Steve!

I thought the harness adapter would be the hardest but with triple checks, all went well, firing 1st time.

With the months or research before going under the knife, nothing was unexpected. Sure, there are some teething issues, (vacuum, some wiring questions, hose and wiring paths) but that is all part of any swap.

I actually enjoyed the whole process and would do one again IF I HAD MORE TIME!!!

Money will be spent but thats all part of it.

[drumad]

Hardest - getting the starter pinion gear to line up with the flywheel; I forgot to install the shim between the tranny and the engine and had gone through 3 different starters thinking all my gears were off.

All in all, the swap was WAY easier than I had expected. I thought an sr20 swap in a 240 was easy but the e30 m5x swap is way easier.

I also thought that shoe horning the engine in the bay was going to be difficult after reading all these horror stories but it took me less than 45 minutes from hoisting her up to torquing down the engine mounts.

Wiring was also easier then I had imagined.

[AndrewK]

Exhaust was also tough for me because it was the one thing I couldn't do myself. It wasn't really hard, just logistically time consuming to find a good muffler shop that understood what I wanted and that I trusted. The shop was 45 minutes away so I had to rig up another exhaust to get the car there. All in all just a huge pain in the ass.

I see this as a good opportunity for someone to produce an economical exhaust system that will bolt up to a swapped E30 with no fitment issues. I believe Bimmerworld is working on something along those lines.

However, the hardest part of my swap was having to replace the transmission after the first one spewed out all the fluid on my first test drive.

[nrubenstein]

The exhaust was pretty easy for me. Just frustrating to go through so many iterations. And when you add in my trash pile of Magnaflows, it was a lot more expensive than I'd have liked it to be.

I think I did 8 or so versions before I found one that I could tolerate. And frankly, I may still make some changes.

Hopefully I'll be able to just do one version on the S50B32.

[nando]

I did research first. I've heard enough E30s with mangaflows to know that's not what I wanted. And I did get lucky that there is a great exhaust shop just a couple miles away. I drove there with open headers early on a friday morning too. lol. so loud..

[lolcantturn]

getting the brake booster off is a bitch



other than that the swap is really fucking easy if you take your time



which i didn't my second time and it's biting me in the ass