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Thread: S50B30 EURO or S50B32 Mounting

  1. #1
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    E60 M5, E61 535XI

    S50B30 EURO or S50B32 Mounting

    Hey all,

    I've got a spare S50B30 Euro laying around and looking to drop it in a project. I need information from anyone who has mounted the engine in vertical form.

    I know this has been bone in race form on mid engine race cars throughout Europe. Most of the ones I have seen in the past run a dry sump. Makes sense for the high G race format.

    Looking to do this in a street format. What mods will be needed and what is a possible transmission solution? Especially the transmission as the standard 5 speed will be clocked 30-40 degrees making shifting interesting. Not to mention oiling.

    Thoughts?
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  2. #2
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    Vertical?
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  3. #3
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    1994 "532i6", 1998 528iT
    Quote Originally Posted by nvrtoofast View Post
    Hey all,

    I've got a spare S50B30 Euro laying around and looking to drop it in a project. I need information from anyone who has mounted the engine in vertical form.

    I know this has been bone in race form on mid engine race cars throughout Europe. Most of the ones I have seen in the past run a dry sump. Makes sense for the high G race format.

    Looking to do this in a street format. What mods will be needed and what is a possible transmission solution? Especially the transmission as the standard 5 speed will be clocked 30-40 degrees making shifting interesting. Not to mention oiling.

    Thoughts?
    I would use an adapter plate for the trans to avoid having to tilt the trans and trans mounts. These guys rely on the pool of oil at the bottom of the case to stay alive, wouldn't attempt to change where said pool sits.

    The engine itself isn't a problem to mount vertically, you just need to fabricate the oil pump pickup(s) and oil pan. There's nothing inherent in the M5X/S5X design that would cause oiling issues - as far as the oil's perspective goes, it'd feel no different from turning right on a skidpad at about 0.5G, which has never caused a problem.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    Arida Zona
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    z3
    The reason the engines run dry sumps when oriented vertically is because the oil pan will interfere with the subframe when rotated

    And as the above poster mentioned, you should probably not rotate the transmission and this necessitates an adapter to fit the transmission at the correct (original) angle. The easiest way to do this would be to install a dry sump on the engine and move the engine forward by the width of the adapter to keep the original trans mount, linkage and driveshaft in place, but this would negate a lot of the "benefits" of the vertical alignment by moving the weight further forwards. Keeping the engine at it's original location or if possible more rearwards for better weight distribution would require custom shift linkage, custom trans mount and possibly a custom driveshaft

    I don't think it's worth it for a street car to do all of this just to set the engine in a vertical position

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