The m54b30 E30 build

[E30-TourZing]

Great build! I was so set on the M54B30 for the longest time.

Question. With your kopi wheels, do you hit the front/lower -inner fender skirts when you turn? If so, did you just pull them out of the way or remove them?

Best yet, if you don't have any rub, what tire size are you running?

Thank you! - Jan

[maxpostma]

Great build! I was so set on the M54B30 for the longest time.

Question. With your kopi wheels, do you hit the front/lower -inner fender skirts when you turn? If so, did you just pull them out of the way or remove them?

Best yet, if you don't have any rub, what tire size are you running?

Thank you! - Jan

I understand that you're not set on the m54 anymore? Why?

And the inner wheel plastics are still in place, only needed to fold the inner lip up with a fender roller.

[E30-TourZing]

Thank you for the response! I plan to do some rolling. My car sits quite low at the moment.

I think the M54 is the best bang for buck, but I wanted to build a motor from scratch and I also wanted a vintage engine. Without taking anything away from how good 24V engines are, I find a built M20 to be more raw and character driven.

Now mind you... I had the opportunity to buy a mint M54B30 for $1K, and my 3.0-M20 is literally costing me 10x that for "hopefully" similar power. It's always the motor I recommend when someone asks me what twin cam engine to swap in.

[maxpostma]

Perhaps anyone can help me with this...

I used:
A e36/e46 pilot bearing
A e36/e46 slave
A e36/e46 fork
A zf320
A e30 master
A e30 clutch + pressure plate + flywheel
A e21 323i 30mm tob

but it makes a really scary noise when I start to press on the clutch paddle :(
like a metal to metal sound, and it gets worse if you try to press it harder.

Yesterday I took everything apart, but I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary.

[maxpostma]

Put everything together with a z3 1.8 TOB (which is 5mm shorter) and it made the same noise initally, after depressing the clutch a couple of times and revving it it slowly faded away. Now it barely makes any noise.

Perhaps because everything is new, it needed to run in a little

[jeenyus]

your grinding issue sounds kind of like maybe something in the throw-out bearing or input shaft sleeve. I'm unsure without seeing it happen, but that area is where that bearing goes to when you press in the clutch pedal, so maybe?

[maxpostma]

In the last couple of weeks I think my dad and I removed the gearbox about 5 times trying to find the cause without succes (messing with different throw out bearings and trying to find wear marks). Yesterday I removed some material of the inner fins of the gearbox and that seems to have solved the horrible noise.
Quiet strange because there weren't any serious wear marks.

Now we can finally continue making some real progess.

[2mAn]

update?

[maxpostma]

update?

I now realise that I haven't been updating since the car is able to drive.
Lots of small issues have occurred like, oil/water leaks which have all been fixed by now,now it's probably going to leak again).
Even went on Holiday in Germany with the dirty 30, and it held up pretty well, even on the Nurnburgring :)
I will post some pictures in the upcoming days.
170 Kw @ the crank feels quiet nice in a 1100-1200kg car but unfortunately you get used to it,
So perhaps it well get a nice upgrade next year, or the year after that.

Still having the following problem though:
It's starts getting hot when you drive >170 km/h for a couple of minutes, I thought the radiator was big enough for my application. Or perhaps i'm doing something wrong.
The strange part is that while hooning in the mountains it never got hot.

[2mAn]

looking forward to more pics and to see where its currently at

[KIRIEIW]

Love the build so far man keep it up!