 DIY or Hand it off?
This is a very, very hard question to answer for any given individual, and I'm NOT trying to dodge the question by saying that.
The S50B30 engines that I am bringing in, or have brought in were made to fit into E36 engine compartments, and to plug into the electrical harness that you already have with minimal fuss.
I can not promise that every little item is included to make this work, so, if I were to sell someone an engine, a lot depends on the persons inventiveness, need to keep AC running, ability and skills, and the urge to make it look factory, or to just make sure it is safe and sturdy. There are many CD roms out there with euro parts lists to get every single bracket just so, they can all be welded on to clone a factory look.
Left had vs Right hand drive makes less difference than you might think. Either harness can be made to work with a little effort. The ECU and vanos controller that come with the engine I'd sell fit into the stock location as the US model, and the harness plugs right in. If you buy a later S50B32 with EWS issues, you'd better have an EWS car, or its more of a headache to say the least. If the engine was RHD, then you do need to acccount for slightly different plumbing for the heater, but its not expensive or hard. All parts including a reservoir if you want the factory look, the pipes and hoses, the radiator, the long radiator to reservoir overflow/breather tube, oil cooler & pipes if not present and such are easily sourced from a local dealer.
The engine comes with its own ecu, so electrically, its set to go, you just pull the old motor and its harness, and put this one in. I include a euro cluster so that you get the proper M cluster with red indicators and the oil temperature guage instead of the silly mpg indicator. It too plugs right in to the factory plugs... you may have to run one extra wire to the cluster to get the oil temp working, but its NOT difficult given a Bentley manual....especially since the Bentley manual does cover the Canadian M3's wire diagrams to some extent IIRC.
You'd need an engine hoist of course, and as commented on before it would be the right time to re-enforce the subframe with the TMS kit. |