I cam in eta head or 885 head on eta engine questions

[Deezey]

Question--somewhat of a noob...I bought this 88 SETA a while back and found it is in somewhere in the process of a 2.7i conversion (confirmed i ECU). From other sites/build plans, I recently learned that it isn't fully necessary to replace the SETA head with an 885 - but would need to replace the cam and valve springs. I had the valve cover off to swap it and just happened to take a pic before installing the new one--is there any way to determine from the pic if anything here has been upgraded?

[reelizmpro]

Back in the 90's...885 i heads were expensive and ETA's were the poor man's 325. So if we got our hands on a 325i cam or Schrick we could boost power by modding the ETA head and upgrading the valve springs. We didn't want to lose compression because Turbo kits were non existent in the early days except for Dinan's $30K (for 300HP) kit which few could afford so swapping the head was unpopular. Since the early 2000's or so, prices between E and i engines is basically the same and turbo kits are cheaper so the compression loss isn't a big deal anymore. Today, it just doesn't make sense go through the trouble of swapping an i cam into an ETA. Now the super ETA is different because it already has an 885 head, just needs a 325i or better cam and dual valve springs. Even then, it would probably make more sense to find a complete 325i head since there are more of them out there vs the one year 88 325 superETA. As time goes by, things change.

Deezy, look at the cam journals and valve springs. IIRC, eta cam's will be missing 2 or 3 journals along with single valve springs. It looks pretty original to me since it has the original hex bolts but we can't go by that alone.