Hello everyone, just thought i'd introduce my self and show off my car a bit ;)
I live in wollongong, australia. I'm just about to finish a degree in engineering (mechatronics) at the uni here. I've owned a few cars in the 6 years i've had a licence, including a '86 corolla with a 20valve motor which was a barrel of laughs.
Here is my '88 320i that me and some mates did a sr20 conversion to last summer. The engine is more or less standard, i've put a front mount cooler on and turned the boost up to 13psi. I know a lot of people ask about this conversion, like is it hard to do? and what is the performance like? So here is what i think:
The conversion is not too difficult overall. The engine will physically clear the cross member, but fouls on the brake booster. We used the original nissan engine mounts and welded on extensions to meet up with the bmw mount points. We used an e21 brake booster and modified the pedal linkage to suit, this solved the booster issue. The drive shaft was professionally shortened with the correct spline for the nissan 'box. The exhaust is 2.5in with a single sport muffler, the exhaust is not loud at all, the turbo tends to muffle it pretty effectively. The only problem here is that the exhaust now runs down the wrong side of the car which means it hangs lower than it should. Its not a problem at the moment, but i'm planning to lower the car soon which could cause clearance problems on speed bumps. The wiring is not difficult at all... we took all the insulation off the nissan loom and laid it around the engine bay where it needs to sit. Then we cut away all the useless wires (there were a lot of them) and fed the remainder back through the firewall. The ecu is mounted in the factory position with a homemade bracket. Then connect power, start and earth to the appropriate wires and its done. I also wired in new relays for the fuel pump and coil packs. Okay, it was slightly more complex than that (getting the gauges working etc) but the wiring for this conversion was much much easier than the corolla 20valve conversion!
Future works include a new diff, i've still got the standard small case diff which is getting progressively noisier and noisier. And the open centre kills the fun with a car like this. Also i'm looking at some sportier springs/shocks to replace the standard ones.
In terms of performance, i don't think you could get a better bang-for-buck conversion to an e30. I've done a 13.7 @ 106mph on rubbish tires. On the street it will usually spin the back wheels as soon as boost comes on in 2nd gear in the dry, and will break traction in the 1st 4 gears in the wet without popping the clutch. Although with some decent tires i'm hoping for better traction. I can get to 100kph in 5.5 sec, we estimate its got about 160rwkw @ 13psi although its never been on a dyno. It starts building boost from 2000rpm and gets full pressure by 2700. Although the stock turbo gets quite breathless at high rpm, i usually shift at 6000 cos its pointless trying to rev it out.
I've kept the car looking as standard as possible, i'm a big fan of sleepers! I've surprised quite a few 'quick' cars including a few new aussie v8's.
The car is fully engineered and road legal, i didn't have any trouble with the rego inpection, and never had trouble from police.
So there you have it, it reckon its a brilliant car and i'm perfectly happy with how it turned out. I was quoted $15K (aud) for a drive in drive out conversion with this motor, i have managed to get it done for $3.5K by doing most of it myself.
I live in wollongong, australia. I'm just about to finish a degree in engineering (mechatronics) at the uni here. I've owned a few cars in the 6 years i've had a licence, including a '86 corolla with a 20valve motor which was a barrel of laughs.
Here is my '88 320i that me and some mates did a sr20 conversion to last summer. The engine is more or less standard, i've put a front mount cooler on and turned the boost up to 13psi. I know a lot of people ask about this conversion, like is it hard to do? and what is the performance like? So here is what i think:
The conversion is not too difficult overall. The engine will physically clear the cross member, but fouls on the brake booster. We used the original nissan engine mounts and welded on extensions to meet up with the bmw mount points. We used an e21 brake booster and modified the pedal linkage to suit, this solved the booster issue. The drive shaft was professionally shortened with the correct spline for the nissan 'box. The exhaust is 2.5in with a single sport muffler, the exhaust is not loud at all, the turbo tends to muffle it pretty effectively. The only problem here is that the exhaust now runs down the wrong side of the car which means it hangs lower than it should. Its not a problem at the moment, but i'm planning to lower the car soon which could cause clearance problems on speed bumps. The wiring is not difficult at all... we took all the insulation off the nissan loom and laid it around the engine bay where it needs to sit. Then we cut away all the useless wires (there were a lot of them) and fed the remainder back through the firewall. The ecu is mounted in the factory position with a homemade bracket. Then connect power, start and earth to the appropriate wires and its done. I also wired in new relays for the fuel pump and coil packs. Okay, it was slightly more complex than that (getting the gauges working etc) but the wiring for this conversion was much much easier than the corolla 20valve conversion!
Future works include a new diff, i've still got the standard small case diff which is getting progressively noisier and noisier. And the open centre kills the fun with a car like this. Also i'm looking at some sportier springs/shocks to replace the standard ones.
In terms of performance, i don't think you could get a better bang-for-buck conversion to an e30. I've done a 13.7 @ 106mph on rubbish tires. On the street it will usually spin the back wheels as soon as boost comes on in 2nd gear in the dry, and will break traction in the 1st 4 gears in the wet without popping the clutch. Although with some decent tires i'm hoping for better traction. I can get to 100kph in 5.5 sec, we estimate its got about 160rwkw @ 13psi although its never been on a dyno. It starts building boost from 2000rpm and gets full pressure by 2700. Although the stock turbo gets quite breathless at high rpm, i usually shift at 6000 cos its pointless trying to rev it out.
I've kept the car looking as standard as possible, i'm a big fan of sleepers! I've surprised quite a few 'quick' cars including a few new aussie v8's.
The car is fully engineered and road legal, i didn't have any trouble with the rego inpection, and never had trouble from police.
So there you have it, it reckon its a brilliant car and i'm perfectly happy with how it turned out. I was quoted $15K (aud) for a drive in drive out conversion with this motor, i have managed to get it done for $3.5K by doing most of it myself.
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