Hello there, back again after a long time! I originally started a thread called "E36 Turbo Project" and left off with something like "..so for now I'll just shut up until I find a car.." Well, took care of that.

I found a clean 1995 325is in Mississauga, ON for a really good price. I bought it without safety or e-cert but managed to get through those with nearly no problems.. against all odds I'd say; as this thing seems to have a '98 M3 engine in it, and weirdest of all, an auto tranny :P Anyways, I was just looking for a clean chassis so mission accomplished. I think that the kit on it is pretty sweet, it might be M3, maybe not, I don't care. The first order of business was to peel off all the stickers and M3 paraphernalia... trying to explain the auto to people got tiring really fast (within one day).

Naturally, the car was also loaded with shoddy audio wiring, 'M3' seatbelt covers, even extras on the rear window sill, and even some neon interior light 'rods', wires hanging out everywhere and switches on the dash connected to nothing... why do people do that crap?!?! Best of all, of course, is that the car is slow as hell... that tranny likes to just sit and listen to the engine roar apparently. Wow, it sounds like I hate this car, but no, I really like it, or at least what lies underneath all of that junk haha.

Ok that's the intro..

Too bad about the auto, but sometimes you have to take what you can. Are you sure it has an M3 engine? Post a pic - it should be obvious. I seriously doubt that anyone who would drop an S50 in would do it without swapping the tranny.

Sounds like you have a bit of fun ahead scraping the rice off.:D

Ok so good, I've had the car for a week and it drives real nice, slow, but nice.

Among the problems that I have noticed are/were:

Cyclic wheel noise - could be brakes, tires, bearings, rubbing, cv's...

Paint chips - there are probably about 100 little chips in the vicinity of the driver's door handle, looks like a blind guy trying to put the key in the lock ninja style...

Rad fan - bearing is effed, about 1-2mm radial compliance....


So ya, that last one, the fan, it scattered on me last night at about 1am:

Driving up a dark street with my friend Ben, pushing it a bit (~6k) not unlike any other time all week and all of a sudden "WHACK!" I suspected the fan right away (the engine sounded way better all of a sudden, no whining noise..) and we pulled over in a lit parking lot within 30 seconds. Sure enough there were two big shiny dents sticking out of the hood and steam starting to billow out.. accompanied by a creeping coolant slick flowing out beside the car. Upon opening the hood I could see that the coolant reservoir had been obliterated and the air filter (a cone type) perforated, all littered with brittle plastic shrapnel. I will post pictures soon ! :)

Anyways, I did read about these [old] fans bursting, and I should have known better when I found the worn out bearing.. BUT, ya. Ironically I DID try to find a stocked fan at several auto parts stores in town while taking care of the safety, etc... but negligence is negligence nonetheless :P

Please be careful, check your fans, if it makes a whining noise, or seems worn out, at least keep the revs down until you replace it !

Coincidentally, I was planning to [eventually :P] replace the stock fan and shroud with a SPAL unit, and I guess lay up some CF... SO, that is what the next project on this thread will likely be. More to come...

Hmm,, can't put pictures in here... how do I post them [here] ?

Do I really need to put them on my own url ?

I think you need more posts before you can do images....go to the Rides section and comment on people's cars to bump up your post count.

Ok now I can post attachments ! So here is one of the engine, and the car as I bought it... I was told that it is a 98 M3 Engine... :S

Nice car, I really like the front lip. You have an m50, not an s52(m3 engine). The s52 oil caps are located further up towards the hood

That looks like the S50B30 (the early 3.0L engine) which had the oil cap at the rear. If it was a '98 it'd be the S52B32, which was used in M3s from '96, I think. About 4800 E36 M3s were equipped with auto trans for the NA market, but only about 1700 with the S50. Are you sure it's not a real M3? What's the VIN (PM me if you aren't comfortable with posting it)?

Ya, ok so a 3 liter ? .. the VIN is WBABF4328SEK19352

the chassis sticker with the vin on it says 325is

like i said, i haven't found the engine number plate yet.

I wasn't really expecting all this weirdness, so my plans are skewed now...

At the very least I need to find a manual trans for this sucker.. :)

The VIN matches a 325is with a 09/95 build date. The question is, was the tranny part of the engine transplant? Hopefully it was, since the M3 had a different auto trans than the 325.

I'm not sure where you'd find the engine and trans number on an e36.

Yes indeed, the car looks good. Clears and M3 mirrors are a nice touch.

The transmission is a total mystery, but, for example, does not seem to have a dipstick or any way to fill (without going underneath, maybe).
Basically, it sucks.

Anyways, here are the pics of the fan damage. I am actually surprised that it didn't do more damage inside, considering the damage to the hood...
The shroud is also broken, and the overflow tank is punctured, some other little things.. anyways, enjoy :P

What you have is simply an M power engine cover. Nothing to do with an engine swap and cost about $30 used.

So now that it is all apart, I still need to pressure check the rad, order a new catch tank, etc.

I am weary of putting a new oem fan in there, for obvious reasons (founded or not). I mocked up a few electric fan configurations and found that there is 3.5" of space for a single centralized fan, and about 4.5" for a dual fan setup.

To get a baseline fan size/area I assumed that the rad core has about 55+/-5% effective open area (this is based on other rads that I have actually measured very carefully) and that this corresponds to a flow area of about 185-222 sq.in

For a single fan, with a 5" diameter hub, it appears that a 15"-17" diameter SPAL fan is baseline (irrespective of CFM rating).

For a dual fan setup I found that each fan should be about 12" diameter (11.4"-12.4")

I am sizing the fan diamters like this based on two other cooling system designs I was involved in during my time in FSAE. We found that optimum cooling (duct, rad, fan) combination was achieved by keeping the effective flow area through the system constant.

Now it is a matter of determining the volumetric flow rating(s) required... this is not so easy (analytically) because the discharge coefficients for the various cooler cores etc. is not known.

Luckily we have people who have tried these things, so based on some net research I believe that a 'free' capacity of ~2400 CFM give or take will be OK. One very interesting website that I looked at is worth checking out:

http://home.satx.rr.com/nissanweb/RadTest/RadTest.htm

It is not BMW, but the trends should be somewhat applicable. I will keep looking through the SPAL catalogue in the meantime.

I am also concerned that the waterpump bearing was damaged from the fan offbalance/explosion, and am considering getting a Stewart unit.. any opinions ?

I also managed to find the [a] number on the engine, matching one on the head:

1748933

I've started looking for what it means.... not quite done yet

A BMW dealer or BMW Canada should be able to get you something off the engine block serial number. I've found a direct call to BMW Canada can get you this faster. The number is 1-800-567-2691, and they're 9 am - 6 pm eastern time.

tthe front lip on your car is great. the m3 sideskirts are on backwards thouhg.. haha

So now I have made a new fan shroud and will be using a Spal 16" pusher fan instead of those explodey mechanical ones :)

This is a good example of "Bush League" (or is that "Busch League"??), everything is made out of generic hardware store supplies. The shroud was layed up with fiberglass over a carved foam pattern. the base form is three layers, and the stiffeners are also covered with 3 layers. the fan is sandwiched in place against a small piece of foam rubber and the assembled unit is actually really stiff.. I hope it holds up against potholes and speed bumps!

I am using a pusher fan to "push" air out of the back of the fan... having the fan facing away from the core. This setup was difficult to explain to the Spal tech on the phone when I was inquiring as to whether this setup was a good idea (am I an idiot?). This is the only way that I could come up with that allows a real shroud (not just a plate, or fan alone pressed up to the rad) to fit. I hope that the efficiency of the shroud is actually better than a plate, etc.

The fan rating is 2450, something like that.. of course that is at zero deltaP so I really have no idea how much flow there will be (has anyone measured the pressure drop across the core and/or core+cooler+ACcore ??). It looks like the blades have a very low attack angle, so they should not stall very easily... we will see!

The unit fits in the car very snugly.. I had to rotate the fan mounting bolts away from the AC and alternator pulleys otherwise they would interfere. There is still a chance that it might rub somewhere.. I am most concerned about the AC belt, as it is very close (~6mm).

Now I am having some fun trying to hook up the Spal PWM fan controller... I have got everything connected and am waiting for the car to cool down to test the voltage across the DME coolant temp sensor.. so far I haven't gotten the fan to move, so I hope that it won't be too much of a headache.. ! I had to move the coolant reservoir a little bit, and am now having some trouble getting all the air out of the system after refilling it (I've never done it before) The coolant tank is at the same height as stock, and there are not any hoses with 'air lock loops' in them so I am not sure what is wrong there, i'll be searching this forum for that.. more to come !

My car is in the same situation with the paint chips. Do you have any plans to fix them?

My car is in the same situation with the paint chips. Do you have any plans to fix them?
I have been cleaning the chips that I find (usually no rust) and just painting them with Testor's gloss black model paint. Certainly it looks OK from about a meter away, so for now that will have to do :)

OK so the fan is working, the car doesn't seem to be overheating and all is well. Hooking up the PWM control is actually really easy, but it would have been nice to read about how it is done instead of figuring it all out on my own so here are some keywords for people searching for help:

SPAL, Spal, spal, GEN2, Gen2, gen2, gen 2, PWM, fan controller.

It is really simple, the instructions are straightforward enough, the only 'hmmmm...' comes in when it is time to hook up the temperature sensor wire.

There are two temp sensors, one for the temp gauge in the instrument panel, and another that is used by the DME. I hooked the 'OEM' temp sensor cable to the latter, as I could not figure out where the gauge wire travels. To hook it up to the DME coolant temp sensor all you have to do is remove the DME panel on the firewall and find the ONLY Brown w/red stripe wire in the harness. Strip back some insulation from that wire and solder the controller wire to it, wrap it up and put it all back. I also mounted the PWM unit to the DME compartment cover with 2 M6 bolts.


Anyways, now I need to get a real temp sensor to program the controller, because I am suspicious that my stock guage is not working perfectly (won't move past half way), at any rate, the stock guage is not very descriptive so it is not that useful anymore anyways.

Now I have to fix those dents in the hood :/