From E36 323i road car to 328i turbo track car.....

YbFocus

Hi all,

So this has been a while in the brewing since Mondello and my slight overheating issue. I will never forgive Davycc for being there and his luck causing it all :pac:

Right ok so basically what I have to do is swap an older type M50 engine from the car and replace it with an already built, newer M52 from an e46.

This comes with everything down to the rad and ecu.

While the engines are a straight swap over the electrics will not be and this is new territory for me.

I will also be attempting most of it outside and will only have it inside (if at all, for removing the engine and placing the other in).

So it will take a number of months....

Surplus to the engine will be the stripping and reinforcing of the chassis, rear shock tops, trailing arm area and rear subframe mounting areas are all weak points and will need reinforcing.

I may also play around with some aero or overfenders etc for that track look.

This will be long, it will be drawn out. I will get wildly lost, but we'll say some time in the summer it will be back at Auto heroes as a full on track car. It may make a day somewhat earlier if we are lucky

I guess I can't fail if I have a thread tracking my progress

Duke O Smiley

I love it! Will watch with great interest. You'll miss it as a daily driver no doubt.

By the way the photo at the end doesn't work for me but the attachment does.

YbFocus

Duke O Smiley wrote: »

I love it! Will watch with great interest. You'll miss it as a daily driver no doubt.

By the way the photo at the end doesn't work for me but the attachment does.

I'll miss it like hell but I plan on making it into something very special to make it awesome the few times a year I will get to drive it.

Strange one on the photo, its uploaded to this site so it's strange it won't show for you!

Duke O Smiley

YbFocus wrote: »

I'll miss it like hell but I plan on making it into something very special to make it awesome the few times a year I will get to drive it.

Strange one on the photo, its uploaded to this site so it's strange it won't show for you!

Ah it works for me now.

I suppose there is always time for something special for the road down the line too.

YbFocus

Duke O Smiley wrote: »

Ah it works for me now.

I suppose there is always time for something special for the road down the line too.

Oh there will be plenty of special machines, but just while this is being done it gets precedence. Once the vast amount of work is done I'll buy something!

power pants

subscribed

YbFocus

So tomorrow, I will set about taking a bit of the front apart, all of it if possible!
So once I have the front off we can set about taking the engine out and it will basically walk out of it on its own

I took a few pics of the engine tonight to jazz up the page a bit!



To give an impression of the turbo size, not too big but not too small either.
Seen this engine run 280bhp at 7psi, that's ok for now



It looks a bit rough with bits of pipe and wires all over the place but she will be well tidied up before she finds herself ready to run!

shietpilot

Nice!

Are you keeping that bonnet exhaust on the turbo? :pac:

YbFocus

shietpilot wrote: »

Nice!

Are you keeping that bonnet exhaust on the turbo? :pac:

Was waiting for that

No I am planning on my cousin (fabrication place) routing it down.
If its not really possible without loads of money I might go out the wing or something.

It will need some work on the bonnet for it to fit though. It didn't fit in his car

shietpilot

YbFocus wrote: »

Was waiting for that

No I am planning on my cousin (fabrication place) routing it down.
If its not really possible without loads of money I might go out the wing or something.

It will need some work on the bonnet for it to fit though. It didn't fit in his car

Haha, loving the chimney look on the E46

Good luck with it anyway. Hopefully the real work kicks off soon and we see an empty engine bay

YbFocus

shietpilot wrote: »

Haha, loving the chimney look on the E46

Good luck with it anyway. Hopefully the real work kicks off soon and we see an empty engine bay

Thanks man, once I have the front off and can borrow an engine crane or buy one if it comes to it then I will have it out in a couple of weekends.

Not bursting myself either

YbFocus

So with car purchases getting in the way this weekend i got nothing done

Hope to do a little stripping each night now during the week, just so I can say I've started!

YbFocus

Hello there, hold on while I blow the cobwebs away!

I took the bumper off today to remove the foglights and spray the new blanks.
I will be fitting them over the next week after spraying and getting them fairly bang on hopefully.

I couldn't help myself but throw this under it to see what it will look like

Big Nasty

I know a guy will take those fogs off you. You could call him your wing man in fact.

YbFocus

Big Nasty wrote: »

I know a guy will take those fogs off you. You could call him your wing man in fact.

I had noticed that post the other night
The fogs are prefect but the brackets agent perfect.
Brackets are cheap compared to the fogs though

YbFocus

Got a bit of lacquer onto the fog blanks this evening, looking good

YbFocus

Well they are fitted this evening, the new paint makes the bumper look like feck with the stone chips

power pants

yeah looks nice and all that, are you going to spray paint the rest of the car etc too?

YbFocus

Spent the evening gutting the interior, looks very racecar-ish now.
Swear to god I will get going

Just need to find a way to stop all these storms coming our way

YbFocus

I am going out the door to attack it now!

power pants

probably never lol

YbFocus

So the rain has beaten us this evening, but we got plenty done, roped the brother in and in 90 mins we got lots done!

The whole front is off and the loom is about 50% stripped.
It's given me the drive to keep going now anyway





First bit of progress, onward from here etc

vintagevrs

Great stuff

YbFocus

vintagevrs wrote: »

Great stuff

Nothing scary yet

vintagevrs

Aw yeah but it's mad how much time these things can take. Even simple stuff is time consuming, and finding a spare hour might only mean 20mins actual work by the time you get stuff ready and packed up again. Talking here as if i'v done this before ! But you know what I mean.

Stick with it, and good man for sharing with us

YbFocus

vintagevrs wrote: »

Aw yeah but it's mad how much time these things can take. Even simple stuff is time consuming, and finding a spare hour might only mean 20mins actual work by the time you get stuff ready and packed up again. Talking here as if i'v done this before ! But you know what I mean.

Stick with it, and good man for sharing with us

Thanks man

I totally get it because that's what is happening here, working 6 days the last month now so i like having Sundays to do feck all!
It was good to get a start made, the thread will help make sure i finish it or I'll never live it down

Big Nasty

power pants wrote: »

probably never lol

I'd love to think this is constructive criticism

YbFocus

Big Nasty wrote: »

I'd love to think this is constructive criticism

Don't bother, I just ignore it as best I can Big N!
He'll get tired of it at some stage :rolleyes:

power pants

I was just joining in with the meme posted directly above me, thats all

YbFocus

Right lads an update, I have been talking with a few lads, guru's when it comes to this stuff.
I am going to turbo my original engine, but use the 2.8 crank from the m52 engine to get my capacity.

Most of the bits will swap straight over, except the manifold which I have been told is cheapest/best if I make it myself, due to the lack of RHD turbo options for these!

This for one will get rid of the dreaded electrical stuff I was going to face and another reason is that the m50 is a stronger iron blocked engine.

The 23rd of this month is the next day I have to myself properly so I hope to get some stuff done then.

I may get a few pics of the interior up just to show some progress, I have been doing some stripping of late

This has been an awful thread so far but I hope it comes interesting soon as we open both engines!