Nigels E21 M50 (now S50B30) project

[nige21]

Now that i had engine/box sitting in the car, i tried to fit the s50 headers. Not a chance!
Proceed to cut them up, keeping as much of the original pipes as possible.

It went from this;





to this.



Tried to reuse the collectors, with some careful cutting, they are most certainly reusable.

[nige21]

Definitely the hardest part about this conversion. Ive just spent two days on these, i reckon about 6-8 hours worth of work in them. Was getting quicker toward the end, but not a job i hope to ever have to re do!

Mocked the rear 3 on the m50, very handy having a spare motor to do this on. Mock up on the car with the s50, weld off the car on the m50...



tacked



welded



The collectors were actually a lot easier to do than i imagined. Had to fully weld the pipes inside before sliding the collectors on. Radiused and chamfered the inside for flow.



Collectors are now either side of the steering shaft. Looking at it, i can probably use the stardard e21 steering shaft with rubber coupling.





The pile of angles/wedges that were trimmed and removed. A seriously tricky job, and you better hope your patient.
This is probably not even half of what cut/trimmed/re-trimmed/linished



And the finished items, just need to weld on the collector for front bank, and an extension with some flanges for the exhaust.
Pretty happy with all that, managed to only use pipe that i cut off, so the whole job took two arvos, and $0!!

[Jason_323i]

Nigel

That is damm good work, if you used a stock steerign link the rubber might melt being between the down pipes.

Also just to check are you using an e34 or e30 sump

Jason

[nige21]

Thanks Jason
Yeah the heat will be an issue, esp when its singing at 8000rpm ...definitely no probs using your shaft though, heaps of clearance!

using e34 sump, copying the e30 m3 2 piece unit as far as possible.

good news is an s50, on e21 mounts, with g245/g260 is a direct bolt in job! The stock airbox wont fit though, will prob run stacks with individuals filters until i work something out.

[cobbler2u]

A nice bit of work. Looks good

[rob0r]

Wow, brave work on the headers! Nice work. When you say it's a direct bolt in fit that means your leaning the engine vertically again?

[nige21]

Yeah sitting at e21-m20 angle. It means g245/g260 sits at the correct angle in the tunnel. Unfortunately will have to mod the sump again.
Using factory mounts is a positive in getting the car certified/engineered in Oz

nige.

[nas80]

Did you weld the manifold yourself? Your doing an awesome job tbh. please post vids once you done the shakedown.

Also just wondering what are you doing about the diff / driveshafts?

[rob0r]

Yeah sitting at e21-m20 angle. It means g245/g260 sits at the correct angle in the tunnel. Unfortunately will have to mod the sump again.
Using factory mounts is a positive in getting the car certified/engineered in Oz

nige.

My car's fairly low and I haven't got around to modding the sump... I haven't cracked it yet! I probably will at somepoint though. Awesome project, keep it up!

[nige21]

OK i am still working on this! heres proof:...!

Made the bonnet quick release... sort of. Always found e21 bonnet a pos to remove/realign. This way i can leave the 8 fasteners attached, and just pop out the two 10mm bolts...may even replace with 10mm quick release skewers at some point.






finished off the master cylinder relocation plate, MC now sits higher, allowing me to increase pedal ratio to 6:1





Trail fit airbox for the first time... no chance it will fit as is. Elbow hits shock tower, a result of leaning the motor slightly more vertical.
Will most likely run individual ITG foam filters on each runner. Defintely not the unifilters, have been reading some horror stories. Hope to make some carbon shields underneath the filters, essentially turn the whole cold side of the bay into a big airbox, or thats the idea.

[nige21]

New sump bowl arrived, will mash this together with the e34 m50 pan to create super E21-M50-S50-M3 hybrid sump.
Sump has bolt-in trap doors, and il be making a baffle above it to keep oil around the pickup.





Wiring mess... in the process of tidying this up. Bought a whole bunch of 3M vinyl loom tape from the states...cheap. Amazing stuff for wrapping looms. Been going over the whole loom, re-wrapping anything that is old and brittle. Almost everything under the manifold was covered in oil, cleaned with prepsol, and wrapped.








Removed e34 m50 windage tray, not needed as s50 has windage tray bolted to block.





Bolt the shiny bit to that other big bit, with a flange in between



Had the 6061 flange welded to the sump, the guy did a nice job of it. Hope it doesnt leak... There is some epoxy for sealing ally sumps, anyone have some more info on it??

[nige21]

And finally finished off the pedal box... Fit a NOS 11/16 master cylinder, see how i go with that, may fit the 13/16 or 3/4 depending on how heavy the pedal is.

May also remake the pedal shaft out of something larger diametre, currently an 8mm shaft, same as the stock datsun one, but that was half the length.



new pedal box with 6.1:1 pedal ratio, hopefully suitable without the need for vacuum assist.

[nas80]

keen to know what the brakes are going to be like with a 6:1 ratio.

i have been thinking of doing the pedal box myself, I havent committed until i get to drive a car with one!

defo gonna steal the bonnet release mod, thats a bloody good idea nige.

[raseeda green]

Oaah every one like this upgrade,,, awesome is the word, hope you get the running nice engine...thanks for see.

[M15KYY]

mmm pedal box is interesting let me know how you get on with that. fantastic work so far though buddy keep it up