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The M20/M50/M52/M54 bottom ends are all very similar, I've got an M52 crank in my M20 block for example, its the heads / vanos that make the most difference between the engines.
The M50 manifold swap is not quite bolt on IIRC Richard bought a kit from someone on a BMW forum with various machined parts to make the two work together. We've not got any photo as we were asked not post what they look like publicly. I'll ask Richard to stop by as he did the swap out work on his engine.
Peter
I have posted pics of Andrew Curtis's M50 Inlet mods in his Sportster on my flickr site. Although Andrew is happy with it, the racing fraternity believe the elbow restricts breathing at the top end - which defeats the object of using a bigger engine if you cant extract the full power from it?
Looking at richard & Patrick's Compact M52 conversion, I do not think shortening its Inlet manifold is an option as it changes shape along its inlet tubes length. Shortening the M50 manifold is much easier, and will give you the additional benefit of an extra 20BHP! - see my Flickr pics.
.....................
Marlin supplied my engine mounts - but like most things they make they could be improved - to use the original BMW rubber mounts - not the cheap Landrover units they supply. The BM ones are offset top and bottom, so you can rotate them to move the positioning of the engine in the bay-- very useful in a Cabrio as the engine bay space is much more limited than your Sportster.
regards
Mike
Hi Peter, I have the m50 engine and have basically sorted my air flow without shortening the manifold, and without reducing the air flow to the throttle body.Just finishing mounting the afm and filter.Would some pictures be useful?
Hi Peter, I have the m50 engine and have basically sorted my air flow without shortening the manifold, and without reducing the air flow to the throttle body.Just finishing mounting the afm and filter.Would some pictures be useful?
jeremy
have you completed the cooling piework?
Have you fitted a valve between the head and the in-car heater?
How have you dealt with the expansion tank pipework?
Any info would be appreciated
Mike
The M50 manifold swap is not quite bolt on IIRC Richard bought a kit from someone on a BMW forum with various machined parts to make the two work together. We've not got any photo as we were asked not post what they look like publicly. I'll ask Richard to stop by as he did the swap out work on his engine.
Because of the car's choked down intake manifold there is a serious drop in power after 6500 rpm, which is where any stage-one-equipped M3 should be shifted from second gear onwards. At 7000 rpm this car is only making 189 whp.So what would happen if we were to successfully adapt an OBD-I manifold? What we like to call EHP's stage-two power upgrade does simply that-it exchanges the OBD-II intake manifold for an OBD-I manifold that can be found on any stock '92-95 325i or '95 M3. EHP made this possible with its CNC OBD-I adapter bracket, which adapts the OBD-II idle air control motor and vacuum lines. The install isn't as simple as it may seem, but luckily EHP's easy-to-read CD-ROM instructions were easy to follow, keeping this portion of the install to three hours.
When finished, this upgrade proved well worth it. Without changing the stage-one software, the power soared to 233 whp-the most power I've ever seen out of the stock HFM. Because EHP hasn't developed specific software for running the intake manifold with its stage-one intake kit, it does not recommend this particular setup-despite the fact that several of its customers reportedly drive their M3s this way. I think EHP just wants to be able to fine-tune a lone intake manifold upgrade first. But we found the idle was still good and the air/fuel ratios were a leaner 12.5-13.2 from 5000 rpm-still fine for a normally-aspirated car.The gains don't come without a small price paid in low-end performance, however. A power loss started at 2500 rpm and continued to 4600 rpm, with a peak loss of 17.4 hp and 23.3 lb-ft at 3930 rpm. But the window in which it happens is fairly small and will only be noticed while driving around town or powering out of turns in too high a gear (in that case, shame on you). In a drag race the losses would be insignificant, as all you'd have to do is launch at any engine speed greater than 4000 rpm. It's evident BMW chose the OBD-II manifold to make the car feel quicker at low speeds and at a stab of the throttle. But where the OBD-II intake manifold really drops off in torque-at 5000 rpm-is where the OBD-I manifold shines, maintaining it much better through redline. And it's this range that makes the car significantly faster in a straight line for the simple fact that the engine is now getting much more work done over time. In other words, horsepower-32 whp more at 7000 rpm to be exact.
One thing to keep in mine reading about the S52 engine, that was a US only engine which was horrifically choked down to meet US emissions standards. It's basically an M52 with slightly spiker cams IIRC.
One thing to keep in mine reading about the S52 engine, that was a US only engine which was horrifically choked down to meet US emissions standards. It's basically an M52 with slightly spiker cams IIRC.
It's April the 1st so I bought my road tax on line this morning and took the car out for it's first run in 2009.
The car ran faultlessly and driving with the windscreen fitted is much more relaxed and less dramatic than wearing the goggles.
More wind on the back of the head than flies in the teeth! although my wife reported it as "less exciting"
I had raised and set my seat mounting at an angle over the winter so that I can see over the top of windscreen surround and wiper blades and the seat postion is now much better, although I think I can tip the seat back another few degrees to be perfect. Pauline also complains that she can't see over the windscreen wiper so i'll have to raise her seat as well!
Wipers and washers all working OK.
One of my speakers doesn't work and the front left and rear right seem to be wired together but I supspect its just some crossed speaker wires so another session upside down with my head in the passenger footwell to fix that, oh joy!
Less exciting? Fold the screen down or is it time to get that M52 in there and super charger it
In answer to your question: Do the list of things to do ever stop?? - not really, I'm looking forward to getting back on the road soon I've been missing the grin factor for a few months now.
I picked up one of these on eBay for £30. It is claimed to give 10-15 bhp improvement. I fitted it this evening and everything seems to work fine. It was already fitted to an old ECU so the swap was relatively quick. I took the car out for a two mile blast and it certainly ran well,smooth acceleration with no hesitation when I floor the throttle but my driving is not good enough to say whether the car is actually faster? Anybody know anything about these chips?
It's maked Prima power 0789.
Now I'm getting a little more adventurous with my windscreen fitted, I find the car goes light and 'jumpy' when I hit about 70mph so I think some suspension setting up is probably required. I've still got quite a lot of toe out that I set to get the self centering for the SVA, so maybe I need to go back to a more traditional 0.5 degree toe in?
Oh and I got all four speakers working, I had a couple of duff crimps!! (Shocking)
The only chip I'd put into my ECU is one by Ant @ A-Tech I know that he knows what he's doing. Not saying there's anything wrong with the one you got though, some of the really cheap ones can lead to over fuelling and overly advanced ignition from what I've read. Chips tend to smooth out flat spots rather than add much in the way of BHP/torque on an N/A car. Normally I'd say take the claim, half it and you closer to the actual increase
edit: I'd have a search on e30zone see if there's any feedback on it.
As far as the steering goes, I just kept adjusting until it felt right rather than going for specific numbers. I'd also try fiddling with tyre pressures and the dampers
google suggests these are the guys who make the chip: http://www.primaracing.com/serv_superchips.aspx they refer to them as super chip, I wonder if they use super chips but with their name on it?
google suggests these are the guys who make the chip: http://www.primaracing.com/serv_superchips.aspx they refer to them as super chip, I wonder if they use super chips but with their name on it?
Not sure. I found the same website but don't know if they are the same?
Anyway, it seems to be working fine so i'll run it for a while and see how it goes.........
I took the car out today to get the wheel alignment done.......
On the way home I hit a rather nasty pot hole with the front offside wheel. The shock caused the wing stay U clamp to snap. Luckily the other side hung on and didn't cause any damage to the wing or wheel. I had tightened them up last year to prevent rotation and obvisously a bit too tight! Not really happy with this clamp arrangement and an alternative will be sought.
Then.............
After todays run I noticed some tell tale 'oil' marks on my carpet. Further investigation with the digital camera shoved up the drivers footwell shows the problem. Looks like my master cylinder has sprung a leak!
I need to take some more photo's but from this one it looks like an alignment issue between the cylinder bore and the plunger. The mis-alignment (if real and not an optical illusion) may explain the premature failure?
My question is do I fit another aftermarket replacement (which i have in my spares box) or spalsh out on a genuine BMW part? Eurocarparts have an ATE version at £59 which seems expensive.
......and the list goes on!
Oh and by the way, they couldn't get the wheel alignment gear to fit the front wheels so no progress on that front, but it was great day for a drive!!
I got an aftermarket master cylinder which has done its job up until I replaced it with the wilwood setup. The problem was down to the pedal box deforming rather than the master cylinder
I hit a rather nasty pot hole with the front offside wheel. The shock caused the wing stay U clamp to snap.
I am not surprised about this. The problem is twofold IMHO.
1. The quality of the clamps varies tremendously. Even the better ones are made out of pretty cr&p stuff.
2. The Marlin design applies to much stress for the one clamp.
The best simple solution I have seen is to extend the clamp plate, that is part of the stay, to allow two clamps to be used. Then the load is spread and, if one fails it isn't going to fall off immediately!
peterux wrote:
Looks like my master cylinder has sprung a leak!
I would go for a decent aftermarket replacement. Master cylinders fail periodically anyway - its not necessarily a fault in the Marlin design. Mind you - while you are replacing it - it would be a good idea to check the alignment...
On the clamp front, i've seen the double clamp mod and it is certainly one solution. I'm thinking along the lines of a 'u' shaped piece of steel that can be clamped with some high tensile bolts?
On the clutch master cylinder. It was dry fitted for a long time in a cold lock up garage which may have 'aged' the seals? Even so I'm surprised and disappointed at its early life failure so will look at the alignment when I get my head under the pedal box.
I'm looking for a good quality replacement....
I fixed my broken wing bracket today and finished replacing my clutch master cylinder. I've never been pot holing but I imagine it is a bit like changing a clutch master cylinder on a Sportster!
Crawling into the drivers foot well upside down with my feet in the air was OK'sh so long as you remember to take all the right spanners with you, but getting out again is another matter
The rubber dust boot on the old master cylinder was full up with fluid so it's been leaking for some time. I took it apart and there was no obvious reason for failure so i'll assume it was just a bad seal or poor manufacture? It had no manufacturing makers name on it, so I've replaced it with a branded aftermarket version sold in an ATE box so hopefully that's not a job i'll have to do again for a while!
Ahh the joy of lying upside down in the Sportsters footwell. Its fine for the first 10~15 mins, after that it get a little uncomfortable. I was ok with getting out when Patrick was around to help me out. When alone it was another story.
Maybe you could shorten the tubes that hold the master cylinder so it is more in-line with the top of pedal. Don't know if it will help, but there may be less twisting if its more inline?
Maybe you could shorten the tubes that hold the master cylinder so it is more in-line with the top of pedal. Don't know if it will help, but there may be less twisting if its more inline?
Hi Rich,
On further inspection, i don't think it was an alignment problem. It's not exactly in line but not enough to cause any problems as the master cylinder has a kind of ball joint at the plunger end.
but I supspect its just some crossed speaker wires so another session upside down with my head in the passenger footwell to fix that, oh joy!
I've been missing the grin factor for a few months now. 
