Hi everyone I'm new to the forums as i have just bought my first bmw which happens to be a 1990 525i m sport. I found this beauty on craigslist in austin texas hidden out in the woods and only payed 750 dollars for it. So when I picked it up the previous owner said it had a blown head gasket on an m20 motor I figured no big deal as those motors are very simple to take apart. upon removal of the head i located a couple of cracks to it so now it was time to make a decision do i find a new head for this incredibly under powered motor or do i swap a m50 into it. As I began to search forum after forum as well as every for sale ad that I came upon for either an m50 or a new head I quickly made the realization that O should drop the m50 into... Now all i had to do was locate one with all the bells and whistles since none of the m20 things would work with the swap. after about a week or so I found the mechanic shop in south aust called terry sathers bmw ( If you live in the Austin area and have either a new or classic bmw this is the place you want to take it.) he said he just got a m52 in stock that he would be willing to sell complete but then he said he also just got a 1996 m3 in that was a total with a good motor and trans as well as all the little things like p/s and a/c compressor i immediately asked how much they wanted 3750 for it but managed to get it all for 3000. So now im sitting here with an s52 just about ready to drop in to my e34. and cant wait for it. p.s I'm sorry for my terrible writing/grammer. +
20170526_150608.jpg18485545_1638384712868962_791256006999373467_n.jpg20170526_150624.jpg17554154_1582031038504330_5057108261698245362_n.jpg
Lol, all BMWs are M sports when they're on craigslist No such thing with an M20 though. A real M sport E34 is a special version of the 540i that has an EDC suspension and some other things. Only 200-ish were made.
Other than that, Looking good! Should be a lot of fun.
Hi Tristan36, good luck on your swap. I'll be interested in following it because I guess one day I'll have to do the same.
To the pros here, what's the deal with the lower power that m52 has has compared to the m50?
EG m50b25 is 141kw, m52b25 is only 125kw.
M54b25 is only the same 141kw but gains in having a lower torque peak (at 3500rpm instead of 4500rpm), which is the improvement in for the m54, while not worth the power loss on the m52 at all.
Last edited by fo3; 05-28-2017 at 06:13 AM.
Welcome. If you want to go M50-based, I would go for an S52, no question.
Semantics time My neighbor just bought a JDM-import M20 true M Sport with 90k km on it, it's super cool. Cloth, slick-top, auto, it's such a uniquely Japanese option list. But yes, Americans were not given the M Sport option but for the very last, hottest 540s, and I see the M Sport moniker on half of the BMWs on Craigslist LOL.
quick update i injured my back and my dog was attacked so i haven't had much time to work on this thing I hopefully will be working on it this weekend if I'm feeling up for it,. But i did finally go and pick up all the obd 1 stuff from the wrecked e34 i now have the oil pan, intake, wiring harness, and ecu. I was also able to pick up a stock m50 exhaust and rear bumper from that e34. Ya i don't know much about the m sport stuff as this is my first bmw and was never into the euro scene much I'll pull the vin and see what the dealer says about the car because it has m badges under the hood and inside the car but like i said i don't know much about these cars.
you can run the vin here:
https://www.bmwvin.com/
it will tell you all the options the car came with. Picture of the M badging under the hood intrigues me. The rest of the M badging can be had on ebay for short money and stuck anywhere on the car.
-Alex
Ya its on the abs cover i think I'll have to check later today.
Welcome and congrats on getting an e34! This is going to be a sweet build, id honestly have rather swapped in a S52 into my 530i than the M60b40 but wouldn't be worth the hassle of relocating all the V8 engine bay stuff ): Do you plan on keeping the new motor stock or rebuilding? Diffidently clean up and rebuild as much of that motor as you can before swapping it in, huge regret not cleaning up or doing even the simplest tune up before swapping from the 3.0l to 4.0 lol. Good luck with this build and keep us updated and post pics along the way!
Hi My plan is to leave it stock for now while I finish building my track car (1993 nissan skyline) the plan is to use the e34 as a daily its going to get a new paint job I'm going to re dye and paint all the interior pieces black again and make it as stock as possible. then when the other car is done ill prolly supercharge it since i miss driving a supercharged car. and yes ill be updating this thread regularly with pics and what not.
So I did get some work done over the weekend i pulled the old oil pan (old oil pan is on top the new one is one bottom) of and inspected the crank no scoring or any other damage gonna put a small weld on the oil pump nut since that is a known issue with these motors. once I got the oil pan off i realized I forgot to grab the oil suction pipe from the donor m50 (the s52 oil suction pipe runs to the back of the motor where the m50 drops right below the oil pump) i had access to so I get the pleasure of driving back down to take that off... I also mounted the motor mounts for any one doing this in the future the m50 motor mounts do not mount to the same place as the e36 mounts they mount just forward of the original mounts i have pics to show this. I replaced the ac hoses for the compressor as well (this is required for anyone doing a swap that originally had an m20 in it m50 motors already have the correct hoses in place)
20170604_140953.jpg20170604_140937.jpg20170604_140953.jpg20170604_153236.jpg20170604_153241.jpg
Good work! I see you're also in the Flip Flop Garage club (myself and 93FIM5 are also members)
What this guy said. The Japs got the factory m-technics in 525, 535, 540. They got the e30 m-technics too. BMW Japan Corp also built e34's with AC Schnitzer body kits and other rare bits we never got in NA. Lot of these made it into Canada under the 15 year exemption. I have one of each example (m535i, m325i and an S5 clone). If it is a real m sport it should have an m badge on the glove box, and possibly a little plaque between the rad and the hood. Wouldn't surprise me to see a Jap import in Texas, could have snuck in through Florida, over the medicine line up north or some soldier managed to get it in without having to wait for the 25 year exemption.
real quick update so I got the oil suction pipe last night and will assemble the rest of the motor either tonight or tomorrow so i can drop it in this weekend with any luck.
Huh. Good question. In fact-checking this post I also discovered that the E36 323i actually came with a 2.5 (the 328i with a correct 2.8). One guess is that it was purposely detuned to distance itself from the B28; I believe similar games were played with the E90 325 and 330. Another guess is OBD2 emissions.
As someone who put ~1500 hours into building a 544iT (M62), I agree. S52 E34 just might be the purest stock-ish incarnation of a 5-series.
As the president of the Barefoot Garage Club, I invite you to, er, step up and join. More incentive to keep screws organized on the bench instead of the floor, mmhmm.
Last edited by moroza; 06-07-2017 at 01:49 PM.
So i managed to get the motor reassembled yesterday night the m50 oil suction pipe installed i removed/ broke off the bracket for the rear pipe so the m50 oil pan would fit.[IMG]20170607_173316 by tristan Anderson, on Flickr[/IMG]
This is what it should look like when its all put together.
[IMG]20170604_140953 by tristan Anderson, on Flickr[/IMG]
^^^this is the before as you can see the rear bracket is now been removed and the pipe goes straight down hopefully this weekend ill have time to actually put the motor in the car.
[IMG]20170614_212141 by tristan Anderson, on Flickr[/IMG].
So I managed to drop the motor in last night i forgot to get pics of the process but its relatively straight forward as long as you put the motor mounts in the correct position. I do not recommend doing this by yourself like i did it was a huge pain in the butt and took about 2.5 hours just put put it in. But its done now all I have to do now is hook up the cooling system and do the wiring and intake install and it should be good to go.
Last edited by Tristan36; 06-15-2017 at 09:50 AM.
Doing it all yourself? I can just imagine how hard that could be, even the small jobs I'm doing is sometimes a pain on my own. It's one of the reasons I'm putting off a manual conversion and a stroker crank and pistons, one day though...
Can't wait to see it fire up.
Ya I thought the hard part was over until i realized that the wiring harness used on these have all the same plugs and the shop i got it from didn't label the plugs...so I'm trying to figure that out right now. plus i need to go get a bunch of obd 1 sensors that i forgot to grab off the donor engine. plus random little hardware. this swap is much more difficult then normal because im swaping from the m20 to an s52 and they dont share any of the same parts plus i have to run an electrical line from the engine bay to the rear seat for the battery since the m20 cars had the battery stored under the hood.
You're relocating the battery? Do you need to? Early m50s like mine have the battery under the hood too.
Ya ill probably leave the battery where it is for the time being. But Now im having trouble locating a diagram of the engine harness so i can plug everything in...
Someone here sent me a link to electrical diagrams. From memory it was some weird site like wedophones
E: yeah I put that in my browser and the page came up.
http://www.wedophones.com/BMWManualsLead.htm
Weird as hell domain camping or some IT guy that works there put it up.
I just looked through the 535/525 I used from there and it doesn't have any general schematic diagram though, but look further if you haven't already known about that site :shrug:
Last edited by fo3; 06-20-2017 at 09:19 AM.
Thnaks this should help a lot. does anyone know what these three plugs are for I know one is for diagnostics but I dont know what the other two are for.
[IMG]20170620_084323 by tristan Anderson, on Flickr[/IMG]
The big one with cap is the diag connector as you probably know, the other big one is from/for the interior I'm thinking (that cable comes out of the firewall, another plugs into that, then into the loom and seems heading for the fusebox). The small one, I haven't seen/don't have. Only small one I remember is the MAF but it looks too big for that. Maybe to a relay box as a huge guess? there's the main relay box with the headlight relays (never seen that connector to be honest), and the smaller relay box for auxilliary radiator fan relays. I'm not sure if either of these have a connector like that or are just hard wired from the loom though.
Maybe a more well lit picture from top looking down would help?
Last edited by fo3; 06-20-2017 at 11:28 AM.
ill get a better picture in a couple of hours.
so this is where the two plugs should fit together but do not now this being an m20 car originally may be the problem but im not sure how to fix it.
[IM G
]20170620_130801 by tristan Anderson, on Flickr[/IMG]
This is the other plug im not sure what it goes to.
[IMG]20170620_130812 by tristan Anderson, on Flickr[/IMG]
there are these three wires that i don't know what they plug into either could be an m20 thing again any help would be greatly appreciated thanks in advance.
[IMG]20170620_130934 by tristan Anderson, on Flickr[/IMG]
Bookmarks