E30 M3 /S50 B32 The Write Up (D Beast)

[dicko]

Right I had better write this up before we change any thing.
This all started just after Christmas last year , when a got a Call from Lenny .
He told me he was thinking of putting a s50 into his M3 , of course my first question was " what happened the s14".
He had bought the car as a none runner ,with a M50 sitting in the engine bay but with no ecu .
Now I am no engine snob but a M car desirves a M power plant ,and there,s none finer than a S50 B32.
I reminded Lenny that S50B32 engines all have ews2 (chipped keys) and to make sure that when buying an engine to make sure he got ecu and matching ews unit and key , to which he informed me he had a 96 m3 evo sitting at the house and it was a runner .
To any one thinking of doing this conversion take care to get the above Ecu / Ews module and matching key and transponder ring(around the ignition barrel).
If you fail to get any of the above it going to get expensive VERY EXPENSIVE,the problem is that the key has a chip with a rolling code (ews2) what happens is when you try to start the car the ews module trys to read the code from the key , this code is then compared with the one in the ecu if they match happy day the starter will fire up and away you go , but if your keys code doesnt match then ecu will shut down so no fuel and no spark and the Ews module will inhibit the starter signal, Bad news! you or I are not going to hot wire you way out of this one . the ews module IS NOT just a passive module it is also paired to the ecu .
There are ways around this by getting some one to alter the ecu software , But I havent seen it done, and think ews is a nice security feature to have .
Your only other option is custom ecu , how ever this is again no cake walk
first of all these engines have double vanos ( Variable valve timing ) but unlike a lot of variable valve timing its not just a two postion type like m50/52 , its constantly variable with about 60 degrees of movement on both intake and exhaust .
There are only a few after market ecu,s that can run this and you have guessed it they are expensive , the motec m800 is one and thats around 4000 euro with loom ect .

second problem is the shear number of variables this engine has , which is a hugh problem for Mapping you shiny new ecu .
Imagine a standard engine with fixed cams all you have to worry about is fuel and ignition maps at given loads, so basically get a few spots right at say 1000 rpm intervals then fill in the dots this can take a day or so of mapping may be more , how ever with the s50 you now have Double Variable Valve timing to factor in and changing the valve timing will change the fuel and ignition map, its like adding two extra numbers in the lotto , you can still win it but it will take you a lot longer and that means more CASH!.
I spoke with someone who mapped one of these on a haltec ecu and he said it took him FIVE Days of mapping, and at that he reckoned he still could have spent longer.thats a serious amount of cash .
Now sitting in you donor cars is an ecu that some men in white coats have spent thousands of man hours mapping playing with every variable possible (temp humidity altitude) and who ever you get the map a custom ecu wont be able to simulate any of these .
the siemens ecu is a super ecu so fast that it uses the vanos to vari valve duration and also exhaust gas recirculation .
My point is Get The Ecu ! from the donor car .

Sorry went a bit off track there , so any way I drove down the lennys house and met the man him self ( A Gent !)
I was very envious of his super shed , but more so once I got inside
I first saw a beaut of a e36 evo ( I felt a bit guilty about braking it ) I started it up and it purred like a kitten no nasty vanos noise , i was happy with the donor engine , Lenny told me it idled a bit rough once hot but drove fine .
we then went through to the real car the E30 M3 , what a nice looking motor and a lovely colour as well.
That was it I was hooked I had to get that M3 rolling again , so the following weekend the mammoth job started .

The first week end was spent removing the S50 from the donor car ,They are quite a tight fit the e36 chassis legs are acually closer together than a e30s .




once out we stripped the sump and oil pump off as the e36 sump bowl is right where the e30 sub frame is , so you have to fit a e34 sump .
You will also have to lose the S50 B32 oil pump as it has a dual oil pick up that will be in the wrong place for the e34 sump.
You can fit the pump from a s50 b30 with m50 pick up tube from a e34 , or a complete e34 m50 oil pump and tube


When fitting the oil pupm drive sprocket use a bit of locktight on the nut they can come loose.

While we had the engine out we decided to check and renew a couple of bits ,
The water pump looked almost new but the thermosat was changed
We also split the engine an gearbox to check the clutch and flywheel
The clutch looked fine and pressure plate and flywheel , in fact they looked as if they had been changed recently ,
the spigot bearing did not look so new and dual mass flywheels put more loads on these little feckers , they only cost a couple of euro so we replaced it .

now for any of ye that havent had the pleasure of replaing one of these the can be a bit of a pain in the arse to get out
as they are pressed into the crank shaft and you have no way of griping it to pull it out unless you have a fancy internal bearing puller .
so I have to go old school pack the center of the bearing full of grease then find a nice tight fitting bolt and drive the bolt down the center of the bearing with a large hammer the grease will get behind the bearing and push it out like a hydralic ram



Once out its easy to tap the new one in.

[dicko]

Here is the S50 with it original dual pick up oil pump

And this is with the M50 e34 oil pump
We replaced the crank oil seals and gave things a genaral clean up .

the next job on the agenda was drilling the e34 sump to accept the oil drain pipe from the plenum box , we drill and taped the sump and fitted the spud out of the s50 sump . we had to remove a baffle out of the sump to get in and fit a lock nut to the spud and to clean out the swarf from the sump , the oil drain pipe is just under the alterator in the picture
We also had to modify the dip stick as it runs straight in to the oil pressure accumulator for the vanos ,

Once all that was done ,I set about removing all the excess baggage from the S50. these engines have an auxiliary air system which bascially helps to heat the cats up in the morning ,this was to help emission rating and is not need for anything we care about (POWER) .
the system consists of a belt driven air pump ( looks like a aircon compressor ) and a couple of vac lines an ecu controled solenoid vavle + the main air line that bolts onto the block beside the exhaust .
with all the pipe work removed you would be left with a hole in the block ( not a great idea) but lucky enough South african model,s didnt come with the air system , so you can order a blank plate from bmw .
Part numbers for the plate and gasket are
11 72 14 02 416 = plate
11 72 13 18 467= gasket
I disconnected the electrical connector from the air pump which operates the clutch from the ecu , and it causes no problems , I am sure if you scan the ecu it will show up as a fault but it doesnt cause the car to go into limp home mode .
Here are som e pictures of the plate in place

The next job was removing the ews system and relays from the donor car.

There is not that much to it really but its well worth having from a security point of veiw .
I first removed the X20 plug this is the plug on the bulkhead that the engine loom plugs into this carries all the connections between the car loom and ecu+ all your gauges and lights for engine .
it is similar to the c101 plug beside the fuse box on the e30 but has more pins.
the e36 also has an additional plug x69( I think) this carries oil temp signal and data signal to dash for oil level.
The e36 oil level sensor works in a different way to the e30 type sensor and wont work with e30 check panel , but one from a e34 will work and fits the sump ,but you will have to bring new wires from the sensor to the car ,I broke these wires through the X69 connector as there was spare ways in it and none in the X20 connector .
I just cut the X20 and X69 plugs off leaving about six inches of cable so I could get a nice joint on them .
Then I removed the Ews2 module fro the donor car , this Module lives under the dash its the one with the yellow plug dont be fooled by all the wires going into this , it is tied into the locking system and the radio but doesnt need the inputs so they can be forgoten about , what you do need is the transponder module and inductive pick up , the transponder lives behide the clocks on the e36 and the inductive ring is clipped on over the ignition barrel , again I just cut six inches of cable with both of these plugs .
I wont go into the wiring unless someone wants it as its a bit boring , if any one does want it let me know and I will put it up on a separate post.

Once all of the stuff was removed we when about fitting the engine .
We fitted it with the gearbox attached as the six speed is a big old beast and didnt fancy waltzing around the pit with it over my head trying to get it to spline in , I always fit my engines with gearbox attached ,
It was fitted using original alloy mounts and e28 m5 rubber mounts , there are probably other mounts that would work but I like these as the fit well and are very stiff so there is not much movment .

The engine went in easy enough but the six speed is too long for the rails in the e30 chassis that the gearbox mount sits into , its no major ordeal though we made up two bits of heavy steel plate about 200mm long with a lip on it to stop it bending and drilled three holes in it two to bolt it into the rails on the car and one to bolt the e30 gearbox mount to . with that done the gearbox was soild as a rock .
We used the e36 gear linkage and it fits perfect , we also fitted Z3 short shifter .
With all this fitted we could now measure the prop , and got 1350mm from back of the flex coupling on the gearbox to the front of the diff flange , we just shortened the original E30 M3 prop .

[Feens]

Great stuff Dico keep it coming

[DaveM-sport]

Sounds like it went well!

I would have been kinda slow to cut up an M3 prop though as they can be pretty useful...

[eamo]

more boss more!!

[Sybot]

fantastic stuff dicko...

this has potential to be THE s50 swap thread on the web... as although its been tackled before, it hasn't been as well documented as this soo far...

to compile a list of all the bits would be an awesome plus, although I know every build is different it would be key information!

kudos on the good work... be watching this closely!

[scruffymurphy]

Excellent stuff Dicko.

[adg]

thats a hole lot of info fair play to u

[dicko]

Thanks lads here is the next episode !
Afterthe engine was fitted it was time to tackle the servo problem,
Basically the servo fouls the intake plenum of the s50 , we got a clio servo
now the clio servo is alot smaller but works fine I already fitted one on my M50 conversion ( I think the clio servo has a double diaphram )here is a picture of the clio servo beside the e30 one the clio servo is still to big to fit in standard postion, the only option is to move the servo on the bulkhead or cut the inlet plenum ,

I didnt fancy cutting up Msports finest inlet plenum and feared we would lose a lot of power ( pulse tuning is very important to these engines )

So we removed the pedal box and had a look at our options , (no straight forward ones !)
it is much easier to move the servo on a right hand drive as there is a link rod which operates the servo which can be lenghtend but on the left handers the servo connects straight to the brake pedal so moving it would mean alot of messing
Lenny wasnt gone on the idea and it would have ment cutting a new hole in the M3 shell so that idea was scrapped

We then though about fitting double master cylinders and no servo but there is not a lot of room for them and the car is mostly used for road use so that idea was scrapped .

Plan C then cut the plenum and get it patched , the plenum is made of aluminum so we had to send it off to get welded , when we got it back it fitted fine but the e30 master cylinder was a way to long and fouled the rubber boot that connects the plenum to the MAF,
So we went hunting for a new shorter m/c I read that one from a audi 90 quattro is the best but they are nearly 200 euro new and rarer than hens teeth second hand , what does work is one from a mk3 golf and is a lot shorter, and fits perfect

Now we had to find a reservoir to fit this mc/ and a e46 one fits nice


With the brakes sorted it was time to do the fuel system
We removed the E36 M3 pump as the S50B32 runs at 5 bar fuel pressure and we were not confidant that a twenty year old E30 pump that was designed to pump at 2.5 bar would do.
the S50 pump is a lot meatier than the e30 pump but can be fitted into the tank once removed from its original housing
Here is the e30 and s50 pump side by side


It was a bit of a pain getting the S50 pump into the tank but we got in there and its working fine

I also removed the old High pressure pump from under the rear left hand side and fitted a E36 M3 fuel filter , they are a lot smaller Diameter than the e30 type filter I can only imagine this is for the extra pressure ,
It is a bit of a tight fit as it is a lot longer than the e30 type ,
I also replaced all fuel hoses with braided steel lines for the pressure and installed a pressure gauge to make sure we were getting 5 bar and holding it with the engine off .
once primmed up and leaks fixed the pressure was fine

Now it was time to do the wiring , I do all my wiring with solder joints and then heatshrink sleeving ( Adhesive lined to stop corrosion)
I had to splice on the X20 plug from the E36 as someone else had already started and engine conversion before we got the car and had cut off the c101 plug , so I couldnt just make an adapter loom , with the c101 plug gone I decided to do all my joints in the fuse box to keep things neat , I wont put up the exact wire point list here ( Its a Bit boring ) but will post them at the end .
I got all the wiring done no major problems but the were a few niggles ,
As I said someone had tackled the wiring before but it was a insulation tape job and had me doubting the wiring all along I had to check then double check everything twice, Like I said getting a new ecu would cost FORTUNE,and I got a bit paranoide about the wiring I couldnt see.

Once it was all wired up I put on the battery with ecu disconnected and started checking all the inputs to the ecu ,
If you ever do a conversion like this and go to reconnect the battery I would advise doing it with out the ecu as there is no second chance ,it is quite easy to blow you ecu with out even blowing a fuse !
and dont just lash the battery on tip the connector off the pole to see if you get any massive sparks ( you may get a little spark but should be noting you can hear )
A car with a short circuit willgo up in second,s and you will just have to leave it as the smoke is unbeliveably thick and toxic .

Any way eveything checked out except starter signal from the key , it was becoming live as soon as the ignition was turned on ,Now conviced there was somthing wrong in the car I spent a while trying to find the fault , after a while I decided to go through my drawings again and there it was the Unloader relay It uses the starters solenoide postive pole as a ground so when you turn on ignition the relay energises but when the starter is powered the relay drops out this drops out you blower and full lights while engine is cranking .
Because I had the engine loom disconnected this ment it had no ground through the solenoide and made the black and green wire ( start signal ) live ,
I was now happy it was safe to connect the ecu .
so now with the fuel disconnected ( I wanted to see oil pressure before we fired the engine)
I plugged in the ecu and ews and connected the battery , no bangs flashes and all the smoke remained in the wires
I turned on the key to the ignition postion and the ews gave a reasuring click ( that means it has seen the key and is happy with the code )
But there is always a but ! as soon as the iginiton was turned on the starter engaged .
I removed the unloader relays and this stoped and things preformed as they should have .
I was now sure there was something up as the unloader relay shouldnt be able to power the starter ,
more checking for faults that werent there and then it hit me back the drawings!
And sure enought there it was again ! for some reson known only to bmw they decided to put a relay into the loom on the e36 so the black and green doesnt power the solenoide it powers a relay instead , so the power from the unloader realys was enough to fire this relay and engage the starter , again a easy fix once copped I simply gave the unloaders relays a permenant ground and disconnected them from the black and green wire .

I think the reson for the relay in the e36 loom is to save the Ews module from the direct current of the solenoid , as the ews module switchs this to disable starting .

Now for the moment of truth, everything was working now just to see if it would fire up ,
I connected the fuel system and bridged out the fuel pump relay for a few seconds to prime the fuel system .
I hopped into the car and got ready to swing her over ,lenny was on the phone to someone and I ment to wait till he had hung up but I could contain myself no longer igntion on ( all lights come on and fuel pump springs into life )
Start postion and bang she springs in life first turn and settles into a quick idle
all the oil and ignition lights go out
I am sure who ever lenny was on the phone to must have though he was being shot at by a rapid fire 50 cal ( It was a bit loud indoors with no manifold )
I went home a very happy man but there was a lot more work to do .
here are some pictures of the wiring
I will try and get a bit more done tomorrow night

[Jozi]

Great work Dicko!

Looking forward to the next instalment!

[scruffymurphy]

This is turning into a real soap-opera.

[Feens]

No Doubt if i do a conversion like this i will be using you for your skills Brilliant write up Feed my brain

[dicko]

Thanks Feens !
Now where was I.
Now the engine was running it was time to set up the cooling .
I used the E36M3 Rad as it is a bit bigger than the e30 one, I had to make up brackets to get it to fit but it was no real drama, The E30M3 came with an additional Electric cooling fan so we didnt have to get aftermarket one , and it is a two speed fan as well , unfortunately , the low speed resistor was blowen and the E36 rad didnt have a pocket for the temp sensor.
I bought a .47 ohm 150watt resistor to replace the low speed one , and a Carel temp controller It is a digital temp controller that are used in aircon and refridgeration panels, .
The handy thing about them is they use thremistor sensors so you can postion them anywhere you want ,not like the capilery tube type temp switch.
They also have two relays so you can switch on the low speed at one temp and the high speed at an other , and being a microcontroller they are very smart , with hysteresis and pid functions , so if the temp rises very quickly the controller will bring the stages in at lower tempretures .
They are a great piece of kit and cost around 100/120 euro .
We used the e36 main cooling hoses to link engine to the rad , but the rest was allsorts of bits and pieces to connect heater and expansion tank .

We used the e36 expansion Tank and mounted it on the left hand wing just above the abs unit .I did think of munting it on th battery tray but it ment getting a pipe behind the engine between its self and the bulkhead ,
It was too tight and would have worn through at some stage , and we couldnt go down and around by the trans tunnel as it would be a recipe for an air lock .
U.s.model S50 have a metal pipe that goes around the back of the engine but we had the cooling system finished when I discovered that .

The two pipes coming through the bulkhead for the heater have to be chopped back , and make sure when connecting them you go from the back of the head to the lower of the two pipes and out the top one to the return down allong the block to the front .

with all pipes now complete it was time to fill it and see if we had any leaks,No leaks and no airlocks .
I was shocked at how easy it was to unairlock , all you had to do was fill it with water no massaging pipes or jacking up the front or standing on one leg with a shamen doing and m20 airlock dance!

With all that done it was time to face the EXHAUST MANIFOLD!
At first I thought it would be easy (WRONG) with no steering to worry about but I was wrong well wrong , the front branch ran into the subframe and the back branch ran into everthing .
I started modifying the front branch it just barely fouled the sub frame and arb so I cut off the collector off the primerys and angled it slightly up .


You can see the line for the cut in the picture above.
It would have been easy to cut a little of the primarys but I really wanted to keep them as close to original as possible.
I eventually got it clearing the subframe and the arb but only just , the problem was if I kept it up any more it would run into the back branch primarys .
Anyway we called the front branch done and started the back branch , now in standard form the back branch will hit the bulkhead so we gently presuaded the bulkhead into giving us a little more room , back under the car marking , cutting tacking , fit , mark , cut , tack , fit ,mark , cut ,tack fit , mark , cut ,tack , drop the big heavy torch on your self and give yourself a back eye!
It would have been a lot easier if I had of got the tig welder I had bought off ebay but that never arrived so we were using a stick welder to tack the very ting stainless steel of the manifold ( not ideal) then Pat would weld it up properly with the gas.
eventually we got both manifolds down and looking back under the car , but had resigned overselfs to droping the arb on new mountings

I wanted to use as much of the E36 M3 system as possible but we had spent a lot or time messing around with the s50 manifolds and werent that happy with the clearances, so we decided to modify the scorrpion system was on the e30 already .
It was not Ideal but I was going to build a sixbranch and system for my M50 B30 supercharged engine anyway so I would just build two of them and we will use this set up until the proper one is done .
It still was a good bit of work getting it to marry up the the manifolds as the six speed gearbox puts the mount a bit too far back and the e30 system turns too early so it runs over the mount , this makes it hard to get clearance between the mount and the exhaust and not have the exhaust very low to the ground . we got there in the end and it sounds nice.

Then came the next saga , all the fabing was done with the car sitting on the ground while we worked in the pit , Imagine my horror when it came to fit the Arb back to find it now wouldnt fit , it would when the car was on the ground but now the car was on a two post lift and with the suspention unloaded the arb would hit the exhaust .I couldnt drop the arb any more or the it would foul the track arm .
I was well pissed off with myself All that work for nothing.

But it was no time to feel sorry for myself the car was basiclly read to roll with a couple of weekends and it must have been driving lenny mad not to be able to get out in it .

Time to break out the big guns , Oxy acetylene, I took a few measurments and brought the arb into work with me , we heated it slowly and gently put more of an offset in one side , then took a bit out of the other side to keep the mounting points the same .
I thought it would lose its strenght with the heating but when I check it with an bit of scaff tube it seemed to be as stiff as ever.
It fitted on a treat .


On the road there is no noticeable roll and we will replace it once the new exhaust goes on .


Above are two pictures showing the clearance.

I forgot to mention the oil cooler We mounted this just under the rad , with the original hoses , it is fixed to the front cross member just under the rad and looks a little low but it is higher than the sump and the front splitter , so if you take it off over a speed ramp you will also need a new sump .
The car is actually very good even on backroads , its pretty stiff so no bottoming out .

The car was now drivable and the first few run s were very mild and cautious ,
Through these first runs we uncovered the usual niggles , a coolant leak under the plenum , ment that had to come off again , ( that was no fun )
I was also having problem with the dash , the temp gauge and rev counter wouldnt work ,I got a set of clocks from scruffy murphy and transplanted the si board over,and that was that , anyone doing this you need a little box of tricks to change the taco pluse from the ecu to one that the e30 rev clock understands we used one from Dakota Digital
http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product
/product_id=127/category_id=287/home_id=59/mode=prod/prd127.htm

It is very easy to set up and install. I am nearly sure it is only needed for seimens ecus as they give out a different tach pluse.
and if you want your obc fuel rate to read properly you will need one of these.http://www.seattlecircuit.com/fuel_signal.htm

Now with all the gauges reading ok it was time to tackle the gear selection problem the selector was rubbing the flex coupling in 1,3,6 so I made up a new selector linkage with a 25mm off set and rised the rubber bushing at the back of the alloy selector carrier up to the top hole and that solved that problem ,

Now the only thing left was there was a slight vibration in the car at 30 mph , this was due to the prop half,s not been splined back in in quite the right spot , the uj,s where out of line with each other and this knocked the prop out of balance , I dont know why there is not a master spline on them so you cant do this but anyway , lenny took the prop down and realigned it sloving this problem .

I did a lot of other bit and bobs to car not relating to the conversion , and there a few more left to do.

The ecu is mounted under the kickpanel on the drivers side and the loom comes in through the bulkhead just under the fuse box through thr rubber gromet .

Now all that work you would think you would get sick of looking at the car , but the more I look at it the more I realise what a master piece the E30 M3 really is . And driving this one is something else, seriously quick , It is so smooth and torquie, and just keeps revving ,
I dont know what the 0/60 time is but I no its not lon and the 0/100 is almost as fast , but the best thing about this car is how its goes from crazy car to a sensible cruiser , Its a Weapon and I want one of my own !

[dicko]

Now there are a few jobs in the pipe line , like bigger brakes and alpha n conversion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-OsKLA55mc
Worth it for the noise alone .






Well thats all for now , Thanks to Olivia and Kerry for all the dinners and tea Pat for his help and the use of his garage, and the man him self Lenny for trusting me with his M3 I hope you are happy with the results .


so till next time

[Feens]

Just edited the pictures to fall under each other so as its easier to read instead of scrolling over and back, hope you dont mind,


Now back to reading this epic thread