To swap or to turbo?

[whitebulat22]

Howdy r3v, first post happy to see other e30 people. I just picked up an 86 325es and after I marry it I want it to make about 300 whp. It has an M20B27 right now of course and it runs well enough that I wouldn't mind keeping it. I've narrowed my options to-

S54 swap
Turbo
NA m20 beast

I prefer NA over turbo builds, but building a NA M20 seems like almost as much trouble and price as getting a sub 100k S54. I realize I could turbo the m20 and make the power with the fuel economy relatively well retained but it's just not my style. S54 is my favorite engine and I am in the living at home while going to school and working situation where a project gone wrong won't kill me. Should I go for it?

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Howdy r3v, first post happy to see other e30 people. I just picked up an 86 325es and after I marry it I want it to make about 300 whp. It has an M20B27 right now of course and it runs well enough that I wouldn't mind keeping it. I've narrowed my options to-

S54 swap
Turbo
NA m20 beast

I prefer NA over turbo builds, but building a NA M20 seems like almost as much trouble and price as getting a sub 100k S54. I realize I could turbo the m20 and make the power with the fuel economy relatively well retained but it's just not my style. S54 is my favorite engine and I am in the living at home while going to school and working situation where a project gone wrong won't kill me. Should I go for it?

I say s54.

[red baron]

turbo'd s54

[einhander]

M62

[TheTacoMan]

M44.

:d

[mrcheezle19]

twin turbo LS7... Did I go too far?

[cferb]

Do you know what's involved with an s54 swap? It's gonna cost you a lot more than the other two.

[jaywood]

LSx swap

[hammrdwn510]

/thread

[JinormusJ]

Howdy r3v, first post happy to see other e30 people. I just picked up an 86 325es and after I marry it I want it to make about 300 whp. It has an M20B27 right now of course and it runs well enough that I wouldn't mind keeping it. I've narrowed my options to-

S54 swap
Turbo
NA m20 beast

I prefer NA over turbo builds, but building a NA M20 seems like almost as much trouble and price as getting a sub 100k S54. I realize I could turbo the m20 and make the power with the fuel economy relatively well retained but it's just not my style. S54 is my favorite engine and I am in the living at home while going to school and working situation where a project gone wrong won't kill me. Should I go for it?

Turbos suck
S54 is heavy

Built m20 has my money. Something about the sheer simplicity of the m20 platform just hits all the right buttons. You won't hit 300whp, but there are builds that push the extremes to breaking points and get pretty close. I think the biggest plus being maintanence is easy; parts are plentiful (and CHEAP!), no BARing or smog hoops to jump through. Plus, it stays classy and period correct; OEM+ engine bay. Imagine people's reactions as you rip right past their s52 e30s and e36s in what they think is a stock m20

Makes more sense in CA than other places, especially with this BS that Cali is putting out called the STAR system



Trust man, when I got into the e30 game, I researched all the swaps, all the turbo setups, and my research all pointed me back to the m20

[ak-]

I suck

[moreoff]

i'm doing an s50b30us swap because i got a good deal on it and ive never been a fan of turbo cars

[whitebulat22]

Pleased ya'll came out to respond... I've been digging around and as one said the S54 swap seems like more chore than I want. I only got one quality night doing activities with my M20 the first day I bought it before things besides it got sick, but it was dreamy.
Keeping it smog legal and doing the I-head swap is what I think my first steps are, would I be able to get more like 200-250 whp NA out of things like cams / porting / stroking etc. without spending too many thousands and pushing it too much?

[nando]

no. you'll have to spend several thousand dollars to get an M20 to put out 250whp realistically. People add up the cost of parts but forget the cost of headwork and tuning. you could easily spend $1k on the engine management without even touching a dyno. and in CA if you want to stay smog legal that's not even an option, so you're stuck with the stock DME which can be a bit limiting, not to mention the cam required for 250whp will almost certainly not pass smog anyway.

You won't be smoking any S52 swapped E30s with a budget built franken-M20 and if you do build an M20 that can do that it won't be cheap and it won't be easy to pass a smog test.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

M30 swap....