M60B44, are the M60 heads worth it???

[_JohnnyD_]

When I built my M60 E30 I purposely bought a cheap running M60 just to see if I could even build the car. I've had the car running for a year and now its getting time to build a motor for the car. The M60 has 320000kms on it and it needs some $$$ invested in it.

My parts guy has a minty fresh 97 540 with a M62B44 that he is parting and it looks like the perfect motor for my E30. It has 120000kms and 15 years (since 99) worth of BMW stealership oil change stamps in the log book.

The plan is to turn the M62 into an OBD1 motor with the parts off my M60.

My question is...

Is it really worth it to tear apart a very clean M62, to put some M60 heads on it? Assuming the heads (including value train) on my M60 are still good, I think it will cost me an extra $350 over leaving the M62 block and heads together.

[blck325is]

Totally worth it, go through some of the m60b44 threads on here. It's quite doable.

[zogs]

have anybody made some dynos with this engine? I have searched all these topics, nobody hasn't made, so maybe it is not worth it

[The Dark Side of Will]

How on earth would increasing displacement and compression 10% relative to an M60 *NOT* be worth it?

[_JohnnyD_]

have anybody made some dynos with this engine? I have searched all these topics, nobody hasn't made, so maybe it is not worth it

That is what was I thinking. There are no dyno charts for a M60B44 and no dyno charts for a OBD1 M62B44.

Has some one CC'd M60 heads and a B44 block with pistons to calculate a compression ratio for a M60B44. If the M60B44 compression ratio was well known then you could use a M62B44 dyno chart (it would be OBD2) and calculate a theoretical dyno chart based on increasing the compression ratio. This would not take into account any difference in the valves and cams of the M60 vs M62 heads.

How on earth would increasing displacement and compression 10% relative to an M60 *NOT* be worth it?

If you've ever rebuilt an engine you'd know how quickly a simple rebuild with new gaskets can snow ball into big $$$ in parts and machine shop work.
Today I have a perfectly good M62 and a tired old M60. Best case scenario this costs me head gaskets, head bolts and labor of a engine shop to inspect my M60 heads. Worst case scenario my M60 heads or valve train are f'd and I'm in thousands in parts and labor to rebuild/replace them.

For what??? 10% compression ratio increase??? Are you sure??? There would be a very slight displacement decrease if the compression is increasing.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I have built engines before.
The potential cost is why controlling scope creep and picking a good engine to start with are so important.

If you select a B44 with good compression to begin with, then the minimum you may need is two head gasket sets.
However, I'd want to tear the B44 down, clean it (for example, carbon deposits on the rings) and put it back together with new gaskets. If it starts with good compression, then there's no need for hone, rings, etc.

If your M60 heads have worn out valve guides, that will obviously add to the costs.

For what??? 10% compression ratio increase??? Are you sure??? There would be a very slight displacement decrease if the compression is increasing.

Not sure what you mean by this. Putting 4.4 liters of displacement under the same chambers will give you 10% more compression than 4.0.

Not sure how you're missing it, but it's NOT a "slight" increase in displacement. It's 10%. That's big. That's going from a 350 to a 383 in the Chevy world.

[_JohnnyD_]

Not sure what you mean by this. Putting 4.4 liters of displacement under the same chambers will give you 10% more compression than 4.0.

Not sure how you're missing it, but it's NOT a "slight" increase in displacement. It's 10%. That's big. That's going from a 350 to a 383 in the Chevy world.

I am starting with a M62B44 which has 4.4L of displacement. I'm asking if I should put my M60 heads on the B44 block. That would be a M60B44 which also has a displacement of 4.4L. That means no increase in displacement.


You can't compare Chevy 350 and 383 motors to BMW M60B40 and M62B44. The difference between a 350 and 383 is just stroke. (same bore, pistons and head) The difference between a M60B40 and M62B44 is bore, stroke, combustion chamber and piston.

The ONLY way to find the compression ratio of a M60B44 is to measure the volume of the combustion chamber and measure the volume of the piston at TDC and BDC in the cylinder and then calculate the compression ratio. That is why I don't believe a 10% increase in compression ratio.

[JGood]

You're question can't be answered yet, nobody put one on a dyno yet. There's only like 4 of us that have built them, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one driving the car regularly, racking up miles. And I only have about 2000 miles on mine since I fired it up in April. I've contacted my local shop with a dyno, but I think they're too busy to get me in. As soon as I find a dyno that can do a few pulls for a reasonable price with my stock DME and with the Mark D m60 DME, I'll do it. But until someone does a custom tune, we won't really know the power potential.

I went from an m60b40 to an m60b44. I had the m60 in for 15k miles. I can tell you the new engine makes more power from idle to redline, most noticeably in the lower RPM's. It was 100% worth it to me.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I am starting with a M62B44 which has 4.4L of displacement. I'm asking if I should put my M60 heads on the B44 block. That would be a M60B44 which also has a displacement of 4.4L. That means no increase in displacement.

You can't compare Chevy 350 and 383 motors to BMW M60B40 and M62B44. The difference between a 350 and 383 is just stroke. (same bore, pistons and head) The difference between a M60B40 and M62B44 is bore, stroke, combustion chamber and piston.

The ONLY way to find the compression ratio of a M60B44 is to measure the volume of the combustion chamber and measure the volume of the piston at TDC and BDC in the cylinder and then calculate the compression ratio. That is why I don't believe a 10% increase in compression ratio.

From your original post, I inferred that you'd already done the M60 swap... hence my approach.

You can know a lot about compression ratio without actually calculating it.
Start with M60 compression ratio. Add 10% displacement -> compression goes up 10%.
IIRC, M60 pistons have valve reliefs, M62's do not... so compression's going to go up a little bit more than 10%.
Do I know if it's 11.1 or 11.2? No... do I know it's more than 10.9? Yes. Do I know it's less than 11.5? Probably. I'm running 11.5 on pump gas with stock cams in my Northstar right now, so an M60B44--which has better chambers than the northstar-- will certainly be able to run 11.5 on pump gas.

[JGood]

From your original post, I inferred that you'd already done the M60 swap... hence my approach.

You can know a lot about compression ratio without actually calculating it.
Start with M60 compression ratio. Add 10% displacement -> compression goes up 10%.
IIRC, M60 pistons have valve reliefs, M62's do not... so compression's going to go up a little bit more than 10%.
Do I know if it's 11.1 or 11.2? No... do I know it's more than 10.9? Yes. Do I know it's less than 11.5? Probably. I'm running 11.5 on pump gas with stock cams in my Northstar right now, so an M60B44--which has better chambers than the northstar-- will certainly be able to run 11.5 on pump gas.

m60b40 does not have valve reliefs.
m62b44 does not have valve reliefs.
m62TUb44 does have valve reliefs.

My estimate for my m60b44 came out to 10.81:1, but I didn't CC the heads. With the common info available on both engines, you can get pretty close.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=4021728&postcount=58

[The Dark Side of Will]

m60b40 does not have valve reliefs.
m62b44 does not have valve reliefs.
m62TUb44 does have valve reliefs.

My estimate for my m60b44 came out to 10.81:1, but I didn't CC the heads. With the common info available on both engines, you can get pretty close.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/show...8&postcount=58

Oops... slipped my mind that the NV M62's don't have valve reliefs, while the VANOS engines do.

Flat top to flat top makes the compression ratio calculation very easy, as it removes essentially the only variable (piston dish/valve relief volume).

[zogs]

I was reading this all last season and thinking to build m60b44, because I had both engine, but the becouse of no dyno tests and less info I decided to drive with m60b40, but now i will build hybrid.
So the main question is about pistons, wich ones ar the best, vanos or non vanos( with reliefs or not) I am askong becouse I have both of them, and also i am planing turbo in future, and how I know that, for turbo shouldnt be big compression ratio

2. question. Does m62b44 camshafts fits on m62tub44 head?

[_JohnnyD_]

I don't think a M60b44 is a good choice for a turbo setup. It will be very hard to control knock and combustion temperature with a 10.8:1 compression ratio.
You might be better off to turbo your stock M60b40 or M62b44. Both have a 10:1 compression ratio. You could even add a thicker head gasket to the M62 to lower the compression ratio even lower.


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[zogs]

I was thinking maybe to put pistons with valve reliefs thicker gasket, that would lower the ratio
And I will put vems., there will not be stock management