bmwe21.net forums

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?

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

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.

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?

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

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....