1987 325e sedan M30B35 swap

[MrBurgundy]

Cool stuff. The way you go about taking care of things, this should turn out to be a nice car.

[st.petebiodiesel]

Just got my cylinder head back from the machine shop.


No parts required other than new valve stem seals. Like I had mentioned before there was corrosion on the valve seats causing the leaky valves. I ended up buying a new set of Ireland Engineering HD rocker arms from a fellow R3V member. I’m sure I could of gotten away with reusing the stock rockers, but I really don’t want to have to pull the head in the car. I was also thinking of sending my camshaft to IE to get a 284 or 292 regrind. For $190 it seems to be the best budget option available.
In the meantime I cleaned and painted the block.

We are expecting rain today and I don’t have a garage so I prepared the block to weather the storm with garbage bags and a tarp.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[st.petebiodiesel]

1987 325e sedan M30B35 swap

The engine had been sitting for a long time. Like a really long time in a non air conditioned storage and another year on my friends porch. I was optimistic on the engines condition until I performed a leak down test.

Every single valve leaked like crazy. I sprayed WD40 in the port to show the leakage in bubble form. So at a minimum a valve job was in order.
After pulling the valve cover I had noticed some cylinder head repair and a few aftermarket rocker arms.



Overall the cylinder head was pretty clean. On the inside. Someone had clearly rebuilt it at sometime.
I then removed the cylinder head to find even more surprises.


A total of 4 pistons had signs of valve contact.
I sent the head to the machine shop and the report back was good. Valves were straight. Valve guides were new, no cracks, and true deck requiring minimal resurfacing. The only thing wrong was rust on the valve seats from the engine sitting so long. I could of lapped the valves myself but I do like getting a nice clean head from the machine shop with a clean bill of health.
Someone had repaired the head after what I’m guessing a timing incident and just left the gouges on the pistons.

Nothing a grinder with a roloc pad can’t fix.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[st.petebiodiesel]

Unfortunately other projects got in the way of this project and it was stored for around 8 months before I finally started working on it.
First was to remove the M20B27 ,which ran excellent. I tried to sell the engine for awhile but ETAs are a hard sell, I ended up giving it away for free.

I knew the car had some minor rust but after pulling the engine and removing the firewall insulation I was in for a bit of a surprise.


This rust was about the worst I had ever seen on the firewall and led to more rust on the Passenger floorboard.

Never planing on abandoning this car I simply fixed the rust. Cut, grind, cut some more, weld, and prime/paint.






Pretty simple crude repair. Definitely will last another 20 years with the aircraft epoxy primer.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[st.petebiodiesel]

It's had been about 6 months since I've been out of the E30 game,and was searching for a project. Then this turd came into my life.

A relatively rust free 87 eta auto sedan for $600 with a rebuilt title.

The previous owner told us the trans was slipping and from the puddle of trans oil under it I could believe it. To my amazement we drove it home without an issue, until we did brake stand burn outs till the trans failed for the last time. The car came with some goodies including raceland coilovers and a crack free dash.
Needless to say it felt good to be back behind the wheel of an E30.
I was planning on doing an engine swap for this project, my last E30 I swapped in a M60B40 with a ZF320 5 speed, which was a riot.I have always grown up with BMWs in my family, most powered by M30s. While I liked the more modern BMW engines, I longed for the loud valve tick and simple design of a M30 that I was so familiar with.
A quick ISO post on R3vlimited on Facebook I had me a complete M30B35 swap for $700. The sale included a M30B35 from a 1988 735i with a Getrag 240 from a 1984 E30 and all associated hardware which I will post later.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk