S52 Brilliantrot 318is from Australia

[jsta1109]

Slack as always, no updates for a while but motivation to work on this car has kicked in again.

There have been a few changes since I lasted posted. I sold my HSV and purchased a dog and a Honda Civic. (Please excuse the poor quality images)



I purchased the Honda from the original owner of 22 years, unfortunately for them and for me it had been overheated and now pouring coolant out the exhaust. It looks like the radiator cap had failed to release pressure, bursting a coolant hose and loosing all the coolant.



I pulled the engine and sourced a good donor from a wreckers.



Put it back together and it has been my daily since.



I've done the rear disc swap, found some budget wheels, swapped a DC5R wheel that I retrimmed and found an $80 Recaro.



To make up for the Honda content and poor quality images, I have a few more photos from a track day last year.





Since the last update the E30 has sat unused. It has been neglected and I really didn't have the motivation to work on it and or use it. I'll blame it on the process of building a house. Now the house build is underway my motivation has returned. I would like to swap the S52/ZF in and get the car in a good working state before moving into the new house. I assume my focus will shift to getting settled and the car will have to be parked for some time.

As it stands now I've swapped the 3.73 open diff for my 2.93 LSD, took it for a test drive with the Getrag 240 and while the gearing was really poor the lockup was great. I've now pulled the Getrag 240 and stripped the accessories off the M52.





I pulled my existing harness off the M52, it was poorly done when I first swapped the engine. The new harness has been converted using new pins and good quality crimp tools. I also really rate the de-pin tool from Falk MFG.





I'm not quite finished with it yet, I'm planning to add an OBD2 port and wire in a relay to have a functioning AC idle bump. I am putting this harness together without using solder or low quality wire. Prior to pulling everything apart I flashed MS41.2 and copied my existing maps over as well, when I do put the S52 in I should only have to do a partial flash of a factory US M3 map.



This is the old harness, hard to see but lots of cloth tape hiding a lot of dodgy work.



This is where I am at, taking my time this time around. I plan on pulling the engine and dropping the S52 in shortly. I have also recently acquired a AC/DC Tig welder. I have some new to me factory headers and plan on putting together a new stainless exhaust, dual 2 inch. I haven't done any TIG welding before but I'll see how I go. Worst case I have an exhaust that works.



I also noted that last time I used the car, the AC was weak. It looks like I have a small leak, I think it is coming from the low pressure fill port. I also recall needing an alignment after the motorkhana day, I think I might have dropped the wheel onto the grass a few times. I would also like to address the undercoating job I did when I did my rust repair, I now have a better compressor and spray equipment, spraying an aerosol upside down doesn't work very well and I am a bit disappointed with the end result.

[jsta1109]

Finally decided to swap the engines over as I had a long weekend. Engine out.



M52 (Euro/Alloy) and S52 windage trays are apparently different, so I did have to make a new bracket off the S52 tray. I haven't touched the welder for a while and initially the settings were too low, eventually got it and I don't think it is going anywhere.

Welded the oil pump nut, once again not pretty but should hold okay.


Cut the water pump nut off, much easier off the car.



Double checked timing and prepped for valve cover gasket. I rebuilt the vanos unit a while back.

Quick mock up to motivate me.


Decided to redo the low pressure line as the previous setup was rubbing the sump, much easier to do this when the engine is out of the car. I found an old banjo fitting that was the right size, cut off the throttle body heater barb (and welded shut as I won't use this), and welded it onto the banjo. Very happy with this weld, I could see decent penetration and tested it off the car and it didn't appear to leak.

Previous setup was just a straight banjo to AN fitting with a barb. It was hard against the rack and sump/block with this setup.

Previously I had zip-ties trying to hold lines in place and out of the way, purchased some p-clamps and got everything positioned much better. No more fouling or rubbing lines.

Really happy with how this turned out and with minimal time and effort too. Once the power steering reservoir and pump at bolted in position the lines don't touch the sway bar.


Rear main seal and valeo single mass kit installed. Hopefully the heavier flywheel will dampen noise compared to the previous setup. I had a 3.7kg flywheel with the Getrag 240 and with the clutch out it had some pretty serious rattle. It did sound like the car was broken.


And now the S52 is in its new home. Much easier this time around as I wasn't in a rush to get it back together.


This is where I finished for the weekend, another quick mock up to make it feel like a car again. Still plenty of things to do.


Not pictured is I removed the pedal box and rebuilt it with delrin bushings. I think grinding dust from the rust repair had accelerated wear on the original components causing some light binding and noise. Still waiting on the rubber grommets for the return springs to arrive before putting it back into the car. Speaking of pedals I also got a new throttle cable, these are cheap and I wasn't really happy with the old cable feel before. Finally, I left the Clio booster on the car, I do have a Mk1 Golf booster as well, I mocked this up to match the lengths of a standard E30 booster off the car. I may end up swapping this as the Clio booster is shorter at the clevis end and requires a ~20mm spacer in the master cylinder. The only downside to this is the golf booster is about 1.5" small in diameter but it is slightly deeper. So volume should be similar but may have a little less assist.

I still need to attach the gearbox and driveshaft, the driveshaft collar nut had disintegrated so I need a new one of those and while I wait I ordered a new CSB.

I also decided to remove the revshift 95a engine mounts and run the e28 rubber mounts, I really did like the fit of the revshift bushes and I would run them again but I would probably go for the 80a. The rubber bushings should be fine. I used the black cylindrical ones on both sides and a tip for new players is cut the threads down. If you ever need to replace them, very difficult to remove with the long threads.

[Northern]

I've always wanted to shorten the nub on the water pump, but was too worried it would leak. Hoping for a success story so I can do the same

[QuiqueUy]

Love the car and the updates! you going to keep the s52 intake or you going to put the m50 one?

in regard of the photo you uploaded with your temp almost at 3/4 . My car has the same problem , i just logged with my pc on the obd2 port and watched real temps and got into the conclusion that my pusher fan was kicking at 94 degrees , witch is not bad at all . A bit odd since i put the 80/88 temp switch , i also thought it was because my fan is not 100% touching rad , witch i changed now .. but everything is still the same haha.
Another conclusion i had about it , m20s or m10 (in my case) are way cooler than m5x , so the cluster of a 6 cyl has different margins for the temp . (at least is what i make myself believe so haha)

keep it up man !

[jsta1109]

I've always wanted to shorten the nub on the water pump, but was too worried it would leak. Hoping for a success story so I can do the same

I've done it before, on this particular pump I've cut only the threaded section off. If anything bad happens I'm sure you'll see it here.

Love the car and the updates! you going to keep the s52 intake or you going to put the m50 one?

in regard of the photo you uploaded with your temp almost at 3/4 . My car has the same problem , i just logged with my pc on the obd2 port and watched real temps and got into the conclusion that my pusher fan was kicking at 94 degrees , witch is not bad at all . A bit odd since i put the 80/88 temp switch , i also thought it was because my fan is not 100% touching rad , witch i changed now .. but everything is still the same haha.
Another conclusion i had about it , m20s or m10 (in my case) are way cooler than m5x , so the cluster of a 6 cyl has different margins for the temp . (at least is what i make myself believe so haha)

keep it up man !

At this point I'll run the S52 intake with most of the stock ccv setup and using the factory E30 charcoal canister. I wanted to do some logging and see what untuned vs tuned will do on the S52 intake and then swap over to the M50 intake and try the same. My previous M50 vacuum setup ditched the OBD2 ccv and if I was to use it again I want to try the conversion method were you cut and epoxy the OBD2 plate on the bottom. My previous attempts at a diy conversion always caused issues.

I am aware the M5x engines do run hotter, I actually moved my needle back to around the middle of 1/4 and 1/2 when the ecu saw about 83c. I think 3/4 on the gauge puts it at around 110c and it wasn't slowing down. In any case the fan that I used wasn't capable of keeping the AC and engine cool.

[jsta1109]

Currently waiting on parts so time to sort the wiring. I purchased a new to me M52 harness and trimmed the auto connector and wiring out of the loom, repined the C101 with a new connector and new pins.

I've left a few wires loose near the c101, a few of these are for the AC idle bump and wiring for the planned OBD2 connector now that I've flashed MS41.2. I may have to reroute these into the cabin near the battery tray. The big red power cable pictured in the last image I can remove.

One thing I've also noted is some harnesses (MS41 euro) come with a third relay near the battery tray, from what I've traced this is power to the coils and the trigger is the green ews wire from the ECU. In theory I should be able to remove this relay and battery connection and just connect the coils to a similar gauge switched source. Either that or keep the relay and connect the green ews wire at the C101 to the ignition wire which is what I've done in the past.

[QuiqueUy]

At this point I'll run the S52 intake with most of the stock ccv setup and using the factory E30 charcoal canister. I wanted to do some logging and see what untuned vs tuned will do on the S52 intake and then swap over to the M50 intake and try the same. My previous M50 vacuum setup ditched the OBD2 ccv and if I was to use it again I want to try the conversion method were you cut and epoxy the OBD2 plate on the bottom. My previous attempts at a diy conversion always caused issues.

I am aware the M5x engines do run hotter, I actually moved my needle back to around the middle of 1/4 and 1/2 when the ecu saw about 83c. I think 3/4 on the gauge puts it at around 110c and it wasn't slowing down. In any case the fan that I used wasn't capable of keeping the AC and engine cool.

Oh okay , yeah . Forgot about air sap and all that stuff that american market has . Tbh mine coming from a euro car (all our cars are euro here) they don't even have 02 sensors haha , still not sure how the ecu works .. but i can tell that with s52 cams and m50 manifold it for sure adapted really good !

About the temp , if you did that now yeah , you were quite hot ! i haven't done that so ik at 3/4 mark is like 95 degrees witch is not bad for the engine at all. I might do the needle thing in the future because i don't like it going all the way up there haha.

btw , i'm down for that s52 comparisons ! S2.93 will be really sweet gear ratio for that zf , i'm using a 3.64 atm .. i went from 40-200 at same speed as a friend m3 e46 hahaha . will change gears soon tho , so bad for road trips

[jsta1109]

Oh okay , yeah . Forgot about air sap and all that stuff that american market has . Tbh mine coming from a euro car (all our cars are euro here) they don't even have 02 sensors haha , still not sure how the ecu works .. but i can tell that with s52 cams and m50 manifold it for sure adapted really good !

About the temp , if you did that now yeah , you were quite hot ! i haven't done that so ik at 3/4 mark is like 95 degrees witch is not bad for the engine at all. I might do the needle thing in the future because i don't like it going all the way up there haha.

btw , i'm down for that s52 comparisons ! S2.93 will be really sweet gear ratio for that zf , i'm using a 3.64 atm .. i went from 40-200 at same speed as a friend m3 e46 hahaha . will change gears soon tho , so bad for road trips

I'll be running this as close to an Australian delivered 328i as I can, so basically no SAP and a very basic charcoal canister. S52 intake for now just means no adapters or aftermarket parts, less things to go wrong really. I want to drive this setup more, I often found myself not driving the previous setup as often as I'd like because I was constantly modifying / fixing things.

S2.93 should be really nice, my objective once again is to drive the car as much as possible, so road manners are really important to me. Getting an extra 10hp at the expense of driveability and streetability is something I'm not as keen on anymore. One of the reasons for switching back to rubber engine mounts over poly as well.

[jsta1109]

Not a big update but the parts I needed have arrived and I spent a bit of time refreshing the pedal box. All new delrin bushings for the pedals, I had to source a different brake pedal as the one in my car had a roller/needle bearing instead of a bushing. I purchased all the small rubber grommets that the return springs for the clutch and accelerator clip into. Lightly greased the metal pins and reassembled. Before throwing it back in the car I attached my new throttle cable and clutch fluid hose, then cut a new neoprene gasket out for the firewall.




Putting it back in the car wasn't fun, on a RHD car you need to feed the brake booster rod through some small gaps before you bolt it up. Took me quite a few hours getting it positioned right and bolted down properly. I planned on getting the transmission on after this but ultimately ran out of time.

[2mAn]

Is the booster still on the left side of the car?

[jsta1109]

Is the booster still on the left side of the car?

Yeah it is, as pictured there is a rod that runs from the brake pedal, behind the HVAC unit and to a second linkage on the passenger (left side) of the car. Not fun getting that through the small gap, avoiding the clutch master etc.

[ba114]

not a fun solution to change out, but still a very easy solution for adjusting brake pedal height to suit various brake booster setups.,

[jsta1109]

Sorry in advance for the lack of photos this time around. After fitting the pedal box I then switched out the brake booster, I went from a Clio booster to a Mk1 Golf booster. The clevis length matches a standard E30 booster and no need for a spacer for the master cylinder. I think it has made the brake pedal feel more positive but I won't really know until I drive the car.

I also fit the ZF, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, everything went together really quite easily even with limited space on jack stands. I also threw the driveshaft in with flipped E30 CSB.

Turned my attention to the engine bay, fit the new starter motor and addressed the wiring. The only additional thing I needed to wire under the manifold was the coolant temp sensor.

I decided to relocate the fuel filter to the rear, normally it sits up front with the charcoal canister for the European/Aus 318is. I did this because I am running the E30 charcoal canister, I can't see any reason not to and I ditched it previously and ended up with some fumes entering the cabin. Currently the fuel filter is just zip tied in place in the rear just so I could get the car running. Before I drive the car I will need a more secure bracket.

At this point I had most of what I needed together in order to start the engine, I had previously flashed MS41.2 onto my ECU with an M52 tune to suit, I quickly grabbed a stock S52 tune and removed ews and flashed it on.

I cycled the key a few times, tried to start it initially and it didn't seem like I had fuel/spark. Quickly realised I hadn't connected the 3rd relay over by the positive for the coils. I just quickly looped this around another connector and tried again and it fired to life. This was genuinely the second attempt, which is probably why I was a bit shocked...

https://youtu.be/oIO8Q7aT_JI

I was damn excited, that quickly died down when I set the fire alarms off. The engine sounds reasonably healthy (albeit, only ran for a few seconds) given it was a sight unseen mystery engine from eBay. I don't think I'm totally clear yet but it is a good sign.

[Northern]

Congrats on the first start!

I just switched from a 3.73 to a 2.93 and it made a huge difference. Car can actually go on the highway now without revving in the 4000s, and first gear is no longer useless.

I also threw the driveshaft in with flipped E30 CSB.

When you say flipped, what do you mean? Is the CSB is installed so it mounts to the chassis the same way as stock?

Someone a long time ago started saying to "flip" the CSB because the Ujoint is on the opposite side of the CSB on the E36 driveshaft as the E30 driveshaft.
When you install it, it goes on the opposite direction to how you would install it on an e30 driveshaft because the centre section of the driveshaft is backwards.

The only thing that matters is that the late e30 CSB mounting is offset to one side, which corrects for the tunnel being offset to the other side. If the CSB is backwards with respect to the chassis, you end up with a kinked driveline like in this picture:

[jsta1109]

Congrats on the first start!

I just switched from a 3.73 to a 2.93 and it made a huge difference. Car can actually go on the highway now without revving in the 4000s, and first gear is no longer useless.



When you say flipped, what do you mean? Is the CSB is installed so it mounts to the chassis the same way as stock?

Someone a long time ago started saying to "flip" the CSB because the Ujoint is on the opposite side of the CSB on the E36 driveshaft as the E30 driveshaft.
When you install it, it goes on the opposite direction to how you would install it on an e30 driveshaft because the centre section of the driveshaft is backwards.

The only thing that matters is that the late e30 CSB mounting is offset to one side, which corrects for the tunnel being offset to the other side. If the CSB is backwards with respect to the chassis, you end up with a kinked driveline like in this picture:

Good to hear, I really only went with the S2.93 because it popped up cheap relative to what a normal LSD would be here. My original plan was to swap the centre section out into a spare 3.25 that I have, but I then found out the carriers have different offsets for the ring gear. I lucked out though because it is one of those rare 4 clutch 1.5way 40/25 diffs. I had a quick drive of it with the Getrag 240 and despite the gearing being way too long the lockup was really solid. Absolutely looking forward to driving it with the ZF though.

I used my previous E36 325i driveshaft as reference, it was flipped compared to a standard E30 driveshaft. Driveshaft is straight in the tunnel.