Ahmedsinc

^^ This. Add head gasket sealer to the possible mix too. Seems the person who sold you the car might have been concealing a little more than just rust!!

Everything is achievable with patience, the right tools and understanding what you're doing and the necessary steps to get there. Diffs are a simple enough concept, but as you say the margin of error is minute. The reason it costs so much to have a gearset changed, or an LSD centre installed is not really the time involved but more the knowledge and skill of the builder. And no matter which way you look at it its still cheaper to pay $500 for a gear swap than replacing a diff every few months

Ha, knew I had it saved somewhere! http://www.bmw2002faq.com/_/technical-articles/engine-and-drivetrain/strongest-2002-limited-slip-differential-build-r74 Swapping out the centres is pretty straightforward but I'd probably defer to a pro if changing gearsets. What options are available in E30 diffs? Can you get / import a 3.15 or similar?

Kayne is probably the resident expert in NZ on BMW drivelines. Does a lot of work for the BMW race series, amongst others. He's in Auckland, wouldn't cost much to get the diff freighted to him, chances are he can build you one from his spares pile. He's on Facefart too, look him up there - he's usually pretty quick at responding to PMs

A while ago I found a thread on an american site which gave a full step by step teardown and rebuild of the E30 188mm diff, right down to exploded photos and how to rebuild / shim / custom ramp angles on the LS centres. Will have a dig through the saved links folder on my old computer and see if I can find it for you. Gave all the info on preload, backlash, torque specs, etc - was really useful when I messed around with my diff. You will need to shim the new centre to get correct backlash, if this bit is done wrong your diff will grenade itself quicksmart. Pinion preload needs to be spot on otherwise the bearing will fail pretty fast. Bear in mind that you'll need some specialty tools which aren't particularly cheap (30mm impact socket, impact gun, dial indicator, bearing puller), so if this is likely to be a one-off project it will probably be cheaper to have someone like Kayne Barrie do the job for you. You could potentially spend $500-700 just on tools alone if you can't borrow them from someone, versus a few hundred bucks to get a pro to do it for you. Not saying its an impossible branch of black magic, but you do need the right gear and a good understanding of whats happening

Well, thats two cars on my bucket list you've beaten me to!! I'm gonna be seriously pi**ed off if you turn up in a B8 Alpina next!!! Will be keeping a very keen eye out for this around town

As Ron says, not all Bilsteins are rebuildable. Get in touch with Stocks for Koni, replaced the worn Bilsteins on the front of my car with M-spec equivalent Konis, very happy with the results

Lol, do you take orders on behalf?

I suspect in the case of Pelican, FCP etc they can buy in bulk quantities from the manufacturer and onsell themselves without having margins dictated to them by BMW, Porsche etc. I have wondered myself how manufacturers sell parts given they're probably designed by the clients engineers - in the case of an M60 power steer pulley who would actually own the rights to the design - BMW or Meyle? Assuming of course that Meyle is the OEM manufacturer, lest I get told off for being wrong.

So when Meyle supply both the manufacturer and the private market with the same part how is that not OEM? eg: the radiator I bought to replace the blown original Behr item in my 530i was a Behr, supplied as an OEM manufacturer part from Pelican. Far as I'm concerned it's a genuine part without the BMW markup. Or, say, buying Sachs shocks instead of BMW Genuine ones - where's the difference????

Meyle, Behr, Boge etc are all OEM manufacturers. Only difference between an OEM listed part and a Genuine part on Pelican is the branding on the box it comes in. So far the stuff I've had from Pelican has all been excellent quality, and even with the added shipping & currency conversion costs still cheaper (frequently less hassle too) than buying new locally. Probably not so much now our currency cross rates are in the low 60s. Ethically I prefer to buy from local suppliers, but when the aftermarket suppliers are still 100%+ more expensive in some instances (not always, but often) than buying online it's really hard to justify it sometimes. Yes, I'm well aware of smaller markets, less demand equalling higher margins on small run products, but when the budget dictates I can spend a maximum of $x on parts and my options are imported OEM or local aftermarket then in my opinion it's a no brainer.

Oooooh, new toys!! Looks like it'll be much nicer to use than GT1!

Surprised the seller is only asking 52k!

8mm engineers punch works good too. Paid $8 for mine, 12mm knurled shaft so real easy to get it back out once done!

Nice work so far. I have to ask the question though - since you're going to all the effort of a proper teardown and rebuild why have you stuck with the B35? 230hp & 235 ft/lb torque from the B35 as opposed to 280hp & 310 ft/lb from the M62B44NV? One would assume all the bearings and seals etc to rebuild both engines would be the same cost? Not knocking your decision, just genuinely curious

Sounds like a real winner Someone needs to transplant this all into an E30, iDrive included!

Wonder how it would go with an M54B30 intake and injectors? Would be simple enough to use an output on the Link to trigger the DISA valve to open between a set rev band and coolant temp / TPS reference, probably use the Vanos trigger points for convenience. More juice from the purple injectors coupled with the better flowing manifold.......... worth looking into anyway!

i'm curious - what benefits are to be had from the Motronic conversion? One imagines that if there are any improvements in torque and power they'd be incremental at best?

So its sheared the entire wheel barrel away from the wheel face? Wow!! Was considering a set of these as spares for Pigpen, think I'll go back to my original idea of style 66s!

For that sort of money I'd be expecting a M-specced 535i manual with the leather recaros, less than 200,000km too. Or a very tidy 540i auto. Theres just not the market here for E34s as say, E30s. If you do buy this for bits, expect to pay for the diff to be reco'd - 25 years on original clutch plates means it'll be not much more than 2% lockup now.

Look overseas for ACS / Hartge / Alpina dressup parts, you'll struggle to find anything here. As fashionable as tapware and blowers can be, I doubt they're what you're looking for. Or put the money towards maintenance / performance upgrades?

Diff, manual conversion and tech steering wheel probably worth something. Dunno about the rest - I wouldn't offer much more than 2k, less if you plan on stripping it for the good bits. $4250 is too much for a non-M with 300,000+km in my mind

Any particular reason why the dyno run was done in 4th get as opposed to 5th which is 1:1? Or is it a typo?

Edited for spelling

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=116803 http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=320713 Also look here for inspiration. M60 is a nice swap, be prepared to get your hands well dirty though M52B28 is the best bang for buck you can do. +T would be better left for the 2.0 version, especially as this is your first E30 1UZ is doable too, lots of work though M30B35+T would be sweet, heavy and probably similar output to an M52T swap LS1 + T56 would be the bees knees, but again work + big monies Will mostly come down to your actual budget vs dreams and find the happy medium from there. Even if your engine isn't perfect at least you have a known quantity vs another used engine bought on good faith. Good luck!