E30 Racecar Engine Swap.. with a difference..

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2957]

An English gentleman, such as myself, does not "do skids". That type of shenanagins is the preserve of oiks, cads and ruffians.

Still working on the exhaust, so not ready for a drive yet, bits have finally been made so fingers crossed on getting it all welded up in the next day or so. I need to get a few kms on the engine before the trackday on Saturday.

Still having issues with the front swaybar, tried fitting an M3 sway bar but still clashed, so had to resort to giving the headers a bit of a whack with the hammer and putting some packers in under the links and mounting brackets.

Have found the issue with the wiring, looks like I have a very early M3 engine loom and not a 320iS loom as I thought. So I know what I have to do to fix that bit at long last.

It's going to be a busy week getting everything ready that's for sure!

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2957]

I've got the first performance / go-faster parts from the US of A to go into the engine now.

Can't say too much as it's all Top Secret and I know other 2.0ltr competitors come on Bimmersport sometimes, so just a sneak peak...

At LEAST a second a lap right there!

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2957]

I've not been updating this thread for a while as I had a bit of a set back (as some of you may know). But the car is now running so will update with more pics, etc. soon.

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2957]

As at the last update I was rushing to get the car ready for the Race Series track day. At about 10.30pm the night before the car was finally all together and fired up, went for a short spin round the block and all seemed good.

Come the day of the track session, the plan was to take it easy and gradually run the engine in. First session, I did about 3 laps at slow speed, only using part throttle and low revs. Came in to check the steering as it was a bit "vague", checked and tightened the bolts in the linkage.

Three or four gentle laps of the second session and the car lost power then cut out going into the infield hairpin - not good.

After a bit of poking around under the bonnet I noticed the dizzy cap was broken into pieces, so guessed that was the problem. Not having a spare that was the end of the day, but not a biggie, or so I thought.

When I got the car home and started pulling the dizzy apart, I noticed the problem was the rotor was moving all over the place, which had smashed the cover. Unfortunately the rotor is bolted to the cam, the reason it was loose was the sprocket had come completely unbolted. sh*t, time to pull the head off and find out how much damage was done!

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2957]

When I got the head off I could see that the damage was worse than I had hoped, but luckily not as bad as I had feared.

As expected four of the exhaust valves were bent (sprocket on exhaust cam came off) but also all eight of the inlet valves were also bent, losing the sprocket meant the timing chain wasn't under tension and was able to jump a number of cogs on the cam, but still turned it, damn.

The good news was that the pistons had only kissed the leading edge of the valves, and no heads had come off completely. The engine was only at low revs when it let go, thankfully not going full chat down the front straight! so there was only very minimal marks on the tops of the pistons and no damage to the rods, phew!

The head checked out ok, and there were no issues with the guides or the valve seats which was another big relief. Another member of the Race Series then came to the rescue with a full set of very good condition valve gear which had come out of his 635CSi engine and are the same parts in the S14 - so a huge thank you to Ian Brown for those, and to Kayne Barrie for knowing about them.

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2957]

Some serious things to be done before the next race season, but as expected I am too busy mucking about with silly stuff that won't make me go any faster, but that I think looks pretty cool...

Spoiler alert!!

[Nobimmer 694]

Is that flap up all the way?

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2957]

Nope, that is the flap in the lowest position, so this would be the Pukekohe setting.

Depending on where you drill your holes will determine how high the flap goes when it is in the raised, or Taupo setting.

Don't think we will get quite this much though #gotflap

[_ethrty-Andy_ 2132]

missed the last update, head giving up isnt cool! i assume the head itself survived fine?

keep up the good work!