The suspense is killing me....
What's the motor???
Dinan Custom Intercooled S/C M3 01' 740 Sport 03' 745i
A Few Harleys
Piper Cherokee
Very very cool project, Im with everyone else on this, the suspense is killing all of us!! Got some friends doing an e30 for the 2010$, stock(ish) eta motor though.... Hopefully ill see you guys there!
BTW, this project has FSAE written all over it!
(FSAE 3rd world solutions to real world problems )
Last edited by colinE30; 06-16-2010 at 02:00 PM. Reason: sp
Kettering U FSAE!
"Simplify and add lightness" Colin Chapman
hmm.. L67 GM supercharged v6 makes 240hp stock, and easily makes 280 with slight mods. Are we sure he's still using a v8?
1994 530iA
Sure of nothing.. but positive he said v8.
Andrezbim
Update for June 16, 2010: We had 4 people here Tuesday night and we worked for about 4 hours. Got a lot done... all of the suspension is bolted on the car now, all 4 wheels are on, and we started playing with ride heights. Oh, and we caught the car on fire about 12 times.
Rear diff mount structure seam sealed, taped, primed and painted - then the E30 diff with the E36 cover was installed
Trailing arms and new rotors installed. Then several rear wheels and tires were test fit
Rear fenders were roughed in with the plasma cutter. Mayhem ensued
Ride height testing took a while. We got it to 5" clearance under the steering rack and 6" under the fuel tank. These M3 fenders won't be cut up!
Its ghetto looking but it looks mean on 18x11s with 305 Hoosiers
We also mocked-up/measured our driveshaft set-up, worked on the a rear diff/speed sensor interference solution, and installed the front rotors as well. Lots more to do, but at least it rolls, steers, and almost stops. Thanks to Chris, Sean, and Brian for helping last night! We're at it again this Thursday and I'm digging into the car (header fab?) all weekend.
Cheers,
Terry Fair @ Vorshlag Motorsports
holy mother of god that rear diff mount is awesome. I can't tell from the pic but are those solid bushings in the diff ears? Or do you plan on turning bushings for that on the lathe as well?
M50 3.1L Stroker - TC Kline D/A
Thanks! We spent a lot more time on it than we should have, but after seeing stock E30 subframes crack under the awesome might of an M20 or M42, and seeing the single-ear mount rip out of the trunk on more powerful E30s, I figured it was a MUST DO mod for what we had in mind. We didn't really have a lot of good examples to go by (so many racers do NOT take pics of these things!) but it seemed kind of obvious how to do it - to me?
Nope, those are just 20 year old, stock E36 rubber bushings. I got the diff cover from a buddy (Matteucci) who was going to throw away a bunch of E36 non-M stuff he had in his old shop when he moved. "One man's junk is another man's treasure!" I never thought I wold make use of any of this, but on this project we've used all sorts of his old E36 parts for this swap.
We have thought about replacing that pair of aluminum/rubber diff bushings with Nylon... but there's just so little rubber on these mounts I don't know if its needed. The E46 diff mount is a huge chunk of rubber, but these... not so much. We have some more scrap aluminum, so who knows - maybe we'll whittle some up.
GRM Team - we're working again tonight! LR fender plasma cutting, fabricating rear brake caliper mounts, dash/seat install, and starting on radiator brackets. Lots to do!
Cheers,
Terry Fair @ Vorshlag Motorsports
This build is AWESOME! One of my favorite things to read right now, keep up the amazing work.
Really coming together now. Can't wait to see some more pictures of this weekends work!
the rear end looks awesome. still curious what you did to get the e36 cover to fit on it.
89' 325i -Auto(blah)-DD
88' 325ic-dubbed "Miniskirt Nasty"
87' 944 turbo (951)-needs things.
Oh, nevermind, for some reason I thought they used an e36 diff. Makes sense they used an E30 diff with an E36 cover.
M50 3.1L Stroker - TC Kline D/A
Update for June 18th, 2010: It was a busy night with a record 10 different GRM Team members showing up at one point or another, with another 3-4 that couldn't make it. The GRM Project Team has really grown and I honestly lost count! Thanks to everyone who came by last night to work. I didn't do much on the car myself until the wee hours of the morning, long after everyone had left, as I was performing some drywall/insulation repairs all night in preparation for some work a plumber is here wrapping up this morning.
A bit of what was done last night can't be shown yet. Motor stuff. The power steering pump is on so now almost all the accessories are in place, which will let me get the radiator mocked-up and I can work on brackets and the main coolant lines this weekend. I did get the radiator in place at about 3 am and found some used radiator hoses that I can cut-up and splice together to use on this motor. Some are from this very car and others are from a box of used BMW hoses I keep for "emergency spares". Both of my E46s got a full "pre-emptive coolant system replacement", so their old hoses will make good donors.
A well used, stock E36 radiator (used for years in the Alpha car) sits in place with a good 1/2" to the front of the motor (ha!)
We used some more old radiator hoses for the fuel filler neck relocation, as well as an old BMW swaybar bracket. This car is getting all sorts of recycled parts! The original filler neck location (at the passenger side rear fender) is getting covered up by flares soon and the filler neck/vent tubes were in the way of the 18x11" wheels, on the inside rim area. Now the filler neck will be at the back of the trunk for somewhat easy fill-ups. More importantly I won't spend 6+ hours relocating the stock filler door assembly in the left rear wheel flare, and doing more bodywork (shudder) to make it look pretty. I think I found the swaybar bracket, but Derek and Chris tackled the heavy lifting on this one and it came out great.
Fuel filler neck and cap relocation worked great and cost $0
More inboard rear wheel room was found by chopping off part of the rear upper spring perch, which is over-sized for the 60mm coilover springs we'll be using. Chris manned the plasma cutter and Derek welded up the new edge to gain us about 3/4" inboard on both sides.
Left: more room gained here out back for the 18x11" wheels. Right: Up front there's plenty of room to the E36 strut/spring
Our newest team member Brian kept busy all night and got the HVAC box buttoned up put the dash back in. This was a job nobody wanted to touch, and he did it with a smile. Other than one trim ring around the gauge cluster (which I had never seen in place - it came with the car in the trunk) and the center console (awaiting my tunnel patch repair) the dash bits are done.
Costas built some E36 steering rack bushings to get the height of the rack set relative to the E30 K-member, so its finally wrapped up. He also got the custom 2-piece steering shaft (which may or may not make it in the final $2010 budget) installed, Loctited, and marked with paint to show its done.
Sean pulled the trans crossmember off, cleaned it up and painted it, then I bolted it back on this morning. We also got the V6 Camaro steel driveshaft (came with the trans) in place and marked for a simple cut/weld, which we'll do over the weekend.
Question: Can someone who knows more about E30 fuel systems than any of us tell me what each of these fuel lines is at the tank?
Left: What is all of this crap? Right: New rotors installed last Tuesday night
Chris got the inspection cover off from the rear seat area and we all got a little bleary-eyed trying to figure out the fuel system and vent routing. So... many... lines... There are 3 lines going to the old filler neck (a vent, spillover tube, and ???) and some more coming out of this cover that we cannot identify. It looks like there's a pump inside the tank and an external as well - is this a crossover pump? We might have to drop the tank (which isn't a bad idea - the old fuel needs to be cleaned out and a big dent pushed out) to figure all of this out over the weekend. We got a used, stock Subaru 200 lph electric pump for $0 (it was being thrown out/replaced) that should feed our little motor, which I had planned on putting inside the tank in place of the stocker.
A 4 liter SPA fire system is headed our way from Elephant Motorsports (thanks Jack!), so that will go in next week, along with the aluminum seat and a custom slider (which I dread making). Over this coming weekend I want to get the coolant lines to the heater core, a remote reservoir (that I need to scrounge to find), and the radiator completed; radiator brackets built; power steering hoses made/started; master cylinder mounted/plumbed; the LR fender plasma cut for the big wheels; the driveshaft wrapped up; original front fenders installed and cut for tire clearance; and get a start on the headers. I might be getting some bodywork help for Saturday, as David is flying in from Boston for the weekend and wants to lend a hand. Paul M is coming by to machine that speed sensor spacer for the diff cover, and I think McCall is stopping by Saturday as well.
If anyone in the DFW area that is good with bodywork and/or paint wants to join the team, we need you!
Check in on Monday for more updates,
Terry Fair @ Vorshlag Motorsports
Would love to lend a hand but a little far away
Keep the updates coming!
M50 3.1L Stroker - TC Kline D/A
bad ass. I've been reading this for two days. Can't wait to see what motor you're going to use.
I Haters.
present: 1985 318i 2.7i swap!; 1987 Lachsilber 325 (totaled )
past: 1994 Honda Civic DX (totaled, sold); 1986 BMW Alpine 325(sold); 1994 318i(sold); 93' Calypsorot 325iA (R.I.P.), 93' Calypsorot 325is(sold)
I edited my past list because its just gotten too damn long. The ones listed are the cars that i Truly loved, which includes every BMW i've ever owned.
Last edited by BRAAP; 06-18-2010 at 09:48 PM.
Will that fit in the engine bay?
Andrezbim
Not sure if you'll indulge a hypothetical or not, but if so. . . . If you had been able to find an M60/62 for the correct price, how much power do you think you might have been able to coax out of it without spending megabucks?
My reason for asking is that I figure you guys might have a pretty good idea of how to make some decent power with one of these for reasonable money. . . ?
Thanks in advance!
Another engine guess is the Ford Tarus SHO 3.4L V8 designed by yamaha. It has a narrower 60º bank, dohc,...could be expensive, but I would imagine that it is not a very high demand engine. Seriously, who'd do an engine swap on a Taurus? FWD application, yet similar to the duratec motors would make a a reasonable candidate to be mated to a T5.
I owned an M62 powered 540i-6spd and it was a great car... reliability wasn't so great, but it was mostly simple stuff like gaskets and sensors. I had a decent exhaust on it and the car cracked 262 whp and ran a 14.2@101 on the 1/4 mile - not bad for a big 3800 pound boat.
About 6 years ago the 540i was one of the cars in my (then tiny) garage
I looked at this BMW V8 many years ago when I did my first E36 swap. But that engine is massive... 7" wider than an LSx, for instance. And its heavy. And aftermarket support is abysmal. The guys at Edge Motorwerks put one in an E36 years ago and it was... challenging... and it just couldn't make power without metric tons of money thrown at it. They pulled it out and put in an LS1 and were much happier...
Still, it would be a cool swap to have a BMW DOHC V8 in the E30, so I did look again for an M62 and even the M5 version of this motor to use in our GRM project, but came up short. Everything that was a decent motor (year/miles/completeness) was $800 or more, with harness/computer/accessories, and trying to find one with the BMW manual transmission was $1500+ just for the drivetrain. Not cost effective and a VERY large and heavy engine. I would have had to cut the strut towers all to hell to fit it properly. Not a good engine swap candidate.
Last edited by Fair; 06-21-2010 at 03:14 PM.
Terry Fair @ Vorshlag Motorsports
Touring Car in Matthews, NC has a BMW V8 in an E30. I have seen it @ Vintage at the Vineyards, pretty cool car.
M50 3.1L Stroker - TC Kline D/A
L67 would be a good choice, so would the 5.3 truck engine. Both can be had cheap and both make good torque. My money is on the 5.3.
BTW, Very cool project, nice work too!
Last edited by Roadsign; 06-21-2010 at 05:25 PM.
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