M30 swap for my Olive Drab Vert! by RagtopE30

7 minute(s) of a 113 minute read

I got a new sticker today!

8-20-2013

I have not forgotten about this build BELIEVE ME! Now that I have sold the 524td, the summer has calmed down, and my machinist seems to be improving in his health this build will once again get momentum! 

First a couple of updates:

I got my custom boost gauge back from Justrack here on r3v! Check him out!!

Next I got my Cometic head gasket in. It had to be custom ordered for the larger bore.

Excitement!!!

Beautiful!!!

And my Spec stage 3+ clutch kit should be here this evening sometime! I cant wait.

All the pieces are done at the machine shop so assembly is next and I will take a ton of pictures.

Thanks for your patience.

8-20-2013

Look what showed up this afternoon!

OH YEAH!!!! Stage 3+

8-20-2013

^Sorry to hear that man. I have had a very good experience with them so far. I already knew I wanted to use their product and when I was at BimmerFest east this year I spoke with the rep at their booth. He was very knowledgeable on BMW setups and aftermarket flywheels. When I ended up ordering my clutch kit from the online retailer he called me to let me know that he was pretty sure they messed up my order based on our conversation (I did call and leave a message with him confirming the part number before I ordered and thats how he got my number) and he corrected the mistake and made sure I got the right clutch kit. I test fitted the PP to the AASCO flywheel this afternoon and it is perfect. I hope the performance of the clutch is as good as they claim!

8-26-2013

So final assembly of the long block is happening tomorrow. I will post pics late tomorrow night I promise!!!

Until then I have a couple of pics of my "boredom" work

8-27-2013

Jeff, I thought about building a stand or a rack to hang the parts from and paint them. But then after looking over all the blueprints and plans for the above items I realized that I didn't have enough motivation to follow through with the very simplistic task of assembling. So I opted for this method. I can send you a copy of my plans for making this apparatus. Oh hell, I will just put them out there for everyone! 

First, find a pitch fork ( what I used) or a spade shovel or a sharpened stick with substantial girth.

Second, stick it into the ground. I found that a pitch fork and shovel have an extra feature with which you can apply your body weight for better ground penetration.

Third, using the oil fill hole slide the valve cover over the handle of your chosen tool. 

Fourth, let gravity do its job and let go of the cover. Through black magic it will stay where you leave it. 

Holy Crap! I just blew somebody's mind!

Oh and I painted my parts with VHT high temp paint and I clear coated the valve cover to protect the exposed metal.

Got a couple of hours in tonight working on the engine. Pistons and connecting rods are assembled. The rods were all weighed and the machinist worked his magic to get them all within .5 grams of one another! Another item, after talking to the crankshaft shop and the machinist we decided against knife edging only because there is not a significant amount of windage due to the small overall diameter of the crank, comparatively speaking. So the crank was machined and balanced. Now it has been reunited with the block. Tomorrow night the engine will actually look like an engine again!!!

Oh and CR is 8.6:1

8-28-2013

Building an engine from parts acquired from different sources can be very frustrating! How is it I over looked ordering the block to head alignment dowels?! And I can not find the rear oil pan bolts or the crank nut! WTF!

Anyways we did get something done today!

8-29-2013

I don't know how you knew that I had a plan and algorithm! I guess great minds think alike. So here it goes. I am confident that you will find my design to be infallible.

8-30-2013

So pretty

Head gasket

Head!!

So I have another dilemma. The block is supposedly from an E34 and is a M30B35. The problem is that the oil pump chain tensioner I bought for the B35 is not usable with this block because the boss for the mounting pin is non existent! So I have to use the old oil pump shims. But from what I can see on realoem all the e34s had the chain tensioners. WTF!

Edit: After looking over the block and the lack of certain engine mount mounting points I have concluded that this is a B34 block that has been punched out to a 94.0056 bore. Not a big deal except I had GoodNTight make me custom mounts for a B35 and they will not work with this block. And I still have to find shims for the oil pump.

Oh and new pictures on post #90!!!!!!!