Mods and upgrades explained - Very Long!!

Thanks very helpful start

ive always loved cars, but just started doing my own mech work, and am fairly new to the bmmr scene. I know that the chip upgrades and CAI increase power and engine performance, but do they ultimately speed up engine/ system wear?

Originally Posted by Bekman

New to the forum... Im glad to see at least some/one/a few of ya know what your talking about... Hope to see more of you guys and gal on this site.

If you really want more performance out of your car, Insulate your stock intake hose fully with some sort of heat shield or heat wrap,(Non flammable please!) same with the exhaust to keep engine temps down. Its not pretty but would work a lot better and be a lot cheaper. Also if your such a racing enthusiasts, run your car without any filter at all and change your oil a lot, otherwise dont bother with your "CAI". What your after is getting a greater charge and a colder charge of air. You should be looking to get a ram air effect on a colder charge in order to gain some performance. None of these "CAI Systems" seem to do that. I remember seeing on miata websites a good tutorial on a good cold air box with a ram air effect(its charging the air like a supercharger, just not as high PSI (Do I have your attention now?)). Also since im on the subject, the easiest way for more horsies for you guys with manual transmission is to lighten the flywheel. Its not the cheapest but its the easiest and is definetly not as much $$$ as putting a supercharger on your car. Its something to think about if your already paying a mechanic to work on your tranny or clutch, or if you are doing the work yourself. You can even get into carbon fiber drive shafts to save some weight.... Also try lifting up your car seats... very heavy... In regards to the iridiums, you guys are giving yourself a tune up and using the iridiums and saying woweee. You get that same feeling from using the normal plugs. Just because our e36's have 190 stock doesnt mean it currently has 190hp. Tune ups can do wonders. You really need to do an A/B comparison, or a dyno test if anyone really wants to yay or nay regular plugs... Anyone thanks for letting me rant ! Back to work !

NEVER run your car without an airfilter outside of a shop/test environment. I have built many engines and I can tell you from first hand experience that running your car without an airfilter will accelerate engine cylinder/ring wear a rate that will require the engine to need to be bored oversize in as little as 12k miles depending on the environment it is operated in.
Been there done that have the T-shirt to prove it.

It may make the car sound cool and your friends might be impressed when you tell them the engine is bored, it just seems like an expensive way to impress your friends.

Originally Posted by Phermata

NEVER run your car without an airfilter outside of a shop/test environment. I have built many engines and I can tell you from first hand experience that running your car without an airfilter will accelerate engine cylinder/ring wear a rate that will require the engine to need to be bored oversize in as little as 12k miles depending on the environment it is operated in.
Been there done that have the T-shirt to prove it.

It may make the car sound cool and your friends might be impressed when you tell them the engine is bored, it just seems like an expensive way to impress your friends.

Yeah, that guy (Bekman) has got to be a troll, because every single one of his suggestions is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

hey was looking for forum and stumbled upon this site.. .. my motor has about 79k on it right now was thinking bout putting a Vortech V2 in my 99 m3 ... any pointer on how i should set it up and was else i should do to the motor before actually throwing it on ... and how hard it will be installing.. i know the compresson is high 10.1 but am just trying to do the best i can not to fuk up my baby... another thing is motor swapping ... my buddy has a 97 e36 m3 and alrdy has a v2 in it he wanted me to buy his motor and the set up its pushing bout 457 off the wheel would it actully be hard doing the swap .. thnx fir reading rlp plz:

i received a 1992 e36 320i as a gift, engine is m50b20 150hp with 186000km, what can i expect from a CAI upgrade on this engine? is this a good car for tunning?

You can expect a better sound.

No, this engine is NOT a good engine for tuning..
You won't see very large gains unless you go FI

Excellent OP Pirate.

Just bought a 97 318is coupe, and love it. Nice drive and in magnificent nick for the year - for the money I just can't fault it.

However, having driven some nice metal over the years, it's slow and feels it. Now I know I'm not going to turn it into a rocket ship and the way I drive these days I don't need it to anyway, but would like to look to just "modernise" the drive a little so that it just pulls away a little more cleanly, if that makes sense?

I think reading your OP, the plugs you suggest seem like a good idea for starters.

Any recommendations on Chip/re-map and/or CAI that would give me the best results?

Thanks in advance to any suggestions.
Jem

You have the smallest engine BMW made for our generation. It's never going to be fast.

If you are really dedicated in making it quicker check out the Downing Atlants SuperChargers. They don't make them anymore but you can find them used.

With that being said, I would focus on suspension. Make it handle like it's on rails. These car's are never quick on a strip but can be made to dominate the track.

Thanks for the reply, but I think you missed the part where I'm not trying to make it significantly faster!

Cheers

Your computer won't recognizer a CAI, and our cars come with them anyways.

Exhaust will give you sound.

Plugs will make your car run like it should.

A chip is just a waste of money on a 318.

For a little bit of quickness. Try reducing weight in areas around the car. Tires, seats, hood, fan delete, body weight loss, etc...

Originally Posted by TRaV MaNN

You have the smallest engine BMW made for our generation. It's never going to be fast.

Well, I think the M43 316 was the smallest one for our generation The 318is (103kW) is still a helluva lot faster than the 316 (75kW) - perhaps you were lucky if it wasn't available for the US market (if it wasn't / should've been available to UK though) - it even came as an automatic

What he said^

Didn't realize he was on the other side. Sorry op, you have the 2nd smallest engine

If it's well maintained, it should be quite agile with manual gearbox, though. As TRav Mann already said, forget the Chip/re-map and/or CAI idea

Okay, I have to dispel the mythery just a wee bit here.

Octane is actually a measurement of the RATE OF COMBUSTION.

The higher the RON, the slower the burn, the lower the RON, the faster the burn.

The octane rating you use is only partially determined by your compression ratio,
in truth, compression has nothing to do with octane, AT ALL.

Compression affects how quickly the mixture burns. Gasoline and catalyst (oxygen),
come together under pressure, and spark. Too much pressure, and the heat of compression can cause the mixture to ignite prematurely, this is known as spark knock,
detonation, or pre-ignition. The other cause of pre-ignition, is too much timing advance.

Typical motors in the low part of the timing map will advance as far to as 15 degrees BTDC
(before top-dead center). 45 degrees, is 1/8th of 360, or 1/8th of a turn of your crankshaft, would be considered "retarded timing".

Your timing is adjusted by both a base map that says "at this point in the map, and sensor
inputs. Sensor inputs would be things like the knock sensors (known to be overly aggressive on some other cars), coolant and intake air temperature sensors, TPS, MAF/MAS/MAP, and o2.

Load will cause spark knock. As the engine works harder, most people notice detonation
at lowish RPM's going up a hill, for instance. As the RPM goes up, the advance increases,
as it goes down, it decreases, simple physics. If the combustion rate stays static, and you
increase the speed at which the piston is moving, and therefore decrease the time between
when the spark goes boom and the mixture ignites, naturally, you must increase advance to keep the timing of the bang in the right place.

Running lean can also cause spark knock, it creates higher temperatures which induce the mixture to ignite with less compression heat. Adding the same amount of BTU's by compression to a cylinder that's 400-800F hotter than normal, will create spark knock.

To reduce knock there are several options.. add fuel, richening your A/F to the point
where you have enough fuel to burn the mixture without pre-igniting. The stoichiometric air/fuel ratiio of 14.7 is great for freeway cruising, but not so great for mashing the throttle.

The ECU adds fuel when you stomp it, because as load increases, so does fuel and air
consumption, and the possibility of knock.

Another thing you can to do get rid of knock is retard the timing. This is what the knock sensor does. Engine knock will destroy your engine in a matter of minutes, breaking ring
lands on the pistons and sometimes ruining things like rod bearings because the mixture
ignites before top dead center, essentially trying to shove the piston down while the other
pistons are trying to shove it up. The consequences are devastating, which is why so much
of the ECU is devoted to keeping the engine from knocking.

If the sensor sees knock, it will retard the timing 5 degrees (for instance, I don't know the BMW ECU personally). If the knock doesn't persist, it will return eventually to the base map. If it happens often, it will 'learn' and run your car with reduced power.

A basic fact of power, is you want to run your engine with as much timing advance AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT PRE-IGNITION. I do not know the options for setting our base timing,
but I can absolutely guarantee that every reputable tuner out there sets the advance a little aggressive in some areas, and less so in others, depending on where the stock map is imperfect. There is almost always power to be gained by fine-tuning. This is why well-tuned stand-alone ECU equipped cars make so much power.

If your car is stock tuned for 89 (USA RON) and you put in 91, nothing will happen,
you may see a slight decrease in power output.

But if you chip the car for 91 and put in 89 or 87, you could likely find yourself outside
of the range of what the ECU can compensate for using fueling and ignition retard and
finding your car running like complete dog**** with no power and a big stink of gas
coming through the muffler (Might carbonize your cat to death as well).

The main thing to remember is that it's a measurement of the rate of combustion.

Oh yeah, Toluene in your tank makes a hell of an octane booster. A fair portion
of octane boosters on the market use Toluene as the primary ingredient. You can buy
it at the paint store in gallons for quite a bit less, and add as you see fit. I'd stick with a pint, but in a pinch, if I needed the octane boost, I'd drop in '87 and a gallon of Toluene.

Another great method of increasing octane is water injections. Air/fuel mixture with water vapor in it burns slower than straight air/gas. The upfront cost is fairly hefty at around $600-1k for systems last time I looked, but it provides a hell of an octane boost that works
as long as you have water in it. I know someone that ran 23psi on a 9.5:1 compression
2.0L motor using water injection and 91 octane, with the water going anytime boost went above 9 psi, making 332.4 HP / 323 ft lbs of torque.

The water injection over the course of a year beats the crap out of the price of 100LL (AvGas 100 Octane) or C16 (Race gas 116). The cheapo in me loves the math, and
loves the idea of water helping make more power.

That crap about it being a measure of how effective petrol is at resisting knock is really bull****, no offense, it's a measurement of the rate of combustion, nothing more, and nothing less.

Peter

Originally Posted by Übel ein

The bottom line is that Octane Rating is a measure of how effective a petrol is at resisting engine knock. It tells us nothing about power or fuel economy. Over dosing on octane will only dent your pocket. Nothing more.

There is a misconception in the street-racing world that high octane fuel will make your car go faster or run better. This is simply not true. The octane rating essentially rates the fuel's resistance to knocking.

Knocking or pinging is a sound that an engine makes when the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chambers ignites too early. Although slight knocking or pinging won't damage your engine, loud knocking can cause damage and should not be allowed to continue. The solution is to use a high octane fuel, which is actually more difficult to ignite, despite the misconception that high octane fuel is more powerful. When the fuel is more difficult to burn, early ignition is eliminated, and with it the knocking or pinging.

The octane level required by an engine is determined by its compression ratio: higher-compression engines require higher-octane fuel. For example, a basic sedan generally only requires the standard octane fuel offered at gas stations, while a high-performance sports car or race car may require a high octane fuel. The owner's manual lists information on the type of fuel you should use in your car.

Gas stations typically offer three different octane levels of fuel: regular, mid-grade, and premium. The regular grade generally has the octane level required by most cars, and mid-grade and premium are each a step up. Then, of course, there is the super high octane fuel available at race tracks, which is designed for the extremely high compression ratios that race car engines have. Pretty much all of the fuel grades commercially available have cleaning additives in them, so you needn't choose a high octane fuel with the idea that it will clean your engine better.

In many European countries, and other countries such as Australia, the octane rating used is called the Research Octane Number (RON). These octane ratings reflect how the fuel acts in the lab. In the U. S., however, as well as a few other countries, the octane rating is called (R+M)/2. This number is derived from the average of the RON and the Motor Octane Number (MON). While the first rating is determined by the fuel's performance in the lab, the MON is supposed to reflect how it performs "out in the real world." Therefore, an average of the two numbers should theoretically give the best indication of the fuel's burning characteristics.

Basically, you're wasting your money if you buy high octane fuel. You should start off with the octane level your car's manual calls for; if you still hear knocking or pinging, you might try the next step up. If the problem persists, you'll probably need to have a tune-up or some diagnostic work done. Don't think that putting high octane fuel in your little Toyota will make it run like a race car – it just doesn't work that way.

~ http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-high-octane-fuel.htm

This notion that using the highest available octane rated fuel is a bunch of bunk. You should use the rated fuel for you car... a 328i is rated at 89 octane. Period.

Having run Mobil 1, Castrol, and Valvoline full synthetics on and off the track, I can tell you that Valvoline was the only one that didn't break down under high heat conditions.

I ran about a 90-mile run out to the track. We had a group of us, we were definitely playing a little bit on the freeway. I don't think we were under 95 at any point. By the time I got to the track, I was running about 180F oil temp and 25-30psi at idle of oil pressure. The car was definitely warmed up to normal operating temperature.

With Mobil 1, a 3-hour track session with 20 minutes off the track in between would get my oil temps up to 200-210 with an oil cooler. After driving to town for lunch and gas, my oil pressure was riding in the 10-15 psi range at idle. The next day, starting it up and running it showed the same dismal oil pressure. The oil simply had lost viscosity, there were no noticeable metallic particles, so the pressure drop as a result of some sort of damage, was unlikely.

We changed out the oil, put in Valvoline full synthetic and did another track day. We went the full day, running 40 minutes on, 20 off, for 6 hours with lunch in the middle. Blistering around Willow Springs in 90-95F ambient temps, my oil temperature still got up to as high as 210, but didn't ever drop pressure. At the end of the day, the oil pressure was still up at 25-30psi while idling.

I don't work for an oil company, I don't own stock in any of them, and I'm a big fan of the "Show me" mentality. I wouldn't put Mobil 1 in anything car I own.

I know that reputable companies have done all kinds of testing on Mobil 1, and it's been
factory fill for GM and many other manufacturers, I couldn't care less if all the car gods hate me for not using it, but ths stuff is crap in my opinion.

I have also heard from many people (different ones) that RP, Amsoil, and Redline are all fantastic products. I personally, due to my own personal prejudice will not buy regular dino oil of any type, any Mobil 1 product (I think their gas is crap, too), Quaker State, Pennzoil, Castrol.

Until Valvoline goes out of business, I probably won't ever buy anything but.

Peter

Originally Posted by foamerdave

I myself run RP in the whole car ( engine trans and diff) It's just the brand I like the most with no real good reason. I don't think one brand is better then another in any type of car. I know the Ford Explorer crowd is big on Amsoil, from the factory M3's use to come with Mobil 1. I Ran my last BMW on Castol. I think/feel as long as you go with a well know company and use the right type/viscosity oil in your car (no mater what the make is) and do regular changes, you will have a happy car that will last you a long time.

What I was saying is that the "Mods" you guys are talking about are a nil gain. You do transfer more horsepower to the wheels with a lightened flywheel, my point with everyone using CAI's is they dont work, if you want them to actually do what they are supposed to, this is what I would do. Im not saying that you are getting a huge gain. Also im not saying to drive your car without an air filter all the time but yes people ditch them for racing... Not everyone, but yea it has happend a lot in the past. Im sorry if I posted something with a rather d*ckish tone looking back on it now, I guess I was just frustrated with the state of bimmer forums with the lack of knowledge in my opinion, its all spoilers, M package mods and CAIs. Sorry for being a d*ck about it. My point is that just because its being sold and marketed to you doesnt mean you need it. There are other ways to get what your going after, and im sorry but colder engine temps do help and a colder intake insulated from engine heat is better than one without. Im not saying its the end all be all and maybe I should have just bit my tounge and left the bitchiness away from the keyboard. Anway, good luck and enjoy your "horsies" hahah, sorry guys! Want to talk about what oil your running? Im using Mobil 0w40 yowza !

Originally Posted by Bekman

I was just frustrated with the state of bimmer forums with the lack of knowledge in my opinion, its all spoilers, M package mods and CAIs.

Want to talk about what oil your running? Im using Mobil 0w40 yowza !

Sorry I'll skip the meaningless (to me) diatribe. For the first point here, this is Bimmer Fest, Bf.c is full of d*uchebags that you have to filter out to get to the good stuff yes. This is one of the main reasons that we're all here.

For the question, I run 0W40 in winter, 10W40 in summer. Yes Mobil 1. Though I do miss my Amsoil hook-up. Royal Purple I find simply garish in it's pricing.

My $0.02

Ed.

Thanks a lot for your valuable tips, guys!

Any recommendation that will fit for M43B16 engine?

what would you suggest for the first mod for my 97 328is? id want the best bang for my buck because im limited on cash and dont want to waste money. also i heard chips for bmw's are a bad idea. is this true? thanks

How much do you have to spend? if you would have read the thread AT ALL, you'd realize that a simple CAI, or exhaust won't net you much of anything.. except for a cool sound.

yes im aware of that. i was just simply curious what the most effective upgrade should be. within reason though. i dont want to start off my tearing apart my motor or going forced induction. so basically what is the best bolt on.

New water pump, radiator, fan(s), thermostat, coolant hoses, temp sensors, etc. These mods will get you 193 more horsepower*.


*HP figures based on comparison to a car with out these mods that over heated and warped the head.

Like your thread, good info, no b.s

Do you know where I could get a good ECU Map/Chip upgrade from in Melb-Vic