S50 for an E34 ?

[SlidingAlong]

Hi all,

I'm about to start transplanting a S50 ('95 OBD1 M3 motor) into my '92 525i. My car doesn't have Vanos; the new motor does. I have the ECU for the motor, wiring harness from the donor, etc - but I'm not certain of a pinout for the M3. Can anyone help with a wiring diagram for the motor? Will I need to tweak anything for my instrument cluster? The donor motor came from an automatic car; mine is a 5speed - I recall that the transmission interacts with the ECU for the new generation. Is my memory accurate - or do I need to perform additional alterations?

Thanks for any assistance y'all can provide.


-jack

[winfred]

i beleve that the obd I m3 uses the same ecu as the vanos m50, i think you are going to need a engine harness for a vanos e34 as the non vanos also doesn't have knock sensors, the e36 harness is way different from the layout of the e34 harness too. with the right combo of parts it will drop in, i've not done this swap personally so i can't give advice much beyond what i know of the seperate cars systems

[SlidingAlong]

Hi Winfred,

Thanks for the guidance. I've also heard that the S50 uses the same ECU as the M50TU - but I'm looking for clarification, etc. I'm likely going to piece the harness together by hand; neither the mechanical nor electrical should be a big deal once I know what goes where. Thanks for the advice that the e36 is radically different than the e34, good to know. I have the harness for the e36 for reference & hacking apart - all I need to find are the wiring diagrams for the eM3 & I'm set. I have the AllData information for the e34 and e36 - just not for the e36 M3.


-jack


i beleve that the obd I m3 uses the same ecu as the vanos m50, i think you are going to need a engine harness for a vanos e34 as the non vanos also doesn't have knock sensors, the e36 harness is way different from the layout of the e34 harness too. with the right combo of parts it will drop in, i've not done this swap personally so i can't give advice much beyond what i know of the seperate cars systems

[winfred]

id e-mail or post the e36 factory etm but it's huge and hard to send, i wouldn't worry about anything but the 93-95 525 as that the one you need to copy, i've not looked at the differences between the vanos and non vanos harnesses, but theres a real good chance that all you need to do is add a few wires to the non vanos harness you have, the two have the same plug in to the computer but there may be a wire or two that needs to be moved to a different position in the plug, besides adding the vanos wire and the wires for the two knock sensors which you can butch out of the m3 harness, at the moment i can't think of any other differences

[crashnburn80]

Someone else did the same thing.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4531735616&category=6008

[SlidingAlong]

Winfred,

Thanks for the information. I'll use the e34 M50tu wiring diagram as the basline for the Vanos & knock sensors in my harness. I'll also compare with the e36 M50tu. Should be fun...


id e-mail or post the e36 factory etm but it's huge and hard to send, i wouldn't worry about anything but the 93-95 525 as that the one you need to copy, i've not looked at the differences between the vanos and non vanos harnesses, but theres a real good chance that all you need to do is add a few wires to the non vanos harness you have, the two have the same plug in to the computer but there may be a wire or two that needs to be moved to a different position in the plug, besides adding the vanos wire and the wires for the two knock sensors which you can butch out of the m3 harness, at the moment i can't think of any other differences

[SlidingAlong]

I'd be a bit suprised about the quoted power output for that car ... some bench racing? Gotta love eBay... ;)

From what I understand it takes a bit of effort to get 300bhp from the s50 - European film air-mass sensor, cams, agressive chip, agressive exhaust. I'll be happy with ~250 with my headers and the stock chip... time will tell what the end result will be...


Someone else did the same thing.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4531735616&category=6008

[winfred]

oh i've hurt some people's feelings when they ask me what i think my 325is makes with all of the performance crap that's on it and i respond with, well it's rated for 168 so id guess it's around 175-180, "but but but the headers are worth X and the chip's worth Y and the injectors are worth Z and the afm mod's worth R and the ported intake is worth S......... and all of that add up to" most people don't realize you can't stack horsepower ratings from mods


I'd be a bit suprised about the quoted power output for that car ... some bench racing? Gotta love eBay... ;)

[SlidingAlong]

*laugh* Yep... don't forget the unobtanium fuel-line covers! ;) Physics is a b!tch, eh? Pick two: inexpensive, reliable, powerful (i.e., fast).


oh i've hurt some people's feelings when they ask me what i think my 325is makes with all of the performance crap that's on it and i respond with, well it's rated for 168 so id guess it's around 175-180, "but but but the headers are worth X and the chip's worth Y and the injectors are worth Z and the afm mod's worth R and the ported intake is worth S......... and all of that add up to" most people don't realize you can't stack horsepower ratings from mods

[Kalevera]

Hey Jack - can you do some kind of writeup on this install when you're done with it? I'm looking into alternatives in the long run for my aging M30 and would love to read about how the s50/52 fits into our e34's. From that ebay guy's pictures, it looks like you gain a bit of room in the engine compartment with the s50.

Best, whit

[SlidingAlong]

Hi Whit,

Sure, I'll see about writing something up. The S50 block is substantially similar to the M50... a conversion from the big-block M30 to the M50/S5x (S50|S52|S54) would be sobering. The "new-tech" sixes are a bit more compact than the oldies...


-jack


Hey Jack - can you do some kind of writeup on this install when you're done with it? I'm looking into alternatives in the long run for my aging M30 and would love to read about how the s50/52 fits into our e34's. From that ebay guy's pictures, it looks like you gain a bit of room in the engine compartment with the s50.

Best, whit

[crashnburn80]

Hey Jack - can you do some kind of writeup on this install when you're done with it? I'm looking into alternatives in the long run for my aging M30 and would love to read about how the s50/52 fits into our e34's. From that ebay guy's pictures, it looks like you gain a bit of room in the engine compartment with the s50.

Best, whit

It would be alot easier to buy a performance M30 from www.bavengine.com, probably cheaper to, and it would have more power. Rated at about 250hp and costing $4700 new, with no exchange. Just a thought.