My e36 M3 Evo mapped by Evo-S - impressive results!

[DinoACS]

I spent the day at Evo-S in Luton today having my car set up. The previous owner of my car had fitted Schrick 284 Cams, an Active Autowerke Induction kit, Eisenmann cat back 'zorst and had the car 'mapped' by DMS Automotive.

Whilst I have always been happy with my car's performance per-se I was somewhat disappointed when I first had it on the rollers that it only made 300.7bhp @ 6843 rpm (albeit at a limited 155mph as it was run in 5th gear!) on Track-N-Road's rollers back in November '06.

Since then I have replaced the BMW Cats with Milltek 100 Cell sports cats and a couple of weeks ago was invited to visit the Evo-S premises in Luton to meet the guys there and to have a couple of power runs to see what power my car was making. The car was run in 3rd gear and made 310bhp (I dont have the rpm figure to hand but is in the 7ks IIRC).

The Evo-S guys recommended an Alpha N set up running MAFless with a MacMotoren carbon airbox utilising a UnichipQ ecu. I was tempted but ultimately a reality check on my financial situation got the better of me! Instead I decided to go for the Unichip and proper live remap to see what potential could be gained from my car.

First of all the car was run as it was and figures and info gathered - today it made 313.1bhp (& 262lbft) so close enough to the 310bhp it made 2 weeks ago although today was a little cooler. The car was then mapped on the stock ecu and power rose to a healthy 324.1 @ 7k. Then the guys set to work mapping the car with the UnichipQ chip installed setting the values at different throttle settings and rpms. On my previous visit results showed that the car was running too rich at the higher revs with ignition advance at 9degrees and a little lean at low revs. The power curve and torque curves were also a little inconsistent.

Once the guys had worked their magic:
341bhp @ 7500rpm (283bhp@wheels)
280lbft @ 5500rpm

The car was run again 3 or 4 more times and made exactly the same figures again & again Obviously power figures can vary on a day to day basis due to temperature so I'm not reading too much into the figures but a 28bhp gain in bhp and a 18lbft gain in torque are good gains nonetheless. Incidently praise was heaped on my Active Autorwerke induction kit as it kept relatively low inlet temp for most of the session - something certain other induction kits do not manage to do apparently

Whilst I haven't had a proper chance to drive the car in anger yet due to damp and busy roads on the drive home it is noticeable smoother and keener to rev. Prior to the remap it felt quite flat and strangled in the low to mid range, whereas now it pulls smoothly from low rpms and charges hard from the midrange all the way to the limiter. I did manage to have a couple of full throttle blasts on to bypasses etc and boy does the car pull hard! I can't wait to drive it properly on some dry and quieter roads this weekend!

Also I have noticed a marked improvement in mpg recording an average of 34mpg on the way home (prior similar journeys/driving would have shown 30mpg) and a very welcome side effect is that the boomy exhaust resonance at around 3k rpm is now gone! Result! Not only is the car smoother, faster and more economical it is also more refined on motorway cruising!

Without a shadow of a doubt this is the best money I have ever spent on modding a car and I cannot recommend the guys at Evo-S highly enough, they really know their stuff, are proper petrol heads, and seem to really enjoy what they do.

http://www.evo-s.co.uk/ 

[DinoACS]

Flywheel figures:



Rear Wheel figures:

[houlbt]

Evo engine with 284 cams sounds like a reasonable figure, good work.

Tom

Edited by houlbt on Friday 16th May 20:28

[DinoACS]

Here is a standard Evo graph



Approx 265lbft - so another 15lbft from cams/zorst/cats and a decent remap still sound unreasonable?!

[gwatson]

DinoACS said:

Here is a standard Evo graph

Approx 265lbft - so another 15lbft from cams/zorst/cats and a decent remap still sound unreasonable?!

Better off fitting a supercharger Good results though!

[DinoACS]

gwatson said:

DinoACS said:

Here is a standard Evo graph

Approx 265lbft - so another 15lbft from cams/zorst/cats and a decent remap still sound unreasonable?!

Better off fitting a supercharger Good results though!

LOL! Mate you wont find me going down the forced induction route - nothing but head aches and expense!

[houlbt]

and a lot more expensive... not sure forced induction is the answer.

[DinoACS]

houlbt said:

Evo engine with 284 cams sounds like a reasonable figure, more believable than the ZM3 thing which I wasn't buying.

What's the spikey bit? Also 280 is a decent wedge of torque no??

Edited by houlbt on Friday 16th May 13:29

Explanation about the spike here:
http://www.evo-s.co.uk/shop/index.php?cPath=6_2371...

Also why is it you dont believe the Z3M figures but you believe mine? The Z3M makes approx 10bhp more than mine and it has a carbon airbox - I fail to understand your disbelief?

[gwatson]

DinoACS said:

LOL! Mate you wont find me going down the forced induction route - nothing but head aches and expense!

Any particular reason you say that? My Z4 is supercharged, never missed a beat. For around £5k you get 140BHP jump and 140NM much lower down the rev range i.e usable.... you've probably spend just a little less... ok I appreciate M3 superchargers are more expensive, but I am still hoping to find one... no many used ones on the market though

I am not knocking what's you've done, it's very impressive, but you have to ask it's worth it for the gains. You've only gained around 15-18bhp per tonne... much cheaper to lighten the car up, which will also transform help the handling and braking.... or just go balls out I just know that you'll soon get used to that sort of power and be crying for more with no where to go. On the other hand I bet your car sounds and goes great now.

G

Edited by gwatson on Friday 16th May 16:27

[DinoACS]

gwatson said:

DinoACS said:

LOL! Mate you wont find me going down the forced induction route - nothing but head aches and expense!

Any particular reason you say that? My Z4 is supercharged, never missed a beat. For around £5k you get 140BHP jump and 140NM much lower down the rev range i.e usable.... you've probably spend just a little less... ok I appreciate M3 superchargers are more expensive, but I am still hoping to find one... no many used ones on the market though

I am not knocking what's you've done, it's very impressive, but you have to ask it's worth it for the gains. You've only gained around 15-18bhp per tonne... much cheaper to lighten the car up, which will also transform help the handling and braking.... or just go balls out I just know that you'll soon get used to that sort of power and be crying for more with no where to go. On the other hand I bet your car sounds and goes great now.

G

I don't have the money or desire to do this to my car, also these cars drink enough fuel as they are without forced induction guzzling more gasoline!! I am happy with it the way it is. Mine is a 'full fat' road spec car which eats up the miles in comfort and will happily cruise to the 'ring (or a track day), hoon around the track for a long weekend and get me home again.

I've done the stripped out, caged car thing before and unless I can afford a second car as a pure toy I won't be doing that again in a hurry. Far too many compromises in comfort and practicality to do that.

I'm getting to the age now where comfort is king

Edited by DinoACS on Friday 16th May 16:43

[Vixpy1]

Nice graphs there

[matth76]

Very good gains.

[scorpio1066]

Haha - i recognise that M3 evo dyno - its mine.

is surrey rolling road still there? i havnt been for a while

i went to evo-s (luton) too.

mine does about 328bhp now after uni-q chip fitted and mapped

im very impressed. great day too. stayed there for the day to watch and talk shop with sal.

[shamrock]

DinoACS said:

I spent the day at Evo-S in Luton today having my car set up. The previous owner of my car had fitted Schrick 284 Cams, an Active Autowerke Induction kit, Eisenmann cat back 'zorst and had the car 'mapped' by DMS Automotive.

Whilst I have always been happy with my car's performance per-se I was somewhat disappointed when I first had it on the rollers that it only made 300.7bhp @ 6843 rpm (albeit at a limited 155mph as it was run in 5th gear!) on Track-N-Road's rollers back in November '06.

Since then I have replaced the BMW Cats with Milltek 100 Cell sports cats and a couple of weeks ago was invited to visit the Evo-S premises in Luton to meet the guys there and to have a couple of power runs to see what power my car was making. The car was run in 3rd gear and made 310bhp (I dont have the rpm figure to hand but is in the 7ks IIRC).

The Evo-S guys recommended an Alpha N set up running MAFless with a MacMotoren carbon airbox utilising a UnichipQ ecu. I was tempted but ultimately a reality check on my financial situation got the better of me! Instead I decided to go for the Unichip and proper live remap to see what potential could be gained from my car.

First of all the car was run as it was and figures and info gathered - today it made 313.1bhp (& 262lbft) so close enough to the 310bhp it made 2 weeks ago although today was a little cooler.

How much did that all cost to get it from standard form to 313bhp?

My M3 Evo produced 313bhp at Evo-S in Stock Form

I guess it is well worth buying an M3 with proven 310+bhp and a dyno graph to back it up as opposed buying one of the M3's with less than 300bhp and spending all the cash just to get it upto BMW's figures.

[asbo]

shamrock said:

My M3 Evo produced 313bhp at Evo-S in Stock Form

I guess it is well worth buying an M3 with proven 310+bhp and a dyno graph to back it up as opposed buying one of the M3's with less than 300bhp and spending all the cash just to get it upto BMW's figures.

Well indeed.

However, I'd be very surprised if out of all the E36 M3 Evolutions produced, some were quicker than others.

Rather, what I suspect is that with age and mileage, some are in need of MAF replacements / vacuum hoses etc which can often be overlooked, hence the performance differences.

My old M3 Evo was notably quicker than others, but I put this down to the low mileage and the fact it had been maintained properly. 'Luck' had nothing to do with it AFAIC.

If you will, varying power differences from new is something I'd expect of TVR rather than BMW.

Therefore, I suspect that if the above was looked into first, you would more than likely restore any missing horses.

All IMO of course

[shamrock]

asbo said:

shamrock said:

My M3 Evo produced 313bhp at Evo-S in Stock Form

I guess it is well worth buying an M3 with proven 310+bhp and a dyno graph to back it up as opposed buying one of the M3's with less than 300bhp and spending all the cash just to get it upto BMW's figures.

Well indeed.

However, I'd be very surprised if out of all the E36 M3 Evolutions produced, some were quicker than others.

Rather, what I suspect is that with age and mileage, some are in need of MAF replacements / vacuum hoses etc which can often be overlooked, hence the performance differences.

My old M3 Evo was notably quicker than others, but I put this down to the low mileage and the fact it had been maintained properly. 'Luck' had nothing to do with it AFAIC.

If you will, varying power differences from new is something I'd expect of TVR rather than BMW.

Therefore, I suspect that if the above was looked into first, you would more than likely restore any missing horses.

All IMO of course

I'd expect each BMW model to consistently produce the same performance in comparison to the low volume niche performance car manufacturers.

However, after reading the various BMW forums and speaking to dyno operators I got the impression that the performance of the M3 Evo varied from the minute it left the factory with most of them making 290-300 bhp. I have no idea how true this is.

I’ve also been told by the same dyno operators that the E46 M3 only produces 325bhp.

I would agree that good performance has a direct correlation with a good maintenance program. A healthy and well looked after engine should produce the same power as it did when new. However, for most well looked after M3 Evo’s (which is probably the minority nowadays), this may only be 290bhp-300bhp if the paragraph above is true.

Supposedly the engine “loosens” up when it goes over 100k+ miles and dyno's can show them to have an improving performance. Again, I am not sure how true this is but I have seen it quoted a number of times on the various forums.

I guess my point was that I would rather check the dyno of an M3 Evo before I purchased it so I could make sure it is producing at least 310bhp and is fuelling correctly. A healthy engine would be one of my priorities when buying such a car.

I wouldn't want to go down the route of purchasing such a car to then have to spend the sort of cash the OP spent just to get the car to 310bhp.

All IMO too although pieced together based upon the knowledge of others

[Vixpy1]

I've found valve clearences to be a big issue to power on M engines

[dan101smith]

What I've read on the E36 M3 GT says that the engines were hand-picked, suggesting that even BMW acknowledge that some are better than others, so I don't find it hard to believe that some Evo engines will put out more than others.

Mine, at 135k miles, put out 250bhp at the wheels on Charlie's rollers back in September. It's now had a Uni-Q chip and remap, and put 260 rwhp on Bexley's rollers. Those 10bhp cost the best part of £500.

It does feel like you're always chasing the factory figure.

[Broccers]

I can never understand why people compare results from different places on different days.

[dan101smith]

Nope, completely agree, and hence why I'm back to Charlie's in a couple of weeks.