95 318ti engine swap question
 

Hello, I'm new. As in literally made this account five minutes ago. Gunna keep it short and sweet. My neighbor is selling me his 95 318 and well its going to need a new control arm and clutch. Yea yea its going to need some money, but I'm concerned about power. From what I've seen from this forum, It is hard to get power out of the M42. Sooooo my question is this. What other BMW engines can I fit in the 318 relatively easily, and that can give me more power?

Any inline 6 will drop in. It's the same chassis.

S50 or S52 (e36 gen 1 and 2 m3 engines) are popular swaps. If you don't have that kind of money the M50 is a lot more common and readily available, 328i seems to be a popular model for crashing into poles, always see owners parting out on craigslist.

I have a TI with an M50 and a TI with an S50, love them both, I enjoy driving them equally, the S50 is substantially quicker. I live on country roads and get to drive spirited on my commute, however, if I only drove in town I’d prefer the M50, the S50 is a lil quick to break traction in all the rain I drive in, here in the PNW. The S50 Will also be significantly more expensive in most cases. If it rains a lot or your only gonna be driving in town I’d go with an M50 swap. If your trying to race people at red lights be warned the M50 isn’t the quickest at low rpms, especially if you do m3 cams, my m50 gets smoked at red lights by all sorts of cars, but above 3500 rpms it sounds and feels incredible. Can’t go wrong whatever you chose they’re great cars!


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/hI...=w1242-h831-no

I appreciate all the feedback, this has been very helpful!

Will everything easily plug in? such as the fuel harness. Or will the same stock 5 speed tranny work with the s50? That's probably a dumb question, I'm just new to this.

Use the wiring harness from the donor engine, you’ll also need to read into what ECU and how you’ll manage or bypass the EWS system, transmission and differential will be fine from original TI, it’s all pretty straightforward and you can find quite a few threads on here outlining the basic steps and problems people run into. Make sure your looking at replacing tranny mounts and seals and the guibos while your already in there since these are usually worn down when these model cars are purchased. It’s not super hard, especially if you have friends to help, but you need to be mechanically inclined.

Okay thankyou for the advice, one more question though. What is EWS, I've seen it talked about around the forum but I don't understand what it is.

Security system. Whereas DME (engine computer), chip in ignition key, and EWS module, all must match for car to start.

You can get those 3 things from donor or have the ews requirement coded out of the DME.

Has anyone here bought or heard of J!M's swap manual? Is it worth the money and will it work for the m50 or just the m52?

Yes, great manual (don't have one myself, yet) and hard to find the original version, but he is planning on releasing an updated manual. But, unfortunately, I have no idea as to when that will happen. I'm kind of waiting for it too!