New motor, day numero TWO

[winfred]

a 95 ti would be the ideal starter car for a 6 cylinder conversion as it's not obdII, you can do whatever you want with one of those and not have check engine codes to screw with you

[632 Regal]

Jon, can you see the cross hatch pattern on the cylinder walls?

[kyleN20]

seee, you seem to think this is a good idea, and jon seems to think not. i really want a 90 e30 325is, but icant find one, but this car dose strike my fancy.

[bjl4776]

Is the head design different on the M50 vs the M50tu. The reason i wonder is the pistons on the M50 seamed dished a little. When i tore the head off of my M50tu it it had flat top pistons with the cutouts for the valves, but i thought they both had 10:1 CR. Anybody know of this?

[infinity5]

seee, you seem to think this is a good idea, and jon seems to think not. i really want a 90 e30 325is, but icant find one, but this car dose strike my fancy.

IIRC, Winfred (like me), has an affinity for BMW hatchbacks, so he might be biased?

Jon: you mentioned the Ti having poor traction with the more powerful engine. Is that becuase the backend is lighter or becuase the 6 would make the front end much heavier than stock?

BMW needs a rear engined car.

[winfred]

vanos and non vanos heads are very close (externally the same) and could be interchanged if you put the cams and vanos unit on the non vanos head, not sure how different the pistons are, i've read that the non vanos motor had hotter cams and higher compression (beleave this is the reason that the non vanos motor had the same power as the later varible valve timing motor) but have not had a reason to research it personally

Is the head design different on the M50 vs the M50tu. The reason i wonder is the pistons on the M50 seamed dished a little. When i tore the head off of my M50tu it it had flat top pistons with the cutouts for the valves, but i thought they both had 10:1 CR. Anybody know of this?

[winfred]

i like the ti because i like the semi trailing arm suspension better then the z link of the rest of the e36s, it's more fun, tougher and easy to find posi traction diff's from e30s. the interiors seem to be less breakable then the higher end e36s, a ti is basicly a z3 (or e30) with a different body shell so the weight distribution is not going to be much different then a z3 with a 6 banger

IIRC, Winfred (like me), has an affinity for BMW hatchbacks, so he might be biased?

Jon: you mentioned the Ti having poor traction with the more powerful engine. Is that becuase the backend is lighter or becuase the 6 would make the front end much heavier than stock?

BMW needs a rear engined car.

[Jon K]

Jon, can you see the cross hatch pattern on the cylinder walls?

Jeff - absolutely. Theyre clear as day. I'd almost think the motor were rebuilt.

[Jon K]

vanos and non vanos heads are very close (externally the same) and could be interchanged if you put the cams and vanos unit on the non vanos head, not sure how different the pistons are, i've read that the non vanos motor had hotter cams and higher compression (beleave this is the reason that the non vanos motor had the same power as the later varible valve timing motor) but have not had a reason to research it personally

Winfred, the compression info is reverse of that. I've looked it up in bmw tech articles. The M50 vanos is 10.5:1 but has 228 cams. The M50 non vanos is 10.0:1 and has 244's. That is apparently what makes up the difference. The M50 non vanos pistons are dished (awesome for boost and focusing the combustion) while the M50TU are flat.

[Brandon J]

The M50tu piston skirts are also shorter, lighter, thus making upper revving a little easier.

I have seen the M50tu dropped into a 318ti using the stock tranny. It bolts in and as winfred said, it is basically a Z3 coupe. I would definitely do this project as the right parts are there from the e36 and Z3. No custom parts needed. Then as time goes by, you can always look into a 5 spd swpa from an e36, but again a donor z3 for parts from a salvage yard could do the trick for finding the necessary parts. As winfred said, the '95 is ideal as it is much easier to for the swap not worrying about OBDII. You might not even have to cut and cplice wires as an e36 325i wiring harness might simply bolt staright in. Looking at all the swaps out there, this one is one of the easiest in the sense that a M50 or M50tu in an e36 and Z3 already exists with a lot of them out there. So finding the necessary parts won't be too difficult. The etk here is a must, lol.