S54 engine: general info

[Ron Stygar]

http://www.unofficialbmw.com/images//s54engineingeneral.jpg

[ayn]

Hi Ron, good to see you here at bimmerfest, I read a lot of the stuff you wrote/gathered at unofficialbmw.com, nice site! thanks!

--Andrew

[DCC]

Nice info Ron...
Now if BMW will tell us why our Coupes don't get to go to the design capable redline would be interesting :)

[nate]

anything like this for the M52TU B28? :bigpimp:

[Ron Stygar]

http://www.unofficialbmw.com/images//m52tub28.jpg

[scottn2retro]

DCC -

About the M Roadsters and Coupes not getting the full RPM range the the M3s get - I believe it's a marketing decision (of all things) by BMW. Much in the way that Porsche does not let their cars overlap (a Boxster is a cut above a plain Boxster, a 911 is a cut above the Boxster S, etc.) It helps them sell all of their cars to the different market levels.

I looked at my sales brochures for M Roadster (both the 01 and the 02) and I did not see an HP curve. I did see an 01 M Roadster on a dyno and the 'curve' is a freakin' straight line. More RPMs equals more HP. By electronically limiting the RPMs to 7400 (500 less than the M3) they keep the HP rating and the top speed rating less than the M3.

BMW also downplays the quickness of the M Roadster. 01 brochure said 0-60 time of TBD and the 02 brochure said 5.0 secs with one of those asterisks things saying 'results may vary'. I know a Motor Trend article listed a 0-60 of 4.74!
A true BMW estimate would not be a whole quarter of a second off.

Why would BMW do this? I think they felt they had to upgrade the engine to sell the rest of the product line, but the MSRP only went up marginally from the 00 Roadsters. And at that most people are probably negotiating below MSRP now that we're at the end of that model (I got mine below Kelly Blue Book listed invoice). The new M3s however are fetching MSRP plus in a lot of markets (and there was a pretty good price jump from the E36s).

I'm glad I got my M Roadster now because I'm estimating the next series M Roadsters to come in well above 50K.

[ALEX325i]

Originally posted by Ron Stygar
http://www.unofficialbmw.com/images//s54engineingeneral.jpg

Thanks for the info, Ron!!! Where did you get it?

[DCC]

Scott,

You are probably right about the marketing behind BMW's line-up of the M Cars.
With all the reported failures that the M3 guys have been throwing out (many seems to be related to the higher rev limit), I have not complains about my lower reving M Coupe :)
We shoul dbe glad we got these cars...BMW will likely never build another quite like it.

[in_d_haus]

WOW, 11.5/1 comp ratio on pump gas... :yikes:

[Ron Stygar]

The info came from the technical data section of the BMW TIS CD.

[scottn2retro]

in_d_haus - Yeah, I was worried about that now that California has lowered Unleaded Supreme octane to 91 (I saw 93 in Va.), but I asked some tech savy guys about it and they said with the electronic management systems on the new engines (which includes anti-knock measures) they can run on pump gas no problem. How does it affect performance? During a clug dyno day at SHO shop, they were going to run a new engine on pump gas and then run it on octane boosted gas (to about 100) and see if there was difference. Have not heard the results.

DCC - The current roadster/coupe gets some knocks for outdated styling now, but I intend to keep mine for a long time and I think it'll be a classic down the road.