m30 swap choice

[Rodoni]

is an 88 e28 m30 a good canidate for an m30 swap?its out of a 88 535is Eventually it would get turbo'ed... I'm just starting to research the swap.

[E30SPDFRK]

Yes. You will need to modify the firewall to make it fit, but if you take the cats off the b34's they make almost as much as the b35's do.

[Jonsku]

E28 535 is 218hp without cats or 184hp with cats, no idea which ones you have there in the states.
E34 535 makes 211hp with cats, and has bigger inlet valves so it's better option for turboing if you want to take it to the limit.

But basically it's the same which of the 3.5l M30:s you turbo, you'll get lots of power anyways :)

[george graves]

The e28 will have the water pipe on the back of the head, you may need to clearance it. BTW, Joe's/funkmaster mounts (a far better choice than e30.de IMHO) might not need it. If you do - it is a painless 2 min job that involves a hammer. (and if you think that is scary, you should see what alpina did to the uber rare Z4 to mod it.)

E28 535 is 218hp without cats or 184hp with cats, no idea which ones you have there in the states.

I could be wrong, but I think everything after a set date(82/83?), was 50-state legal here - meaning they have a cat. Only a gray market car that slipped past won't have cats.

I do kinda refute the horse power claims you posted. I've read them every where too. But really, a cat doesn't choke a motor that much.

218 - 184 = 34 HP.

Unless they changed something else (EURO vs US compression and/or cams), there is no way in hell a cat is going to rob you of 34 horse - unless it's a TINY TINY cat - and I've never seen BMW use anything that doesn't flow

Now if we are talking early e12 exhaust gas recirculation - maybe you could loose 34 HP - but not with a cat.

Anyone else find the numbers funny?

[Jonsku]

I could be wrong, but I think everything after a set date(82/83?), was 50-state legal here - meaning they have a cat. Only a gray market car that slipped past won't have cats.

I do kinda refute the horse power claims you posted. I've read them every where too. But really, a cat doesn't choke a motor that much.

218 - 184 = 34 HP.

Unless they changed something else (EURO vs US compression and/or cams), there is no way in hell a cat is going to rob you of 34 horse - unless it's a TINY TINY cat - and I've never seen BMW use anything that doesn't flow

Now if we are talking early e12 exhaust gas recirculation - maybe you could loose 34 HP - but not with a cat.

Anyone else find the numbers funny?

Of course catalysator in the exhaust is not the only change BMW made to 535 for it to lose 34hp. It has different ECU, compression ratio is somewhere around 8:1 (218hp version 10:1) and exhaust-manifolds & pipes are smaller.


Btw, you don't need to hammer firewall to make M30 fit with 535 radiator..

[De //m3]

Yeah the cat is good for aout -10 HP, The compression makes a at least another -10 HP, and then the ECU adds some - HP as well