Which engine would you get?

[Stu]

Yea, 54's are out of the question.

[bmw_e30]

Yes, Bobby does good work. Very good guy. We do a LOT of business with him.

'95 M3 retainers are incredibly weak, and there have been many cases of the valve springs sinking into them, or them cracking completely. If he does a rebuild, he is probably using 3.2L retainers, because I think the part number was actually superceded (sp?).

Yeah. The stronger nitrate hardened retainers are the only ones you can buy now. M3's made after 10/95 have them though, this includes some very late built 95 M3's.

But it really is not an issue if you have the "softer" pre-10/95 retainers unless you track the caR heavily or do a mis-shift/money rev. Even then, I have yet to see of anyone damaging their M3 engines here in Socal from tracking it with the softer retainers.

But if you are opening up the engine: ie: cams or rebuild, then you might as well do them.

[gstuning]

Well

If you live in the US, I reccomend the US motors, lot more available and upgrades are easy to find,

I love my S50B30 Euro, It is a real M motor and thus all the parts are very expsensive
try a spark plug at the dealer for $40, and $15 a piece in germany
and the plug is not used in any other motor in the world,

242lbs@4000 is excellent for me,
244rwhp is also extra nice, and it´s still stock,




This is the torque graph, It looks plenty good to me,
It´s got 140KW(E36 325i and 328i figures) at 4000rpm,

S50B30 Euro´s
Variable Vanos from 80-120 degrees overlap, wich is the reason for any low end torque,

Also they are the heaviest S50/M50 variant, weighing more then a M5 motor, stripped, at 144kg or about,

Everything is race ready basically,
Getting more power after install is a picee, running 320-340hp is not all that difficult, I plan 360hp all motor,

Brake booster, is the evil problem here, and basically the only real problem with the install, I am reasearching a remote boost but haven´t found one yet,
Also the headers need to be moded a little,
Wiring into my 325i Cabrio ´87 was a piece of cake,
Wiring into my 325is US ´89 was just as easy,

I am happy with my 3.0 instead of a 3.2 as when I was buying this back in ´99 almost no information where about the OBDII and EWS,

I say, 3.0 US motor is the easiest to do, just as easy as a 2.5 M50 basically,

[RobS]

S52..no turbo's, they wear on your engine..:)