N52>e30 Build Thread for the Sophisticated Gentleman

[hubcapboy]

Great work on documenting your swap! With so much work on the engine arms, sump and oil pickup etc. do you intend to sell a kit at some point?

It's not my goal to turn this into a career (if you can't tell by how driveway-science this looks) but I am on board with hoveringuy with the goal of standardizing this engine as a swap (and broadening it to a potential swap for the ix). It's getting more and more and more likely that I'll figure out a way to open-source the information so anyone can reproduce it., but I want to at least get my car finished first A few people have reached out to see if they can start production, but I think it's too unproven for someone to sell this and expect people to be able to follow a guide.

Does the oil pan substitute as a block girdle also? Looks like it'll be ready for war. :)

Funny you say that. block girdle... no, as nando says above, but the 2nd revision of the oil pan that's in hoveringuy 's car you'll see if you poke through the discussion thread was built up with laser cut pieces in a heavier gauge to forgo a skidplate. With the streets around here, I don't want to know that every time I hear a clank it's shocking my whole driveline.

[Northern]

I think that was a joke about the girth of the oil pan flange lol

[lukeADE335i]

It's not my goal to turn this into a career (if you can't tell by how driveway-science this looks) but I am on board with hoveringuy with the goal of standardizing this engine as a swap (and broadening it to a potential swap for the ix). It's getting more and more and more likely that I'll figure out a way to open-source the information so anyone can reproduce it., but I want to at least get my car finished first A few people have reached out to see if they can start production, but I think it's too unproven for someone to sell this and expect people to be able to follow a guide.

Open source would be awesome - no, I wasn't thinking you'd be turning into K-Miata or something

Basically that was how I did my M30 back in the day - there were no swap guides outside a brief description of the swap on e30.de back then and a few r3v threads. I grabbed engine mounts from e30.de and went for it. Obviously this is a lot more complex than the M30 was!