What engine do i have???

[LITTLEm]

:dunno: Hi guys and gals,
I have just bought a 318is and am looking to do some engine mods, but dont know what type it is! my motor is an 94 on the L.
Also any recommended mods, ECU upgade etc?
Thanks in advance! Mark.

[jwilson165]

i believe its an m42.

[LITTLEm]

Ahh wonderful, thanks! any tuning mods to advise. :thumbup:

[Spooner]

ya its a M42, i have a 93 318i and i havent been able to find much performance parts

[LITTLEm]

Damm thats annoying being 21 i cant sensibly get insured on anything bigger! and thought tunning was my way beeting my mates e30 325i thats peed on my fireworks abit doh! :mad:

[Bimrpwr]

i am sure there is a chip out there or other mods,,look around and try different sites like www.bimmerworld.com or even a engine swap :) i dont know much about the 318 but i am sure there is something out there

[QUASIMOTO]

:rofl: anything less than six cylinders, will get you nowhere... well if your looking into some serious moding, like F/I i would check out KOperformance.com. but seriously, wouldnt you rather spend a little more for insurance knowing that your buddies 325i has no chance against a e36 328i? just my .02cents. :rofl:

p.s. you dont buy performance chips you newbies!!!! you remap your ECU to whatever your liking just like auto-manufactures would do!! if you ever considered buying a performacne chip you belong at hondaJAPcrapFORUMS.com :tsk: :tsk: :tsk:

[Bimrpwr]

:rofl: anything less than six cylinders, will get you nowhere... well if your looking into some serious moding, like F/I i would check out KOperformance.com. but seriously, wouldnt you rather spend a little more for insurance knowing that your buddies 325i has no chance against a e36 328i? just my .02cents. :rofl:

p.s. you dont buy performance chips you newbies!!!! you remap your ECU to whatever your liking just like auto-manufactures would do!! if you ever considered buying a performacne chip you belong at hondaJAPcrapFORUMS.com :tsk: :tsk: :tsk:

Correst me if i am wrong people..But isnt remapping the ECU the same as upgrading the performance ship in the car?? this is from a pretty well known performance site. " Conforti Performance Chips for a Engine computer upgrade (ECU)"

[ThaddeusR]

http://www.dinanbmw.com/

[andy_thomas]

:rofl: anything less than six cylinders, will get you nowhere...

That's fighting talk. If the engine is in good nick, a turbocharger or supercharger from Downing or TDI would allow 175 bhp+ without internal modifications - provided you're sensible with the boost. That's the same kind of percentage increase as a blower attached to a six, so I don't know where you got your idea from !

well if your looking into some serious moding, like F/I i would check out KOperformance.com. but seriously, wouldnt you rather spend a little more for insurance knowing that your buddies 325i has no chance against a e36 328i? just my .02cents. :rofl:

You've no idea how much insurance can nail you in the UK. Granted, a blown 318is will hardly be cheap.

p.s. you dont buy performance chips you newbies!!!!

Yes you do, if you have a 93/94 318is.

you remap your ECU to whatever your liking just like auto-manufactures would do!! if you ever considered buying a performacne chip you belong at hondaJAPcrapFORUMS.com :tsk: :tsk: :tsk:
Doesn't either approach achieve exactly the same thing?

[todor]

Yes, both a new chip and a remapping of the tables that the stock chip uses achieve the same thing. The terms are commonly confused and in most cases what you're doing is changing the data in the tables that the stock ECU (engine control unit) uses to determine how much fuel to spray and when to ignite the spark.

When they say "Conforti chip" they really mean a separate device that you don't put in your car; instead you plug it in to a connector and it TRANSFERS the fuel/ignition tables to the table that your car's ECU reads from. Being an electronic device, the Conforti "Shark Injector" does contain chips, but none of them stay in your car after the reprogramming is done. I have it, and it's currently sitting in a drawer at home, not in the car.

On some cars, those fuel and ignition tables are kept on a separate ROM chip that you can physically swap out; still, you're not replacing the ECU, you're replacing the data that it reads (and in this case, saying that you're "putting in a new chip" is at least to some degree correct).

For other cars, aftermarket manufacturers sell complete ECUs that they've pre-tweaked. Or you can get programmable ECUs that you can tweak yourself (aka stand-alone fuel management and ignition control systems). Still another choice are "piggy-back" systems that modify the signals coming from the sensors and going into the stock ECU to fool it into thinkng it's got more air, in hopes that it will in turn decide to spray more fuel in the cylinders. Stand-alone and piggy-back systems are relatively hardcore and difficult or impossible to tune without a dyno... they are used mostly by people who want custom tuning for a self-designed turbo or weird combination of mods or something like that.

But anyway, all this info is not directly related to the original question.

I'd say if you want real power from that 4-cyl engine, go with forced induction. I've come across a few sites that sell turbos for the 318... don't remember now but someone above mentioned some of them. Turbo kits usually come with devices like the Shark Injector that reprogram your ECU's data (or with entirely new pre-programmed ECUs), so if you go that route, don't buy performance software before that -- it'll be a waste of money.

[LITTLEm]

:rofl: Gents all your comments are gratefully recieved, now i know what type of lump i have i can crack on and do the head gasket on it, and have a good old look inside. I looked inside through the plug holes with an endascope just after i bought it but unless you get each valve on the rocks individually (in their pairs) you can only see the underside of the valve!
pistons are on visual inspection ok. and are (were) a bit coked up but a few 1000miles of proper driving and optimax should have seen them right!

would love to go down the 6cyl option but you should have heard the insurance man laugh when i got a quote on a e36 325coupe maby next birthday he might take seriously!! :tsk:

well as long as im good with regareds mr plod! :angel:
thanks LITTLEm.