MyE28.com

Has anyone out there heard of putting an e28 motor in an older Bavaria. I saw one last weekend. The thing was sick. What would be involved? Good Idea/Bad Idea? The car I saw had an'88 535i motor in a '74 bavaria.
Thank You

A friend of mine put a 535i/5 speed drivetrain in his Bavaria, although he kept the original carbs and intake manifold so the swap was fairly easy.

It is an easier swap if no computer is needed so if you do it like the guy said and leave the carbs on it or even better yet, go a set of 45DCOEs for mo power and looks.

It's been done many times. An M30 is an M30. About the only tricky part if you don't go to motronic is the adapter nut you have to screw on the end of the cam to run the distributor. Other than that it's a straight swap. I've even seen M engines in the old CS coupes, maybe in a Bav, I'm not positive.

I have an 74 Bavaria with '85 535i long block, '80 E12 intake manifold, '83 533i ECU, injectors, flywheel and AFM. The engine is connected to yet another '85 535i part the transmission with separate bell housing. It took a little studying of the wiring diagrams to determine how to connect the Bavaria harness and E28 harness but in the end it is pretty simple. I went with the E12 intake as it clears the brake booster. Another alternative is to use the E28 hydraulic booster so you can use the E28 intake manifold.

I am happy with the setup. I get good drivability, good fuel mileage, and reasonable power. The other night while getting on the freeway, Sacramento traffic from I-50 merging onto I-5 was stop and go. I was going straight on I-50 to I-80 so I needed to merge over towards the center to get out of the stop and go slog. I saw and opening and jumped on the accelerator and spun both tires (lsd) without dropping the clutch and chirped the tires going into second. I am normally a pretty sedate driver but it was nice to have the power to quickly get up to merging speed.