Kobra 180 Report post Posted July 25, 2016 (edited) Hi Guys, I've decided that I need another E30 in my life, and this time I planning to do it right. Rewind to 6 weeks ago, some friends and I are having a few drinks on a Friday evening. One friend was browsing facebook and mentioned that he found a '96 328i factory manual for sale. Only $1000 he said. This sounded too good to be true....and it was...sorta... The car was water damaged - I'm not 100% on the details, but something something Dunedin floods. Surely if it's a factory manual, the manual parts alone would be worth the money and effort. I thought about it for a while, and then tried to convince myself that it was a stupid idea and to forget about it...I failed. I called the guy, and told him I would take the car and pick it up tomorrow. The car was located in a wreckers yard in Dunedin. I managed to persuade a friend of mine with access to a car trailer and shop to make the trek from Christchurch down to Dunedin with me the next morning. Jumping forward a couple of days and this is my view: After decoding the VIN number of the car, it turned out the car was actually a factory automatic and must've been converted at some point. We started tearing into the car, and it quickly be came evident that, yes, this car was very water damaged. A thin layer of silt covered everything. As we dug deeper, things started to look worse (not unexpectedly). We found water sitting atop cylinder 1's intake valves, but 2-6 all looked perfectly fine. Draining the sump resulted in roughly 10L of water with mixed about 6L of chocolate milk...not great. Further investigation found that the car has a ZF 310 5 speed transmission, an OEM 328i dual-mass flywheel + clutch. Cool, at least the conversion looks like it was done properly. At this point I still hadn't decided what I wanted with to the parts from this car, But I'd been looking for a project car, and I felt I needed another E30 in my life. As it turned out, my friend's father has this little beauty that he's willing to sell. It's by no means perfect, but it's a straight, rust free, registered, '89 318i automatic coupe in my favourite colour (Delphin grey). A good starting point for my project E30.Jumping back to the present, I've pulled the engine and drivetrain out of the 328. The engine is sitting on a stand, and I intend on stripping it down and rebuilding it. Once it's ready, I plan to swap it into the E30 with the manual transmission. From there I plan to do new suspension, med-case LSD, wheels + tyres, and general tidying up. Eventually I would like to have the car's paint redone as it's a little rough in places. Looking at the task at hand, I know I have a fair bit of work ahead of me. But I'm ready for the challenge! Any help finding the various 24v swap components would be great. I know I need the sump, oil pickup, dipstick, and throttle cable from a 525i E34. Not 100% on what to do about the brake booster, although moving it over a bit seems like the easiest solution. The water-damaged ECU is toast, so I need a new one. I would like to keep OBD2. Thinking of getting a (red-label?) ECU and having it flashed (EWS delete, rear O2 delete, M50 manifold, maybe even a higher redline?) E28 535i engine mounts seem to be the way to go, although I've read mentions of an additional spacer is required? Subframe reinforcement is also something I want to do. I would like to use as much of the 328i's factory exhaust as possible as it's still in good condition. Not sure how much of a plain it would be to chop it up. I want to use the E36 radiator and do an electric puller fan conversion. Edited July 25, 2016 by Kobra words 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kulgan 1042 Report post Posted July 25, 2016 Awesome project you have going there. I'll be watching this progress with interest. Lots of pics as you go please. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eliongater 718 Report post Posted July 25, 2016 I'm pretty sure the red label is for an m50. You need a standard m52b28 ECU, from 97? Onwards. Talk to Tom (m3_power), he's an expert. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WYZEUP 283 Report post Posted July 25, 2016 As for brake booster you have a few options: - E21 Brake Booster - Porsche 944 Brake Booster - Facelift Renault Clio Brake Booster - http://ergen.co.uk/product/brakes/e30servo.html Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mr Vapour 76 Report post Posted July 25, 2016 I have an e21 booster Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted July 26, 2016 I will keep the pictures coming for sure! Can any M52B28 ECU be flashed? Does anyone local do ECU flashing? I've read the brake feel with the E21 booster isn't great. Is this true? I'm not a huge fan of the typical spongy feeling pedal. I prefer a pedal without much movement, but plenty of bite. Maybe an E32 booster with a 25mm M/C would be more what I'm after? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RedRocketTi 131 Report post Posted November 30, 2016 Looks good man, going to put my spare m52b28 into my little brothers 2 door e30 coupe at some point too! As far as DME's go, get another m52b28 DME, along with the key chip and ews unit under the dash. There are tutorials online as to how to wire the ews system into e30's either that or buy yourself a flashed m52b28 dme with ews delete. The red 413 DME comes without EWS and is for M50b25 engines or if you did a full loom swap onto your b28 as my old b28 is. Any questions feel free to hit me up! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted December 2, 2016 (edited) I ended up just getting another factory DME with matching EWS box and chip, so for now, I'll just use that. Project update! (Warning! lots of pictures) Admittedly, my progress has been pretty slow over the past few months. But I have been collecting parts as funds allow. I drained a lovely strawberry milkshake like oil mix from the transmission. Luckily, the gears inside don't show any signs of corrosion. I then started the tearing down the engine to inspect the damage. The camshafts looking good... Pulled the camshafts and stored them away safely wrapped in newspaper. This shot shows just how much silt was left on the engine. At this point I started debating whether or not I should pull the head. In the end, I was convinced it needed to happen. Head off! Inspecting the cylinders and piston crowns. Plenty of crud build-up. At this point, I'm very glad I pulled the head. The valves have a bit of surface rust and crud on them, but I think they'll clean up nicely. I started cleaning up the bores and tops of the pistons with some old gasoline. I forgot to take pictures of the head when I was cleaning it, but came out equally as well as the short-block. I then proceeded to flip the engine over, and pull the oil pan off. Still a great deal of milky oil left coating the bottom-end. I spent the next few weekends cleaning all of the nooks and crannies of the engine with old gas and a toothbrush. This took far more hours than I'm willing to admit, but the end result was certainly worth it. The engine then sat like this for a couple of months... Edited December 2, 2016 by Kobra a word 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted December 2, 2016 Project update continued! Just for fun, I decided to open the water damaged DME. Yep, she's rooted. I'm planning to delete the factory PCV system, and just run a catch can instead. I found this cheapy billet aluminium on ebay for $30. My E30 has had a fairly rusty exhaust. So much so, that the muffler at the end wasn't even mechanically connected to the rest of the system. Since the car was about to have the engine pulled out, we decided it would be fun to chop most of the exhaust off, and take the car for ride down to the beach. An M40 with a straight pipe exiting under the driver sounds like a struggling tractor...until you hit 5k, above that, the sound is pure race car! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted December 2, 2016 Project update conclusion In the last few months, I've managed to get my hands on most of the parts I need to rebuild the engine and swap it into the e30. E28 535i Engine mounts Headgasket + seal kit Replacement MS41 Siemens DME + matching EWS bits (Thanks to Brent at BM World) E34 sump + dipstick tube + oil pickup (Thanks to Ray at Hell BM) Oil catch can Currently, I'm waiting while the head is getting professionally cleaned, and rebuilt with new valve stem seals. I'll have a decent amount of free time over the new year, so I'm planning to have the M52 enigne sitting in the car by the end of December. On a side note, I've spent some of my downtime researching how to flash the Siemens MS41 DME. I'm currently building a bench flashing rig. This will hopefully allow me to tinker with the tuning, and even do my own EWS delete. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
zero 1162 Report post Posted December 2, 2016 Great progress. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RedRocketTi 131 Report post Posted December 2, 2016 This is looking awesome! That flashing rig would be cool to see in action, where are you finding the info on how to build the flashing hardware and software side of things? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted December 2, 2016 I've found a few decent resources describing how to get started: OpenMS41 - https://sites.google.com/site/openms41/romraider/how-to-get-started-tuning-your-m52-s52-with-romraiderE30 Garage post - http://e30garage.tech/topic/37-ms41-tuningflashing-basics/digital-kaos immo off thread - http://www.digital-kaos.co.uk/forums/showthread.php/205111-Bmw-Dme-Ms41-0-immo-off Pins required Connecting +12V to Pin 60 enables write access (you can read the 24K without this) I've ordered a VAGCOM cable with the RT232RL chip. Once that arrives, I'll be able to test my rig. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jonoe30 53 Report post Posted December 2, 2016 Out of interest, what is the head rebuild costing? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted December 3, 2016 23 hours ago, jonoe30 said: Out of interest, what is the head rebuild costing? I was given an estimate of $300. That includes dropping the valves and acid washing the head. I'm supplying my own valve stems seals with came with my headgasket kit (about $300 NZD shipped from ECS Tuning in the US). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted December 7, 2016 Quick update - Just got the head back. A few of the valve seats were slightly rusted, which means they required a bit of machining. This bought the price up a bit. But I guess $450 isn't too bad. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Autobahn 22 Report post Posted January 11, 2017 Updates? I know you've been working on the car because it's sitting in my back yard. =D 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted February 1, 2017 (edited) I've pretty bad about posting updates to this thread, but it's time for another update. Here's what has happened over the last couple of months. E34 M50 sump parts arrived. Hmmm, 2 different oil baffles... I'll end up sticking with the M52 one. The head's back... ..lets bolt it back on. While attempting to torque the headbolts, a couple of them didn't feel right. One was binding up as I was making the first 90deg stage. I pulled the bolts back our to find this on the binding bolt. sh*t. This isn't looking good. I hope the threads in the block can be saved. I got out the tap and die set, and carefully cleaned up the threads in the head. The new headbolts had some minor thread damage, so I ran each of the bolts through a die just in-case. I then made another attempt to torque the head back down. Success, no issues at all this time. Edited February 1, 2017 by Kobra Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted February 1, 2017 Some of the exhaust lifters had a bit of rust on the side of them (sorry, forgot to get a photo). But thanks to Autobahn, I had access to a parts motor. So I pulled the spare lifters, and proceeded to install the camshafts into my engine. At this point I had to wait for a big box of parts to arrive from the US (it took more than 3 weeks, ridiculous). We started getting to work preparing the car. The first step was to remove the 4 banger with it's autotragic. The M40 was missing it's front engine lifting point, so we used the intake manifold. Of course this meant we ran out of leveller travel, and proceeded to struggle for an hour or two manoeuvring this mess. We did mange it in the end, just in time to close up the shop. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted February 1, 2017 The box of parts did finally arrive after many delays. Now I could finish up the engine. Oil baffle modified. Bolted back one, along with the e34 m50 oil pickup, and sump. Installed the cam sprockets and timed the engine. All buttoned up. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted February 1, 2017 I found a good deal on a brand new e36 aluminium radiator for sale locally. I also got my bench flashing rig setup and working. I managed to successfully do a read of the 24k partial from the MS41.0 DME. Opened the bin file in RomRaider and everything looks good. Deleting EWS appears to be extremely easy once you know where to look. Still not 100% on deleting the rear O2 sensors, I'm not even sure if my donor car had them. Got the car back in the shop to do the E36 steering rack swap. Pulled the brake booster to figure out how I'm going to clear the intake manifold. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted February 1, 2017 The project E30s lurking out back. Time to push the car back into the shop and drop an engine into it. We did have some issue getting the engine mounts to sit correctly, but got there in the end. Checking for clearance. It looks like the E36 power steering lines will work with some slight tweaks and a custom bracket to support the high pressure line. Installed the shifter support bracket while I had the car up on the lift. Popped the M52 intake manifold on to check for clearance. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kobra 180 Report post Posted February 1, 2017 Went to the local pick-a-part, and found some E30 goodies that my car was missing. Started repainting them. I'm quite happy with how this blanking panel came out. Now lets get back to the brake booster situation. I did initially intend on slotting the holes in the firewall and moving the booster over, but that doesn't appear to be very easy to do on our RHD cars. The pivot mechanism on the passenger side is fairly well mounted, and I don't really want to cut and weld it. At this stage I'm thinking about doing an Audi B5 A4 1.8T (dual diaphragm) brake booster. I haven't managed to find one for decent price yet, and there is very little info on this option. Any help on this one would be greatly appreciated. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
duvey 245 Report post Posted February 2, 2017 Nice work! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark86 6 Report post Posted February 3, 2017 Epic project! Well done Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
