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Old 06-18-2019, 05:00 PM   #45
Beemernut
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Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Michigan's Upper Peninsula
Posts: 22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anassa View Post
I guess it depends on your experience, confidence and mechanical ability. It does help that the 318ti engine bay is exactly the same as the other e36's so it just drops in, but you gotta do the work still.

When it comes to aluminum vs iron block: aluminum block is ~30lbs lighter. But if it overheats it can warp, isn't as strong as the iron block and doesn't deal with heat as well.


Your last choice of if it is worth the hassle, it depends on what your trying to achieve, and compared to what? Is it worth it vs? If you clarify that it is easier to find a answer.
I guess a small explanation on my approach to builds is that I obsess over how I can maximize on my build on a budget. I OBSESS OVER IT. I spend hours a day educating myself and reading up on people's builds, correlating information from other forums, overthinking aesthetics to an extreme, shopping for the best deals on quality parts, etc, etc. And then I have a pretty minimal budget in real life lol.

More specifically on the aluminum m52, is saving 30-50 pounds of weight worth 1) having to look for a harder to find Z3 with a suitable engine in a junkyard, 2) dealing with potential wiring harness issues? and 3) having a slightly less robust, more heat-sensitive engine that most certainly needs timeserts and maybe a cutring gasket in the case of boost (another thing I obsess over). If I did the swap, I would hope to weigh in around 2700lbs with 25lb seats but not a gutted interior and keep the A/C (my car is a slicktop). Approaches to reaching the target weight would involve a smaller/lighter battery, single pipe lightweight exhaust, and losing the spare. Goals for this build are eventually a light-footed, streetable, dailyable, trackable car to somewhat offset my road-tripping, heavy-hitting, turbo e28 build that's happening first.

On a side note, I can't find anything on the weight difference between slicktop and sunroof-equipped TIs. Bimmerforums suggests that 33 pounds or so can be lost with a sunroof delete panel but that's not to say that there's extra reinforcement material in the roofs of the slicktop models.
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