It all depends on how far down the rabbit-hole you want to go. You can do it on the cheap, or you can do it the correct way. First thing to consider is the automatic trasmission. An S50 or S52, hell - even a healthy M50 will devour the automatic trans. That is the car's achillies heel. So - that being said, I would suggest a swap. You can source all the parts you'll need off of the boards or eBay, but if you can score a totaled E34 with a MT for less than $1500 - I'd take it. You can strip out all the stuff you'll need for the trans conversion (and there are a lot of little bits...) and sell the remainder and probably come out even.

If you want to do it piecemeal, you'd need a trans, crossmember, driveshaft, pedal cluster, shifter linkage, clutch hardware (clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing, flywheel, pilot bearing), and a new rear-end since your automatic diff is probably a 4.xx ratio. Far too high for the 1:1 final drive of most manual transmissions. You'll have to do some wiring to get the reverse lights, cruise control and the like to work - but it's super easy. You'll also need NEW torque-to-yield bolts and nuts from the dealer for your guibo, the flywheel, pressure-plate, and some other special bolts for the trans-to-engine since they are different lengths.

For the engine, you'll need the engine first (low mileage S52's are currently going for $3k +/-). Make sure you have a leakdown and compression test done before you take it. Hopefully, the S52 will come with injectors - if not, you'll need them too. Then you'll need the complete M50 intake manifold assembly, as well as a chip from Turner Motorsports for an S52/OBD1 conversion. You'll also need a Turner Motorsports OBD2 to OBD1 temperature sensor adapter, and a Turner water pump discharge pipe adapter. Everything else swaps over. You'll need a new valve cover gasket and oil-pan gasket since you'll be swapping these over from the M50. Also get a new, metal water pump.

Figure that you'll spend around $5kif you don't cut corners.

Complete writeup:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=729157

For what it is worth, you can get an M50 well past the output of a nice, strong S52 for less money with a turbo kit....

• engine options - yaofeng 2008-05-06 10:55:45 (101 views)
  • Re: engine options - puppypilgrim 2008-05-15 12:37:03 (42 views)
  • Re: engine options - Eric Clark 2008-05-06 18:23:56 (61 views)
    • Re: engine options - yaofeng 2008-05-06 19:53:47 (54 views)
      • Re: engine options - shrike71 2008-05-14 13:10:04 (47 views)
        • Re: engine options - yaofeng 2008-05-14 13:56:18 (57 views)
          • Re: engine options - shrike71 2008-05-14 14:54:33 (85 views)
            • Re: engine options - yaofeng 2008-05-14 22:00:53 (39 views)
  • Re: engine options (url) - cloudnine 2008-05-06 15:43:40 (65 views)
    • I should add - yaofeng 2008-05-06 16:23:47 (48 views)
  • you know I have to say this.... - dave535i 2008-05-06 11:07:44 (52 views)
    • better still why not just turbo the m52? with a getrag 260 - explodingbudgie 2008-05-06 20:09:24 (57 views)