Just how bad is handling with a 3.5L ?

[Jean]

Cool man. Can i be a complete leach and ask you for the pdf files? If not, ill go buy the repair manual.
Also-- sounds like youre going to have a beast of an e30. Did you do the rear disc conversion yourself? did you change out slave/master and such? i am going to be doing mine soon. i have the arms and slave from a 325i.
Edit: not trying to thread jack. sorry

Sure, I'll find a link for you when I get home, someone posted it on here or another forum ,it's got complete electrical diagrams in pdf, zipped for every e30 model year etc.

I did convert the rear by swapping trailing arms, put in new lines and also upgraded the front brakes with 325i calipers and got a new 325 bmc (make sure to order non abs from an early 325e iirc, as we don't have abs). Check my picture log here http://www.briangt.com/gallery/e30318i, I got pics of the convertion in there.

[Brinkley]

Thanks man!

[Funkmasta]

The M30 with no AC is approximately the same weight as an M20, yes.
The weight is further forward though... You can definitely feel the weight up front, but there is no understeer. ;)

[Funkmasta]

*that is compared to my M3, which may not really be a fair comparison anyway.

[george graves]

Not with how far back a s14 sits compared to a m20...

[Axxe]

E30M30 just need a bit more front spring rate, and all will be kosher. The amount of torque available everywhere will have no problems giving you some power oversteer.

[euroshark]

Strewth!

E30M30 just need a bit more front spring rate, and all will be kosher. The amount of torque available everywhere will have no problems giving you some power oversteer.

[Jean]

Alright, I am going to wait and see if the engine mounts will go in production and if a swap won't require any firewall banging or driveshaft shortening then I am game. It's about half the price of the M50 swap for the same or more power, so why the hell not right ? Plus m30 fits the e30 era anyway imho.

My main concern is finding the right tranny and driveshaft, as I don't want to resort to spending $$$ on getting a custom shortened driveshaft.

I can always up the spring rates or try different ones, I just wanted to make sure car won't suffer a huge margin in the handling department with 2x the displacement upfront.

We'll see.

[euroshark]

The firewall banging is pretty minimal, honestly. It's like a few whacks here and there with a baby sledge, no metal damage, and everything fits nice and snug.

The hardest part will probably be getting straight info on a tranny driveshaft combo that will work. Jarred Squires used a 260/6 and E34 535i front half mated to a stock 325is rear half, but other than that I can't recall any other combos that "should fit". Like I said, mine was shortened 1 3/16" with a Getrag 265, it cost a little less than $200, but would have been cheaper had it been a newer shaft with different tubing. Apparently the early 6ers has butt-joint welded shafts instead of slip joints, so using a newer shaft should be cheaper.

[Jean]

$200 is not bad, other quotes I heard were in the 500+ range.

I will try and read as much as I possibly can on the tranny/drive shaft combo, I would like the most painless combo possible of course.

Need to also start reading on what it takes to wire it up into an early e30, that whole c101 plug deal too.

[euroshark]

The C101 was a breeze for mine, it was an '84 325e. I used L-Jet, but Motronic would have been about the same I believe. Basically I just found wiring pinouts for both cars, made a chart with wire color and pin number and what function it corresponded to on either end, then cut and soldered. Strangely enough, most of the wires were a perfect match as far as color and stripe color, and I think there were only 8 or 9 wires total that I had to connect for the car to run and drive correctly. The tach was the only issue on mine since it was L-Jet engine management into a Motronic chassis, but overall it's very very simple.

[Jean]

Cool, how did you get the tach working ?

For anybody reading this thread, here is another good read - http://www.jaredsquires.com/ndp/335i/m30/

[euroshark]

I couldn't figure out how since L-Jet cars have a tach that reads pretty much straight from the negative wire on the coil, and motronic cars get the signal from the bellhousing and that goes through the ECU before it hits the cluster. I was going to build a custom gauge panel for it with new VDO Cockpit stuff, but I sold it before I got to that point.

[Rocla]

The hardest part will probably be getting straight info on a tranny driveshaft combo that will work.

I've red that engine pos.2, a m10 getrag 240 and 320i manual driveshaft combo will bolt right up. Naturaly 320i shafts are hard to find in U.S.

Will 240 be strong enough for b35? some people tell it is.

[Jean]

Lol, so I can re-use my tranny with a new clutch ! It probably won't last long ...