my 88 m60b40 build

[sallie30]

hello all of rev my name is aaron i am a fairly new member but have been into e30s for a couple of years now. Everyone who owns one will say its an amazing vehicle in so many ways, my first time driving my friends 89 325is i fell in love instantly and needed to get one. That same friend found this 87 325e on craigslist for a grand already m50 swapped so i called the guy up and drove all the way to maine to grab this thing before it sold, im sure it would have gone fast! After an eight hour drive i got there and learned the motor was out of his buddies e36 theat he had just replaced due to a front end collision. His friend i guess wanted to swap something else into the e36 so he sold the motor to this guy that i bought it from. The e30 was in fairly good condition and drove so i bought it i mean why not e30 with an m50 low miles for only a grand thats a steal. trailered this thing home and the next day started going through it interior was rough after cleaning cracked dash, rusted rockers, rusted in a few other places underneath, not like i didnt expect it it did come from maine.







I started repairing the rust replaced the floors and started thinking maybe i could just find another shell so i post on craigs a wtb mint shell and found this in new hampshire no rust at all only a few dings and dents but nothing serious also for the price of 800 bucks i wanted this thing. This is my present e30 88 325is






I went through the 87 and took everything worth taking then junked the car now that i look back on it i should made it into a drift car or something but whatever that headache is gone. I took the motor and trans and put in into this e30 and i loved it and still do. one day i was in some traffic and it was extremely hot outside so my car over heated and blew the head gasket :(. So out the motor came again i tore it down just to check everything over then put it all back together with all new gaskets and apr head studs and bolts. Heres a few pictures of the teardown.





nothing too exciting this is not about th m50. Anyway i cleaned the bay and painted it black and buttoned everything back up. this is where i am today.




So yes i do live in New hampshire so dont make too much fun of where im working on my car at the moment its pretty ghetto until i can use a garage but for now im just cleaning up the car and prepairing it for paint and getting the m60 ready and cleaned up. Heres the motor







Sorry about the long story thought some of you may be interested in it now thats all over with i will start with this m60 build. i bought this motor out of a 96 540i i also snagged the booster set up which was a nice piece to get. The motor has 153000 on it so im debating on wether or not to get it rebuilt but ill wait until i tear some of it down before i decide. i have only started cleaning the remote booster set up so far, ive only had a little time to work on this because of holidays and work but it will now start this week so nothing too interesting yet but i have all day thursday to work on this so i will update this thursday night on my progress.

[iamsam]

First of all, how do you find two sweet deals on E30s in a row?

Second, there is no such thing as a '96 540i.

Third, check if your M60 is Alusil. If you have no idea what I am talking about, Google will tell you in a hurry.

[sallie30]

damn already started this thread bad hahahahahah sorry it was out of a 95 thank you for clearing that up. i have read before that the motor was Nikasil which is not very good from what i have read but ill have to do a compression test to see the specs. for your first comment im not to sure i guess i just got lucky hahaha both cars were really good deals but the 88 was an awesome deal the car is so clean all around. ill keep you posted my progress tomorrow.

[Vtec?lol]

Awesome stuff man.
All 95's had alusil engines however, when some folks blew the engine they would swap it with whatever engine they could find. Which means there's a chance they put a nikasil block in there.
From my experience, the alusil engines had a crass-hatch pattern on the back of the heads while the nikasil engines were flat. That could also be a variable because later heads could've been swapped on lol.
Just google the number you find on the block and you'll find out.

Also, I recomend you buy Franks swap writeup. It'll tell you exactly what block is what.

[slammin.e28]

Wiki has the block numbers. I think even Jean posted them somewhere. Not hard to find.

[iamsam]

since when do all '95s have Alusil engines??

[slammin.e28]

Nikisil is pretty moot anyways.

http://www.meeknet.co.uk/e32/Nikasil.htm

In 2012 the Nikasil issue is over 20 years old. The Nikasil problem has really been and gone. The fuel available in the UK is low in Sulphur and any V8 that was affected (and there were very few genuine cases) are either sporting replacement engines or being recycled. Once the Nikasil-impregnated bores were compromised they very rapidly deteriorated to a point where they were un-driveable and un-saleable.

[The Dark Side of Will]

US has low sulphur fuel now also... a Nikasil engine *should* be safe if it hasn't started haveing problems yet.

[iamsam]

well the benefit of an Alusil engine is that you know it has 50-100k less miles on it than the car does, which is always a plus.

[Vtec?lol]

since when do all '95s have Alusil engines??

Wiki has that answer

[sallie30]

yeah im going to grab the block number today i ended up not having the day off yesterday but i do today so ill get some work done today ill let you all know whats going on later tonight

[vert_this]

yeah if u have a bad block number I wouldn't even bother doing a compression test or using it for the swap as it will only be a matter of time before it lets go. IMO

[iamsam]

yeah if u have a bad block number I wouldn't even bother doing a compression test or using it for the swap as it will only be a matter of time before it lets go. IMO

what? didn't we just establish that this explicitly is not the case? If Nikasil has good comp and leakdown numbers now, there is zero reason it will get worse later.

[vert_this]

what? didn't we just establish that this explicitly is not the case? If Nikasil has good comp and leakdown numbers now, there is zero reason it will get worse later.

I bought a e38 740 from the bad block years and my buddy which runs a huge independent gave me some block numbers that he said if they are those, RUN cause even if it runs good then its highly likely it will not last long. I was lucky though even though the seller knew nothing about the first owner swapping the engine I was able to determine at 50k BMW authorized a replacement on the bad engine. So this is why I wouldn't bother if his is within the bad numbers. My friend says even if its ok now things could change as it gets ran on bad fuel or at least fuel its wasn't actually designed to run on. I looked for my papers on the block numbers but couldn't locate. I would assume you could locate through Google. You can obviously do what you want its just my opinion that was established by a well trusted technician.

[iamsam]

I bought a e38 740 from the bad block years and my buddy which runs a huge independent gave me some block numbers that he said if they are those, RUN cause even if it runs good then its highly likely it will not last long. I was lucky though even though the seller knew nothing about the first owner swapping the engine I was able to determine at 50k BMW authorized a replacement on the bad engine. So this is why I wouldn't bother if his is within the bad numbers. My friend says even if its ok now things could change as it gets ran on bad fuel or at least fuel its wasn't actually designed to run on. I looked for my papers on the block numbers but couldn't locate. I would assume you could locate through Google. You can obviously do what you want its just my opinion that was established by a well trusted technician.

E38s all came with Alusil.

Also you can tell your buddy that there are plenty of people w/ Nikasil blocks w/ over 200k on them that run great, and that nowhere in the US do they still sell high sulfur fuel which deteriorates Nikasil.