M50 to S50

[lga714]

Dude your setup is nuts, you'd really ditch it all for an S54?

[MR E30 325is]

Dude your setup is nuts, you'd really ditch it all for an S54?

Possibly. A complete S54 with a 6 speed would be mighty tempting.

Then Horsepower freaks turbo. And I would win everything.

but back to your thread! bring this sexy E30 back to life!

[lga714]

Possibly. A complete S54 with a 6 speed would be mighty tempting.
Then Horsepower freaks turbo. And I would win everything.
^^^
That's some serious cashola lol.

but back to your thread! bring this sexy E30 back to life!

Agreed, back to this E30. I decided just to keep the motor and get some work done to it. I'm going to call the junkyard Monday and have them come over and check out the silicone happy pile they sold me and see if I can get a partial refund or maybe give me a Z3 rack for free. I'd be pretty happy with that.

Anyway, I made some good progress today. I disassembled the head and all I got to say is wow.

I'm almost glad the leak down test we did came back so shitty. We wouldn't have taken off the head and I would have driven away with this POS cracked spring plate. One good rev and that valve would have dropped right into the cylinder and my motor would have been toast, especially with the underdrive pulleys and TMS chip.

After seeing that we took a look at the bottom end. There was silicone all over the headgasket and coolant was seeping through to cylinder 6 :hitler:
I then spent the rest of my time brushing off all the gunk from the deck and the pistons. I couldn't get it all off today, but a decent amount. Took this picture as I was leaving.


That's it for now, cheers!

[lga714]

Well the news keeps getting worse and worse on this motor. Rob ran a Carfax on the motor and found out the headgasket was changed in 2003 and the car was totaled in 2006. So this motor has been laying around for 4 years. On top of that the car was totaled at 146,000 miles which is basically double the mileage they told me over the phone, those fuckers misrepresented the engine.

Rob called them out on it and they're dropping the core charge and giving me a 95 M3 rack or a 96-97 Z3 rack which I would prefer. If they were dickheads about it I definitely would have been contacting the Better Business Bureau.

Anyway, the head is going to the machine shop and we'll be ordering some more parts again

[lga714]

So some good news, the junk yard was able to find a Z3 1.9 rack. I picked that up today from them. They weren't particularly happy to see me, they seemed a bit shamed lol. Whatever, assholes. I'm going to make sure it is the 1.9 lock to lock I'm looking for when I get back to the shop on Friday. Also the machine shop cleaned up my head and said all the valves looked good, just need retainers and keepers.

Stay tuned.

[lga714]

It's been awhile since I've given an update, I thought now would be an appropriate time.

So the machine shop cleaned up the head and we assembled it back together. After it was done we did another leak down test and it was 40% leakdown in just about every cylinder :( Air was coming out both the intake and exhaust ports. We called the machine shop, they said it was just the lifters and it happens all the time. We're going to put the motor in anyway and see if it gets better after being run. The machine shop said they'd pay for the labor and parts if it was still the same.

After all that was settled we ripped the M50 out...


All I've got left to do is clean up the engine bay and we should be good from there to drop the S50!

One more thing, I checked out the rack today that the douchebags from the junk yard gave me and it is indeed a 2.7 lock to lock rack, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I'm going out of town tomorrow so I wont be able to get back to my car until middle of next week.

[StereoInstaller1]

Its been 10 days, time for an update.

What is happening with the old M50?

[iwantspeed]

cool project

Robert is a great guy and very knowledgeable.

[lga714]

Old M50 is sitting at Rob's, going to sell the M3 cams that were in it. That motor is pretty worn, I don't even think I can sell it. It did have a trick crank pulley that I took off, it was half the weight of the stock pulley on the S50, and the pulley itself was smaller in diameter. I'm pretty sure that acts as an underdrive since it's on the crank.

Last Thursday we installed the 2.7 Z3 rack and then we put the motor in. Only took about 20 minutes or so. Next is the wiring harness and I also need to figure out the intake situation with CARB/BAR, I like to be legit with them.

[lga714]

Holy shit, my car is done. Just drove it home from e30 Motorwerks with a huge grin on my face the whole way home. The lifter issue I was having is solved, the car runs fucking great. Got the Z3 rack swapped in (awesome modification) the 3.25 LSD is installed thanks to MR E30 325 for providing that. I kind of wished I kept the 3.46 in so I could really feel the difference riding home but the pinion gear was destroyed.

Couple issues the temp sender doesn't seem to be working and my S52 headers OBD2 ports are leaking. Other than that everything is awesome!

Thanks to Rob @ E30 Motorwerks and Mitch (lifeiskaos) for wrapping things up!!

[iwantspeed]

congrats

[Doughnut]

Glad to hear everything worked out in the end, just a few little things to clean up and your car should be one reliable DD!

Congrats.

[lga714]

Yes thank you, it feels really good. The S50 is a nice swap, I thought it would be a little torqier but I still haven't gone WOT. I need to break the motor in for awhile before I do so. The highest I've revved to is 5300 and the power felt very linear up until then. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve but that will be another thread. For now, I'm very very happy!