My m30 swap - TONS of pics...

[Mike325]

Awsome job and what a great read. That garage made me get a boner. What a clean install.

[BUDNUNTA]

Nice Job. I've always wondered what your car looked like and you didn't disappoint. Nice job on painting and cleaning everything while you had it apart(its the only way in my opinion)it makes putting it all back so much cleaner and easier.
Great Garage also. Have fun with it.



Hunter

[MR 325]

Great thread, very cool to see some pics of the conversion.

Oh yes, and Ryan's garage ftw, I've been there before.

[mtechnik]

Well I only have admiration for you guys' boldness in undertaking that project yourselves

[MIZTERIO]

i want ur garageeeeeeee... VER VERY good job ;)

[george graves]

Thanks guys for all the compliments...Yea, if you guys couldn't tell, I never could have pulled this off without "M3 Ryan" - he is the MAN!

wow! thanks for sharing, very good read. amazing car. so how much fun is all that power? :)

A lot! Well I sould say the car is not about raw power like a turbo'ed m20 - it's more about the low end grunt of the motor. I offten start off in second and carry that gear till red line - and it's just goes like a bat out of hell.

Awesome work, I love to see that stuff documented. So the big question is how does it work out? Comparisons? Weight/handling?

If you drove my car, I doubt you would ever notice the weight. I say one thing - with 14" weaves the thing is a at bit tail happy, but some suspention work will cure that prolbem(when I get $$ for it)

great project ! How much HP that motor has ?

BMW says it 208. Can't remember why but the euro version claims 220. Again - this motor is not about *peak*HP - it's all about the aera under the TQ curve. Know what I mean?

i want videos of you reaming it out....or ban ;)

in all seriousness, fantastic job

I have some missing due to aging spark plug wires - but when that gets squared away I'll post up some video.

Nice write-up. Was there an advantage to your custom mounts over the ones sold on e30.de?

The advantage is none. I ordered the mounts from e30.de (it's just a german guy named tino) and they got lost in the transition from Germany's postal system to DHL for delievery to the US. I requested for him to not refund my money but send another set. He refused and said that he is no longer shipping to US(I've since been told that he has changed his mind) - so we had no choice but to go with custom mounts.

Wouldn't you want the smog station to know that you have a larger engine because otherwise you need to meet the requirements of the m20?

I'm sure the allowable levels to pass smog on a m30 are about the same as a m20, I just didn't want to have to deal with a smog ref. And if you think about it - both are straight sixes - both look a hell of alot alike(to the untrained eye they are twins) - I could get it legal - but why bother? My m30 passed smog with flying colors, so it's not like I'm ruining the enviroment.

[euroshark]

According to various sources the weight difference is ~55lbs. I removed my AC system entirely and I doubt that the car is any heavier now.

[MR 325]

george graves, what diff are you running?

[george graves]

3.73 LDS - it's a bit too low for the motor, but I really like 2nd gear pulls as is. A 4.10 would be worthless - you'd never use 1st except for pulling tree stumps.

I was afraid to go with a 3.25 - worried it might be too low.

[MR 325]

How about a 3.46? That's what my buddy has in his 635 and it's pretty nice.

[Axxe]

Wowzers, nice writeup, and a motor/trans/mounts combo ready to go into an e30 sprung up locally for an unbeatable price. Looks like there will be another M30E30 on here, in the spring time though, after I find a mint shell to stick it in :D. Turbo? :D

[trashcop 80s 80s]

TUrBO It!!

[Vass325es]

Wow that blew me

[george graves]

Did those downpipes bolt on and fit without modification?

I wish I had taken more pictures during the swap process, but every time I went to grab my camera, my dad called me a homo! Ahhh, very nice swap indeed, thats cool that you used the stock harness, when I convert back to motronic I want to use the eta harness... Good job!

Well the downpipes are from the e24 m30 motor. I bolted them on, and then had a local exhaust mate the m30 downpipes to my stock exhaust (it was brand new from the previous owner)

[tabasco]

Sweet...nicely done!

jason