Jay-Vee

[Jay-Vee]

Hey everyone!

Been lurking here a while but thought I'd finally introduce myself 

My '88 318i (M40) was my first car 10 years ago and I've held onto her (after recently upgrading to an E46 325ci MSport) in hopes to get it onto the track for some sprints and other light motorsport.

Im planning an M42 swap for in about a year's time (a 30th present to myself hehe) and with not being that mechanically-minded, I'm learning a hell of a lot from the posts of the members of this awesome site/forum!
Seems like a great community

Anyway, here's the ol' girl just before she went away into the shed... which hopefully wont be for tooooo long...

[Darky]

Hi jay-bee
Where are you from?
M40 engines are only found in Australia, nz, Europe, Asia!
They where never brought into America!

[Jay-Vee]

Im from Adelaide, South Australia, and hoping that M42's arent gonna be too hard to find over here.

We had the M42 in the 318is but there arent that many of them around.

Looking forward to learning a lot from the experienced folk here.

[Darky]

I thought you where from oz from the background.
I'm Melbourne Australia!
There aren't to many e30 m42's here but there are heaps of e36 m42's which are better anyway in most regards!
Also handy hint m40 and m42 use the same block. M42 are a lot better though in all regards, I started with an m40 too and am presently building my m42. Longer process than I thought.
Most people around here are from North America though so when you say m40, you will just get blank looks.
Also keep in mind ours are rhd and there's are lhd and that make massive differences with the exhaust manifold and going around the steering column.
What have you done to your car so far?

[Jay-Vee]

Ok great to hear I will probably have a few questions for ya then as time goes on!

Good to hear m42's are plentiful, haven't done heaps of research yet. Out of interest how much did yours set you back?

I've got a stainless Magnaflow cat-back exhaust, King springs/shocks, urethane bushes, braided brake lines, BBS CH reps... Nothing real special but the E30 is pretty nice to start

[Darky]

You can buy a m42 quite cheaply. $600
However with that comes a few problems, loom, ecu etc and you just don't know whether it runs.
So I ended up buying one for $1500 with everything that was running in front of me, I actually drove it. Then it got removed for me!
Now I'm rebuilding it m44 timing s50 pistons m47 crankshaft etc etc etc
So it's up to you how you go with a known or unknown. Keep in mind e36 m42 loom needs adapting and you will need to change the sump.
The thing I like about these cars is there handling it doesn't matter which e30 they all handle very well!
An almost essential mod you can do now is e36 or z3 steering rack, makes car parking a breeze no more 4 turns to lock!

[Jay-Vee]

Thats fairly reasonable!

Are you saying that the best way into an M42 with loom and the rest is the buy a half-cut or a running write-off?
Where else would I find one? Or would I just get my mechanic to track one down for me?

Appreciate any advice, Melbourne-Sensei, I wont pretend I'm not a noob when it comes to something like a complete swap haha

[Darky]

It would depend entirely on your mechanical skill.
If you are very mechanical you could collect all the bits cheaply and put them together, but with this method if something is wrong you have to be able to find it.
The other method is buying a written off but running m42 e30 car and carefully transferring the components!
The swap itself is fairly easy under those conditions.

[Jay-Vee]

well my mechanical skill is limited to things like oil-changes, air-filters and brake pads haha!

So yeah I'd have to get my mechanic to do the work.

So are Euro-Auto-Wreckers the right places to be looking to track down written off M42 cars?

Thanks again mate, gotta start the research somewhere so you're a big help.

[Darky]

well my mechanical skill is limited to things like oil-changes, air-filters and brake pads haha!

So yeah I'd have to get my mechanic to do the work.

So are Euro-Auto-Wreckers the right places to be looking to track down written off M42 cars?

Thanks again mate, gotta start the research somewhere so you're a big help.

First things first I'm no sensei.
Secondly check out what norm is doing in his 318is restore. No previous mechanical experience either!
My suggestion would be to find a e36 m42 car and grab it. Whole car! Then transfer the engine, bit of stuffing around but you should be right.

[Jay-Vee]

Yeah I've been following Norm's resto - very impressive stuff.

I'm a lover of motorsport and have family/friends with some racing experience so I'm looking for a (relatively) simple way to get my E30 to the track for some local grassroots stuff - starting with a nicer engine - but with my limited mechanical experience my questions probably seem pretty basic!

I'm guessing speaking to a mechanic who might want to do the job would be the next step as I just don't have the equipment or skill to swap it myself.
Considering there's the E36 sump/loom/etc to swap with the old M40 do you have any idea if this would be prohibitively expensive? (i.e. over $2k?) If so, I could be looking at just refreshing the ol' 300k M40 for the track... hmmm....

[Slowered318]

On the plus side you won't be burning up brakes and 17" tires so much with the M40.

[Darky]

Yeah I've been following Norm's resto - very impressive stuff.

I'm a lover of motorsport and have family/friends with some racing experience so I'm looking for a (relatively) simple way to get my E30 to the track for some local grassroots stuff - starting with a nicer engine - but with my limited mechanical experience my questions probably seem pretty basic!

I'm guessing speaking to a mechanic who might want to do the job would be the next step as I just don't have the equipment or skill to swap it myself.
Considering there's the E36 sump/loom/etc to swap with the old M40 do you have any idea if this would be prohibitively expensive? (i.e. over $2k?) If so, I could be looking at just refreshing the ol' 300k M40 for the track... hmmm....

I wouldn't go down that path, m42 so much more fun!
I got my engine for far less than $2k
Plus the sump, engine mounts, ac, alternator, power steering you already have on your m40.
Cheers

[Jay-Vee]

On the plus side you won't be burning up brakes and 17" tires so much with the M40.

Haha well i will more than likely switch them before it comes to track time, but still weighing up the options...