M54. Let the foolishness begin.

[318isbmw]

e30 M54 OBD1 is now reality.

Motor went in last night and after the 3 connections needed to start it fired up almost immediately. It fell into a nice idle and I shut it down for the night to connect radiator, driveshaft, etc.

This morning with a newly filled cooling system I let it idle and had puddles of coolant. One leak was from the heater inlet connection and a really elusive one was a small plug on the back of the head. My guess is the machine shop used that when they pressure tested it and didn't tighten it all the way.

So, took it for the first drive around the 'hood and had a bad shudder at around 3500 rpm. Check engine light came one. Engine temp gauge not working. ABS light illuminated. Hey! at least it was driving.

The shudder was from low fuel pressure. I only roughly calibrated the regulator when I installed it and found it only had 30 psi. 50 psi fixed the shudder completely.

Still need to connect the Oxy sensor, it's running open loop. The e34 connector is too short! ABS is from lack of power. Easy fix. Check light is probably from the oxy sensor and maybe from the ECU detecting too much advance.

The temp gauge either isn't getting hot enough at the thermostat outlet or my wiring is jacked.

It has the Power Steering bypassed which really isn't that bad. I also have tons of room next to the brake booster and could go back to stock if I wanted.

It pulls strong off idle and is flatish between 3-4500 rpm. REALLY strong at 5500. So far my M50 is still the better motor. I would rather have a really well tuned 2.5litre than a tempermental 3.0 any day.

At this point, I need to finsih the Oxy sensor at a minimum and drive it some more. I am encouraged that the Hall to VR circuit is working well and that my Timeserts and head straightening appear to have been successful.

I'll turn my attention to a simple open-loop VANOS controller that will electronically govern the full retard and advance ends of the range to more closely match M50.

I will also control the DISA valve with a simple shift light circuit.

Lots of room for improvement at this point.

Congrats on getting it running. Most definitely have gone into uncharted territory and pioneered the idea of m54 on m50 wiring. Excited to see the thing run sometime.

[hoveringuy]

...in with the new

e30 M54 OBD1 is now reality.

Motor went in last night and after the 3 connections needed to start it fired up almost immediately. It fell into a nice idle and I shut it down for the night to connect radiator, driveshaft, etc.

This morning with a newly filled cooling system I let it idle and had puddles of coolant. One leak was from the heater inlet connection and a really elusive one was a small plug on the back of the head. My guess is the machine shop used that when they pressure tested it and didn't tighten it all the way.

So, took it for the first drive around the 'hood and had a bad shudder at around 3500 rpm. Check engine light came one. Engine temp gauge not working. ABS light illuminated. Hey! at least it was driving.

The shudder was from low fuel pressure. I only roughly calibrated the regulator when I installed it and found it only had 30 psi. 50 psi fixed the shudder completely.

Still need to connect the Oxy sensor, it's running open loop. The e34 connector is too short! ABS is from lack of power. Easy fix. Check light is probably from the oxy sensor and maybe from the ECU detecting too much advance.

The temp gauge either isn't getting hot enough at the thermostat outlet or my wiring is jacked.

It has the Power Steering bypassed which really isn't that bad. I also have tons of room next to the brake booster and could go back to stock if I wanted.

It pulls strong off idle and is flatish between 3-4500 rpm. REALLY strong at 5500. So far my M50 is still the better motor. I would rather have a really well tuned 2.5litre than a tempermental 3.0 any day.

At this point, I need to finsih the Oxy sensor at a minimum and drive it some more. I am encouraged that the Hall to VR circuit is working well and that my Timeserts and head straightening appear to have been successful.

I'll turn my attention to a simple open-loop VANOS controller that will electronically govern the full retard and advance ends of the range to more closely match M50.

I will also control the DISA valve with a simple shift light circuit.

Lots of room for improvement at this point.

[E30Idea]

Very nice!

[matt]

What's your email address again? And can I send you 2 PDFs about 4mb total?

[Mot]

I cant wait to see this run, the e46 my friend runs need his motor in my engine bay haha. v

[gregslow318i]

looken' sweet just wondering what are you using as far as a trans? zf 260 250??? and did you ever end up selling the "old" m50?

[hoveringuy]

Out with the old...

I really didn't mean to take it out tonight. I was just going to disconnect a few things. Then I started fooling around some more and one thing led to another. It just slipped out. I swear.

I learned in the process that the M50 power steering pump IS NOT compatible with the M54. The pulley ends up being offset by about 5/8". I need to order an M54 power steering pump ASAP.

However, the M50 alternator DOES fit. Good thing, too. As an 80amp alternator it weights about 6lbs less than the M54 120amp unit.

I'll mate the flywheel,clutch and tranny tomorrow and probably have it back in the car.

I bought the house for the garage. ha ha!

Oh yeah, I'm riding my bike to work tomorow.

[matt]

I know I promised you a reply to this, and I'm sorry this is so weak, but I really don't have much of an answer. You're sort of in un-charted areas here.

I would say the best course of action would probably be to degree in the cams with a degree wheel and a pair of dial indicators. Then you can find out when the valves open and close, even with the intake cam advanced and make much more accurate assumptions of comparability between your setup and the M50 one.

[accident]

Turner Motorsports has a chip that kills EWS. I dunno if it's for the M54 though. Check it out!

[hoveringuy]

Dude with your knowledge I could only imagine what you could do with unlimited funds. LOL.

Great work thus far. Does anyone know if I could incorporate my obd2 knock sensors to work with my obd1 conversion?

I wanted to do the same thing. The OBD2 sensors are different in how they work. They are somehow tuned differently to the specific knock frequency. I just bought 2 new OBD1 sensors at $60 each.

My problem is that aluminum has a different ringing frequency than steel so I don't know how well my knock system will actually detect knock.

[jahnaboi]

Dude with your knowledge I could only imagine what you could do with unlimited funds. LOL.

Great work thus far. Does anyone know if I could incorporate my obd2 knock sensors to work with my obd1 conversion?

[hoveringuy]

Fuel pressure regulator

It's a little thing, but still important.

I need to convert the return fuel system to a non-return fuel rail. For the sake of emissions (again!) the fuel rail was changed to not flow the fuel through it. This was done to keep from heating it which reduces vapor pressure and evaporation.

Anyway, the fuel rail is a literal dead end and I need to add an external fuel pressure regulator that will shunt the proper pressure to the rail.

I have a fuel pressure gauge on the rail that I'll calibrate it with once the motor is in.

[hoveringuy]

Cams

So I will probably pull the M50 this Saturday...

I'm looking at different cam specs and I know that the M54 is 240 degrees duration intake, 244 exhaust with lifts of 9.7 and 9 mm respectively.

The S50 has 253/10.3mm intake and 244/9.7 exhaust.

So the M54 has 12 degrees more duration on the intake cam. My question is, how does the math work with VANOS advance... If the M54 VANOS advances 15 more degrees than the M50 (40 vice 25), but has 12 degrees more duration, does that mean it works out to be about the same??

One of you really smart guys must know the answer.

.....edit.....

I drew myself a picture and I think this is what it works out to. The M54 is initially a little more retarded on the intake and ends up advancing just past where an M50 does.

I am not a cam expert. Anyone have some insight on this?

[matt]

I told you I"ll help you tune it if you make it run. :)

[hoveringuy]

Hey, so are you going to run both vanos? I don't know if you found a way to run both of them, but if you haven't let me know, I have an idea for you :)

No, I'll leave the exhaust VANOS disconnected and oil pressure will keep it fully advanced at all times. The 413 ECU is only designed to run the intake VANOS and even if I hooked up the exhaust it wouldn't be tuned for it. I'm not even sure how well it will be tuned for the extra 8 degrees this motor will advance the intake over the M50.

Maybe I can talk Matt into developing a chip??

I promise a dyno plot is forthcoming.

Long term, I have other things in mind for the dual VANOS...

That thermostat housing, just beautiful.

I really don't understand why you care so much about your bench grinders' speed, but I am sure you have your reasons.

The thermostat is cool. Kudos to Zionsville.

The benchgrinder speed was only important because I needed it to spin fast enough to simulate the engine at max RPM. 3600 rpm was fast enough, especially since the M50 sender wheel has twice the diameter of the M54 one.