What would you have differently, knowing what you know now??

[etxxz]

Not really anything I would have changed. Everything came out fine, and I have over 30k on the swap in the last year. I overbuilt and planned it out though, I am a little OCD and anal, so things rarely go wrong.

+1 on this, i spent maybe 4 months researching before i even bought the first part. then i ordered everything at once. BAM. minimizes waiting time and its helpful to have everything that you need....ofcourse i missed a thing here and there but none of which affected my swap time too much.

+3 on buying a complete motor, electronics etc etc etc. i got mine with driveshaft and everything.

[BigD]

I would have done more preventative maintenance. It's a 20 year old car with 400k kms on the chassis... why would you "hope" that the fuel pumps are able to support a 3.2L M3 engine? Now I'm having to scramble to replace them with 3 weeks to go before the track day.

Otherwise I think I did good. It helped that I had a year to prepare the engine, and in no hurry to put it in. Although I'd like to second what someone else said about not letting up. Once I got the engine started I had no progress, it felt like I was done. I started finishing it up maybe 3 weeks ago, and it's done. Could have been done back in the winter.

[Mako18]

I ordered everything (almost) at once, problem is shipping the actual items seems to be the big issue. Just goes to show you can't and deff don't want to rush this sort of thing. So next time I will try to be more patient. Other than that I would have liked to be able to strip and restore the car before the swap. Next time I will have much larger Bucket of money!!

[Drew325is]

I would've tried to find a complete donor car...be it a front cut or crashed damaged vehicle.

I also would've changed the rear main seal on the engine...kicking myself on that one.

The funny thing is, if I was replying to this a few weeks/months ago when I was still in the thick of the conversion, I'd have told you not to even start...now that I've driven it, I can't even remember why I'd say that!

[Rev Engineer]

I wish I would not have gone cheap and used the poor-man's lightweight flywheel (e30 325 flywheel/clutch) with the s50. I paid the price when it failed. I then replaced it with a regular big-buck lightweight flywheel/clutch.

[MIKe30]

I wish I would not have gone cheap and used the poor-man's lightweight flywheel (e30 325 flywheel/clutch) with the s50. I paid the price when it failed. I then replaced it with a regular big-buck lightweight flywheel/clutch.

Still using e30 tranny? or swapped it to e36 after e30 pieces failed?

btw, were they the stock clutch/flywheel?

[PiercedE30]

Oh yea, I would have also gone turbo first.

[e30polak]

I would've gon m50NV Turbo instead of the s52, could've done it for the same price but way more power.

[Rev Engineer]

I started with the ZF. The e30 clutch/flywheel works with the ZF, but I don't recommend it. :tsk:

I guess it could work fine with a m50. Or, it's possible that the pressure plate I used was defective. As always, YMMV.

Still using e30 tranny? or swapped it to e36 after e30 pieces failed?

btw, were they the stock clutch/flywheel?

[e30polak]

O ya I wouldn't have chosen to do it while I was working and in school, having too little time to devote to the project. It also cost me a fuck load of stress and depleted my drinking funds.

[e30serg]

Back from the dead! I'm getting back into my project and would like to hear some more ideas....

[lolcantturn]

wish I went S52/OBDII from the start

and if i was doing M50NV it would be turbo

[gp.plus]

Wish I used rtv to seal the oil pan as opposed to the oem gasket, or atleast in conjunction w/oem gasket.

[lolcantturn]

Wish I used rtv to seal the oil pan as opposed to the oem gasket, or atleast in conjunction w/oem gasket.

Did you use a new gasket? I used a new Victor Reinz gasket and it still leaked! Put RTV along with it and it worked fine....the quality of these gaskets suck!

[burkey001]

Wish I bypassed my euro s50 and went straight to s54. No muckin about