New name and and new engine for Mina: an e30 for the GF

[Andy.B]

After moving, getting settled in a new garage, starting a new job, and having a ridiculous snow storm, I finally made some progress!

I'll let the pictures do the talking:

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Is this thing running yet? No updates = no bueno

[BLACKCHARM88]

You are a lucky man, marry her. lol

[RustyRuss]

Great thread, enjoying reading through it - its a great looking car :-) Hope you and your girlfriend enjoy it :-)

[Andy.B]

Something finally arrived yesterday!



I'm moving in two weeks, so I am going to good off on any progress until after the move, since right now the car is drivable (in spite of the rod knock). I'll finish prepping the engine, then do the swap one the move is completed.

The plus is that the new place has a roomy two car garage, which will give me plenty more space than the current one car garage with no breathing room.

[Andy.B]

Just got word from qbang, thankfully. He is in the process of moving, and will have the mounts sent out soon. I can breath a sigh of relief, and just wait for everything to show up in the mail.

[Andy.B]

I finished replacing all of the basic seals on the m30, along with the full gambit of tune up items (spark plugs, cap/rotor, thermostat, etc) while waiting for the oil pan and engine mounts to arrive so I can drop it in the e30. I have had more trouble getting parts for this project than any other project I have pursued. The first guy I bought an oil pan from was unable to get the pan off the engine for some reason (?!?) so he refunded my money. I appreciate his honesty and cooperation, but I'm annoyed that the deal fell through and I am now going to be waiting longer. A pan from another seller went in the mail today, thankfully.

Although honestly, I'm not sure it matters, as I still don't have engine mounts, and I'm not sure when I will. I contacted qbang about getting a set of m30b34 mounts, and he informed me he would need to fab up a set, as he had just sold his last pair, but it would be in the mail in a few days. That worked for me, so I sent him a payment. 2 weeks later, I have heard nothing. I have emailed him a week ago, early in the week, and again today, but have yet to hear a peep back. I'm sure he isn't swindling me, but the lack of communication is certainly frustrating.

I'm going to give it a few more days before I file a claim. Even if he had some life event that is keeping him from getting back to me, then he certainly isn't going to be fabbing up engine mounts... I can't wait forever on faith. Especially since I am 99% certain that my b34 block has provisions for all 3 engine mount types (early/late b34 and b35):



I ran a tap through the unused mounting holes this evening, including what I believe are the m30b35 mount position holes. If I can't get anywhere with qbang, I will buy the garagistic b35 mounts and use those. I figure the worst that can happen with the b35 mounts is I have a driver side mount that works, and a passenger side mount I need to modify.

Either way, it seems like the mounts themselves are going to be the holdup for getting the actual engine swap underway. Hopefully I have something sorted out by the end of the week.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

You did what i should have done but was to lazy to do for my 1.3 swap. I just bought a b35 manifold the ports are bigger on the b35 but it effects nothing so whatever haha

[Ether-D]

It needs to be noted what driveshaft combos are out there. If you started a thread with all of the combos and their lengths, people could stick their random ones together and report their findings. We'd have a fairly complete list of available shaft lengths. I'd vote for sticky. That could be very useful.

Keep up the good work!

[Andy.B]

Top: e30/e30
Middle: e28 front/e30 rear
Bottom: auto e30 front/e28 rear



The shaft that comes closest to the ideal length will have the CSB about 2.5 inches too far forward. The pedestal that the CSB mounts to give you some adjustment, but not 2.5 inches worth. However, while I can't cut and weld up a usable driveshaft at home, I can cut and weld up a bracket to mount the offset CSB. I'm thinking of using this same basic approach, but welding in some cross bracing, and throwing it through the powder coater/oven to make it a little more presentable.



I'm going to hold out hope that I can mount the engine forward enough to at least squeeze the e28 front/e30 rear shaft combo in, but if not, I'll just fabricate a bracket for the auto front/e28 rear csb out of metal from the scrap metal pile and see how that works out. If I have a vibration issue at normal driving speed, I'll bite the bullet and pay to have the 87 eta large flange driveshaft that's in the car shortened and balanced.

[Andy.B]

While I'm waiting for the engine mounts and e34 oil pan to arrive in the mail, I've been working on getting other areas sorted out for the m30 swap. I threw new plugs in today that arrived in the mail, as well as removed, cleaned, lubricated, and re assembled all the shift linkage. I know I'll have to cut and weld it, but I figured I might as well get it all clean so I'm not working on grimy parts. I also sorted out the parts that are getting swapped (e28 radiator, 3.25 diff, etc), from the parts that aren't getting swapped (motronic 1.0 harness, sensors, etc) and cleaned the garage, so when it comes time to actually swap the motors I'm not tripping over extra parts everywhere.

I then focused on the driveshaft. I know the g265 is longer than the g260, and from what I've seen in other builds, shortening the driveshaft is mandatory for the g265, regardless of engine mount position. Between an extra 325i small flange driveshaft, 325 auto driveshaft, and the e28 driveshaft I pulled out, I have an assortment of different length driveshaft sections. I decided to measure each shaft section (from flange to the center of the u-joint):

e30 manual front: 22.5
e30 auto front: 16.5
e28 g265 front: 21.25

e30 rear: 29.5
e28 g265 rear: 32


I noticed that while the 325i auto driveshaft is 4 inches shorter, that difference is all in the front half, while the rear half is the same. Meanwhile, the e28 front is in between the length of the e30 auto and manual shaft, with a rear section that is longer than e30 rear section. This means I have 3 different front shaft lengths, and 2 rear shaft lengths to mix and match, as well as the splines that allow for about 2.5" of adjustment while still maintaining adequate spline engagement.

I swapped the shaft sections between the auto and manual, which gave me two different lengths, both shorter than the standard e30 manual driveshaft.

The stock e30 shaft is about 57 inches (+/- about 1 inch).

With the e28 front shaft matched to the e30 rear shaft, it measured out to 56 inches(+/- about 1 inch), which is only 1'' shorter than the e30 shaft. Every account I've seen needed to remove a hair over 2 inches, however, so I suspect this will still be too long to squeeze in between the g265 and the diff.

The other pair was the auto 325 front half and the e28 rear half, which game me a 53.5 inch length (+/1) one inch. This means I can safely stretch it to about 54.5 inches (and probably a little longer), which puts me within 2.5 inches of the stock e30 shaft, which sounds perfect! However, there is a problem with this combination... can you guess what it is?

[Andy.B]

I'm still unsure of exactly how I'll handle the exhaust. My goal is to make it as easy as possible, which will probably mean using the e28 downpipes and grafting them to the e30 cat assembly. Hopefully they clear everything without having to cut and re route it multiple places.

[Andy.B]

The last step for the day was figuring out the air intake. I don't love the look of the e28 intake (and the fact that it requires relocating the washer fluid bottle. Also, since it relies on a mount on the e28 strut tower, it would have been an extra struggle grafting in the appropriate rubber mount in the e30. Instead, I decided to piece an intake together, and use one of the spare K&N intakes I have laying around.

First up was to modify the e28 afm bracket. I moved both rubber bumpers in underneath the afm, and cut down the bracket to the size of the afm (leaving one of the screw attachment tabs to allow a more rigid mount to be added):













For the air filter/intake itself, I followed some e28 owners lead, and bought an Acura Integra air intake tube that has the appropriate bends/size for use in the e28, for $33 on ebay, with the intention of tossing the filter that comes in the kit, using a K&N filter I already have, and mocking up a heat shield to block out heat from the exhaust:

(Picture credit to Brad D. on mye28.com)


It may be a little too long to be a perfect fit in the e30 engine bay, but that can be easily remedied by cutting it a few inches shorter. I'm crossing my fingers that I will be able to fit the filter up between the radiator, headlights, and washer fluid bottle. If I end up having to relocate the washer fluid, then I'll deal with that problem in the future.

[Andy.B]

To enable the use of the motronic 1.3 harness and 179 dme, I need to add a crank sensor and m30b35 harmonic balancer to the front of the crank. I have a used harmonic balancer coming from a r3v member, but in the meantime I installed a new cps bracket and an extra cps sensor I had laying around:



I also wanted to keep the stock ignition coil mounting position, so I retained the m30b34 spark plug wires, but swapped in an e30 coil wire to give me the extra length needed:



I'm missing the pulse generator used on the m30b35/motronic 1.3 spark plug wires, but it will work to get the car running. I have some extra e30 #6 leads with pulse generator's, but I haven't bothered checking to see if the length will make the stretch of the m30.

[Andy.B]

While I'm waiting on the important parts for the swap to show up, like the q-bang engine mounts and e34 oil pan/pickup, I've been taking care of the little things on the engine to get it ready to swap into Mina.

First up was the first of several boxes of goodies from Blunt:



New seals, gaskets, and hoses to make sure I don't have any air leaks in, or fluid leaks out of the motors!

As I started to re assemble things, I decided to sort out 2 issues of the swap. The first up is that the m30b34 Motronic 1.0 system has too many vacuum lines that wouldn't be used with the Motronic 1.3 system. Second is the lack of any provisions for a vacuum brake booster line, since the donor e28 had the hydraulic system.

The original vacuum layout (Credit to Gary K for the drawing, and the bavauto blog for hosting):



The first thing to go is the complicated evap valve system that relies on engine temp and vacuum to operate the valve. I plugged the hole in intake boot with a cut down diagnostic crank sensor used in the old Motronic 1.0 system. The black plastic sensor was the perfect diameter for a snug fit in the boot:



Which left me with an unused vacuum port on the bottom of the manifold. While the manifold is aluminum, the fitting itself it just a steel tub pressed in. I cut it down nearly flush with the manifold, and hit it with a mig welder to weld the hole shut. It's not the prettiest solution, but I think it's a more permanent solution than JB weld would have been:



Next up was the brake booster vacuum port. Fortunately, the m30b34 has a nice boss on the manifold that isn't drilled out that will work perfectly:

A quick tap with a punch and hammer to make an indent to guide the drill:



And a few increasingly large holes, an elbow pulled out of an m20b25 throttle body, and a few missing pictures later:



And we have a pretty stock looking vacuum line for the brake booster!

Another issue that I am too cheap to fully remedy is the use of a cold start valve on the m30b34 that is unnecessary with the Motronic 1.3 system. I thought about taking the manifold to someone to just tig weld the holes shut, and buy an m30b35 manifold that doesn't have the second fitting for the fuel line, but decided to save money and time, and just leave the cold start valve in place, unplugged and unused, and leave the fuel line in place to seal the port in the fuel rail.



So here is the result of the simplified intake/vacuum system: