1987 325e sedan M30B35 swap

[AWDBOB]

Awesome progress on the garage, and your brother's car is probably a blast to drive! Also, did you see Metric Mechanics just released an M10/M30 rocker arm? I sent them an email inquiring about price.

I was going to m30 swap Linda, but I had 5 e30 projects going on at one time, and the m30 parts I had were all over the place and incomplete so I just sold it all to start fresh. I've got two more cars to sell, once those are gone I have to bring the M3 out to Indiana, and then I'm going to buy a manual E34 535i donor car to get the job done once and for all. Long to-do list, but if I do it in the right order I'll actually get it done.

Until then, I'm just living vicariously through your build and Anthony B's build.

[st.petebiodiesel]

Boooomp

I thought you were M30 swapping Linda?

My brother bought a OK condition US 635csi to replace his wrecked euro 635, and then promptly turbocharged it.

Junkyard B35, custom inverted exhaust manifold turbo manifold, 62/66 precision turbo on pump gas. At 12psi it made 320whp and 350wtrq.

Long story short, after setting up 2 step on his megasquirt he eventually broke 2 rocker arms on cylinder 3 while on 2 step.

Being a good brother, I offered him my cylinder head off of my e30. Before I swapped the car I had it tanked, decked, valve guides replaced, and a valve job performed. Basically a stock rebuilt B35 head with HD rockers and rocker locks.

Both engines looked pretty good with the heads off.
E30

E24

So now with my new junkyard head being rebuilt I wanted to make sure this would be the most reliable head I could build for abuse.
I had IE HD rockers on my previous head and never had a problem with them. However for this head I decided to go with an indestructible rocker arm. K&M Cams sells a M10/M30 steel rocker arm, and really the price isn't that bad considering this will be the last set of rockers I will have to buy.

I spent an hour polishing the pads.


I also ordered a DBilas 290 cam with 12mm of lift.
My garage addition is only a few days from being completed. Just have to epoxy the floors and then I can start wrenching hardcore again.



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[AWDBOB]

Boooomp

[lukeADE335i]

Not surprised on the 540i getting better economy than the e30 - the M30 loves to drink fuel that's for sure!

Good to see the e30 on Dad duties - I used mine for the same for 10 years & around 150,000km (as a 2.0L auto for the first 50,000km, then as an M30B35 Manual for 100,000km). Served its purpose just fine :D

[st.petebiodiesel]

Sorry for the lack of turbo updates I've been busy with our first born and building a garage. The e30 has been killing it doing dad stuff. I've put 12k miles on it since I swapped it, and it hasn't given me any issues at all.

I can't really work on any cars at the moment as we are building a garage addition. I won't have a free space of concrete to jack up the car till construction is done at the end of January.

After the garage is complete I plan on taking the e30 off the road, swapping out the g240 for a g260, and doing all the turbo stuff.
I took the car to a euro car show not to long ago and ran it down the 1/4 mile a couple times just to see what it would do.
Let's just say I was a little disappointed.

Keep in mind that was on stock 6" wide bottle caps and a 3.64 diff. I could not floor it in first gear at all. With some decent rubber in the back I'm sure I could pull a 2.0 60 foot and get a 14.5 sec pass. My trap speed was a pretty good indicator that the car should run a faster time if traction was not an issue.
Oh yeah I picked up a clapped out 540i 6 speed to drive around while the e30 is down. 227k miles and runs like a champ.

Funny it gets better MPG than the e30.

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[LowR3V'in]

That is seriously going to come on boost nice and fast.
Thought about a turbo cam?

[st.petebiodiesel]

Spent this afternoon rebuilding the H1C. It was rather difficult removing the old turbine housing, but i got it off using a 3lbs sledge.
Here us everything apart and cleaned.


The Turbo Lab rebuild kit uses an updated thrust bearing.

New bearings

Putting it back together was really easy, it only took about 30 minutes. There are several really good videos online that walk you through the process.

Then I mounted it to the manifold in a bottom mounted config.


I was thinking about how I was going to plumb the oil return for the turbo. M106s used this boss in the block.

Which is present on my B35 block.


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[st.petebiodiesel]

I should really change the title of this thread to shit Ron finds in the junkyard. Scored a 3.64 torsen from a Z3 my local LKQ for $66! Alot of people don't like torsens (like the meathead fucktards that think every e30 should be a 700hp drift missle burnout machine), but I think they are great for street cars.


I swapped the 3.64 for my 3.46 that was in the car. The 3.46 was great but a G240 has much lower ratios then a G260 in gears 1 to 3. Being able to redline 3rd gear at 107mph was pretty cool though. Car feels much faster with the 3.64 and at 80mph I'm at 3250rpm.

I also got my H1C off of Ebay. There was some shaft play as I expected, but I'm going to rebuild it anyways. None of the wheels had contacted the housings so I'd say it was in good shape.

The H1C I got came with a 21cm turbine housing, which is huge. I bought a 11cm or .82ar turbine housing. Here it is on my manifold.


Just for fun.

Obviously it would be alot lower, the old manifolds are still on.
I really want to run this as a top mount, but I'm going to have to fabricate some sort of angled riser to keep the turbo off of the valve cover. Hopefully it will all fit under the hood. Maybe I'll try to mock it up as a bottom mount first and see how I like it.
Using a m106 manifold on a b35 head requires longer and larger diameter exhaust studs. I really don't want to re tap the head for the larger studs so I'm just going to buy longer studs and make bushings to fit inside the manifold flange holes.
Almost a 1/2" OD.

And a 5/16" ID

Gonna be hard taking this thing off the road for a few weeks to make all this stuff fit. I love driving this car every day.

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[wworm]

Definitely pulls like a train! Very brute-ish. A turbo will totally transform this into a serious beast. Thanks again for letting me drive it!

[st.petebiodiesel]

I fixed the intake gaskets, ended up installing Victor Reinz gaskets with some anaerobic gasket sealer.
I had 2 gaskets completely broken.


Surprisingly this made no change in my idle. I even performed a valve adjustment and replaced the spark plugs with a .032" gap.
Don't get me wrong the engine runs fine, just the idle isn't as smooth as I like. The only thing I haven't replaced is the distributor cap and rotor. Car pulls like a train, it just has slight studder at idle.
Just for fun I did a compression check. The results were pretty awesome.






Definitely a healthy engine even with all the miles I estimate it had on it. (Remember, this engine had the timing chain break at some point)

This weekend I met up with R3V member wworm while he was in Florida. He got to test drive my beater-sauras. I think he enjoyed it.

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[wworm]

^lol this thing is gonna rip! Stock mobbin is sick.

[LowR3V'in]

you say 350 now but.

[st.petebiodiesel]

My Ebay history says it all.

I really was attracted to the holset turbos because I didn't have $800+ for a fancy precision turbo.
I wanted a HX35, but couldn't find one at a decent price. Used H1Cs are going for $100-$200. H1C it is.
I know the H1C has a giant turbine housing 21cm (or like a 1.6 A/R) which would result in a very late spool. Thankfully Turbo Lab makes a .82 A/R or 11cm turbine housing for the hx35 which is a bolt on for the H1C.
I might also upgrade the compressor wheel to a fancy 60mm.
So for $300 total I should have a pretty bitchin H1C that will easily make my 350whp goal and come into boost pretty early.


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[LowR3V'in]

keep it looking like that i want people to think e30s were really fast stock

[st.petebiodiesel]

Your dad has some of his throwing star covers on in the wrong direction.

I haven't heard good things about VR gaskets in general, especially headgaskets...

You have gone through a lot of work to refresh this car with a great attention to detail. When will you refresh the interior and suspension bits?

I haven't heard good things about VR gaskets in general, especially headgaskets...

You have gone through a lot of work to refresh this car with a great attention to detail. When will you refresh the interior and suspension bits?

I am trying to keep this thread to mostly engine and drivetrain related info. I have done quite a lot more to the car than I post in this thread, maybe I should of posted this car in the project forum.
Stay tuned for more M30 turbo content. I can't wait to make this ugly beater faster.




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