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    Progress on u-jointed driveshaft:

    Bought one of Jute91's driveshaft repair fittings and had a local machinist press and weld a BMW 4 bolt flange onto it.
    The diff and driveshaft are from an E46 front. With this flange, either the E46 driveshaft can be shortened OR a Jags That Run 1310 u-joint yoke for the BMW 4 bolt flange can be used with a custom driveshaft.

    FIRST, setting up the driveshaft this way allows a repaired E30 driveshaft to be installed and removed WITHOUT dropping the transfer case or the diff.

    HOWEVER, this flange is in slightly the wrong place. It needs to be cut off and moved closer to the splines (and the repair fitting trimmed) in order to clear the oil pan on the 4HP22. ALSO, the flange does not clear the transmission tunnel, which needs to be "persuaded" a bit.




    Here's the repair fitting with female flange and the male flange from the E46 driveshaft:



    Here's the modded E30 driveshaft with male fitting and E46 driveshaft with male fitting:



    Here's the repair fitting with female flange and the E46 differential with female input flange:



    Here's the repair fitting with female flange and modded E30 driveshaft with male flange:



    Here's the assembly with a naked T-case sprocket:



    The flange needs to be reworked to move to the right in this photo in order to clear the auto trans oil pan.

    Comment


      nice work!

      So, I've been thinking of changing directions and going with an N52B30 instead. I think with cams and headers, 300bhp could be attained, and it's significantly lighter than the S54 - ~150lbs. and even lighter than the M20. they're also about half the cost. the reduced weight would make a pretty nice difference in handling.

      it doesn't rev as high, but I think 7500rpm would be pretty safe and that's not too bad. plus with the disa manifold, it's got a great torque curve. it's nice in the 3500lb pig of an E90, I'm sure it would be a blast in a 2800lb E30 with shorter gearing.

      oil pans would be way different, but the gearing ratios available are better for my Getrag 260 trans (3.73 is common and perfect). I could probably use your u-jointed shaft idea.

      I could probably sell a lot of the parts I already have and it would get me a lot further. I have a brand new Z3M harness, that's like $700 by itself..
      Build thread

      Bimmerlabs

      Comment


        If you'd already bought an engine, I'd say stick with the S54...

        You don't want to go N54/N55? ;)

        With my crossmember idea, you could drop in a complete E70 engine (but may have to run E53 or E39 mount arms). Also, the E60 and later front diffs have aluminum cases for a for more pounds of weight loss.

        I'd really like an N26 four cylinder from a 328i X-Drive, with the wick turned up to about 300 HP... but the DME for that is a LONG way from hacked. That would take a LOT of weight off the front, have stout low end torque and still have decent response.

        But I'll keep plugging on the S62 anyway :)

        Comment


          no, I'm not even a little bit interested the turbo motors. I'd rather have an S54 if I'm going the boat anchor route. :p

          I think the trick will be finding which oil pan will fit the E30 without pushing the engine too far back, and CV shafts. the E34 at least has the easiest CV shaft options.

          yeah, N20 is lighter but it's not as big of a difference from the N52. plus it's still a laggy turbo.

          I like the idea of the aluminum diff housings, although I wonder if they are weaker.
          Build thread

          Bimmerlabs

          Comment


            Great job man!

            Nando: im checking out a possible solutions to use E34 and probably E53 pan/diff without firewall nad trans tunnel mods :)
            E30 325ix M50 turbo 7 spd DCT 4wd 840awhp @ 31 psi.
            E30 M50 6 spd 764whp @ 24psi.
            E30 M20 6 spd 675whp.

            Comment


              N52 has a different pan so it would have to be E60, E90, E82, E70, etc. the earlier pans would not fit. :(

              I have an E91 325xi so I can at least measure the CL of axle from the bellhousing to get an idea of how close it might be. at some point I'll have to decide and sell all of my S54 parts. I could probably pay for 3 engines with what I have.. lol
              Build thread

              Bimmerlabs

              Comment


                I personally think you should keep going with the S54 route, but thats mostly because I really wanna see the finished result.

                Also I'm curious if anyone has a solution to the oil capacity for the fraken pan. The M20 is like 4.5 liters or something and the M54 is juster under 7. I've seen a thread where Some one used a VAC oil cooler to add capacity, but I was wondering what you guys thought.
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                Comment


                  Yeah i just feel like i might be sacrificing handling for a bit more power.

                  My power/weight ratio now is like 14lbs/hp. The N52 done the way i want would be about 9lbs/hp, the S54 about 8. Not that much difference...

                  Plus, nobody has done an N52, there are several S54 ix's.

                  The E34 pan is 6 or 7 quarts, i was never doing a frankenpan.
                  Build thread

                  Bimmerlabs

                  Comment


                    are you planning to rebuild one if you get it or just find one with now miles?

                    we had an 06 e60 with n52. we bought it with around 80k. very soon after we got it home the check engine light came on. after a diagnostic test, i found the vanos seloniods were supposedly bad becasue the codes were cam bank a retarded and cam bank b retarded. no worries, i spent about 300 bucks to replace them and reset the codes. after driving the car for less than 10 miles, the check light was back on with the same codes. turns out the previous owner had changed the oil at its recomended interval. i don't rember the exact number but it was north of 12,000 miles. afer doing some more research, i found this practice kills these engines by a slow death. apparently, among other things, the cam journals wear out and bypass oil to the point where the vanos no longer works. i even tried running 15w40 in it. didn't help. we had so many different engine problems with that car. it was one of the happiest days of my life when we sold it. oh, some of the other things that irritated me about the engine was that it has no dipstick and i didn't really like the fact that the water pump was electric. we had to replace that once too. instead of being like 50 bucks, i think the part was around 700.00 at the time.

                    so, yes it is light weight and that is certainly a good feature for what you are trying to accomplish. i know you are a rediculously smart guy and will relish in the challenge of finding a way to make it work. keep in mind, m52's out of z3's were aluminum too. i bet with the mods you are talking about, you would get 300hp out of one of them with a shitload less hassle. you could probably use most of the parts you have already collected for s54
                    Last edited by flyboyx; 11-21-2014, 06:49 AM.
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                    Comment


                      yeah, I'd probably look for a lower miles one. I'd want an '06, MSV70 is easier to deal with. it would have to be one I could see in person before purchase.

                      I've got two of them (E90, E91) so I'm familiar with the engine. I haven't had any issues with ours. what actually happens is the oil passages for the VANOS are small (due to being a low-pressure system), and these can sludge up. the oil service is condition based, it can actually go up to 30,000km or 2 years but usually it's less.

                      mine put down 225whp stock.. so there is that. :)

                      I don't think you're going to get 300hp out of an M52B28.. no way. the thing about the N52 is it was designed with stiffness in mind. it's a lot stronger block than the aluminum M52 (bedplate design). the stock redline is significantly higher than an M52. the guy on the dyno asked me if I even had one, lol.

                      the S54 waterpump also costs ~$400 btw. it has plenty of mechanical issues of its own..
                      Last edited by nando; 11-21-2014, 06:38 AM.
                      Build thread

                      Bimmerlabs

                      Comment


                        looks like we're posting concurrently, lol.

                        I haven't decided yet. Keep in mind, the E30 is now a toy car. I think I could do a lot with the N52. If I was going to consider an M52 (aluminum or not)... no, I would never consider that - it would be an S54. :p
                        Build thread

                        Bimmerlabs

                        Comment


                          ^ By the time you get around to it, several others will have done it and you will have another great idea that no one else has done yet and then have to sell all the N52 stuff....


                          Lorin


                          Originally posted by slammin.e28
                          The M30 is God's engine.

                          Comment


                            Originally posted by Nisse Järnet View Post
                            Great job man!

                            Nando: im checking out a possible solutions to use E34 and probably E53 pan/diff without firewall nad trans tunnel mods :)
                            FYI, the 4 bolt pinion flange is on an E46 diff. The E46 diff doesn't fit the E53 pan. The E53 diff comes with a 3 bolt guibo flange. To use the E53 diff with this setup, you'll either need to make a 4 bolt to 3 bolt adapter plate or swap on the E46 pinion flange (and get pinion bearing preload/endplay right...)

                            Comment


                              Originally posted by LJ851 View Post
                              ^ By the time you get around to it, several others will have done it and you will have another great idea that no one else has done yet and then have to sell all the N52 stuff....


                              I doubt it, there's no N52 standalone tune.. yet. :)
                              Build thread

                              Bimmerlabs

                              Comment


                                Originally posted by nando View Post
                                yeah, N20 is lighter but it's not as big of a difference from the N52. plus it's still a laggy turbo.

                                I like the idea of the aluminum diff housings, although I wonder if they are weaker.
                                The DI eliminates most of the lag.

                                Considering how much BMW overbuilds their drivelines, I doubt the aluminum housing diffs would have any problems at all.

                                The E9x dash to axle distance is similar to the E46... which means that the E9x oil pan won't work in an E30 for the same reasons that an E46 oil pan won't.

                                However, the E70 X5 front drive assembly looks likely for the same reasons that the E53 X5 assembly looks likely.

                                Comment

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