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

[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.

[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!

[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!!

[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.

[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.

[e30serg]

Awesome posts guys! Keep 'em coming!

[brandon11130]

+2 on the buying of a complete motor.

[smonkbmw]

has anyone done an s54 yet?

http://www.azevedomotorsports.com/home/

[Van Westervelt]

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.

[e30s52]

has anyone done an s54 yet?

[BeirBrennerE30]

wish I had done an s54 right off the bat... Oh yeah and the A/c was a waste since I never use it

[e30 gangsta]

I woulda bought a larger displacement motor then a m50tu.

[dougsic]

I used an s50 when I had the opportunity to use an s52. But back then, OBDII was a problem.

More recently, I did the whole Schrick cams, MAF, injectors, chip thing. I KNEW I had a slight lifter tick but was in a hurry for more power.

Dang I'm an idiot. Now the lifter tick is driving me crazy so I get to do the cams/vanos all over again! Stupid!

[shiboujin]

I wish I had EVERYTHING before I started the actual install. Too bad you can't tell exactly what you need or have all the money at once.

[e30s52]

I wish I had bought a complete motor and tranny w/ wiring harness all together. Instead of piecing together everything. Would have been easier to buy a driveshaft and all the little parts but have the majority of work done.

+1 for this. pieceing everything together sucks