1978 320i M42 project

[dirty30]

Small update:

Pulled the motor from my donor E36 and prepped it for the e30 manifold/ pan swap.



Going to keep all the best parts from each engine, serpentine setup from the E36 and intake manifold from the e30 without the disa crap.

[dirty30]

So slammin' bought a 318i vert' with a blown motor for his 5 year long M60 swap around the time I was looking for the rest of the E30 components for my E36 M42. Couldn't have been better timing! I went down to Charlottesville, loaded it on my trailer and brought it back to the shop. I am going to use this bad motor as my mock up engine for the E21 swap mounts I am going to be building. Pretty much everyone removes and modifies their subframes for the M42 swap in the E21 but for someone without access to a welder or a place to remove the subframe this can be a real deal breaker as far as getting the swap done. I am going to be making engine mount arms that require no modification to the subframe, in fact with my mounts you will be able to simply bolt the M42 on to the existing M10 engine mounts. I dropped the M42 in my 78' this evening to get started on my first pair of engine mounts. I have CAD files for the plates that bolt to the block sent to the company that does waterjet cutting so I am awaiting an estimate for a small run to get started.



This engine was made for the E21.

[blue plates]

Interested in mounts!

[dirty30]

Interested in mounts!

Cool! I'm not sure when I will have the first batch ready but this is my only project at the moment so I will continue to update the thread as I make progress.

[irish44j]

Of course you do this after I modified the subframe already ;)

Oh well, not like I"m ever putting an M10 back into mine anyhow.

[AlpinaB3]

I did this swap 13 yrs ago on my e21, with turner chip and schrick cams was a blast to drive.

[george graves]

I did this swap 13 yrs ago on my e21, with turner chip and schrick cams was a blast to drive.

How well did the suspension handle the extra Hp? Little bit of a handful to drive?

[dirty30]

I'm excited, the M42 is a great engine and I think it will compliment the E21 nicely. This sierra biege car is my guinea pig for the engine mounts and honestly I wish I had looked it over better before I picked it up. It has a few "crispy" areas that I did not see until I got it up in the air.

I did this swap 13 yrs ago on my e21, with turner chip and schrick cams was a blast to drive.

[slammin.e28]

Oh that looks so good in there!

[dirty30]

Oh that looks so good in there!

I forgot how compact a longitudinally mounted 4cyl engine is, there is so much room in the engine bay I don't know what to do!

[slammin.e28]

I forgot how compact a longitudinally mounted 4cyl engine is, there is so much room in the engine bay I don't know what to do!

Party, duh.

[F34R]

Looks great! love the old stickers.

[dirty30]

Some small updates:

Got my first pair of engine mount plates back from the fabricator:





Hoping to have a set of the engine mount arms mocked up in a week or two. As the engine sits now there should be no problem making these arms to use with the factory mounts.

Pulled out the auto shifter and made sure my brand new manual shifter console fit:





My e30 that I haven't driven for months and months.

[irish44j]

looking good, Ryan.

[dirty30]

I finally had a free night to make a pair of engine mounts. I took some measurements on my dads E21 to get the engine to sit where it needs to in the engine bay.





I am going to set the car on the ground tomorrow and take some more measurements to make sure it's sitting where I want it but overall I am happy with my design and the fit of the mounts.