I'm getting my 1993 E30 318iT worked on by European Auto Service in Gardiner, Maine. They're a wonderful shop to deal with, and have been replacing various bits that have gone bad due to age (the car has 80K miles, and had been sitting for a while before I imported it).
One of the things they discovered was a cracked, worn timing belt, which they're replacing. I've been researching the procedure to replace timing belts on an M40, and it is abso-fucking-lutely absurd. They require replacing every 25,000 miles, and to perform said replacement, one must disassemble approximately 53% of the car.
This made me think: "Why the hell should I keep sinking money into an M40?". They're not terrible engines, but spending a ton of money maintaining 110 HP from a lower-revving, SOHC engine sounds lame, when I could spend a ton of money on maintaining 190 HP from a higher-revving, DOHC alloy M52B28.
Unfortunately, although the shop has experience swapping DOHC six cylinders into E30s, they're unwilling to take on another job like that.
SO: who here knows of a talented mechanic in Maine who would undertake an engine swap for me? Or is it worth it for me to travel a little further into MA to find someone to do the job?
One of the things they discovered was a cracked, worn timing belt, which they're replacing. I've been researching the procedure to replace timing belts on an M40, and it is abso-fucking-lutely absurd. They require replacing every 25,000 miles, and to perform said replacement, one must disassemble approximately 53% of the car.
This made me think: "Why the hell should I keep sinking money into an M40?". They're not terrible engines, but spending a ton of money maintaining 110 HP from a lower-revving, SOHC engine sounds lame, when I could spend a ton of money on maintaining 190 HP from a higher-revving, DOHC alloy M52B28.
Unfortunately, although the shop has experience swapping DOHC six cylinders into E30s, they're unwilling to take on another job like that.
SO: who here knows of a talented mechanic in Maine who would undertake an engine swap for me? Or is it worth it for me to travel a little further into MA to find someone to do the job?
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