[hassmaschine]

yeah realistically it would be best to just get it made the way we want it the first time. As I said before it needs the grooves for manifold gaskets on both sides of the plate.

[hassmaschine]

Fuuuuuuu.... So the head I bought arrived. They packed a 90lb cylinder head like it was a fluffy pillow - flimsy cardboard box stuffed with bits of paper and bubble wrap. Sitting flat on top of the #5 exhaust valves which were opened. Well, duh, shipped UPS ground across the country of course it got trashed. It should have been in a crate or reinforced box, and it shouldn't have been set on top of any open valves.

So the #5 valves are bent, the #5 and #6 rockers are pushed off the valves, the exhaust cam is locked in place (can't move it at all), the intake studs are bent, several connectors are broken, damaged mounting surfaces, bent VVT springs, bent VVT motor oil spray bar, ugh. I'm so pissed, because it was in basically new condition before, but they couldn't be arsed to use a better box.

It might be fixable but basically the eccentric shaft sensor alone would cost more than what I paid for the whole head. What a waste.

On the other hand my ITBs are here and they look perfect. Imagine that, they were packaged properly..

[hassmaschine]

Waiting on a response from the vendor regarding my fucked up head - but meanwhile, how about those ITBs?

Well, there are some fitment issues around the OFH that i anticipated.. But really, it looks like it will work very well.

Keep in mind, I'm just holding up the ITBs to the ports with one hand, trying to eyeball the position while taking pics with the other..

Overall fitment. Both engines (and all BMW "small" 6's) use a 91mm bore spacing, so of course its close.



Problem 1: OFH interferes


Its not as bad as I thought actually. The bolt that I was worried about looks workable. However, the TPS sensor is an issue. I'm thinking i can clock it at a different angle to fit the plug, or move it to the other end at cyl #6.

Additionally, the pressure switch for the dummy light is in the way (problem 2). I removed it from this pic. I'm thinking it could be remote mounted somehow, or maybe look at the other OFH's for the N5x platform.

Finally, how do the ports look? Well, we already knew the S54s were slightly bigger, but a pic is worth 1000 words as they say...



The ports line up really well basically - a nice straight shot to the back of the valves. And either I port match the N52 head to the throttles, taper the adapter plate - or some combo of the two. But i don't think you could ask for more coming from such different engines...

[tlow98]

Wow, that looks great, hass. Thanks for the pics. Any idea how much material you can safely remove from the head? I'm guessing quite a bit

Huge bummer about your head. I bet your wife has prolly known for years and has informed you many times. Mine takes the liberty of informing all the time.

[Terraphantm]

Originally Posted by hassmaschine

Waiting on a response from the vendor regarding my fucked up head - but meanwhile, how about those ITBs?

Well, there are some fitment issues around the OFH that i anticipated.. But really, it looks like it will work very well.

Keep in mind, I'm just holding up the ITBs to the ports with one hand, trying to eyeball the position while taking pics with the other..

Overall fitment. Both engines (and all BMW "small" 6's) use a 91mm bore spacing, so of course its close.



Problem 1: OFH interferes


Its not as bad as I thought actually. The bolt that I was worried about looks workable. However, the TPS sensor is an issue. I'm thinking i can clock it at a different angle to fit the plug, or move it to the other end at cyl #6.

Additionally, the pressure switch for the dummy light is in the way (problem 2). I removed it from this pic. I'm thinking it could be remote mounted somehow, or maybe look at the other OFH's for the N5x platform.

Finally, how do the ports look? Well, we already knew the S54s were slightly bigger, but a pic is worth 1000 words as they say...



The ports line up really well basically - a nice straight shot to the back of the valves. And either I port match the N52 head to the throttles, taper the adapter plate - or some combo of the two. But i don't think you could ask for more coming from such different engines...

Very cool. I wonder if the DME software can be modified to just ignore that TPS (the one on the actuator should still tell the DME where the throttles are).

Regarding the oil filter housing, as far as I can tell, every N5x variant and even the S55 use the same housing.

[hassmaschine]

Thinking about it more I'm pretty sure I could grind the throttle shaft on one side and just clock the sensor in a different direction (up, potentially). I would have to relocate the oil pressure sensor regardless.

For the interfering bolt on the OFH, I'm thinking the threads for that bolt could be helicoiled, and use a lower profile steel bolt in its place. BMW sells stainless steel helicoil inserts for the magnesium block so I don't see why it wouldn't work. The corner of the mounting ear on the #1 ITB might need shaved down a bit, but it seemed like there was a way to make it fit.

Not sure how much could be removed. If I can get one of these heads flowbenched, maybe sacrifice one to testing out some port work - maybe it would be beneficial to port it to match the throttle, or maybe it would be better to use a tapered adapter. However, I'm thinking I want to keep the adapter pretty thin, so porting hopefully works out. But I don't want to just hog out the ports and find out that it kills velocity etc. It doesn't seem like 1.65mm on the top/bottom and 0.9mm on each side should make a huge difference.

[Hobbs64]

It's going to fit really nice. Now you have me on pins and needles because my new head just got shipped to wiseco so the pistons can finally be built for my 52/54 motor. I think my guy was more careful but you never know...

[hassmaschine]

really all they had to do was strap some boards to the outside of the head and stick that in a box - it's not rocket science!

I built a wood crate when I shipped an S52 crank to Florida. It was heavy, but I knew that it wasn't going to be a problem. Can't just stick something like that in a box and hope for the best...

edit: good news, they apologized for the error and are refunding my money - apparently they have a new guy in shipping (whatever). I don't have to ship the head back (there's no point, the cost of shipping is probably more than the head is worth now). I'm going to look at fixing it if the damage is not too bad - mainly worried about the valve guides. Maybe I can glue the plug back on the eccentric shaft sensor and have another spare..

[hassmaschine]

Some pictures of the head damage:








Good thing is I have two complete heads, so I should be able to pull off parts from the other head to fix this one - excepting valves etc, I'll get new ones.

Otherwise the head *is* really clean inside - if the guides aren't damaged it really won't need much other than a light cleanup of the deck surface.

[pfitz911]

I check this thread every month or so. Really interested in its progress. Any updates mate?
I have a 330 and when it dies I too would like to rebuild it and put it in a e30 or e9 chassis

[hassmaschine]

no, unfortunately, I haven't worked on it much recently. The head shown above is just sitting in the trunk of my E30 (which is basically being used as a beer fridge now, lol). Next thing I will probably do is send my other head off to be flow benched and cut up for experimenting with different porting profiles. I also have a line on a 3.64 rear ix diff, but that won't help me get the engine put back together.

[pfitz911]

No worries mate
Ive just converted my 911 to efi and certainly learnt a lot, Do you think it will be straight forward? The n52 is such a great engine and perfect for an old 6 series or e9 chassis

[Obioban]

Awesome thread! Imho the n52 is the ultimate engine for e30 swaps! I've been wanting to build one, myself.

I'm interested to see how you handle the oil pan/subframe, though it might not really apply since I'd go with a rwd car.

[hassmaschine]

Subframe will be stock (E30 ix is rear sump like the E90). The oil pan, I'm going to have to get fabricated by somebody, as I don't have the time/skills to weld aluminum like that. It's also more critical since I need to keep the front diff/CV shafts relatively aligned with the transfercase and frame.

However, it won't be much different than this swap, which I'm helping with:
http://bit.ly/2HgXEYn

He had the same idea for the oil pickup tube as I did, which is one of the places I was worried about - the space between the CV shaft and the windage tray is really tight, the plastic tube wouldn't have fit there.

[tree233]

Hey hey! I just finished reading this whole thread, sooo interesting! Some of it is well over my head tho, keep up the good work haha

The initial simplicity really excited me. I'm wondering if this can be done without the throttles...

If I understand correctly, the two issues are vacuum for the oil separator, and the fail safe.

Can you use a vacuum pump for the oil separation? Or does the vacuum pressure need to rise and fall with the revs?

And can the fail safe just be a shut off switch on the dash?

I understand it may not be the way you want to go, but I'm happy with less than ideal if simple, cheap and light.

Interested to hear your thoughts!

[tree233]

Fail safe?

Originally Posted by hassmaschine

Interestingly, if you disconnect the valvetronic motor it will go into limp mode, which moves the eccentric shaft all the way to the 180 degree stop (the only time it ever does so).

(from the Modified Intake Lift thread)

[hassmaschine]

that's not a fail safe. It will go to WOT.

I don't think a switch on the dash is a "safe" way to fail either. You're going to shut your car down mid-corner on a track? or in the middle or freeway rush hour traffic?

In the end, I want to use the S54 throttles because it will effectively do the same thing, but if something goes wrong I can fall back on throttle controls.

[Xencer]

Hass, are you planning on running velocity stacks or a S54 manifold on top of the ITBs? Also, could you do me a favor and measure the inside diameter with a micrometer on one of the ITBs?

[hassmaschine]

yeah, pretty sure they are 50mm but I can double check.

[Phyrexia]

Many years ago I dreamed up (and even put some pen to paper) the idea of a variable-length intake runner system for a 13B rotary engine. I didn't really have the know-how or experience to build something like that. Mazda used a setup like that in the 787B, and now there's at least one production car with a similar setup (Ferrari LaFerrari).

It would require a lot of time and effort but it's fun to think about. I think it would be easier to build today than it was in 2002 when I monkeyed with the idea.

Dumb question, do the S50/S52 manifolds fit on an N52?

[BalkanAvenger]

This is crazy...

[hassmaschine]

Originally Posted by Phyrexia

Many years ago I dreamed up (and even put some pen to paper) the idea of a variable-length intake runner system for a 13B rotary engine. I didn't really have the know-how or experience to build something like that. Mazda used a setup like that in the 787B, and now there's at least one production car with a similar setup (Ferrari LaFerrari).

It would require a lot of time and effort but it's fun to think about. I think it would be easier to build today than it was in 2002 when I monkeyed with the idea.

Dumb question, do the S50/S52 manifolds fit on an N52?

heh, you know the 3-stage manifold is effectively a variable length intake right?

It doesn't fit on the E30 though, it's just too bulky. and the E30 is much lighter so I don't think I'll notice much (especially when it should pull to an 8k redline and actually make power there).

No, the M52 manifold will not fit. Completely different design. The 3 stage is really superior in every way anyway, unless you want to rev it past 7k..