MyE28.com

All, I've not posted in some time but I still own my 88 M5 which has largely sat in the last 5-6 years. I'm wondering if there's an E28 manual that covers the S38 motor. I'm in the process of pulling the head so that I can take it to the machine shop but the Bentley manual only covers the M20 and M30 engines.

Looking forward to feedback.

Thanks

I do not and I never did own a vehicle with an S38 engine. However, I searched through the tons of BMW related information I hoarded during the past two decades, and I believe I have some material you may find useful.
I've dump it all in a .zip file, that you can download as follows:
1. Copy and paste the following URL in your browser:
http://82.78.8.129/mye28/files/
2. Download the file "S38.zip" (e.g. right-click and select "Save link as...", if you use Chrome). It's a 267MB archive, so it may take a while and/or a few attempts to get it.
3. Unzip it.

You will get four files. Three of them are E24/E28 related: "E24_11d.pdf", "BMW M6 Manual.pdf" and "M6 Cylinder Head Rebuild Final - 122312.pdf".
The last file "Robbo_EngineRebuild.pdf" is E34 related, but it may still be of some use.
Please excuse the very poor quality of some of the files.
Worse, the file "E24_11d.pdf" is in German. But it contains very valuable information, and it's really worth the effort of using Google Translate, or similar.

Of course, the copyrights belong to their respective authors.

I hope this helps.

"BMW M6 Manual.pdf" has everything you'll need.

You're a good man. Thank you for your help.

All except the Torque specifications for all of the fasteners. The manual has a asterisk on each page that says "See Specifications" but there is no "Specification" page in the manual that I could find.

Good catch.

Thank you again!

So I guess this is the reason for the low compression:



I'm trying to decide if AARP head studs are a good choice for this aging BMW. I don't see any listed for the S38, although they do have them for the M30.

The stock head bolts are more than adequate. If you are running really high compression or a Turbo I would “consider” ARP studs but otherwise I would stick with the stock bolts.

Make sure the threads in the block are clean and there is NO OIL OR WATER in the holes before you install the bolts!!!

Thank you!

If you're still looking for torque specs there is a link in the following bigcoupe.com thread.

http://bigcoupe.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.ph ... ifications

Lots of links in this thread that are no longer active, but the one by "Da Hose" in google docs provides a pdf of the torque specs (about 2/3s of the way down the first page). It's not very easy to use, but I think it has most of the information for the S38.

Scott

alabbasi wrote: Apr 10, 2022 9:36 PM So I guess this is the reason for the low compression:



I'm trying to decide if AARP head studs are a good choice for this aging BMW. I don't see any listed for the S38, although they do have them for the M30.

AARP