BMW E34

Bmw E34s.
There are loads of E34s about and bargains a plenty if your prepared to do a bit of hunting and travelling to pick them up.

There are a lot of different engines you can choose from:

• 518s and 520s arent really worth bothering with if you're old enough to insure a larger engined one. I imagine with some stripping and commitment a 520 24v might manage ok.

• 525s. Early ones came with m20b25 - basically a single cam 12v 2.5 I6 motor. These are 170bhp. Not really all that great in a massive 5 series but these are pennies cheap nowadays and will drift.
  

Later ones are the m50b25 which is the 192bhp 24v twin cam I6 motor. This is a very good engine and very reliable if looked after. If you buy one a M50 engined car change the water pump as matter of course - unless there is a reciept for a new one. £30 and an hour spannering to save you a lot of grief when it fails, and it will.

This is an early non vanos version of the 24v. Doesnt really make much difference which one you have.

530s. Again there two versions of this. The first is a m30b30 188hp single cam I6. These are basically big m20s. Good strong motors with lots of torque. M30 engines can suffer with overheating although I've never had it so not looked into why. This would be plenty to drift with and as good as either of the 525 versions.

535 I6, looks the same as a 530.

 

The later E34s had the V8 530. This is the m60b30 quad cam V8. 230bhp IIRC. These cars can be effected by the "Nikasil" problem and it's well worth googling that word and learning all about it before looking at a V8 E34 to save buying a lemon. The early 530s go for pennies again like the early 525s. V8 530s in manual tend to go for a premium but do come up at trampy prices.

530 V8, 540 V8s look the same.

 

530 V8 dropping its rad at TDSW. These are capable of drifting fine but aren't really any better at it then 525i 24vs which are much cheaper.

535's. IMO the perfect E34. Cheap as chips with loads of grunt and good reliabilty. Can be bought from £50-£2000 depending on model and condition. A few of us here have bought good ones for under £500. 211bhp and around the 220-230 lb/ft torque figure. A lot of the power gets delivered very low down making it easy to use for drifting. For those of a manfoot affliction and a smoke fetish m30b35 equipped cars will lay smoke trails as well as much more powerful rice rockets.

Here's my old 535.

 

540 V8. Awesome cars but generally not on a tramp budget. Basically the same deal as V8 530s but 6 speed box and much more power. Manual 540s range from 1-2 grand. There are ones available for less but they tend to be autos or best avoided. 286bhp V8 will keep most people happy and sideways for a long time. Nikasil concerns the same as the 530 V8 so be prepared.

M5. There are two M5 versions too lol. 3.6 and 3.8. These aren't tramp cars at all. Expensive to buy at 2k-10k depending on model and condition and even more expensive to run. Im sure they would drift nice though lol.

A pic of how bad ass an e34 could look:

 

There are a few common E34 faults.

• Main one you will hear lots about is the E34 "shimmy". Front end wobble from 40-60mph and/or under braking. There are a multitude of reasons for this, but generally the order to fix thing goes a little like this:

1. Wheel balance (just because its the simplest and cheapest).

2. Check thrust arm bush.

3. Upper and lower control arm bushings.

4. Check wheels don't need hubcentric rings (E39 wheels have larger centre bore and there are a lot of those wheels on other BMs).

• Rear subframe bushes worn.

• Rear pitman arms worn. Cheap to get parts for but a pita to do the subframe bushes if you havent got the special tool. DW shop did do some locking collars for these.

• Rust. Look everywhere like you would with most cars but particularly look around the sills and jacking points on e34s.

 

Written by Mike@TDSW.