'88 Cirrus M30B35 sedan

[wworm]

Hi Simmie

Not at this stage - the new rack was a reconditioned e30 rack. I was worried about the exhaust not fitting around the steering linkage with the e36 or e46 rack, so as I was a bit pressed for time I couldn't have the car off the road long enough to re-work the exhaust if the it didn't fit.

I may go for an e46 purple tag rack down the track.

would you consider running a solid steering linkage kit like the sikky one to clear the exhaust?

[lukeADE335i]

From what I've read around the web, this would be essential but the bigger problem is that the pinion comes out on a different angle on the e36/46 steering racks, and this interferes with the e34 exhaust manifold that I'm running.

The exhaust manifold may need to be modified to suit (our RHD engine bays are fairly tight on the exhaust side of the engine bay!)

You can get a bit of a sense of it here: I had to modify the front exhaust manifold by turning the flange 90 degrees for clearance with the stock steering rack:

[wworm]

Ahh I see, totally forgot that this is an rhd car. Makes a lot more sense now lol

[lukeADE335i]

Yep - so jealous of the room you guys have for headers with LHD :D

RHD M30 headers in the e30 engine bay are a pretty difficult fit.

[Simmie]

Good point re: headers. I'll probably have to take the car to an exhaust shop since I did swap the rack.

On a side note, do you remember how you wired the engine up? I just noticed that you started with an '89 320i automatic same as me but I'm bricking it since FrankM couldn't get his car to run with an automatic loom and I'm about to tackle the wiring in the next couple of weeks.

Any tips? Or was it close to plug and play for you (I'm assuming your M30 came from an auto as well)

[lukeADE335i]

All you need to do to get the car to turn over is to bypass the starter relay (which is only used in autos), and make sure the unloader relays are earthed via the starter solonoid. There's some auto to manual threads on here that really butcher up the auto loom, but in reality you can just bypass it completely. Download an e30 electrical troubleshooting guide for an '89 325i (can be found online) and you'll be able to look up the difference between the starter circuits for the manual and auto side by side, and see where the different components are located and what they look like.

The simplest / most reliable way is to run a new black / yellow wire from the C200 connector in the steering column to the starter - just cut the new wire to the right length and then crimp new connectors on the ends and plug them in. This is how manual cars came from the factory.

You'll notice on the motronic 1.3 starter, there are two small pins that wires connect to on the starter solenoid (asides from the large main wire for actually turning the car over) - one is for the black / yellow wire from the ignition switch. The other is for a Black / Green wire from the unloader relays - this is an earth that gets energised when the car is turning over and is essential for your car to run and accessories to work properly. If you're running an old M30 starter or an M10 one, not the e34 one, these only have a single pin, so just splice the black / yellow and black / green wires together and plug them in.

The other problem you might have is you will need a throttle position switch from a manual M30 if your engine came from an auto e32 or e34. The auto had a variable switch with 4 pins, where as the manual had a 3 position switch like an M20. My engine came from a manual 535iS, so it already had the correct TPS. Unfortunately the M20 TPS does not work on the M30 despite looking the same, they turn in opposite directions.

The rest of it is basically Plug and Play - I just unwrapped the loom, plugged everything in where it needed to go and then re-wrapped. There's a couple of injector wires that you'll need to lengthen to reach (and I took the M20 injector wiring out of the M20 plastics and put them into the M30 plastics), and that's about it. You could leave the main engine loom wrapped, and possibly extend a few more wires, but I preferred to solder as little as possible, so the re-wrap seemed the best solution for me.

It's fairly straight forward once you have a good look at the car and the wiring diagrams. Good Luck!

[lukeADE335i]

Found an old pic from when I did my swap - looks scarier than it actually is! You can see the TPS you'll need on the side of the throttle body there - if you have the round one, it's best to change it.

[lukeADE335i]

Time for the annual car birthday post. It's hard to believe another year is gone & in September I will have owned and daily driven the car 10 years. Anyway, lovely Autumn day today, and snapped a photo of the car that has now clocked 6 years, and close on 100,000km since I did my swap.

Maintenance items for the coming year will be a new driveshaft - my rear uni-joint is making some very bad noises at the moment - and a new front lip of some sort. Considering maybe a new daily later in the year and retiring the e30 to weekender duties since it will be eligible for historic registration in July.

[AwakenNoMore]

Your paint makes me jealous, my cirrus sedan looks absolutely terrible. Great work so far!

[lukeADE335i]

Thanks - cirrus is a great colour when it's fairly fresh. It covers imperfections well (the paint is good, but very much in the daily driver camp & far from concourse).

[lukeADE335i]

Tired of the clunks and vibrations my car has been suffering under power recently, I procured a spare 320i manual driveshaft with stuffed universal joints and had it rebuilt.



Picked it up Friday (took a couple of weeks to get rebuilt as there's only one shop left in my city that will rebuild them seeing as shims need to be fitted and welded to hold in the universal joints). Weather was good today, so I fitted it out under the car port.



Night and day difference! I had thought that the clunking may have also been backlash in the diff, so was thinking I may have to also send that off for a rebuild, but the diff is really quiet now and no clunking at all. I can report that the 320i manual shaft works perfectly with the G240 and M30.

While I was doing some work on the car, I also fitted new sound deadener to the bonnet. Gotta love minty fresh, factory sound deadening :)

[Court M3]

Your car is beautiful! Just had to go back and read the whole thread, love it

[lukeADE335i]

Thanks Court! Much appreciated.

The new driveshaft has me giving the car a bit of a hammering again (I've been driving like a grandpa to try not to break the uni joints that were completely toast - the amount of play in the rear one when I took the old driveshaft out was scary!)

[zwill23]

Night and day difference! I had thought that the clunking may have also been backlash in the diff, so was thinking I may have to also send that off for a rebuild, but the diff is really quiet now and no clunking at all.

This is great to hear! I have been having very similar issues with my driveline. I have to ride the clutch a bit in between shifts to ensure a silent engagement, otherwise an annoying clunk / rattle occurs that seems like backlash. I'm glad this is likely a driveshaft only issue, and not a diff problem!

[lukeADE335i]

It's definitely worth checking the driveshaft first - a driveshaft rebuild is much cheaper than rebuilding an LSD!