Souping up an Eta

[<tomstork@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Doug,

I dont know what a DE is either.

Eta isnt an acronym, its the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet; it looks
like an H. I dont know why BMW chose it for the designation of this engine.
End of linguistics lesson.

Anyway, I think you're barking up the wrong tree--the ETA is a terrific
engine, but it's not suitable for what you seem to want. It was designed to be
high-torque at low engine speeds, low fuel consumption, and long-lived (it
should pull great from low rpms if its properly tuned; maybe yours needs a
good tuneup). And it does all of these things very, very well: it has higher
torque at a lower rev point than the 325i (the "other" six-cylinder E30 from
the same period), and with the 2.93 is pulling only 2,000 rpm at 60mph, so
it's nice and quiet--and gets great mileage--on the highway. (I frequently get
35mpg on extended, steady interstate driving.) And because it's low-friction
and geared high, you should be able to get a lot more miles out of your car
before you need a rebuild--probably half again what you'd get from a 325i.

But it just ain't a sporty engine. If you want an E30 that's fast 0-60, sell
it and get a 325i--or an M3, better still--from the same period. Although that
still won't be all that hot for 0-60 by modern standards--and there probably
isn't much worse for a 16-year- old car than doing lots of 0-60 repeats: hard
on the drivetrain, hard on the engine, hard on the clutch: you're just
tempting fate! You can change the differential, but that will just mean
shifting sooner, because you'll still have the 4,750 rpm redline. You can drop
wheel diameters, but that will mean the same problem--plus it will throw off
your speedometer reading. You can get a chip to raise the rev limit to 5,250,
but at 185,000 miles--not the end of the engine life, but getting to be pretty
old--that's probably more stress than I'd be comfortable subjecting it to.

As far as suspension mods go, have a ball, but the car actually corners pretty
well already on the stock stuff--if it's in good shape. So make sure all your
bushings and the shocks are in good shape. You can replace the stock shocks
with Bilstein sport shocks--and even get shorter sport springs, if you
want--but it probably isn't going to help as much as if, as Alex suggested,
you get some instruction on a track on how to use what's there.

And in any case, once you start doing these things, you start looking at
sinking more into a car than it's worth; you'd better really like it and plan
to keep it a few years for that to be worth it. Otherwise, you can buy a
pretty nice M3 from the period for low-teens (maybe less if it's not in
perfect shape), and it will 1) be more suitable for this kind of driving; and
2) have a willing market at a price close to what you have paid when you go to
sell it. Otherwise, you'd really be better off enjoying the car you have as
what it was intended to be, and save your pennies (it will enable you to do
that if you keep it stock!) until you can get just what you want.

Ask me how I know...
Tom Stork
BMW CCA#131072
'02 Mini Cooper S
'86 325es
'85 635CSi

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