I can't say for sure since I haven't driven a 318i E30. I've drove an E36 318i before though and it seemed peppy. I've always been interested in getting an E30 318is. The M42 is no doubt more modern than the rather archaic M20, has a timing chain, and achieves better MPG. The only downside I can see is lack of power, but that can be remedied in various ways.
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The e30 chassis / brakes are easily able to take more power than the M20 produced. It is one of the best handling chassis of the era after all ;)
The M20 wasn't exactly archaic at the time - if you read up on the development of the M50, BMW loved their single cam heads so much that they made prototypes of a single cam M50 that was essentially an alloy block M20, which would have been awesome.
It was the marketing guys that wanted 24 valves, to compete with Mercedes.Last edited by lukeADE335i; 01-23-2019, 02:13 PM.Comment
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That's really interesting. I didn't know about the single cam M50. According to this article the M50 evolved from the prototype 4 valve M22 engine. It was archaic at the time in late production after they had already began fitting the M50 to other models. Archaic isn't always a bad thing though. I thought M50s were all iron block (I know non-US and certain US M52s are alloy block.)Comment
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Have a drive of both before buying, and see which one you like. M42 would be fine i think. enough power to put around with the top down. In Australia our 318i cars came with the m40. I drove one once and it was highly uninspiring.Comment
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