E28 525e

[Dod]

Hi, I've been offered a complete engine for humble money and I was thinking of using the crank to stroke my 323i plant. Then I started thinking, why not fit the whole thing?

Any info or thoughts on the above? Also, how do I dentify it actually is a 525e plant?

[horstl]

Hi,
this is where I started with my 323i in 1998 - got a 525e for a reasonable price and transplanted the engine / gearbox into my 323i.
This will give you lots of torque, but the rear end of 3.45 is not a friend of high speeds (>160Km/h) with this low reving engine.
To keep story short my project ended up with replacing the head with an i-head including all peripherals and getting about high reving 180HP.
Some time later I did not like the low CR of this config and started building a high CR 2.7 engine with diesel crank, 325i pistons, Schrick cam, headers and ECU chip resulting in 200+HP.

How to identify the eta engine: check for cam bearings - it should have 2 or 3 less than the i-head.
There is also a different head casting but I do not have the numbers available.

Here's my homepage:
http://www.bmw-e21.hostingsiteforfree.com/index.htm


rgds

Horst

[Dod]

Thank you for your detailed reply Horst. My intentions were to build a 2.7 using the crank and the 323i engine but thought as the engine was so good that I may use it as a direct replacement. I'll study it all up and decide from there.


Thanks again.

[Zeefuhrer]

Hi Dod,

I'm planning on doing a similar conversion. I'm looking to put the engine out of a 525e into my e21 with my 323i head. Would you happen to be in Australia by any chance?

[Jeroen]

Depending on the exact version of your ETA engine easy solutions may be available requiring no work or hardly any work to the engine bottom end. To cut a long story short there are ETA bottom ends that will just mate perfectly with a 323i head and get you to abt 160-165 HP. Doesn't sound like a whole lot but since you gain a lot of torque it feels much faster. Definitely worth while and the original K-Jet dizzy and injectors are up to the job.

There's a lot of info on the subject from Germany, perhaps Google Translate may be a good help to do some reading and see what different engines, setups and conversions there are:

http://wp1016621.wp027.webpack.hosteuro ... f00080.htm

[Dod]

Excellant. I have a spare 323i engine although it hasn't ran in many years. I suppose at €300 complete it couldn't be a bad buy. I wonder if it has a Dog Leg box as well....