'89 318i 6 speed m50b32tu turbo swap build

ba114 · 04-29-2016, 01:25 AM

Cross hatching still evident in the cylinders

ba114 · 04-29-2016, 01:24 AM

Cam locking/timing tools arrived so set about pulling the head. All went pretty smoothly, was pretty tricky keeping the timing chain secured at the same time as pulling the head but some tricky work with a coat hanger sorted that out thankfully.

i've only performed a limited inspection but so far things are looking pretty good. no immediately visible cracks in the head, but will wait until its properly cleaned up for final analysis.

The pistons are in pretty good shape and took very little effort to clean up although i'm not going to bother trying to get them completely clean. There was very little carbon build-up on them and while prepping the block, the rings held the brake cleaner and wd40 over-spray without leaking down so i'm fairly confident the rings are in good condition too.

So far have worked through 200, 400, 600 & 800 grit with some passes at 1200 to go which should get the RA to a reasonable level for the copper spacer.

The head, well i cleaned as much of it as i could with degreaser and high pressure washer. I'll pull the cams in the coming days. I've been given the name of someone in canberra to skim and test the head for me so we'll see how it turns out.

ba114 · 04-29-2016, 01:21 AM

e46 rear seat fitted. Required cutting out the lower mounts for the original e30 seat and re-welding them 75mm closer towards the centre of the car.

Also had to undo the leather and remove approx 15mm of the foam from each end of the seat and then re-fit leather in order to fit the width of the car.

Still have to source the plastic covers that go over the side trim where the seatbelts are.

ba114 · 04-29-2016, 01:19 AM

ZHP shorty weighted knob with new leather gaiter

Fibreglassed in a sub enclosure

ba114 · 04-29-2016, 01:17 AM

Starting a thread to document my progress of my e30 build.

Started out with a stock 318i with the M40 engine that i picked up for $900. Has 230+ kms on it, however this is likely more as when i purchased it, the odometer wasnt working. Fixed that up by disassembling and replacing broken cog gears with suitable replacements from an RC car kit.

The body is mostly straight, however the paint is wrecked and will be getting a full respray as part of the project.

Next up i picked up an M52b28, complete with G250 gbox and M50 intake manifold. As i'm in Australia, we got the aluminium block, not the iron block the folks in the US got so there was the risk of the block softening and causing issues with head bolts stripping the threads. All tests so far indicate that i've got a good block Click here to enlarge

The plan is to run single turbo on stock internals. To support this so far i have purchased the below:
- CES copper spacer and cutring gasket
- Raceware head stud conversion (ARP dont make any for the M52 aluminium)
- PTE 6262 turbo .82 A/R
- Tial 44mm Wastegate
- Good n Tight manifold
- 80 deg thermostat + cast t/stat housing
- e28 M5 (green) engine mounts
- metal blade water pump
- Renault Clio brake booster - the standard e30 booster will hit the intake manifold so a smaller option has been sourced
- e46 steering rack

Haven't yet pulled the head, waiting on cam alignment tools to arrive. Hopefully everything is still in decent condition. Test fitted the manifold however.

I will be self-tuning the setup on the stock ECU. Plenty of development work is happening on the MS41 series ECUs over on the romraider forums. Going to be a steep learning curve compared to my current experience with the MSD81 on my 135i however.

Still have plenty of additional parts to acquire/sort out before getting to the point of swapping the engine in such as:
- Radiator and coolant tank
- Fuel pump
- Injectors
- Relocate battery to boot
- SMFW and clutch

As i've been driving it around in its current form for several months, i also decided it was time to freshen up the interior a bit.

I managed to source an Mtech2 steering wheel for a decent price and had it re-covered and thickened up slightly. These are becoming incredibly hard to find.

Following that i also picked up a complete set of electric seats (front and rear) from an e46 coupe. Fabricated custom mounts for the front seats to use the factory mounting holes - none of this dodgy drilling through the floor which is apparently pretty common.

Rear seats required cutting the mounts out for the stock seats and relocating to suit the new. Also had to trim some of the foam on the lower half and re-trim the leather in order to fit within the width of the e30 chassis.

All in all took me about a day to do and i'm really happy with the end product:

As it stands, funds for the project have run a bit dry. The AUD is so weak at the moment and conversion + shipping rates from the US are absolutely killing me. Hopefully in the next month or two i'll have the head pulled and prepped to install the spacer and HG.

Attached Files

'89 318i 6 speed m50b32tu turbo swap build

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'89 318i 6 speed m50b32tu turbo swap build