My brave pill: E92 BMW 335i with the infamous N54 engine
Discussion
Craikeybaby said:
A 49 page thread in a year isn't bad going either!
I noticed the exhaust note on Thursday and thought it sounded good, rather than loud, but obviously, that was at low revs.
I think the thread was boosted when it started going wrong! I noticed the exhaust note on Thursday and thought it sounded good, rather than loud, but obviously, that was at low revs.
I’m more on the like side of the exhaust but there are days where it’s a bit annoying. Usually when I’m tired and just want to cruise home.
The car continues to work well after is wobbles at the end of last year / start of this year.
We headed up to the Lakes for a few days this week for my birthday and it didn’t miss a best loaded up with stuff and two bikes.
Over the 400 miles or so it averaged 27.9mpg which I didn’t think was too bad with two bikes on the roof there and back and with plenty of short trips whilst actually there.
I’m not sure a relatively low car with 19’s was the most practical thing on the back roads up there because I was forever on pot hole (crater) watch, but we survived.
It’s off for a wee power tweak tomorrow, so it’ll be interesting to see how it feels after.
We headed up to the Lakes for a few days this week for my birthday and it didn’t miss a best loaded up with stuff and two bikes.
Over the 400 miles or so it averaged 27.9mpg which I didn’t think was too bad with two bikes on the roof there and back and with plenty of short trips whilst actually there.
I’m not sure a relatively low car with 19’s was the most practical thing on the back roads up there because I was forever on pot hole (crater) watch, but we survived.
It’s off for a wee power tweak tomorrow, so it’ll be interesting to see how it feels after.
Today was remap day for the engine and gearbox, so I headed over to P Torque which whilst not actually that far away is an absolutely terrible journey for me. It takes an awful lot of time to complete a round trip of 70 miles. Joy.
I arrived shortly after 10am and had a chat with Will about what I was hoping for / expecting from the end result. We also ran through the supporting mods and maintenance that I’ve done in the run up. My car was soon strapped down on the dyno.
The exhaust was quite loud, especially at full chat.
Prior to the map, the car made 313bhp and 447nm of torque. The extra BHP is about right with the intercooler.
After the map it made 379bhp and 572nm of torque. It certainly feels brisker, with pick up from low down much improved. The gear changes in normal remain chilled but they’re noticeably faster in sport mode. Much quicker.
I’ve not had much chance to drive it properly yet given I’ve been stuck in slow moving traffic since, joy.
I arrived shortly after 10am and had a chat with Will about what I was hoping for / expecting from the end result. We also ran through the supporting mods and maintenance that I’ve done in the run up. My car was soon strapped down on the dyno.
The exhaust was quite loud, especially at full chat.
Prior to the map, the car made 313bhp and 447nm of torque. The extra BHP is about right with the intercooler.
After the map it made 379bhp and 572nm of torque. It certainly feels brisker, with pick up from low down much improved. The gear changes in normal remain chilled but they’re noticeably faster in sport mode. Much quicker.
I’ve not had much chance to drive it properly yet given I’ve been stuck in slow moving traffic since, joy.
Court_S said:
Today was remap day for the engine and gearbox, so I headed over to P Torque which whilst not actually that far away is an absolutely terrible journey for me. It takes an awful lot of time to complete a round trip of 70 miles. Joy.
I arrived shortly after 10am and had a chat with Will about what I was hoping for / expecting from the end result. We also ran through the supporting mods and maintenance that I’ve done in the run up. My car was soon strapped down on the dyno.
The exhaust was quite loud, especially at full chat.
Prior to the map, the car made 313bhp and 447nm of torque. The extra BHP is about right with the intercooler.
After the map it made 379bhp and 572nm of torque. It certainly feels brisker, with pick up from low down much improved. The gear changes in normal remain chilled but they’re noticeably faster in sport mode. Much quicker.
I’ve not had much chance to drive it properly yet given I’ve been stuck in slow moving traffic since, joy.
Fantastic, good to see a healthy result after the tune up! Now - get out and enjoy it. I arrived shortly after 10am and had a chat with Will about what I was hoping for / expecting from the end result. We also ran through the supporting mods and maintenance that I’ve done in the run up. My car was soon strapped down on the dyno.
The exhaust was quite loud, especially at full chat.
Prior to the map, the car made 313bhp and 447nm of torque. The extra BHP is about right with the intercooler.
After the map it made 379bhp and 572nm of torque. It certainly feels brisker, with pick up from low down much improved. The gear changes in normal remain chilled but they’re noticeably faster in sport mode. Much quicker.
I’ve not had much chance to drive it properly yet given I’ve been stuck in slow moving traffic since, joy.
Court_S said:
Today was remap day for the engine and gearbox, so I headed over to P Torque which whilst not actually that far away is an absolutely terrible journey for me. It takes an awful lot of time to complete a round trip of 70 miles. Joy.
I arrived shortly after 10am and had a chat with Will about what I was hoping for / expecting from the end result. We also ran through the supporting mods and maintenance that I’ve done in the run up. My car was soon strapped down on the dyno.
The exhaust was quite loud, especially at full chat.
Prior to the map, the car made 313bhp and 447nm of torque. The extra BHP is about right with the intercooler.
After the map it made 379bhp and 572nm of torque. It certainly feels brisker, with pick up from low down much improved. The gear changes in normal remain chilled but they’re noticeably faster in sport mode. Much quicker.
I’ve not had much chance to drive it properly yet given I’ve been stuck in slow moving traffic since, joy.
Good result.I arrived shortly after 10am and had a chat with Will about what I was hoping for / expecting from the end result. We also ran through the supporting mods and maintenance that I’ve done in the run up. My car was soon strapped down on the dyno.
The exhaust was quite loud, especially at full chat.
Prior to the map, the car made 313bhp and 447nm of torque. The extra BHP is about right with the intercooler.
After the map it made 379bhp and 572nm of torque. It certainly feels brisker, with pick up from low down much improved. The gear changes in normal remain chilled but they’re noticeably faster in sport mode. Much quicker.
I’ve not had much chance to drive it properly yet given I’ve been stuck in slow moving traffic since, joy.
christhreadgill said:
Fantastic, good to see a healthy result after the tune up! Now - get out and enjoy it.
KPB1973 said:
Some good numbers there Sam, a little stronger than most mappers claim but I guess the intercooler has helped in that regard.
Fingers crossed you get a bit of time today sans family to stretch its legs.
Fingers crossed you get a bit of time today sans family to stretch its legs.
helix402 said:
Good result.
Cheers all.I’m heading up to Ignition Cars and Coffee tomorrow morning with a friend and will be taking the scenic route.
That is a great result, I bet it fairly livens it up. My view of the standard 335i is that it can feel surprisingly lazy for its figures in day to day driving, so I'd be interested to hear how it's improved in this regard. I'm sure it's a lot quicker when you're on it too, although I personally don't find it lacking in this regard for road use, just the laziness that annoys.
If you don't mind sharing what was the insurance hit for the remap? I'm wondering if it's worthwhile going down this route for mine, although I'd need to sort everything else first like walnut blast and intercooler upgrade.
If you don't mind sharing what was the insurance hit for the remap? I'm wondering if it's worthwhile going down this route for mine, although I'd need to sort everything else first like walnut blast and intercooler upgrade.
pmorg4 said:
That is a great result, I bet it fairly livens it up. My view of the standard 335i is that it can feel surprisingly lazy for its figures in day to day driving, so I'd be interested to hear how it's improved in this regard. I'm sure it's a lot quicker when you're on it too, although I personally don't find it lacking in this regard for road use, just the laziness that annoys.
If you don't mind sharing what was the insurance hit for the remap? I'm wondering if it's worthwhile going down this route for mine, although I'd need to sort everything else first like walnut blast and intercooler upgrade.
Perhaps a gearbox map and 1M throttle map would do what you need? The 1M throttle map is supposed to be much more urgent. If you don't mind sharing what was the insurance hit for the remap? I'm wondering if it's worthwhile going down this route for mine, although I'd need to sort everything else first like walnut blast and intercooler upgrade.
Insurance hit was just over £100 for the last four months of my policy. Renewal time will probably be a bit spicy but we’ll see.
Good idea on the throttle map, I've read varying things about the N54 setup, including MHD having a tick box option to apply linear throttle mapping as the factory setup is apparently very non linear.
I think I'm going to give the Alpina B3 gearbox map a try first and see how I like that, with a custom map an option for further tweaking if I find it needs it. The gearbox is better than I'd expected in manual mode, it just needs to be a bit quicker and throttle blips on downshifts would help too.
That insurance hit is a bit larger than I suspected, having read anecdotal claims scattered across various forums of people being charged £20 for a 25% power hike! I've often found that surprisingly low so yours is probably a bit more reflective of what I should realistically expect. The problem I have is that between having kids in the car and where I live in the south east, I get very few opportunities to properly exploit the car so it's hard to justify any significant recurring cost. I'm sure it's more than worth it for you though!
I think I'm going to give the Alpina B3 gearbox map a try first and see how I like that, with a custom map an option for further tweaking if I find it needs it. The gearbox is better than I'd expected in manual mode, it just needs to be a bit quicker and throttle blips on downshifts would help too.
That insurance hit is a bit larger than I suspected, having read anecdotal claims scattered across various forums of people being charged £20 for a 25% power hike! I've often found that surprisingly low so yours is probably a bit more reflective of what I should realistically expect. The problem I have is that between having kids in the car and where I live in the south east, I get very few opportunities to properly exploit the car so it's hard to justify any significant recurring cost. I'm sure it's more than worth it for you though!
Edited by pmorg4 on Saturday 22 April 13:55
pmorg4 said:
Good idea on the throttle map, I've read varying things about the N54 setup, including MHD having a tick box option to apply linear throttle mapping as the factory setup is apparently very non linear.
I think I'm going to give the Alpina B3 gearbox map a try first and see how I like that, with a custom map an option for further tweaking if I find it needs it. The gearbox is better than I'd expected in manual mode, it just needs to be a bit quicker and throttle blips on downshifts would help too.
That insurance hit is a bit larger than I suspected, having read anecdotal claims scattered across various forums of people being charged £20 for a 25% power hike! I've often found that surprisingly low so yours is probably a bit more reflective of what I should realistically expect. The problem I have is that between having kids in the car and where I live in the south east, I get very few opportunities to properly exploit the car so it's hard to justify any significant recurring cost. I'm sure it's more than worth it for you though!
It was more than two news expecting but I think they’re stiffing me a bit because there isn’t much time left on the policy. I think I'm going to give the Alpina B3 gearbox map a try first and see how I like that, with a custom map an option for further tweaking if I find it needs it. The gearbox is better than I'd expected in manual mode, it just needs to be a bit quicker and throttle blips on downshifts would help too.
That insurance hit is a bit larger than I suspected, having read anecdotal claims scattered across various forums of people being charged £20 for a 25% power hike! I've often found that surprisingly low so yours is probably a bit more reflective of what I should realistically expect. The problem I have is that between having kids in the car and where I live in the south east, I get very few opportunities to properly exploit the car so it's hard to justify any significant recurring cost. I'm sure it's more than worth it for you though!
Edited by pmorg4 on Saturday 22 April 13:55
I’ve just been for a 20 mile or so drive and it’s bloody fast now. That slightly lazy feeling well and truly banished. To be honest I’d probably have been happy with the gearbox and throttle map alone.
Brilliant news! The N54 certainly has plenty of potential, considering it's barely 30 BHP more than the N/A engine in the later 330i despite having two turbos strapped to it, BMW has clearly been very restrained with the factory mapping (no doubt to maintain a large enough gap to the M3). It's surely very close to E9x M3 performance now particularly given the much wider torque spread compared to the S65.
I'm off to investigate the 1M throttle mapping now, I think even if I stick with standard power mapping it sound like the throttle and gearbox upgrades are well worth it
I'm off to investigate the 1M throttle mapping now, I think even if I stick with standard power mapping it sound like the throttle and gearbox upgrades are well worth it
pmorg4 said:
Brilliant news! The N54 certainly has plenty of potential, considering it's barely 30 BHP more than the N/A engine in the later 330i despite having two turbos strapped to it, BMW has clearly been very restrained with the factory mapping (no doubt to maintain a large enough gap to the M3). It's surely very close to E9x M3 performance now particularly given the much wider torque spread compared to the S65.
I'm off to investigate the 1M throttle mapping now, I think even if I stick with standard power mapping it sound like the throttle and gearbox upgrades are well worth it
They were indeed very conservative with the power; the N54 had a bit more lunch in the 1M plus better throttle mapping. As you say, nuts that it was only 30-off horsepower more than the N53. I'm off to investigate the 1M throttle mapping now, I think even if I stick with standard power mapping it sound like the throttle and gearbox upgrades are well worth it
Everyone raves about the 1M throttle map. That combined with slightly faster gearbox shifts would perk the stock engine up no end.
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