Member
hello im looking to buy a new car for myself. cant decide if I should get an e30 with a m52b28 swap or a e46 330i zhp. Witch option is better in terms of reliability and track/autocross etc. thank you !
Member
e30 if you have another car to daily drive, e46 if you don't.
Member
Neither car will be "new", understand that immediately. Just language, I know, and most don't speak it well and write even worse. But what can we do?
If you buy a car with a major component swapped from another model, the reliability is affected in many ways. One: did the swapper know what they were doing? Two: did the swapper do a good job? Three: was the new piece in good condition? Four was the car subsequently abused? Five: shit happens...
Overall I would buy a stock car rather than someone's used hotrod that's sure to have been used hard. Certainly there are exceptions, but to put substantial trust in a seller of a swapped car is unnatural to me. That said, I bought a 2000 Honda CRV for my daughter, many miles away, that a 17-yo had just finished a top end rebuild. I knew nothing of his capability or lack thereof, but he named the right names, and I drove it for two weeks without anything falling off, before shipping it 3000 miles to my daughter. Two years later and there have been no significant failures, guess I got lucky.
One last thing... depends on how much moolah you gots, and your tolerance and your skill in fixing someone else's mistakes, which will be yours alone by that time.
Charlie
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to add value to these threads, either by pictures or by descriptions, so the next person with the same or similar problem stands on your shoulders.
Member
I've never owned an E30, but have had my fair share of experience with engine swaps and from what I've seen, I don't think that any two are alike. What I mean is that each one is unique. What this means to you is that when something goes wrong, you could very well wind up standing there scratching your head wondering what the heck is wrong because you can't make heads or tails of the setup. You could very well wind up asking yourself questions like why is this here or isn't there supposed to be something here?
If you are going to track the car, from what I've read, the E30 is the way to go. Just count on spending a good bit of time getting to know your car because the only other person that might know is the guy you're buying it from. If you plan to use this car as a daily driver with the occasional track day, I'd go with the 330. The ZHP is much sought after too.
Depending on who you're buying the car from, odds are that both have been dogged. I was recently shopping for an E46 330, but wound up buying an E90 325i because all of the 330s were not only old, but looked their age. They were all just plain neglected. Still, if I had to choose between the two that you have posted about, based on very limited information, I'd go with the 330. At least when you need parts, you'll be able to refer to realoem to get part numbers.
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