Project 324 BMW E30 K24 Turbo Swap Introduction

CAtuned Project 324 BMW E30

Igor Polishchuk

Hello & welcome to the introduction to our new project for 2021. We have been planning this build for a while. Honestly for most of 2020. But this particular car is what we started CAtuned with. Back in 2004 I purchased this Sedan from an auction house. Thinking it was a nice Alpina white sedan. Little did I know it needed everything and back in that day I personally didn’t know anything about E30’s. Originally this was a 325i automatic car with cheap paint on the outside and a tan interior. I was a bit disappointed when the car arrived but there was no going back. Back in 2004 these were not cheap cars and at the time I paid like $1,200 usd for it.

I remember doing the basic tune up, control arms, brakes and ordering new shocks along with Vogtland springs for the car (cup kit). It drove good after that. I had the car smogged and it passed first time around. But it still didn’t run right. So I parked it for about a year. Later I ended up meeting a BMW tech who suggested I take it to a local BMW specialty shop (EU Tech). So I went over and talked to the owner (Luis). We made a deal for me to bring the car over. I left the car with them for a few days- No rush.

I remember getting a call from him. He said Igor come over. I have to show you this. It’s not something I can explain. Oh oh moment. And oh man it was. Long story short it turned out the engine had crank walk. It was an insane amount of crank walk in fact. I dont know how the thing still ran and how it passed smog but it did. I ended up driving it back to the shop (no tow). Again the car was parked waiting for it’s next turn.

As the years went by the car has had plenty of engines in it. From a used M20 to a nicely built M20 to yet a M52 stroker to a M52 turbo and much much more. We have used the car to develop parts and test things and see what would work and what would not. It has been an amazing journey. I gifted the car to my brother Alex (@shaskaa) years ago while he in the 9th grade. And he’s used it for going to school and work and everything else in between. So you can see how we can’t just get rid of the car. It’s now time to do something fun and different with the car once again.

We have some amazing partners involved in this build:

With the engine out you may have guessed from the titled and the pictures we are planning to do a K24 swap. We are super amped & gearing up to get going on the build. In the next installment we will be showing you what needs to be done with this swap. What upgrades and parts we will be doing and using. The main components for the swap came from TF-Works

These guys have done a bang up job on the swap kit. We suggest checking out the links below for the swap kit & more:

TF-WORKS BMW E30 K-SWAP KIT – PHASE 1

K-SERIES TO BMW TRANSMISSION ADAPTER PLATE + FLYWHEEL

TF-WORKS BMW E30 K-SWAP KIT – PHASE 2