Getting rid of the S52...

[rThor432]

Hey. I snapped a couple of pictures of my E30's together at work Saturday before I removed the S52 from my old '87 eS. I've had that motor for a bit over a year now and it's time to try something else.. Usually I have a bad habit of getting rid of a car within a year of buying it, but I'm sort of attached to this old chassis. I thought I'd start a project thread (for once) to keep track of what's going on with the car. Even if nobody cares, it'll be easier for me to look back through everything.

Here are my cars in front of the shop where I work--

Schwarz '87 325eS and Diamondschwarz '85 eta-








S52B32 engine in the car-

[e30s52]

What is going in its place?

I have the same thoughts as you right now of getting some with more power.

[rafiki]

sooo whats nextt

[rThor432]

S52B32 engine on the ground and halway through packaging for the long trip to New York--


Empty shell--


Since we dropped the suspension with the motor and trans, I thought it was a good time to weld in the TMS subframe reinforcements that I've had around forever. I also removed the old power-steering rack (which was being run as a non-power rack anyway) in favor of a nice clean Euro non-power rack that I've had in the garage for a year or so.

Different racks. Added fresh tie-rods to the Euro rack--


Different linkage--

[rThor432]

I'm going to post up "teaser" pictures of the new powerplant tomorrow. I already had the shop shut down before I took pictures of it, and there is no light in that storage trailer with the power down. I dropped the ball on that one.. I'm trying to get used to taking pictures of things as I do them, I'm not used to this.

[rThor432]

Front engine mount location prepped for the reinforcement plate(s)--


First plate welded in and sealed/painted--


Second plate tacked into place--


Connected the dots--


Painted for now--


Subframe and new-old rack hung the car--


In need of a clean, badly--


And done for the night--


I would have installed the 5-lug suspension tonight, but of course I forgot to order front rotors... So that will be my next "update". All of that is reinforced as well and I've turned the wishbone style trailing arms into A-arms like the early DTM arms.

The only pictures I have from that are from the caliper rebuild process (roughly a month ago)--

[Zacm829]

Need pictures of the power plant! At least you are doing all the little stuff while the car is down, I'm sure it will all add up in the end. Looks great so far.

[alpinee30m50]

What is going in its place?

I have the same thoughts as you right now of getting some with more power.

Sooooo when this happens will it be sold to me?

[rThor432]

At least you are doing all the little stuff while the car is down, I'm sure it will all add up in the end. Looks great so far.

Yeah, I have tons of parts that have been waiting to be installed for a long, long time now. I usually work 7 days a week and on the odd day that I don't have to work I'm too worn out to accomplish anything. When I put this car together I didn't have much time so I had the old 2.7l M20 out and the S52 in and running in 4 5-hour days. I couldn't stand to be out of an E30 for a long time. Now that I've got a back-up E30 to drive daily along with my E36 M3 I'll be able to leave this car dead in the water to work on long-term. By long term, I mean that I intend to drive it to Vintage at the Vineyards in May (iirc it's in May this year..).

[Rodoni]

LOL at the ride height.

[Zacm829]

Yeah, I have tons of parts that have been waiting to be installed for a long, long time now. I usually work 7 days a week and on the odd day that I don't have to work I'm too worn out to accomplish anything. When I put this car together I didn't have much time so I had the old 2.7l M20 out and the S52 in and running in 4 5-hour days. I couldn't stand to be out of an E30 for a long time. Now that I've got a back-up E30 to drive daily along with my E36 M3 I'll be able to leave this car dead in the water to work on long-term. By long term, I mean that I intend to drive it to Vintage at the Vineyards in May (iirc it's in May this year..).

Yeah get it running for the vintage, I might be up there this year.

[Jean]

The only reason to dump s52 would be to drop in s38, s54 or lsx imho :) So which one is it?

[87e30]

Tire size, wheel size, offset? Setup looks nice and agressive, I like it.

[onaquest]

S50b32 ?

[Danny]

Euro s50 I'm guessing as well.