M42 from E36 into E30

[jrobie79]

I have an e36 m42 in my car. Earlier model, everything hooked right up except the e30 harness has no provisions for the knock sensors, so I just cut the wires short and capped em off. I put my e30 upper/lower oil pans and the intake manifold on.

edit, the early e36 m42s have the v-belt system, so that wasn't an issue with mine

[Gloff]

Thank you for the answer.

E36 M42s have the same crank sensor as the E30 version though don't they? I guess that's neither here nor there, as my everything is currently on the old engine.

What about the accessories systems, can I keep the serpentine style system?

[roguetoaster]

Technically, you can drop in any M42/44 as long as you have a workable bracket for the OBD1 crank sensor and swap accessories, including the intake, as required. That said, I can't immediately recall if the M44 cam sensor will work if plugged in to an E30 harness, but if it does that's a viable option.

But certainly an OBD1 M42 from an E36 should be good to go.

Apocryphal, but I remember reading somewhere that the E30 M42 management has a provision for knock detection, so if you wanted to explore that it would be awesome.

[Gloff]

My E30 318i is eating coolant, I replaced the head gasket, but it's still eating coolant even after machining the head, I've decided to swap the motor, but tracking down an M42 from an E30 is proving difficult. I've read a few threads that say you can drop an early OBD1 E36/ti M42 in by swapping the oil pan and intake over from my E30.

Two questions:

• Assuming an OBD1 motor, is this swap as easy as swapping the pan, intake, and leaving the knock sensors unplugged?
• There are a few belt systems on the E36 version, the one I'm looking at is the serpentine style, can I leave that on or do all the accessories from my E30 need to be swapped?