You dropped this bomb in the E36+5.0 thread:
camaroz1985 wrote: We put a 302 in our E30 Lemons car. After a few teething issues it is running flawlessly. Ran the last 8 hours of the race without missing a beat, though some oil management is in order, as we did see oil pressure drop drastically in sustained corners. Not sure what you have done to yours, but might need to look into that.
Come on man! Give up the info! Inquiring automotive autistic minds want to know!
Hotlinked for your pleasure from this thread
The link has most of the information that a guy over on BimmerFourms did. This thing is right down the road from me 
Thanks Strike_Zero! 1000 internets to you.
I figured you would appreciate that
As a part of the blowy-upy neon team that pitted with them Ill share what I know.
Its a standard 89ish 5.0 H.O knowing how he builds things Im sure it was gone over and was in perfect working condition (as much as possible for a LeMons car) I believe they built the mounts. Stock exhaust manifolds turned around with the exhaust run through the fender. The only other fitment issue was solved with a remote oil filter kit. At our testing day they started it with no oil pump driveshaft probably ran for 3 minutes with no oil pressure. The same engine made it through the race fine. Car was fast in a straight line situation not so much anywhere else mostly due to 195 wide RT-615s all around.
Only two pics I have of their hood off might be something to say for this swap.
They didnt have to do this:
The final stages of our 45 minute headgasket change.
Thanks for alerting me of this bonehead er, boneyard.
Ok so here is the (long) short story.
The car is a 1990 325i convertible. The donor car was a 1987 Mustang GT. We later found out it must have been an early 87 car as it has the very restrictive E6 cylinder heads. The swap was pretty straight forward and dare I say easy. It probably also was made easier because this is a race car and we didn't worry with integrating the electrical systems or minor fit and finish issues.
The Bimmer
Mustang Before
Mustang After
Ok so to start we removed the radiator core support. It could be left in place but it was just easier to work this way. Also as this is a budget race car there is a fair chance we will be removing the engine again, and most likely it will be at a time when we can't spend a lot of time getting it in or out.
The stock Mustang dual sump oil pain will not fit. We ended up with a modified front sump that we think came from a truck or explorer. We then test fit the engine several times trying to get it as far down and back as possible. With a little bit of massaging to the fire wall we were able to get it set pretty far back, and as you can see the shifter almost lined up with the stock shifter hole.
The mounts were constructed from the plate of the stock 5.0 mounts, a piece of scrap roll cage tubing, and some angle iron. They bolt to the E30 rubber mounts. We also contstructed the transmission mount out of angle iron, and it bolts to the t-slots in the E30 chassis. The hood even fit with only minor trimming of the understructure.
As boneyard mentioned we did run an intersting exhaust setup. It was actually the headers that came on our donor car installed backwards, and the exhaust did run across the front fo the car and up throught the fender into a side pipe. I will get more pictures of the finished exhaust (I haven't been good at updating the website since the race happened, but I will work on it in the coming weeks/month).
We again used some scrap tubing and cut up a few preformed radiator hoses to make the cooling system work. We used the stock E30 automatic radiator, and bypassed most of the extra coolant lines on the 5.0 (heater, throttle body, etc.)
We did have clearance issues between the header and the oil filter and we did run an adapter from a V8 explorer. It turns the filter 90 degrees and with a little cutting of some orientation features can be rotated to keep the filter out of harm's way. We did find in extensive parts catalog cross reference searching that there is a very small filter from a lawn tractor with the right thread size and sealing diameter. This can be used without the adapter, though it is very small, and even that needs to have a section beat in with a hammer to clear. We used it for a few autocross test runs. You can see here, just how tight things are.
Also the driveshaft had to be shortened by about 3". Along with that, a conversion u-joint, and an adapter flange from Jags That Run, the drivetrain was a piece of cake. Our car had a cable clutch which seems to be less than optimum, but the price was right (from the parts car, so free) so we kept it. Our E30 was an automatic so we made the Mustang pedals fit in the BMW. We used a manual master cylinder from Wilwood, and brakes were great (until a failure at an autocross, but more on that in a bit).
I think that sums up the build. There is a lot more information on our site: www.looksgoodonpaperracing.com
As for the race, it was pretty good for a first effort. As boneyard assumed the engine was thoroughly inspected before it went in the car. We tore it down and replaced any gaskets that looked questionable or that were already leaking. We had a few teething issues that lost us a lot of time. They were as follows.
Overheating due to improperly sealing radiator cap. It was too short to seal in the filler neck. Solution: Canibalize a second cap and put a second o-ring in the filler neck. Time lost: Approx. 2 hours due to traffic in and out of the track and time to get to the auto parts store.
Terrible clanking noise when turning left, then eventually whenever you turned. Solution: Replace the transmission mount bolts that came out. The noise was the driveshaft rubbing the tunnel, but it took us several stops to find this, as it looked and sounded like it was coming from the right front wheel where our creative exhaust solution resides. Time lost: Approx 1 hour over the course of 3 stops. Actual fix took 5 minutes tops.
Broke throttle cable. We had to shorten the stock 5.0 cable and our cable end came off. Solution - Get towed off the track, and use a combination of hose clamps, cable clamps, washers, and electrical tape to make something that holds. Time lost: Approx 1.5 hours.
Get sandwiched between two cars. Causing damage to front and rear of car. Solution - bang sheetmetal away from vital parts, and deal with the sounds of the exhaust banging off of everything for the rest of the race. Hope the radiator doesn't leak because it did get dug into by the water pump pulley. Time lost: Approx 30-45 minutes.
Like I said before the car ran the final 8 hours with no problems what so ever. I don't think that boneyard's observation of the performance was entirely accurate. The car was pretty fast everywhere. We had two rookie (never in a race car before that day) drivers and their times were a bit off the pace, but our best lap time was 2:01 on the Shenandoah circuit at Summit Point. I think the best of the weekend was 1:55 or 1:57, so I would say we aren't too bad. Also the car was on stock springs, struts, and bushing, of unknown age or mileage. That combined with the 195 tires didn't do us any favors, but the car is fairly light, so it wasn't terrible.
Oh and the brake failure was a rear stainless line bursting in the second corner of an autocross the weekend after the race.
The car made it to the finish and not much farther. You can call me Colin.
But on a serious note, we won't be buying no-name ebay brake lines anymore.
There are very few changes that will need to be made for next year, and we will decide on any upgrades based on our residual value certification. Also from the first post we are also looking into some oil management to help prolong the life of our engine.
Manual brakes?
Great story Camaroz! Thanks for posting!
Tom_Spangler wrote: Manual brakes?
Yeah manual brakes.
Lots of new pictures and race racap is up on our new site.
www.looksgoodonpaperracing.com
How were the manual brakes on the road course? Very direct, I would imagine.
Yes they are very direct. The key is sizing the master cylinder appropriately. You want to have a good ratio of pedal force to pedal travel. Luckily with the Wilwood master it is very cheap and come in 1/16" diameter increments, so if you don't get it right the first time you can try another size.
I used a spreadsheet that I developed for FSAE cars to help size the cylinder on the E30. There is some guess work involved as I don't know center of gravity or actual weight or anything like that, but we used a 13/16" cylinder, and it seemed good. If you can run a dual master setup it would give the option to size front and rear differently, and not rely on bias as much.
Camaroz, Boneyard..
I want to thank you for the beer that someone handed me in the vicinity of your pit area after the race (summit) was over. It was very much appreciated.
Sincerely, me, station 2 corner-worker
you guys looked great out there! gonna be back next year?
I had no idea you guys were that fast still it looked like a bit of a hand full
The neon probably wont be we've run it the last two years with exactly the same results (small number of laps = large engine failure) Im thinking 2.7v6 swap we're failing Chrysler's most reliable engine lets put their worst in kind of thing.
Thank you for working and sorry if you were covered by neon engine goo (oil, coolant, stop leak, ect, it all mixes together in there) smoke
Any and all engine goo only adds to the character of that event. Besides, sweat, sunblock, bugspray, dust, and BO wouldnt be that much worse!
We will be at Summit again. Stop by again if you see us, I'm sure there will be more beer available.
I'll be at Summit in the Civic Wagovan. I'd love to check out your car so will try to remember to stop by!
Now through two races and counting. Much better results the second time around (NJMP). 38th overall (out of 102) and 10th in class. Our goal was top 50%, so I don't see how we could be disappointed at all.
Only lost a little time due to mechanical issues (did need a tow), but it was relatively minor. We lost a bolt holding the shift lever to the shifter, making the shifter just a wobbly piece of steel. When we figured that out, also noticed we lost two bolts holding the shfiter to the transmission. The other unplanned stop was for a clutch cable adjusting nut that came lose, and made shifting hard. Toward the end of the race the car developed a miss at about 3500 rpm. We are thinking coil or ignition module. Engine also had a pretty bad tap at the beginning of the race, but that fixed itself 
We also lost a little time due to extra driver changes at the beginning of the race. We aren't going for wins so we try to make sure everyone gets to drive before something terrible happens. We keep our first stints to 30-45 minutes, then switch to 1:15-1:45 stints.
Now time to fit a cool seat system and hydration for the driver for what will most likely be a steamy Summit Point race.
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