Found a ballin deal on an M50B25 from an E30 that already had it swapped...so it came with everything I needed. Just needed to get headers, motor mounts, and a brake booster. I chose S52 headers, E34 mounts, and a Porsche 944 booster. Worked out awesome in the end.
We didn't complete the swap in the day, but we did do it in less than 20 hours total accumulated..over the course of 2 weekends with major breaks inbetween.
Some background, my friend Jimmy aka "Dude" aka "waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles30" let me fuck up his place to swap my motor. We both are clueless about motor swaps and the most technical thing I've done is swap an M20 head, his experience wasn't too much either. Basically, we entered this completely clueless and it was a fucking adventure haha. The fact that we both had to get much homework done in order to graduate high school didn't help too much either.
IMG_1143 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Here's where the fun begins. 100k NV M50 from an E34.
IMG_1145 by e30lovin, on Flickr
nom nom nom
IMG_1147 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Bye bye M20. It was kind of a weird moment because I was pulling a perfectly good motor from my car and it was never going to run again. So what do? Keep it on the limiter for 10 seconds! It's good to know my M20's life came to a conclusion at 7000rpm.
IMG_1148 by e30lovin, on Flickr
ok bye
IMG_1149 by e30lovin, on Flickr
You should have seen how this motor was being pulled, it was SOOOOOOO SKETCHY
IMG_1150 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Good ol' power washin
IMG_1153 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Morning came.
IMG_1152.jpge by e30lovin, on Flickr
This was extremely sketchy too. But the M50's finally going in.
IMG_1161 by e30lovin, on Flickr
We ran out of time and I had to go back to my home in North Jersey. I had to take the train back to Philadelphia the following weekend which sucks. I completely hate public transportation, and that honestly really motivated to get my car going so I can never use it again.
IMG_1165 by e30lovin, on Flickr
It's friday night and the motor's in and mounted on the mounts. E34 motor mounts worked well. $5 each too.
IMG_1166 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Wait something's missing.
IMG_1170 by e30lovin, on Flickr
That's more like it. We spent that whole friday night getting the motor partially ready to fire. We swapped out my starter for a virtually new one because, why the fuck not? Had some trouble getting power to the starter, then we forgot we didn't ground the engine. The engine cranked over in the first time in almost a month and it felt fucking good.
We spent the following saturday trying to get this bitch to start. I used Jimmy's M50 harness to test it out. No fuel, no spark. We litterally spent 9am-9pm trying to figure something out. Nothing. At least Jimmy got the trans brace welded up, the driveshaft going, and everything mounted. Exhaust was halfway fabbed too. I took a deep breath and attempted to make my wiring harness. It was so tedious and frustrating to say the least, I wish no one the displeasure of attempting it. This was one step that if I fucked up, I would never know what happened. Well I fabbed it up the wiring harness and took a deep breath and waited for fuel to come out of my fuel line. Nothing. Gahhhhhhh.
We bombarded the shit out of Mike Clark's phone aka Unearth on r3v for some advice. He wasn't too far away and was the only person we knew that could help us. He came over at 10pm and called all his buddies with 24V swaps for advice. Turns out I didn't ground the main engine harness, even though it looked like I did. After jumping the fuel relay, I would get fuel coming out of my fuel line, but in the fuse box there was no voltage for the fuel pump, so it was grounded incorrectly. We quickly solved that problem, and fuel came out! This is the conclusion of that night, and I can't thank Mike enough. Yes I sound like a little bitch but it's so worth it haha. This is the first start
we hit the fucking sack and really wanted this car done before GutenFest 2011. We woke up at 9AM which was a little too late. We had to finish some steps, finish the exhaust, bleed the brakes, and do the cooling system. This was the last 5 minutes of this car in the garage
IMG_1171 by e30lovin, on Flickr
We added coolant, and without ANY test drive, or troubleshooting, we were ready to embark on a 100mile journey to GFest. I was really shaking about this, because I felt like my car was going to fuck up for some reason. No test runs at all, no diagnosing, no AAA, and we were cruising on the highway at 85-90mph for about an hour. A crazy smile on my face to say the least. One of the most nerve racking moments of my life,
IMG_1177 by e30lovin, on Flickr
But it was one crazy fucking adventure to say the least.
Even if we were late to Gfest by about 4 hours after it was over ;)
We didn't complete the swap in the day, but we did do it in less than 20 hours total accumulated..over the course of 2 weekends with major breaks inbetween.
Some background, my friend Jimmy aka "Dude" aka "waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles30" let me fuck up his place to swap my motor. We both are clueless about motor swaps and the most technical thing I've done is swap an M20 head, his experience wasn't too much either. Basically, we entered this completely clueless and it was a fucking adventure haha. The fact that we both had to get much homework done in order to graduate high school didn't help too much either.
IMG_1143 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Here's where the fun begins. 100k NV M50 from an E34.
IMG_1145 by e30lovin, on Flickr
nom nom nom
IMG_1147 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Bye bye M20. It was kind of a weird moment because I was pulling a perfectly good motor from my car and it was never going to run again. So what do? Keep it on the limiter for 10 seconds! It's good to know my M20's life came to a conclusion at 7000rpm.
IMG_1148 by e30lovin, on Flickr
ok bye
IMG_1149 by e30lovin, on Flickr
You should have seen how this motor was being pulled, it was SOOOOOOO SKETCHY
IMG_1150 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Good ol' power washin
IMG_1153 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Morning came.
IMG_1152.jpge by e30lovin, on Flickr
This was extremely sketchy too. But the M50's finally going in.
IMG_1161 by e30lovin, on Flickr
We ran out of time and I had to go back to my home in North Jersey. I had to take the train back to Philadelphia the following weekend which sucks. I completely hate public transportation, and that honestly really motivated to get my car going so I can never use it again.
IMG_1165 by e30lovin, on Flickr
It's friday night and the motor's in and mounted on the mounts. E34 motor mounts worked well. $5 each too.
IMG_1166 by e30lovin, on Flickr
Wait something's missing.
IMG_1170 by e30lovin, on Flickr
That's more like it. We spent that whole friday night getting the motor partially ready to fire. We swapped out my starter for a virtually new one because, why the fuck not? Had some trouble getting power to the starter, then we forgot we didn't ground the engine. The engine cranked over in the first time in almost a month and it felt fucking good.
We spent the following saturday trying to get this bitch to start. I used Jimmy's M50 harness to test it out. No fuel, no spark. We litterally spent 9am-9pm trying to figure something out. Nothing. At least Jimmy got the trans brace welded up, the driveshaft going, and everything mounted. Exhaust was halfway fabbed too. I took a deep breath and attempted to make my wiring harness. It was so tedious and frustrating to say the least, I wish no one the displeasure of attempting it. This was one step that if I fucked up, I would never know what happened. Well I fabbed it up the wiring harness and took a deep breath and waited for fuel to come out of my fuel line. Nothing. Gahhhhhhh.
We bombarded the shit out of Mike Clark's phone aka Unearth on r3v for some advice. He wasn't too far away and was the only person we knew that could help us. He came over at 10pm and called all his buddies with 24V swaps for advice. Turns out I didn't ground the main engine harness, even though it looked like I did. After jumping the fuel relay, I would get fuel coming out of my fuel line, but in the fuse box there was no voltage for the fuel pump, so it was grounded incorrectly. We quickly solved that problem, and fuel came out! This is the conclusion of that night, and I can't thank Mike enough. Yes I sound like a little bitch but it's so worth it haha. This is the first start
we hit the fucking sack and really wanted this car done before GutenFest 2011. We woke up at 9AM which was a little too late. We had to finish some steps, finish the exhaust, bleed the brakes, and do the cooling system. This was the last 5 minutes of this car in the garage
IMG_1171 by e30lovin, on Flickr
We added coolant, and without ANY test drive, or troubleshooting, we were ready to embark on a 100mile journey to GFest. I was really shaking about this, because I felt like my car was going to fuck up for some reason. No test runs at all, no diagnosing, no AAA, and we were cruising on the highway at 85-90mph for about an hour. A crazy smile on my face to say the least. One of the most nerve racking moments of my life,
IMG_1177 by e30lovin, on Flickr
But it was one crazy fucking adventure to say the least.
Even if we were late to Gfest by about 4 hours after it was over ;)
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