S62 Intake Manifold onto an M60B40 (longish and involved...like that's new)

[Boom n Zoom]

Hello to anyone who has clicked the link and dropped by this post, I hope that you enjoy reading this 'possibility' and that people would be willing to share any information/ideas that they might have with regards to this conversion.

Thanks

Boom n Zoom.

First up current Specs:

• Australian delivery 9/93 build
  
• E34 540iA 2500ish kms on completely rebuilt transmission ($$$$ Ouch!)
  
• 109,658 Kms/68,138 Miles
  
• VIN GF20916
  
• Stock Headers, Aftermarket Cats, Stainless Steel exhaust
  

Secondly, I don't have an S62 Manifold for comparison, but I am on the hunt for one just so you all know.

This post was inspired by Boone.MSI's previous post on the M60 Intake thread, I had started to reply and found that I had become carried away again. So I decided to spend a little more time, look a little deeper and start a new topic.

I am sure that you are all aware of the 'limitations' the M60's intake manifiold poses to significant performance gains. At least this is what many magazine articles and 'Build-ups' of M60's have all stated. Sure it is a very capable engine in both the M60B30 and B40 configurations, with the Alloy/Nikasil Blocks, Alloy Heads, Magnesium cam covers and the plastic all over the top the units total 'dry' weight is 447 lb (203 kg) I don't have any specs for M30 or M50 to compare engine weights, nor does my owners manual list the 535 at all (1993 Australian delivered vehical) but for what it is in stock trim it's power (210Kw/282HP) is fairly tidy considering it's only 4 litres ( My '92 Ford Falcon with a Sequentialy Injected 5 Litre [302 Winsor] only has a neck snaping 186Kw. It has taken 9 years for the local manufacturers to better that output from 4 liters )


To the idea:

I would be looking to work from the Throttle bodies up here as it 'appears' (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the lower section of the manifold south of the throttle bodies (S62) is similar to the M60B40, having said that I cannot find a listing on realoem.com for that section of the manifold so I am unable to verify by the part numbers although I am sure they will be different.

The intake ports on the S62 heads appear to be more of an oval shape than the M60B40's round ports but, if the stud spacing on the lower manifold is the same then I think it would be feasable to 'convert' the intake manifold over to take advantage of the 8 individual throttle bodies

I have been looking over realoem.com, Wikipedia, BMW World, google searches, and any information that I can get my hands on about the S62 intake manifold system.

Call me nuts, but the possibilities are eye opening, not to mention the possible advangates to maximizing the potential (in NA form) of the M60. There are a lot of things that I cannot check without exact schematics, the physical items to compare, or anyone here's knowledge but I have begun to investigate the possibility of what is involved in changing over to the complete S62 Intake manifold.

The points below (in no particular order) I am still carrying out research on, and in most cases I will not be able to verify until I can get a good closeup look at an S62 Manifold.

I would like to get over as many of these hurdles before I even start with any insights/thoughts/ideas from anyone here on this forum.......please

1. Yes it has fly by wire throttle, but I believe that this could be converted to a standard cable operation. Maybe a cable from an M30/50 could be used as the M60's Cable is far and away too long it goes all the way to the front of the engine and I need it to be at the back, so a cable about two feet shorter would be best.
   
   
2. The S62 has VANOS, not really an issue in relation to the M60, 'cause it doesn't have it so I think I can discount that unless there is something related to the throttle bodies that should be noted?
   
   
3. As far as the OBC is concerned? Sensor swapping maybe the order of the day.
   
   
4. Both have hotwire MAF's, in the S62's case there are two. This should not present a problem, easily convertable with some 'modified' plumbing.
   
   
5. Upgrade of the fuel pump, the S62's pump will have both a higher flowrate and volume delivery. I would love to stay on the OEM path but this may need to go aftermarket.
   
   
6. This is a biggie.
   Not sure on the injectors, on realoem.com they have different part numbers and in the fuel supply section the pictures they show them as different, not sure on the interface with the loom though, looks similar. The solution here maybe to source similar flowrate injectors that will interface with both the Manifold and the Standard loom. Maybe mix 'n match??
   
   
7. This is even bigger! Throttle Position Sensor/s, I think this will be the most challenging problem
   

That is all that I can think of at this point, but please if you have any thoughts of anything that I have missed let me know.


Of course all of this will be irrelevant if the manifold will not physically mate up to the lower manifold or the heads.

If it does all fit and I can get it working, I bet the bloody bonnet (hood) won't shut.....bet ya!

Cheers!

[Robin-535im]

Hello to anyone who has clicked the link and dropped by this post, I hope that you enjoy reading this 'possibility' and that people would be willing to share any information/ideas that they might have with regards to this conversion.

Thanks

Boom n Zoom.

That is an interesting idea, I bet it will work if you can fab enough parts. There is a guy on an e30 board who did the same with an M30 and an S38/B35 intake. He had to cut a notch from the airbox, fab up a mounting plate, make a few brackets, redo some plumbing (oil, water) etc. Not an easy swap but not impossible.

If you can find good pictures of the different heads or even the different intake gaskets (maybe the local dealer has both in stock?) you can compare the bolt patterns and port sizes. Anything can be fabbed... if you have the money! You will probably need a programmable ECU of some sort because the air flow and manifold pressure will probably be too different for the e34 ECU to compensate.

I have never seen E39 throttle bodies for sale but there are lots of them around and a fair number of wrecks, so someone has to have a set. I would expect to pay $1000 - $2000 for a full intake setup if someone had a good working set for sale.

Keep us updated on what you find out - very cool idea.

[BillionPa]

might as well toss the whole engine in there...

[Boone.Msi]

I like your thinking, i'l be watching...

Good luck and keep this idea/thread alive

[Boom n Zoom]

I am not going to be able to make regular updates to this thread. Does anyone object if it keeps popping back to the front when I have updates? I would prefer to keep it all in one thread rather than spreading it out. BnZ

Robin,

Yeah I'm not afraid to embrace fabricating whatever I need. Good point, the ECU issue may well present a problem. I am going to email a few chip tuners to see if the Stock ECU has the capacity to have a chip burnt to suit. In a lot of ways I think this will be throwing money away to solve a problem that I could prevent by heading down the MS path. I think that this would be the best idea as it will give me pretty much limitless ability to 'tune' to whatever I do. Great idea on the manifold gaskets for a check, I will see if I can at least look at a pair from somewhere.


Billion,

Heh heh heh Well I would, but that's now been done and my M60 only has Sub 70K miles on it (Just run in ). The idea is to 'play' with the 4 Litre to see what I can extract from it reliably in N/A form, keeping in mind the long term goal of FI (not sure which way this will go yet maybe Turbo maybe SC)
On top of that, all I have been reading is about the oil consumption issues that the S62 units have. I would prefer to stay away from that 'feature'

Boone,

Thanks for the support, I hope to make this M60 a little unique, much the same as when I started modding a Chrysler 'Slant 6' in my youth, everyone I talked to either laughed or told me it couldn't be done. I ended up with a 225 ci 'Leaning tower of power', +.030 in the bore, 36/72 Cam with 108 Degree overlap, 307 Chev Valves, Double valve springs, Ported Polished and flowed Head, cc'ed chambers, Lightened bottomend, Tri Y headers, 465ci 4 barrel Holly on a Direct Connection 4 Barrel manifold.
Great engine, but peaky, would start making great gobs of grunt from 3000 rpm up to my (learnt the hard way) 6800 rpm limit. In 2nd Year of my apprenticeship (Mechanic) we had to opportunity to run our cars on a Dyno I still had the stock 3 speed trans and the open 3.23 diff in it but we did 5 pulls the average of which was 205 rwkw. I was really surprised and the guys with the 5 litre Holdens were pretty pissed off

Will update when I have some info about if this is going to work.

Cheers!

BnZ

[BillionPa]

they fixed the oil consuption by using 10W60 oil.

if you look at the internal construction of the intake manifold of the M60, its actually quite a stunning feat of computational fluid dynamics. the intake is not the limiting factor.

the limiting factors are the design of the cylinder head and the ASC throttle, those should be the 2 parts you would want do divert your attention to in order to maximize power output.

[BigKriss]

what's the update with this thread?