M52 aluminium blocks

[digger]

Eyeball guesstimate; I can stack 50lbs of weight on top the engine now and measure how low it drops?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

yeah, my bet is it wont move anywhere near 20mm

[E30 Wagen]

Are all the aluminum m52 blocks found in 97-98 Z3s iron sleeved?

[Wanganstyle]

20mm? that seems a little excessive height difference. the bare block in cast iron would be what 50kg tops. if youre lucky you get a 25kg saving from block going to alloy. spring rate at front is easily 200lb/inch for pair of stock crappy springs so you should be looking at 0.25". if you pulled the whole engine out i could see a bit over an inch rise. this is just numbers i pulled from my head but something seems off

Eyeball guesstimate; I can stack 50lbs of weight on top the engine now and measure how low it drops?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[digger]

20mm? that seems a little excessive height difference. the bare block in cast iron would be what 50kg tops. if youre lucky you get a 25kg saving from block going to alloy. spring rate at front is easily 200lb/inch for pair of stock crappy springs so you should be looking at 0.25" as a ball park back of the envelope calc. if you pulled the whole engine out i could see a bit over an inch rise. this is just numbers i pulled from my head but something seems off

[Wanganstyle]

In the US the only m52 aluminum blocks came in 97-98 Z3 2.8's.

M52TU is an aluminum block and came in:

e39 528i
e46 328i

its very cheap/common/lightweight and makes the same power as a Iron block M52b28 when setup with identical everything; No real difference in labor between starting from m52b28 or m52TUb28 when doing a 24v swap really.

as far as weight difference? the nose of the car lifted 20mm with change to aluminum engine from iron block (s52)

[megatron]

I measured ~50lbs (~23kg) on a bathroom scale between bare US aluminum M52 block and bare US S52 block.

Here's a pic of the crank from a US aluminum M52 I assembled where you can see the location of the toothed wheel.

[pazi88]

im just curious what the weight difference is.

BMW fans shows litle bit over 20kg difference between cast iron and aluminium block.

[Bimmer_man]

im just curious what the weight difference is.

[pazi88]

So both Aluminum blocks have the later TU style crank?

Sorry I may have misread your message. These blocks I have, had the old crank with crack sensor at the front of the engine. If you look closely, there is place for the rear crank sensor in casting of those blocks. But in -96 block that hasn't even been drilled and in -97 it's drilled through but has blocking plate. I mean that most of the aluminium m52 blocks have the same style crank as in old m50 iron blocks. But not all. At least in EU the some -98 blocks only have the TU style crank with trigger wheel at the back of the crank. Is the crank sensor in which end of the engine in US versions? I have no idea about that. But that seems to determine which kind of crank the engine has.

[mr2peak]

No. The late models have the crank sensor at the Back of the engine. These have same crank as in m52tu.

EDIT oh! there was topic about this already.

So both Aluminum blocks have the later TU style crank?

[pazi88]

Do the aluminum blocks have the same crank as the early iron blocks?

No. The late models have the crank sensor at the Back of the engine. These have same crank as in m52tu.

EDIT oh! there was topic about this already.

[mr2peak]

Pretty sure the Z3 was the only aluminum block in the USA. E39 single vanos was aluminum in the rest of the world.

Do the aluminum blocks have the same crank as the early iron blocks?

[King Mufasa]

In the US the only m52 aluminum blocks came in 97-98 Z3 2.8's.

are you sure?? i was told the e39 single vanos m52 also came in aluminum...

[mr2peak]

Helpful, thanks

[pazi88]

And here is another video about these aluminium m52 blocks. As you may know these are famous from head bolt threads that will strip out easily. I haven't stripped out any threads yet, but I'm aiming for more boost next summer. So just in case I decided to time-sert the new block that I'm going to install. Of course the same procedure works if you have already stripped the threads. The real m52 time-sert kit is crazy expensive (300-500 usd), so here is video how you can do the time-serting with cheaper universal kit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXGm5_Vogy4

I also added English subtitles to this video.