Please do not be so naive. You are looking at least £700 for manifold and downpipe that will not crack after 5 minutes, £400 on fueling, £300 on second hand turbo, £400 on turbo ancillaries, £1500 on an ECU and mapping. That's three and half grand and that's on the cheap. Not including all the little bits you always end up needing like gaskets etc and after all that you still have a standard chassis with 400BHP going through it on an engine of unknown quantity.
You've overestimating that a bit. I'm not spending £700 on a turbo manifold, rather £200 on a Direnza one which will then be double tig welded. Downpipe and intercooler pipes will be custom tig welded or universal with joiners. ECU is £400, fuelling and ignition are cheap as chips, can either use the stock rotor and dizzy, or use junkyard coil packs connected to the ECU, fuelling, need some injectors which will probably be second hand and re-furbished, say £100. Stock fuel pump (mine is new) is fine for the power I'm aiming for, if it presents an issue, an upgraded one is £130 ish. Second hand turbo about £300. Clutch about £250. So far we're up to what, £1400? Head bolts, £200, intercooler, £150, which is £1750. Still a long way from the £2500. Then what do I need. BOV, oil cooler sandwich plate, pipes and bits and bobs for the oil tap, gaskets, etc.
I've even had someone offer to buy all that and do all the work for me for £3000 total.
You can even buy a tried and tested 350BHP kit for £1800 which includes everything you need aside from ECU...
http://kamotorsperformance.com/budget-brawler-v2-turbo-kit-t3-internal-wastegate-low-hp/
They really are cheap to extract good power from. Cheaper even than an MX5. If you went for super basic management and all second hand parts bin parts I recon you could get 400HP out of one for £1000.
And the engine isn't an unknown quantity at all. Sure I haven't had the head off and looked at the bores, but thats about all I haven't done.
Just buy a 335i if you want a turbo BMW. You can probably buy a tatty shed for 5k now.
You don't understand cars you petrolhead poser.
A 335i is in no way shape or form as interesting, special, exciting, as a turbo'd M20 E30.
Although I would love one as a daily driver. Auto with cream sport leather, iDrive, and wood. Mmmm.
I was going to say a 5k 335i would implode within a couple of months, but on reflection it's probably a sensible option compared to converting the E30
I still want to see him do it though!
If I wanted a sensible option I wouldn't have bought an E30 in the first place. It baffles me that certain people don't understand that.
You can't always be sensible.
