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My '87 535is doesn't really need a new engine...yet. With only 173k on the clock, Vlad runs great. But there are a few niggling issues that, all-up are going to be a lot of work with the engine in the car. For example the starter is dying, I'm getting close to needing a new clutch (and wanting a lightweight flywheel), I want headers, and the timing cover leaks.

Add to this that my son and I both have a strong desire to rebuild an engine. He's 17 and turning into quite a gear-head. I've never done it before but have always wanted to.

Then there's the lust for better performance and refinement in the E28. After reading everything I could about the M30B35 and how to retrofit one into an E28 a plan was hatched...

Last week we asked the boss (my wife, his mother) if she'd support us in the whacky endeavor of putting a new engine that we build in a car that doesn't need one. She said yes (well, she didn't say no).

This thread will be used to document the process and, hopefully, get useful input and feedback from you sage experts (yes, I know only a few of you are actually experts and the rest just pretend...you know who you are).

Enjoy the ride.

Reference (Added 5/22/2013)
As I've progressed I've found a bunch of resources that are proving invaluable. In the hopes of saving other's time, I'm going to list them all here, updating this first post.

Related MyE28.com Threads

• The M30B35 Swap FAQ
• M30 Rebuild Tips & FAQ
• 635CSi M30 rebuild (pic heavy)
• Just M30 Pics - Post pics of M30 Motors

Off-site Content

• Charlie's List of required B34->B35 Parts (derived from Matt's list)
• Factory repair manual - covers things the Bentley doesn't.
• Exploded parts diagrams and part numbers. (direct link to '88 735i)
• Wiring diagrams.
• Haynes 3- & 5-Series Service and Repair Manual. (alternative wiring diagrams and good instructions on engine teardown/reassembly)

Final Engine Specs (2017)

• B34 block bored to 92.5mm
• B35 head, rods, springs, crank, manifold
• Paul Burke B35 10.5:1 "806" M30 B35 CNC Dome piston set
• Paul Burke "mild" N21 camshaft (282/279)
• 3-sided valve grind
• 24lbs injectors
• 179 ECU, Miller MAF, Miller WAR chip
• Bavarian Auto ceramic coated headers
• SuperSprint exhaust
• Dyno tested - 203rwhp, 226rwtq measured on a Dynojet, August 18, 2016

Here's the basic plan. I don't do anything without a plan.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote:No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.

Purpose: Have fun and learn upgrading the engine in Vlad.

Priorities:

1. Build an 'as good as new' M30B35 from a performance, functionality, reliability perspective.
2. Make it LOOK as perfect as possible.
3. Spend as little $$ doing it as possible.

Steps:

1. Learn by reading & asking others. Already done a bunch of this. Bought "The Engine Builders Handbook". Read Bentleys (again).
2. Acquire a donor engine. DONE! See next post.
3. Acquire an engine stand & hoist. DONE! See below.
4. Tear it apart. In Progress. See below
5. Find a machinist near us. Get parts that need machined machined.
6. Get intake and valve cover cleaned up.
7. Powder coat valve cover black and polish raised lines & BMW
8. Identify any missing / damaged bits and acquire. In Progress. See below
9. Install new B35 starter I already bought.
10. Reassemble.
11. Pull B34 from Vlad.
12. Install new clutch and lightweight flywheel.
13. Install B35.
14. Install new exhaust.
15. Make sure it works.
16. Sell B34.
17. Drive like a bat out of hell.

In terms of finding a donor engine, what I learned from reading was we wanted to find a M30B35 that had the following:

• Engine mount bosses that fit the E28. Something from an early '88 735i would be good.
• Included wiring harness and had the nice wiring loom cover.
• Included the 179 ECU for Motronic 1.3

Since we are going to tear it down pretty much all the way, as long as the engine wasn't known to be blown, the # of miles didn't really matter. But hopefully we could find something in the 100K range.

Serendipitously, I met Spence who's a regular here on myE28 and lives about 15 minutes from us. He sold me a used strut bar. Even more serendipitously, as I was browsing Craigslist for B35 motors, I found a posting for someone parting out an '88 735i...and guess who it was? Yep, Spencer.

Yesterday my son & I dropped by Spencer's house to take a look at the car and engine. Wow, what a piece of work. A white 735i where the PO had put a huge amount of energy into pimping out, before they ran out of money and had to quit. The door handles had been removed and replaced with solenoid openers. The suspension was slammed. Etc... But it only had 110k miles on it and a rather ugly looking, but supposedly solid M30B35 with all the bits but an AFM.

Close enough.

Today my son & I went over to his house again and helped him pull it from the 735. It was a great experience and we had a bunch of fun. With some help from others we got it back to my house and into my garage...

Here's my son pulling bits off. He did the right side (wiring, ECU, etc...) and I did the left. Spencer was under the car busting knuckles on the transmission bits.



As you can see it ain't pretty. But I'm confident we'll get it cleaned up. If any of the parts are not salvageable I'm sure I can find replacements that can be salvaged.



I'd never removed an engine from a car. I always wondered how it would go, and now I know. In this case, because the 735 was so lowered, and the tires flat, we had some extra struggles getting to this point, but from here on it went quick:



Onto my buddy's truck:



Hey, look, a rear-engined Honda Ridgeline!



Home.









Pulled the valve cover just to peek. Sadly, because the injectors had been pulled, and the holes not covered, we have a little surface rust on the cam. Hopefully it is just surface rust and not pitted. I sprayed some oil in there and cranked it around a bit to make sure it's all protected for now.









That's all for now. I'll get an engine stand this week and we'll start digging in the week after next (doing it next weekend would be a BAD idea since it's mother's day).

Awesome father-son project. Very courageous. See if you can't spend some time with your machinist having him show you to confirm the tolerances of, well, everything. Keep pouring him beer until he's exhausted from talking so long. Take lots of notes.

RangerGress wrote:Awesome father-son project. Very courageous. See if you can't spend some time with your machinist having him show you to confirm the tolerances of, well, everything. Keep pouring him beer until he's exhausted from talking so long. Take lots of notes.

Ok. But why? Beyond just knowing stuff?

Rats.



Just noticed the ECU from the E32 donor is a 150 not a 179. I guess as an '88 735i it was build prior to them using 179s?

Does anyone know when E32's started using 179s? (Just curious).

Now seeking a 179 ECU (yes, I am in touch with the guy selling one in parts for sale now).

The M30B35 FAQ has me confused about wiring harnesses. I need to re-read it, but my last read made me think that the E32 harness will not fit an E28. The connectors will work, just as an E34 would, but it won't be long enough?

Mostly for my own documentation purposes here's the build data for the donor E32:

VIN WBAGB4315J3209042
Type code GB43
Type 735I (USA)
E series E32 ()
Series 7
Type LIM
Steering LL
Doors 4
Engine M30
Displacement 3.50
Power 155
Drive HECK
Transmission AUT
Colour ALPINWEISS 2 (218)
Upholstery (0228)
Prod.date 1988-01-26

cek wrote:The connectors will work, just as an E34 would, but it won't be long enough?

It is long enough.
I also swapped an 1992 E32 730i engine to my E28.

Great project! The harness that's in my car came from an early 150 ECU'd Japanese Imported e34, and ran the car perfectly fine. It's essentially just a duel board 24pin chipped 179, with slightly different timing maps (from memory). I replaced it with a 179 ECU when the 150 got cooked in an unfortunate Miller War chip incident, but the harness itself is the same and the ECU will run the car fine. A few of the wire colours are different to what's documented for the 179 swap, but if you decide to use that loom, let me know and I can fill you in. The loom should be ok, just drape it over the engine bay in the rough location of where it will be and that should give you a decent indication of whether you'll need to lengthen it.

One pointer: Buy a good soldering iron, and a few rolls of the BMW cloth harness tape.

#17 on your list plus 17 year old young man = FAIL

Other than that it's great. My son and I undertook to rebuild a $250 84 318i auto which is now a 2.7l 5 speed with too many suspension and other changes to mention. Either a turbo or M5x is in the future but we did very little engine work at this point and it runs great with the chip and exhaust changes.

I would guess you can leave the bottom end alone. It will save money and you might actually make it worse. A refresh of the head would be a great idea and if your thinking headers why not a more agressive cam. The looks of the one you have worries me. I think you will get more out of head and exhaust work than anything else unless you replace the pistons.

Have fun..

cek wrote:

RangerGress wrote:Awesome father-son project. Very courageous. See if you can't spend some time with your machinist having him show you to confirm the tolerances of, well, everything. Keep pouring him beer until he's exhausted from talking so long. Take lots of notes.

Ok. But why? Beyond just knowing stuff?

Everything should be measured carefully. Happiness in an engine build is knowing you have all the tolerances right. For example, BMW may say 0.0012 to 0.0028" is fine for main bearing tolerances, but the right answer is 0.0017 to 0.0019". IDing the "right answer" means talking to experienced people. Being able to measure to that degree of precision takes practice. Borrowing mics and dial calipers that can measure 0.0001" requires beer and pizza.

It's not good enough to just follow the Bentley specs because they just re-hash the OEM specs. The OEM specs aren't designed for "building" engines, they are designed for "throwing away engines". That is to say, 0.0012 to 0.0028" helps you know when your main bearings are shot, but it's not very useful in telling you what the gap should be for a new build.

Note those are M20 #'s that I'm pulling out of my butt. I've not built an M30.

<Pause>
I looked up M30 main bearing gaps in the OEM chapter on engines. Looks like they use smaller gaps, which is a little surprising given the 10k/inch bearing rule. So maybe 0.0011 to 0.0013" is ideal?

Main bearing oil clearance
M10 and M20 engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.030 to 0.070 mm
M30 and M40 engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.020 to 0.046 mm
Connecting rod journal diameter (standard)
M10 and M30 engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.975 to 47.991 mm
M20 and M40 engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44.975 to 44.991 mm

There's a bezillion measurements to obsess over in an engine build, but that's how the job is done right. Gotta go slow.

tn535i wrote:
I would guess you can leave the bottom end alone. It will save money and you might actually make it worse.

+1. Our bottom ends are pretty durable. I've pulled apart >20 M20's at around 200k miles and the cross hatching on the cylinder was still obvious and the cylinders were nicely round. Unless there's an obvious problem, I wouldn't open up the bottom end until you're >250k mi.

There's a lot of ways to turn a serviceable bottom end into a piece of junk. Leaving it alone is not a bad plan. If you're suspicious about bearings, remove the rod bearings from #6 rod and inspect them. If they look ok, put them back in. Maybe with new rod bolts. If they don't look ok, spin 6 new rod bearings in from underneath with some plastigage and your old rod bolts. Pull the caps back off, check the plastigage and if tolerances look good, wet both bearing halves with assembly lube, and fasten back up with new rod bolts.

That's all really easy stuff, it gets the most likely bearing problem, and you're spared having to remove crank and pistons. Kinda ghetto, but really easy. Once you remove the pistons, you're in for ring and hone and things are getting harder. It's important to note that the more you screw with the more likely a mistake can happen. This ghetto rod bearing "spin in" replacement scheme is not ideal, but since it can be done w/o removing crank and pistons, there's reduced probability of a screwup.

RangerGress wrote: There's a bezillion measurements to obsess over in an engine build, but that's how the job is done right. Gotta go slow.

Awesome response. Thanks!!!

Plan currently is to go to a local shop that a bunch of E30 nuts use and swear by. I'll make sure I find out what beer he likes first. :-)

RangerGress wrote:I wouldn't open up the bottom end until you're >250k mi .

I've read where you and others have said this before. I was planning on doing the bottom end only if clearly needed. Thanks .

cek wrote:

RangerGress wrote: There's a bezillion measurements to obsess over in an engine build, but that's how the job is done right. Gotta go slow.

Awesome response. Thanks!!!

Plan currently is to go to a local shop that a bunch of E30 nuts use and swear by. I'll make sure I find out what beer he likes first. :-)

Being up in the PNW you're going to have a bunch of shops in your area that machine/build engines for the Pro3 boys. Those shops can prob do M20s in their sleep. Some of them will certainly have done enough M30 work to be a good resource for M30 work/guidance.

We rebuilt the head on an almost 300k M20 and there were still hone marks present. Not pristine, some discoloration, but OK. After the rebuild the oil pressure was good and compression was within 5% across all cylinders and right were it should be on a new one. It's been running excellent since. If your's has around 100k I wouldn't think twice about leaving the bottom alone, especially if the overhead does not appear to have ever been starved for oil.

I would have the head done at Autosport Seattle.

179 ECU acquired. Thanks Mike in Seattle!

Got an engine stand. Bought this Torin 1000lb one on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CO ... =ceklog-20

Thinking about how this works; never done it before. Read a bunch of threads and other stuff on the Internet. Seems sketchy: Four bolts through four funky arms bolted to the stand? Seems sketchy and I'm not gonna do it until I'm 100% sure I'm doing it right.

1) What bolt holes are best to use for an M30? I numbered them in the picture below.

2) How deep should the threads of the bolts go into the bellhousing to be safe? I assume I can use washers on the bolt end to adjust the distance?

3) Should I use washers between the belhousing and the stand? Or just let the arms on the stand make direct contact with the bellhousing?

4) I guess I should remove the flywheel first?



I warned you this was a noob thread.

Bolt holes 12, 4, 5 & 7. The AL piece just allows easy inspectio of the flywheel. It won't hold any serious load.

Pull the fly first, I made that mistake.

I made the mistake of mounting it to the oil pan, If you plan on removing the pistons I would mount it to the holes just above where the oil pan meets the block so all you have to do is spin the engine on the stand and unbolt the oil pan.

Sub'd.
I'll be watching you're build, as i'm doing one atm.
I've already had some headwork done, replaced the crank shells with new, and piston rings etc...
Link to mine is below.

Rav


http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=111148&highlight=

Rav335uk wrote:Sub'd.
I'll be watching you're build, as i'm doing one atm.
I've already had some headwork done, replaced the crank shells with new, and piston rings etc...
Link to mine is below.

Rav


http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=111148&highlight=

Already subscribed to YOUR thread. Loving it.

I've started identifying and acquiring all of the parts I will need for this project and have a big 'ol spreadsheet going. I used the great post in the M30B35 Swap FAQ as a starting point.

It's not really part of the rebuild, but it is going to get done at the same time: A Pelican Parts Clutch Super Kit. A key component showed up today. I had a 10% off web coupon for PP and used it to order a whole bunch of stuff...