Forced induction

[Sajk]

Greetings,

I am toying with this idea for my m52tu 2.8. Active Autowerke have stopped making their kit and I have not had good reports on the support and software on the VF kit from a reliable and knowledgeable source. Does anyone have any experience or views on this?

I would love an s54 roadster but they were not sold here and an s54 swap seems like its a lot of trouble.

cheers

 

[Stevo7682]

@Delk Could be your man to speak to ( or read up his progress thread) he has a 400 bhp m52 turbocharged.
I have been in it proper fast car I was most impressed.
Stephen.

 

[Sajk]

Thanks Stevo. 400bph and I will probably kill myself and rip out the rear sub frame. I would be happy with 300. I am at altitude and with cams,m54 30 intake manifold & tuning I have been able to get the Z to stock performance at sea level. But there is always more....

 

[Delk]

I love my car and the way it drives now. We have two in the house and hers is standard while mine is proper quick.

It takes money and time. The biggest surprise I had was nobody deals with the MS42 DME installed on the TU engine. That leaves you with either swapping in an SM43 from the M54 engine or going stand alone. I went with a stand alone ECU but it was an chunk of money I was not planning on originally.

Its a daily driven car but I do have a second car to use while I was sorting out all the teething troubles.

 

[Delk]

Thanks Stevo. 400bph and I will probably kill myself and rip out the rear sub frame. I would be happy with 300. I am at altitude and with cams,m54 30 intake manifold & tuning I have been able to get the Z to stock performance at sea level. But there is always more....

Where are you located? I don't even have a final tune on mine and its at 400hp. I have just been running it for awhile and will go get the final tune on it in a couple of months. With what I have it will easily make 450 or more. Going with a turbo allows you do to what you want but mine made over 300 on the base map when it wasn't even tuned and running horrible.
I started this just for fun and have learned alot along the way.

 

[Lee]

Thanks Stevo. 400bph and I will probably kill myself and rip out the rear sub frame. I would be happy with 300. I am at altitude and with cams,m54 30 intake manifold & tuning I have been able to get the Z to stock performance at sea level. But there is always more....

There's a guy who makes kits for the M52/M54 engines 'Hopwood Motorsport' comes with everything you need for a turbo setup.

Supercharger might be easier as a plug n play solution.

 

[RTV]

I here I was delighted with whatever is left of the 140hp on my M44

 

[Sajk]

I am in Johannesburg at just on 6000 feet above sea level. @Lee by the look of that turbo kit the heads come off for decompress? I thing supercharger would be easier and make about 300 whp which is more than enough for me. It just seems its hard to find now. The vf kit looks great installed. Almost factory but i am told support is poor and the tune is sh1t.

 

[Delk]

Supercharger for 300hp is easier. Far less fabrication. I think i may have even seen one with a water to air intercooler.
From all the research I did a stand alone ECU was the best option but not the cheapest. The ECU running the TU is an oddity as it wasn't made for many years so has very little modification support. And tuning is probably the most important part.
I don't know what you will have down your way. I know you have good rust free classics ripe for importing back to the UK but that's about it.

 

[Sajk]

My tuning has been done by Active Autowerke in the states who have a long history with bmw. The DME (it's a TU also) itself has quite good support from paid tools to free tools like Rom Raider.

The problem is no so much support to edit the dme calibration but understanding how the DME O/S works and what the calibration changes mean to it.

When I supercharged my jeep Wrangler I went through hell as the vendors tune was terrible. Eventually I found a great tuner in the states and all was sorted.

Locally we have a few guys but lots of people still use piggy back ecu's. These work ok on some engine computers but the jeep for example has a neural network in it's computer and gets all bent out of shape when the piggy back lies to it which is how most of the piggys work.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Delk]

I originally planned to use the stock DME but when I got most of my parts and really started moving forward I spoke to a lot of people and they all steered away from the MS42 platform for the TU engine. Just was not common enough to create good support like the earlier MS41 for the M52 engine or the MS43 for the M54.

I dont remember all of them but I spoke with Ecumaster about there DET3 piggy back. Miller performance, RK tunes and they all advised me against using the stock DME.

I didn't speak to Active Autowerkes though. From what I read they only supplied basic tune improvements and going boosted needed more. I ditched the MAF sensor and installed a standard MAP system thats good up to 2.5 bar of boost without any problems.

 

[Dino D]

@Sajk glad to hear you thinking of FI.

I remember driving an e36 328i in convoy with a MK4 TDI golf from CT to PTA.
The drop off in performance on the 328 as you got up there and then filled with the low octane stuff as well was noticeable but the TDI didn’t feel it.

I’ve done a fair bit of digging on SC kits and have some info you might find useful, drop me a conversation with your email and I’ll dig it out for you.

I was pretty keen on doing it to mine but with the UK roads getting worse and worse I’m finding the NA engine just fine for now (not that it’s moved much this year).
You’ve got the roads for it down South so it would be rude not to!

 

[Lee]

I am in Johannesburg at just on 6000 feet above sea level. @Lee by the look of that turbo kit the heads come off for decompress? I thing supercharger would be easier and make about 300 whp which is more than enough for me. It just seems its hard to find now. The vf kit looks great installed. Almost factory but i am told support is poor and the tune is sh1t.

Yeah this kit comes with a decompression gasket set, this is a 600-800bhp kit you wouldn't need to decomp 3-400bhp.

In your case the supercharger is the much easier route, it's also mostly ply n play.

 

[Sajk]

@Dino. Message sent.

@Lee at 800HP what keeps the head on? Is the for an iron block or aluminum. Must be a super stressed setup one step from boom a lot of the time unless it replaces the entire rotating assembly, valve train and pretty much anything else inside the engine?

Oops double post

 

[Lee]

@Dino. Message sent.

@Lee at 800HP what keeps the head on? Is the for an iron block or aluminum. Must be a super stressed setup one step from boom a lot of the time unless it replaces the entire rotating assembly, valve train and pretty much anything else inside the engine?

Oops double post

Depending which version of the M52 you have some of the components are already forged, these engine are very strong. The kit will include the ARP head studs. Admittedly you'll likely need forged everything at the top end, not so around 600. Just talk to Alex at hopwood motorsport, he will blow your mind with what they achieve I'm only repeating what he's told me in the past.