Picking up new engine on Wednesday, so excite

"CallMeTURBO" (callmeturbo)
06/01/2015 at 21:25 • Filed to: BMW e36

As some of you may know, I bought this e36 325i close to 6 months with a blown head gasket and automatic transmission.

Since then I’ve done just about everything you can think of.

Manual swap, new engine, short shifter and weighted shift rod, clutch fan delete/ electric fan conversion, fixed a/c, fixed heated seat, M3 front bumper, 11->18 button obc, 18x8 Rota p45rs on 245/35/18 hankook ventus v2 & AT italia flash sport 17x8 all around (light wheels for track, no heavy & weak rotas for trackday brah) , Eibach lowering springs and on bilstien sport, drilled and slotted rotors, cooling system revamp, dinan tune, AC Schnitzer strut bar, 3.23 lsd, Remus exhaust, afe cold air intake.

Edit: OH! And halos... Those are cool

I think that’s it... Anyways my friend has aquired 4 m3s over the course of the last 3 months and now I am catching the power bug. I’ve never been a huge fan of turbos because I love NA screamers but I do like that superchargers offer a similar power curve to NA engines.

Unfortunately, supercharging is a little out of my budget range at the moment, especially because I’m moving to Boston and getting an apartment with my girlfriend of 4 years at the end of the summer. However, I do want to leave a possibility open for FI in the future, so a freshly built engine has to be somewhere in the future

Luckily, because I had to pull the old engine to swap in a new one, I have a spare m50 lying around and I had planned on getting the head redone and outfitting it with an MlS head gasket and arp nuts and studs etc. I had researched naturally aspirated power mods but it mostly looked like I would be spending a ton of money for not a lot of power. So I just decided to go ahead with rebuilding the engine this summer while I had free time, and figuring out power and stuff later, cause I didn’t want to do anything with serious power on my only functioning m50 with 149.000 miles.

Enter the 3.1L “halfassenberg”. It turns out with some slight modification, M54b30 intake cam, rods&pistons, and crankshaft will fit into an m50 engine increasing the stroke but keeping the same bore (so no huge machining costs) and essentially make power similar to an s50.

Now I know it’s not exact, there’s slightly less horsepower and torque then an s50 but there is a very broad torque curve. And with a few more modifications ( 24lb injectors, euro 3.5 maf, valve tray and lifters from m54, m54 intake manifold) it can make pretty similar numbers. Out of the box or individually this stuff all costs lots of cash, cash that I could just use to buy a supercharger.

But today, fortune shone upon me as I was procrastinating and doing my LSAT prep, I found an m54b30 out of a 330xi less than an hour from me. Price was slightly out of budget but a few texts later and we negotiated down to a very reasonable (like as much as I would have paid for just the Pistons and rods by themselves) price.

I agreed to his price knowing that I was still $150 short but told him I would pick it up on Wednesday to give myself a bit of time. Lo and behold, a few Facebook listings later I sold my OEM 325i bumper, valve cover, and fixed a friends iPhone battery, altogether netting me about $170

Boom, haz cash, soon has m54. Then wait a week until lsats are done on June 8th...

Zen ve staht ze frankenstroker build

DISCUSSION (6)

vwbeamer > CallMeTURBO
06/01/2015 at 21:43

Wow, seems you know more than I do about these cars, maybe you could help me?

I had a bit of bad luck with my E39 2001 525i touring. I decided to take it 1700 miles round trip to Texas from GA. It made it out there, but the water pump let go on the way back, and I fear the head gasket might have fell victim.

I paid $1000.00 to get it back the 700 miles back to GA, after thinking about simply selling it in Texas, but I like the car, it is in good shape and only recently passed the 100K mark.

What engine swap would be the easiest to get more power and not be too much fab work? Will the 3.0 liter M54 bolt right in? I still want decent economy, but more power for passing and such would be great.

CallMeTURBO > vwbeamer
06/01/2015 at 22:00

Ooo 525i touring... I love wagons, unfortunately 3/5 series wagons didn’t fit my budget when I was looking for a car.

As for swapping things go, yes you would have no problem swapping out an m54b25 for your m54b30, there isn’t an fabrication required because It will run with the stock wiring harness and ecu (however to get the most out of it you may want to consider a reflash to m54b30 spec, which isn’t too expensive)

Here’s a link to bimmerforums that might give you some more info

I’ve mostly done work on 3-series but from what I can tell the extent to most older non-M variants are basically their engines, sometimes suspension and diff. But they aren't generally very hard to swap

WhiskeyGolf > CallMeTURBO
06/01/2015 at 23:23

You, sir, are a legit Jalop!

itranthelasttimeiparkedit > vwbeamer
06/01/2015 at 23:52

My expansion tank on my 02 540iT blew recently and I kept driving for a good half day (temp was a little higher than normal and then finally overheated.) My mechanic said the motors on these hold up pretty well to moderate overheating, not sure if he meant the v8 specifically or not.

Re engine swaps, get the v8 (whatever the code is, forget.) You should be able to get one pretty cheap, and you can recode the car easy. I am going to manual swap mine if/when I have major maintenance that requires pulling the engine or similar. That plus a supercharger and I will be a happy man (and 550i badging just to be funny)

vwbeamer > itranthelasttimeiparkedit
06/02/2015 at 11:50

I would love to have the v-8, but I was looking for something more plug and play. After reading the link provided, the M54b30 seems to be a direct drop in.

finn's arm > itranthelasttimeiparkedit
06/04/2015 at 11:31

Won’t fit - the suspension geometry and components are different between the I6 & V8 E39’s. He’ll have to stick with likely the M52TU engines. It’ll be costly changing to the 3L. The gimped cars in later years received a different ECU.