I have the chance to get a 92 525 cheap

[Eric]

problem is there is no compression in #4 & 5 cylinders.

my buddies just dumped a bunch of money into it and i can buy it for what they paid for the parts. the motor still runs, but it's rough, so i don't think it has major major problems

I believe the motor is non vanos, how good is this one for mods? can you put M3 cams in it or does it need to be the later vanos model?

[SchnellerVert]

M3 cam and a Schrick is a good set of cams but pricey. Not like you are gonna have trouble finding parts there between you and Yan.

Question thou with gas gotta be hitting $3 a gallon there for cheap stuff I thought you sent the 325i over as a cheap daily commuter?

Pull a plug, check em out. Most likely two dead coil packs. Swap a set of known coil packs in from someone else's car and then say what is up with it. The early cars had poor packs that were prone to failure.

[gazellebeigem3]

M3 cam and a Schrick is a good set of cams but pricey. Not like you are gonna have trouble finding parts there between you and Yan.

Question thou with gas gotta be hitting $3 a gallon there for cheap stuff I thought you sent the 325i over as a cheap daily commuter?

Pull a plug, check em out. Most likely two dead coil packs. Swap a set of known coil packs in from someone else's car and then say what is up with it. The early cars had poor packs that were prone to failure.

Bad coil packs wont cause lowered compression. M3 cams will only work with vanos motors so no go there. However the 92 had a pretty hot set of cams so to upgrade you just need to take the intake cam and swap it to the exhaust side, and then buy a custom cam for the intake side.

[SchnellerVert]

Bad coil packs wont cause lowered compression. M3 cams will only work with vanos motors so no go there. However the 92 had a pretty hot set of cams so to upgrade you just need to take the intake cam and swap it to the exhaust side, and then buy a custom cam for the intake side.

Yeah just noticed that, did a brain fart it's 1 am where I am right now so I'm kinda working on 3 cylinders myself.

[PiercedE30]

With the non-vanos you can swap the intake cam onto the exhaust side for a little more lift/duration and get one schrick intake cam that has 256* and 10.9 mm of lift (i believe). Can't use M3 cams because of the non-vanos, you can do a high comp motor with a S50 crank or a M52 2.8 crank.

[So Live]

I have the non-vanos motor too. Make sure you do a real leakdown test before you buy the thing. I cant stress that enough. I did a compression test and it wasnt awesome but it wasnt really bad either. Turns out the thing has a cracked head in 3 spots and im going to end up spending up $700 to have a fresh head ontop of a motor i spent $600 on.

Do a leak down before you even think about buying it. Pop a radiator hose off and listen in there. If the jugs hold pressure youll be fine.

Good luck!

Also do some searches on 2.8 and 2.9 strokers. Youll find some good info on here and on bimmerforums e36 section.

[SchnellerVert]

Good thing is that there are plenty of these engines available in Germany vs the US.

Need to determine why it has no compreesion in those two cylinders. Do you know some one in the maintance squadron so you could use a boroscope and look at the pistons.

[Eric]

thanks for the help guys.

I bought the car to not only save on gas compaired to the M5, but also i don't want to put the big heavy M5 in a wall at the ring!

so a 3.0L crank will give me 2.9L right? can i do a M54 3.0L or a 3.2L M3 crank?

do you need custom pistons for that?


no chance on a boroscope here, unless Yan can hook that up.

I'm thinking the headgasket is bad between 4 and 5, so i'm thinking of pulling the head to take a look.

[SchnellerVert]

No vanos, so doing a head gasket is not all that bad. What's wrong with the three you just sent over?

[Eric]

nothing, but i did drive it at 140mph for 10 minutes, and there was oil on the back bumper. the PO said that the motor came from the junk yard, but has all new rocker arms, timming belt, and gaskets.

I just drive the shit out of the car, and I'm looking forward for a replacement for when i blow it up.

next summer it's going to spend alot of time on the ring, so it won't be driven real nicely.

edit: will the S50 gearbox fit this motor? all M50/S50 stuff is interchangeable right? what about the newer N54 or whatever that junk is?

[SchnellerVert]

S50 gearbox will bolt up to a M/S5X, but I would look for a 328i box they are just about the same unit without the issues of the early getrags from the 525 and 325's.

Ebay.de is your friend thou a ton of cheap stuff on there. What is your budget towards another engine? Lots of breakers in UK and with 5? USAF bases there maybe you could get a connection and ship via mail stuff to you.