600bhp 1 Series
Discussion
Recently I got asked to test a prototype intake for Williams Performance.
There is a world of discussion about intakes for the B58. Essentially the intake is almost directly above the turbo, which isn't ideal for intake temperatures. As such, there is a lot of noise about how the stock intake or a box is better, and open intakes are a bad move. However as far as we can see, these have only been dyno tested, not tested on the road. So basically, Marc Williams and I used my car to do some datalogging, and ran 2 Dragy 100km-200km pulls back to back, on the same night, same car, same ambient temperatures, with the stock airbox with an ITG panel filter and Marc's open cone intake with an ITG filter.
This is the prototype Williams Performance filter fitted:
The results suprised me. I used BootMod3 to run the datalogs and I hit a peak intake temp of 102f with the stock airbox with panel filter.
Using the open intake, which is widely slated, we saw a peak intake temp of 95f, with less timing pull from the ECU. I guess if you're drag racing and sat in a lane heat soaking or on a dyno then heat soak could be an issue, but the engine bay appears to have great airflow in actual road situations, and the logs suggest a good gain from the open filter setup.
Intake testing aside....
It was time for a pre-winter clean up and sort out. I ordered a loads of cleaning bits and set myself away. I first of all snowfoamed the car and gave it a normal wash down:
Then, I washed the car down with microfibre towels and Autosmart Tardis, which is by far and away the best tar / glue remover I've come across.
After a wash down with Tardis I clay barred the car with Bilt Hamber Auto Clay, and then started to polish it back up. I have a DAS-12 and used AutoBrite polishing compounds and pads and 3M Superfina SE to finish.
62k road miles had left me with issues like this at the front passenger corner:
A few passes have it looking a lot more respectable. It's not perfect but realistically the front end needs repainting next year anyway.
Obviously having completely cleaned, polished and waxed the car, it absolutely chucked it down overnight. At this point I hadn't touched the wheels or interior so they're still rough, but the beading was on point
At this point I decided the neighbours didn't think I was enough of a mentalist, so I cracked on over 2 nights jacking a side of the car up at a time and taking the wheels into the garage to clean up and protect for the winter:
After washing the wheels off outside, I gave them an additional coat of Bilt Hamber Auto Wheels and worked that in with a brush to have a good go at the tar and glue on the wheels
I then washed the wheels down with Autosmart Tardis and then clay barred them to remove any extra debris, before machine polishing the barrels back up with Autobrite compounds and then applying Collinite 476S wax.
I also pulled the chrome M Performance exhaust tips I currently have fitted and cleaned those up, a 50/50 and both shot:
I'm starting to get some blemishes on the alloys but I think they've held up very well for 62k miles really, I'll probably look at a refurb next year.
Generally though, they're in pretty good order
With the wheels refitted there was the opportunity for some gratuitous beading barrel shots:
With the exterior sorted, it was time to turn to the interior. I decided to remove the seats to clean them and the carpets properly. 4 x T50's hold the seats in and there's a single connector underneath for electrics.
Urgh. Time for some cleanzzzz
With the seats in the garage, it was time to deploy the cleanzzz:
The brush was £3.95 from CleanYourCar and the leather cleaner was Gliptone. My god. I thought they were OK, but when I'd finished the drivers base, the backrest was a completely different colour:
It's hard to pick up well on camera, but the drivers seat on the left was immaculate after cleaning and was soft, cream and matte in texture, whilst the passengers seat on the right was a darker shiny gloss cream. Well worth the effort.
Refitted they looked great:
And although they werent horrific, it was nice to be able to use the brush cleaner to tackle things like the seat belt clasps, which weren't horrendous but weren't super clean either:
But they were far better after a good clean:
Next up was the steering wheel. I have had a few questions about this before, this is what I use to clean the leather, it's a Boots Nail Varnish remover, but acetone free. I found out about it online somewhere and the gist was that it absolutely must be acetone free. It's still very aggressive but appears to lift off all skin oils etc from the wheel leather and return it to a tacky matte finish. I then use a leather care balm to reprotect the leather. This is the cleaner:
And due to the weather, this is the best shot I can give you as to the results, it's a 50/50 with the right hand side of the wheel having been wiped down with the nail polish remover.
With almost all the big jobs done, I washed down the car mats and the extra set I have with a wet vac:
It's pretty much sorted for the winter now, with a decent coat of wax and a good clean up for the mileage. Cue a few extra photos:
All in all now the car is pretty sorted, I'm really pleased with the new brakes which have far more bite. Ideally at the end of next month I'll get the car on a rolling road again to see what sort of power it's making but it feels really strong and drives brilliantly.
That's likely the end of the mods for this year, next year if I keep modding I'll probably look at M3/4 lower control arms and a decent set of coilovers, possibly the underbody brace and the rear subframe bush inserts.
Booked in for an MOT in October (it's first) so hopefully it passes!
There is a world of discussion about intakes for the B58. Essentially the intake is almost directly above the turbo, which isn't ideal for intake temperatures. As such, there is a lot of noise about how the stock intake or a box is better, and open intakes are a bad move. However as far as we can see, these have only been dyno tested, not tested on the road. So basically, Marc Williams and I used my car to do some datalogging, and ran 2 Dragy 100km-200km pulls back to back, on the same night, same car, same ambient temperatures, with the stock airbox with an ITG panel filter and Marc's open cone intake with an ITG filter.
This is the prototype Williams Performance filter fitted:
The results suprised me. I used BootMod3 to run the datalogs and I hit a peak intake temp of 102f with the stock airbox with panel filter.
Using the open intake, which is widely slated, we saw a peak intake temp of 95f, with less timing pull from the ECU. I guess if you're drag racing and sat in a lane heat soaking or on a dyno then heat soak could be an issue, but the engine bay appears to have great airflow in actual road situations, and the logs suggest a good gain from the open filter setup.
Intake testing aside....
It was time for a pre-winter clean up and sort out. I ordered a loads of cleaning bits and set myself away. I first of all snowfoamed the car and gave it a normal wash down:
Then, I washed the car down with microfibre towels and Autosmart Tardis, which is by far and away the best tar / glue remover I've come across.
After a wash down with Tardis I clay barred the car with Bilt Hamber Auto Clay, and then started to polish it back up. I have a DAS-12 and used AutoBrite polishing compounds and pads and 3M Superfina SE to finish.
62k road miles had left me with issues like this at the front passenger corner:
A few passes have it looking a lot more respectable. It's not perfect but realistically the front end needs repainting next year anyway.
Obviously having completely cleaned, polished and waxed the car, it absolutely chucked it down overnight. At this point I hadn't touched the wheels or interior so they're still rough, but the beading was on point
At this point I decided the neighbours didn't think I was enough of a mentalist, so I cracked on over 2 nights jacking a side of the car up at a time and taking the wheels into the garage to clean up and protect for the winter:
After washing the wheels off outside, I gave them an additional coat of Bilt Hamber Auto Wheels and worked that in with a brush to have a good go at the tar and glue on the wheels
I then washed the wheels down with Autosmart Tardis and then clay barred them to remove any extra debris, before machine polishing the barrels back up with Autobrite compounds and then applying Collinite 476S wax.
I also pulled the chrome M Performance exhaust tips I currently have fitted and cleaned those up, a 50/50 and both shot:
I'm starting to get some blemishes on the alloys but I think they've held up very well for 62k miles really, I'll probably look at a refurb next year.
Generally though, they're in pretty good order
With the wheels refitted there was the opportunity for some gratuitous beading barrel shots:
With the exterior sorted, it was time to turn to the interior. I decided to remove the seats to clean them and the carpets properly. 4 x T50's hold the seats in and there's a single connector underneath for electrics.
Urgh. Time for some cleanzzzz
With the seats in the garage, it was time to deploy the cleanzzz:
The brush was £3.95 from CleanYourCar and the leather cleaner was Gliptone. My god. I thought they were OK, but when I'd finished the drivers base, the backrest was a completely different colour:
It's hard to pick up well on camera, but the drivers seat on the left was immaculate after cleaning and was soft, cream and matte in texture, whilst the passengers seat on the right was a darker shiny gloss cream. Well worth the effort.
Refitted they looked great:
And although they werent horrific, it was nice to be able to use the brush cleaner to tackle things like the seat belt clasps, which weren't horrendous but weren't super clean either:
But they were far better after a good clean:
Next up was the steering wheel. I have had a few questions about this before, this is what I use to clean the leather, it's a Boots Nail Varnish remover, but acetone free. I found out about it online somewhere and the gist was that it absolutely must be acetone free. It's still very aggressive but appears to lift off all skin oils etc from the wheel leather and return it to a tacky matte finish. I then use a leather care balm to reprotect the leather. This is the cleaner:
And due to the weather, this is the best shot I can give you as to the results, it's a 50/50 with the right hand side of the wheel having been wiped down with the nail polish remover.
With almost all the big jobs done, I washed down the car mats and the extra set I have with a wet vac:
It's pretty much sorted for the winter now, with a decent coat of wax and a good clean up for the mileage. Cue a few extra photos:
All in all now the car is pretty sorted, I'm really pleased with the new brakes which have far more bite. Ideally at the end of next month I'll get the car on a rolling road again to see what sort of power it's making but it feels really strong and drives brilliantly.
That's likely the end of the mods for this year, next year if I keep modding I'll probably look at M3/4 lower control arms and a decent set of coilovers, possibly the underbody brace and the rear subframe bush inserts.
Booked in for an MOT in October (it's first) so hopefully it passes!
Edited by D4MJT on Saturday 26th September 21:59
Edited by D4MJT on Saturday 26th September 22:01
Edited by D4MJT on Saturday 26th September 22:04
CarPrintGuy said:
Brilliant car. Have the mods impacted cruising mpg at all?
That, is a great question. I realised that actually I have no idea. I used to log fuel economy with the Road Trip app on my iPhone but I fell out of the habit ages ago.So a perfect time for a test. I accessed the hidden menu on the dash this morning and checked how much fuel was in the tank, it showed 44.4 litres.
I've commuted to work, which is 18.1 miles, 80% dual carriageway, 20% urban roads. I didn't have the aircon on, and I couldn't really have driven it any more economically if I tried.
Pulled up at work and checked the menu again, the tank is showing 41.4 litres. I'm fairly sure my maths is correct but I make that 27.4mpg ish, which is a bit of a drop as it used to average well over 40. I might do a tank average sometime soon to see just how horrendous it these days. Interestingly I reset the trip computer and the car thought it had done 42.3mpg for the trip.
Another figure that should be interesting is the power output. It's going on the rollers this friday, so we'll see what it's actually making.
Closest guess wins a virtual pint.
Welshbeef said:
To put that into perspective S205 C63 4.0 TT my commute 75 miles round trip I get around 28mpg & buying one of these used 4-5 years old will net you a lot of value + main dealer buy 2 years AMG warranty bumper to bumper.
Do they have cylinder deactivation? 28mpg average is light years better than I've ever achieved in a V8 Dyno day yesterday. Enjoyed a really good day organised by Marc at Williams Performance. There were 7 cars ran in total:
My 2017 BMW M140i
2018 BMW M140i
2000 BMW E39 M5 Supercharged
Williams Performance 2004 BMW E46 M3 Track Car
2019 Hyundai i30N
2019 BMW M2 Competition
2016 BMW M3
Quick brew up before heading down to JM Imports in Newcastle, they primarily deal in JDM imports and building big power GTR's.
A quick peek inside the toy shop down at JM when we arrived. Jurgen's Huracan is twin turbo and Syvecs, and his white JUN GTR at the far right is I believe the fastest full weight street GTR in the UK. His 100-200km Dragy time in it is 2.40 seconds
Marc's M3 ran and made 351bhp which was pretty healthy for effectively a stock car with the CSL airbox.
Then mine went on:
Really happy with how the car performed. JM's dyno gives a wheel horsepower figure and they use a figure of 15% transmission loss to calculate power at the flywheel.
So the figures I got were:
At the wheels : 505whp / 493ft-lb
At the engine : 597bhp / 580ft-lb
Was a nice graph as well, shows just how mental the mid-range is.
Tim Williams came along for the day and ran his M140i, he does YouTube things so I think he's doing a video on the day which will be quite good to watch. He was a really sound fella and nice to chat to. He chucked me the keys for his car which has a Quaife LSD fitted, so that was quite interesting. Mine pretty much hooks just as well in a straight line, but his was far far more controllable to slide about, so I think that could be on the cards as a future modification.
Real world performance wise, I had a crack at a Dragy run with it yesterday, but the surface wasn't completely dry so I was struggling for grip and got some wheelspin. Still ran a 6.9 100-200km though. I think there's fairly easily a 6.5-6.7 in the car.
So there we go, finally got some figures after fitting the Pure800. Nice to see it's making good power and the graph is smooth and progressive. Obviously every dyno is different and conditions vary so it's obviously an estimation, but coupled with the performance of it I'm over the moon.
No plans for any more power, just maintenance and possibly some big boys suspension and an LSD next year, but we'll see.
My 2017 BMW M140i
2018 BMW M140i
2000 BMW E39 M5 Supercharged
Williams Performance 2004 BMW E46 M3 Track Car
2019 Hyundai i30N
2019 BMW M2 Competition
2016 BMW M3
Quick brew up before heading down to JM Imports in Newcastle, they primarily deal in JDM imports and building big power GTR's.
A quick peek inside the toy shop down at JM when we arrived. Jurgen's Huracan is twin turbo and Syvecs, and his white JUN GTR at the far right is I believe the fastest full weight street GTR in the UK. His 100-200km Dragy time in it is 2.40 seconds
Marc's M3 ran and made 351bhp which was pretty healthy for effectively a stock car with the CSL airbox.
Then mine went on:
Really happy with how the car performed. JM's dyno gives a wheel horsepower figure and they use a figure of 15% transmission loss to calculate power at the flywheel.
So the figures I got were:
At the wheels : 505whp / 493ft-lb
At the engine : 597bhp / 580ft-lb
Was a nice graph as well, shows just how mental the mid-range is.
Tim Williams came along for the day and ran his M140i, he does YouTube things so I think he's doing a video on the day which will be quite good to watch. He was a really sound fella and nice to chat to. He chucked me the keys for his car which has a Quaife LSD fitted, so that was quite interesting. Mine pretty much hooks just as well in a straight line, but his was far far more controllable to slide about, so I think that could be on the cards as a future modification.
Real world performance wise, I had a crack at a Dragy run with it yesterday, but the surface wasn't completely dry so I was struggling for grip and got some wheelspin. Still ran a 6.9 100-200km though. I think there's fairly easily a 6.5-6.7 in the car.
So there we go, finally got some figures after fitting the Pure800. Nice to see it's making good power and the graph is smooth and progressive. Obviously every dyno is different and conditions vary so it's obviously an estimation, but coupled with the performance of it I'm over the moon.
No plans for any more power, just maintenance and possibly some big boys suspension and an LSD next year, but we'll see.
Nik Gnashers said:
Thanks for the update !
Great job on the cleaning, and dyno, I can't imagine how yours must pull. I am getting bored of mine at 411bhp/576nm and keep being tempted by a sports cat and hp fuel pump.
Thanks mate, appreciate it.Great job on the cleaning, and dyno, I can't imagine how yours must pull. I am getting bored of mine at 411bhp/576nm and keep being tempted by a sports cat and hp fuel pump.
It’s a really bizarre thing. When I take people out in it they’re really taken aback by the performance, but I think I’m just quite used to it now so it’s seems fairly normal, which is testament to how usable the car is.
I drove a 470bhp one on Friday with a Quaife diff, and it really felt quite tame, which is madness as a 470bhp hatchback is very clearly a quick car indeed.
What map do you have on yours currently?
Bit of a random period with the car over Christmas, I got very close to selling up.
I think part of me realised it's probably still worth a reasonable amount currently, as are the mods if I returned the car to standard, and I had thoughts of moving to an E61 M5 and a daily Citroen C1 or something. My thoughts were that the M5 would be likely to hold it's value better and still be a bit special. The overwhelming feedback generally from people was that an E61 M5 would be a terrible "nice day car" and I'd be better off with something sporty. I don't agree with that at all in fairness, that might work for some people but I have a serious barge habit and I love fast estates, so an E61 M5 was far more appealing to me than say a Boxster or something.
That said, over the past few days I've been re-reading the thread and thinking about the whole thing. I bought the car originally knowing fine well I do big miles and that it was going to depreciate accordingly. I also love driving the car and it has a real Jekyll and Hyde personality, you can mooch to work in full auto and eco-pro and it's basically any sort of cooking spec commuter with a decent sound system and comfy seats / cruise / all the stuff you need, or it's a right hooligan if you turn everything off and give it some stick. So really nothing has changed, my requirements for the car haven't changed, it still meets what I need and I've had no reliability issues at all with it, so there's absolutely no reason to change.
So it's getting a new seat of rear tyres this week, I haven't been able to get hold of Pilot Sport 4's so I'm going to try Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5's. It's also due an oil and filter change to that'll be happening shortly.
Then I think once the decent weather comes back, I'm going to look at getting a spare rear subframe and diff and polybushing it up, and building up an LSD then I'll swap it all in. I'd like to look at some decent suspension so probably a set of KW coilovers or something similar, perhaps the underbody brace and M4 lower control arms.
Marc at Williams Performance is also looking at sorting out an inline fuel flex sensor for accurate ethanol content monitoring, and I may look at full 3.5/4" exhaust system, then turn everything up a bit, at the moment the turbo is just ticking over really.
I think part of me realised it's probably still worth a reasonable amount currently, as are the mods if I returned the car to standard, and I had thoughts of moving to an E61 M5 and a daily Citroen C1 or something. My thoughts were that the M5 would be likely to hold it's value better and still be a bit special. The overwhelming feedback generally from people was that an E61 M5 would be a terrible "nice day car" and I'd be better off with something sporty. I don't agree with that at all in fairness, that might work for some people but I have a serious barge habit and I love fast estates, so an E61 M5 was far more appealing to me than say a Boxster or something.
That said, over the past few days I've been re-reading the thread and thinking about the whole thing. I bought the car originally knowing fine well I do big miles and that it was going to depreciate accordingly. I also love driving the car and it has a real Jekyll and Hyde personality, you can mooch to work in full auto and eco-pro and it's basically any sort of cooking spec commuter with a decent sound system and comfy seats / cruise / all the stuff you need, or it's a right hooligan if you turn everything off and give it some stick. So really nothing has changed, my requirements for the car haven't changed, it still meets what I need and I've had no reliability issues at all with it, so there's absolutely no reason to change.
So it's getting a new seat of rear tyres this week, I haven't been able to get hold of Pilot Sport 4's so I'm going to try Eagle F1 Asymmetric 5's. It's also due an oil and filter change to that'll be happening shortly.
Then I think once the decent weather comes back, I'm going to look at getting a spare rear subframe and diff and polybushing it up, and building up an LSD then I'll swap it all in. I'd like to look at some decent suspension so probably a set of KW coilovers or something similar, perhaps the underbody brace and M4 lower control arms.
Marc at Williams Performance is also looking at sorting out an inline fuel flex sensor for accurate ethanol content monitoring, and I may look at full 3.5/4" exhaust system, then turn everything up a bit, at the moment the turbo is just ticking over really.
Glenn63 said:
Im assuming that’s average and can get a lot more on a long run as even my old 6.2 c63 could manage 30mpg on a long motorway haul.
Plus the fact a 2lt 4 pot will be more highly tuned to make the same power. My old 2.5 sti was abysmal on fuel for a measly 340bhp!
Thing is, 30mpg on a run is one thing with a V8, but having ran a fair few V8’s in the past, you get nothing like that round the doors at all. It’s one thing ticking over at low revs for a long time, but generally they’re predictably appalling on fuel, which is acceptable as they sound incredible Plus the fact a 2lt 4 pot will be more highly tuned to make the same power. My old 2.5 sti was abysmal on fuel for a measly 340bhp!
My car used to do 50+ easily on a motorway cruise, however it won’t do anything like that now. That said, the fuelling system is obviously changed, it’s got a completely different turbo and map on it, and it’s making almost twice the factory power, so 27-28mpg on a run is still pretty acceptable in my eyes.
culpz said:
It's absolutely staggering how good these cars are on fuel for their engine set-up and power. 27 MPG is what my dad's currently getting out of his M240i, which is exactly the same as what I'm getting in my Cupra 290. Quite how a 3-litre 6-cylinder can be as fuel efficient as a 2.0 4-pot is simply astonishing!
Yeah they’re really very good. The combination of coasting in eco pro and the ZF8 being so well set up in the car makes it a real gem.Stock they’re unbelievably efficient for what they are.
Ben Lowden said:
Can't quite get my head around how bonkers this must be – 600bhp in a family hatchback! Apologies if you're repeating yourself here but:
Is this still on standard internals and am I right in thinking you're still using the standard diff? Did you consider a manual when you bought the car or do you ever find yourself wanting for one at all?
Hey Ben,Is this still on standard internals and am I right in thinking you're still using the standard diff? Did you consider a manual when you bought the car or do you ever find yourself wanting for one at all?
Yeah so the engine is completely standard internally. They have a forged crank from the factory and the rods and pistons are also forged, however the pistons seem the weakest point and some have cracked on builds around 800hp in the US.
The block is a closed deck design and the bottom end has a girdle plate built in so they seem to be really really strong as a motor.
Mine is on the standard open LSD, the traction control does a decent job of keeping it in check and it doesn’t seem to have any problems hooking up at all, as shown with the Dragy time.
I think I’ll be looking at an LSD this year, but more for being a hooligan than out of necessity.
The manual point is interesting.
I’ve driven 2 manual 140’s. I wouldn’t have considered it myself as I’m often sat in traffic / commuting with the mileage I do and I just can’t be chewed with a clutch in traffic any more if I’m honest. I drive the car in manual mode the majority of the time using the paddles and that’s a great compromise for me, the ZF will let you hit the limiter and won’t change up, it’s a great box.
Whereas I have to say, I’m not really a fan of the manual box at all, it’s a pretty typical BMW box, doesn’t massively like fast changes and has the clutch delay valve etc, although you could remove this.
The standard clutch also gives up at around 450bhp quite quickly, so you’d have to factor that in, the 550i clutch will go in as an upgrade.
The ZF8 in mine is still perfectly happy and is showing no signs of stress.
Time for a bit of an update.
There has been a bit of this:
Lots of this:
And generally it's continued to be very well behaved. What's the old saying? If it ain't broke....
Ah.
Best laid plans. I've been having an increasing drivetrain vibration which you can feel through the steering wheel, almost like a wheel balancing problem, except only under load. I had a look at the rubber donut bushes that connect the diff / propshaft / gearbox however they are in good order, so I decided to swap out the engine mounts for new OEM ones. What a hideous job that was.
That was the only photo I managed of that as the rest of the evening was spent hoping the crudely propped up engine support bar didn't fall off whilst we were wrestling the subframe down onto some wood and transmissions jacks to get the clearance to get the mounts out. The old ones didn't seem unduly worn, however changing them has been a revelation and it's back to it's silky smooth self. Time for a service whilst it was on the ramp...
Happily my oil filter came out without tearing itself to bits, a common B58 issue.
Whilst it was there, my pal offered to do a little exhaust modification and it seemed rude not too. So the middle section has now been modified, the centre resonator is still there, however the small middle silencer box has been cut open, wrapped up to make it straight through, and rewelded.
I was always happy with how the car sounded, but I'm like a kid at christmas now. It's got a more purposeful deep rasp to it than before and it really howls when you're further up the rev range, but by maintaining the centre resonator there's no drone on the motorway. It's perfect imo.
That left me in a dilemma. Here I am with a freshly serviced, refreshed and tinkered car that's been running the Pure800 hybrid turbo happily for a year at standard stage 2 boost, barely tickling along.
I've chatted more with Marc at Williams Performance about where to go and what to do with it, and we've now switched the car from BootMod3 software to MG Flasher, which has some nice trick features and custom code, but most importantly, is the platform that the new tuner wants to work with.
It's in the process of being mapped now by a guy in Florida who has been doing really well with the Mk5 Supra B58 Gen 2 platform. There are a number of differences between the Gen 1 and 2 platforms which we're in the process of working out, but it's looking really promising so far, and the wick is getting turned up.
Plenty of work to do on it yet before it's properly dialled in and making good times, but it's on the way. I've had my first EML and I'm having a bit of a mare with a fuel tank vent valve reporting a malfunction but it's getting changed out so hopefully that will sort that.
Sadly we're not ending on a high note, I was going out datalogging on Sunday and was bearing left out of a T-Junction, looking for traffic to my right. Because of this, I didn't see the grand canyon in front of me and promptly blew out both drivers side tyres spectacularly at 10mph ish. An expensive mistake as I'd not long put new tyres on it.
Still, luckily the wheels survived and there doesn't appear to have been any other damage. I also needed to align it anyway as the subframe has been off for the engine mounts and thankfully I hadn't done that yet, so that's a small bonus.
Thanks for reading all that if you made it to the end!
There has been a bit of this:
Lots of this:
And generally it's continued to be very well behaved. What's the old saying? If it ain't broke....
Ah.
Best laid plans. I've been having an increasing drivetrain vibration which you can feel through the steering wheel, almost like a wheel balancing problem, except only under load. I had a look at the rubber donut bushes that connect the diff / propshaft / gearbox however they are in good order, so I decided to swap out the engine mounts for new OEM ones. What a hideous job that was.
That was the only photo I managed of that as the rest of the evening was spent hoping the crudely propped up engine support bar didn't fall off whilst we were wrestling the subframe down onto some wood and transmissions jacks to get the clearance to get the mounts out. The old ones didn't seem unduly worn, however changing them has been a revelation and it's back to it's silky smooth self. Time for a service whilst it was on the ramp...
Happily my oil filter came out without tearing itself to bits, a common B58 issue.
Whilst it was there, my pal offered to do a little exhaust modification and it seemed rude not too. So the middle section has now been modified, the centre resonator is still there, however the small middle silencer box has been cut open, wrapped up to make it straight through, and rewelded.
I was always happy with how the car sounded, but I'm like a kid at christmas now. It's got a more purposeful deep rasp to it than before and it really howls when you're further up the rev range, but by maintaining the centre resonator there's no drone on the motorway. It's perfect imo.
That left me in a dilemma. Here I am with a freshly serviced, refreshed and tinkered car that's been running the Pure800 hybrid turbo happily for a year at standard stage 2 boost, barely tickling along.
I've chatted more with Marc at Williams Performance about where to go and what to do with it, and we've now switched the car from BootMod3 software to MG Flasher, which has some nice trick features and custom code, but most importantly, is the platform that the new tuner wants to work with.
It's in the process of being mapped now by a guy in Florida who has been doing really well with the Mk5 Supra B58 Gen 2 platform. There are a number of differences between the Gen 1 and 2 platforms which we're in the process of working out, but it's looking really promising so far, and the wick is getting turned up.
Plenty of work to do on it yet before it's properly dialled in and making good times, but it's on the way. I've had my first EML and I'm having a bit of a mare with a fuel tank vent valve reporting a malfunction but it's getting changed out so hopefully that will sort that.
Sadly we're not ending on a high note, I was going out datalogging on Sunday and was bearing left out of a T-Junction, looking for traffic to my right. Because of this, I didn't see the grand canyon in front of me and promptly blew out both drivers side tyres spectacularly at 10mph ish. An expensive mistake as I'd not long put new tyres on it.
Still, luckily the wheels survived and there doesn't appear to have been any other damage. I also needed to align it anyway as the subframe has been off for the engine mounts and thankfully I hadn't done that yet, so that's a small bonus.
Thanks for reading all that if you made it to the end!
p1stonhead said:
800bhp on the dials?!
Surely not! That’s absurd
It's optimism at it's finest haha. To be fair, the sports dials are a bit of a gimmick, they're not an accurate representation of what's going on, they're basically more of a "throttle position / load" dial with "hp / torque" on them to look sporty. Surely not! That’s absurd
That said, previously I've been running around 20psi of boost and very conservative timing, and I've seen 28psi so far on this new tune. It's definitely more lively. I'll also be getting an E30 version of the tune which should make more power again.
It's a very silly little car, but it's very good fun.
EffBee said:
Great thread mate and lovely car... really not helpful to my modding itch though 
How do you find the Goodyear’s? I want a set of 235/40/18 front and 265/35/18 rears for my Apex’s but there isn’t a huge amount of options available (Eagle F1 Asy 5 or PS4).
Is there much less dry grip than the PSS? I just assumed you could get a PSS in 265, but evidently not! Going to run winter/all seasons on the original wheels so low temp traction not as much of a concern, hence why I’d have liked the PSS - may drop down to a 255 if there’s a lot more traction than the F1.
So....How do you find the Goodyear’s? I want a set of 235/40/18 front and 265/35/18 rears for my Apex’s but there isn’t a huge amount of options available (Eagle F1 Asy 5 or PS4).
Is there much less dry grip than the PSS? I just assumed you could get a PSS in 265, but evidently not! Going to run winter/all seasons on the original wheels so low temp traction not as much of a concern, hence why I’d have liked the PSS - may drop down to a 255 if there’s a lot more traction than the F1.
This will be controversial I think as a lot of people really rate the Eagle F1 Assy5's, however I just can't get on with them at all. No matter what pressure's I try, under hard acceleration in a straight line, the car feels like it's constantly shifting laterally a few inches, to the point where you feel you almost need to correct it, but it sorts itself and shifts the other way, it's pretty un-nerving and not a problem I had with the Pilot Sport 4's I've been running. The general grip seems ok, they're wearing reasonably, the wet grip is fine, but I won't be fitting any more, I'll be going straight back to PS4's as soon as possible.
Court_S said:
That’s a pisser about the tyres. Did you manage to claim anything back from the council? 100mm is a fair old depth.
Any vids of the exhaust? I’d like to do something about mine this year (want to leave the res in place).
I haven't heard anything yet, but the pothole was filled in the next day haha.Any vids of the exhaust? I’d like to do something about mine this year (want to leave the res in place).
I'll sort some videos out of the exhaust today and upload to YouTube, I'll post them here tonight. I would say as usual, the camera doesn't really reflect the true noise as it were, I'd completely recommend getting the front box mod done, leaving the res in place and running the MPE back box, the sound is perfect for me.
Zombie said:
Claiming for the damage from the Council is fair enough but I'd hope everyone understands that is is tory austerity and chronic underinvestment in council services that is to blame for the state of our roads.
With the greatest of respect, there is a sub forum for politics discussion and I think this is better off being tackled across there.Zombie said:
I think the ZF8 is the (not so) secret to that.
Absolutely. I'm planning to swap my ZF8HP50 out this year for another ZF8, the HP70 from the 30/35d cars. This can handle much more torque as I'm pretty much on the limit of my box. I've been out in a car that has had the swap and xHP do a map for the HP70/B58 combo and it's absolutely incredible. Shifts noticeably faster than mine does, its pretty much DCT and I thought mine was close.Videos as mentioned earlier, I’ve got a one of a few gentle revs:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Lo_ItcVPnog?feature=sha...
And a takeoff. It’s fairly pedestrian but I don’t launch the car hard anymore at the power it’s at as it’s not really what the cars about, and there’s plenty of cars in the states snapping shafts or twisting the prop once you get to the 550whp mark.
https://youtube.com/shorts/If2utZ7vQLQ?feature=sha...
https://youtube.com/shorts/Lo_ItcVPnog?feature=sha...
And a takeoff. It’s fairly pedestrian but I don’t launch the car hard anymore at the power it’s at as it’s not really what the cars about, and there’s plenty of cars in the states snapping shafts or twisting the prop once you get to the 550whp mark.
https://youtube.com/shorts/If2utZ7vQLQ?feature=sha...
I was out and about today and ended up parked next to another PH'ers car, so I grabbed a quick photo and remembered I was probably due a thread update.
I don't know if we have a terrible parking award, but if we do I clearly won it today. In fairness I was only there 5 mins and the car park had hundreds of free spaces.
Bit of a frustrating period with the 140 lately however things appear to be on the straight and narrow again, and it's been entirely my own doing, not the cars fault or any components.
At the start of May, took the plunge and went for the upgrade I'd mentioned previously. Out came the trusty old ZF8HP50 which has put up with far more abuse than it expected in 70k miles since it left the factory. I should mention, although when checking the clutch values with ISTA / xHP they are clearly showing a reasonable amount of wear and the quickcharge times have increased, the box was showing absolutely no issues at all, shifted great and was producing no TCU error codes or any symptoms of problems. It's operating outside of it's manufacturer stated limits and has been for some time, so they're a great strong box imo.
Here we are having pulled it out:
Another big shout out to Marc at Williams Performance here, because we ended up with an absolute head melter of an issue after this swap that took around a month to resolve and he was an utter hero throughout, quite a few late nights / early mornings have been endured.
We dropped in the shiny new (to me) ZF8HP70:
Physically for this swap to work, you need an N57 330d flywheel and torque converter, so those parts went in too:
Once the necessary coding was done so the car understood it had the HP70 and was "allowed" to have it, I flashed it with xHP's Stage 3 TCU map. They have a specific software map for this box in the M140i which is super helpful.
And then pretty much it all went wrong
Test driving the car showed immediately that there was a rather horrendous contact / rubbing / grinding noise, but only when turning right under throttle. It wasn't apparent just coasting right, and even under power turning left it would disappear. The box changed perfectly, launched fine, showed no TCU errors, clutch values were all brilliant. ISTA gave no clues to any issues, and the car drove fine apart from this awful throbbing, which sounded like it was coming from the passenger footwell.
The problem we had was that there was absolutely no sign of anything under the car having contact marks of tell tale signs of rubbing / knocking etc. When fitting the torque converter one of the tabs that bolts it to the flywheel was slightly bent from shipping, and we'd straightened this out, but Marc wondered if the torque converter could be faulty as we were struggling at this point to think what it could be, so the box came out again and I acquired another torque converter which was in perfect condition and we fitted that.
The noise was identical, so that sucked as it's a fair old job to take the box in and out.
Over the next few weeks we carried out the following:
Checked subframe bolts and engine mounts in case anything loose (have to tip engine on mounts during box removal)
Serviced Gearbox
Serviced Diff
Replaced both propshaft guibo donut joints
Replaced propshaft centre bearing
Replaced gearbox support mount
Checked all exhaust hangers and downpipe bolts etc
Along with removing all undertrays and continuing to test the car and try to narrow down the noise. Eventually we both agreed there was a chance the box could have some sort of bizarre internal fault as it is a 2nd hand unit.
Cue yet another late night and gearbox swap. The car rolled off the ramp at 12:40am on a Friday night / Saturday morning and I excitedly took it for a test drive. Whereupon the noise immediately reappeared exactly as before. Baffled, gutted and annoyed.
I then just drove it for a few days out of frustration, hoping it would either get worse or better but hopefully give some sort of clue as to what the problem was.
By fluke, Marc happened to be doing another swap and ended up fitting the gearbox support mount to the gearbox on this particular car in it's two seperate parts. Normally it's easiest to bolt the bracket together in one piece on the floor, chuck it on the box and then just bolt it to the car when the box is lifted up into place.
When he was bolting the two parts of the mount up, he found that with a breaker bar on the bolts, it was possible to shift the gearbox just enough on it's mounts so that the edge of the gearbox casting JUST touches it's own mount. Sigh.
It was literally JUST touching too. 350 miles in on my car, and it had only just made this tiny little mark when I removed my mount again to check it.
30 seconds with a flap wheel on the grinder to take 4mm off the mount and box casting and the noise is completely gone and the car is fine. Talk about a ball ache. However I'm delighted it's sorted, just one of those things. It was the rear left of the box that was touching, so I suspect the lateral force of the car turning right along with the twist on the mounts in the driveline under power was just enough to make it touch and cause the knocking.
Now that that's sorted, it's brilliant and I've had a chance to give the new box a bit of a shakedown. Changes are brutally quick with the xHP map, and the box should take up to sort of 1100/1200nm on the xHP map with their line pressure bump according to them, so I shouldn't need to worry about the box again going forwards.
From the factory the M140/HP50 has these black rubber guibo donuts at both the diff and gearbox end of the prop:
I've replaced these with tougher stiffer items that are supplied to the gearbox end of the HP70, however I've replaced the diff end one on mine also. This has noticeably taken some of the slack out of the driveline and sharpened the feel of the car up.
To celebrate it being in rude health again, I've had full screen CarPlay coded to the car too. Standard CarPlay only utilises 2/3 of the pro nav screen for some ridiculous reason which is infuriating, so this is much nicer to use and look at:
It's also had a bath and I've adjusted / tightened up the handbrake mechanism:
Tuning wise, the guy in Florida didn't work out. He was clearly too busy and thinly spread and the waiting between tune revisions / progress was too frustrating so I called it a day and I've since been tuning the car with a guy called Kirill Olyabiev (ODINTuned) from Russia. He seems to be a total wizard with the B58 platform and my pump fuel map is just about complete. The car feels phenomenally strong now and is making 28psi of boost peak.
In the next few weeks hopefully we'll get an E30 ethanol version of the map completed too. At that point I'll head back to the dyno and see what the car does in comparison to last time. It's not ideal for tuning at the moment though as the ambient temps are so high.
If you made it to the end of that marathon thanks for your interest!
I don't know if we have a terrible parking award, but if we do I clearly won it today. In fairness I was only there 5 mins and the car park had hundreds of free spaces.
Bit of a frustrating period with the 140 lately however things appear to be on the straight and narrow again, and it's been entirely my own doing, not the cars fault or any components.
At the start of May, took the plunge and went for the upgrade I'd mentioned previously. Out came the trusty old ZF8HP50 which has put up with far more abuse than it expected in 70k miles since it left the factory. I should mention, although when checking the clutch values with ISTA / xHP they are clearly showing a reasonable amount of wear and the quickcharge times have increased, the box was showing absolutely no issues at all, shifted great and was producing no TCU error codes or any symptoms of problems. It's operating outside of it's manufacturer stated limits and has been for some time, so they're a great strong box imo.
Here we are having pulled it out:
Another big shout out to Marc at Williams Performance here, because we ended up with an absolute head melter of an issue after this swap that took around a month to resolve and he was an utter hero throughout, quite a few late nights / early mornings have been endured.
We dropped in the shiny new (to me) ZF8HP70:
Physically for this swap to work, you need an N57 330d flywheel and torque converter, so those parts went in too:
Once the necessary coding was done so the car understood it had the HP70 and was "allowed" to have it, I flashed it with xHP's Stage 3 TCU map. They have a specific software map for this box in the M140i which is super helpful.
And then pretty much it all went wrong
Test driving the car showed immediately that there was a rather horrendous contact / rubbing / grinding noise, but only when turning right under throttle. It wasn't apparent just coasting right, and even under power turning left it would disappear. The box changed perfectly, launched fine, showed no TCU errors, clutch values were all brilliant. ISTA gave no clues to any issues, and the car drove fine apart from this awful throbbing, which sounded like it was coming from the passenger footwell.
The problem we had was that there was absolutely no sign of anything under the car having contact marks of tell tale signs of rubbing / knocking etc. When fitting the torque converter one of the tabs that bolts it to the flywheel was slightly bent from shipping, and we'd straightened this out, but Marc wondered if the torque converter could be faulty as we were struggling at this point to think what it could be, so the box came out again and I acquired another torque converter which was in perfect condition and we fitted that.
The noise was identical, so that sucked as it's a fair old job to take the box in and out.
Over the next few weeks we carried out the following:
Checked subframe bolts and engine mounts in case anything loose (have to tip engine on mounts during box removal)
Serviced Gearbox
Serviced Diff
Replaced both propshaft guibo donut joints
Replaced propshaft centre bearing
Replaced gearbox support mount
Checked all exhaust hangers and downpipe bolts etc
Along with removing all undertrays and continuing to test the car and try to narrow down the noise. Eventually we both agreed there was a chance the box could have some sort of bizarre internal fault as it is a 2nd hand unit.
Cue yet another late night and gearbox swap. The car rolled off the ramp at 12:40am on a Friday night / Saturday morning and I excitedly took it for a test drive. Whereupon the noise immediately reappeared exactly as before. Baffled, gutted and annoyed.
I then just drove it for a few days out of frustration, hoping it would either get worse or better but hopefully give some sort of clue as to what the problem was.
By fluke, Marc happened to be doing another swap and ended up fitting the gearbox support mount to the gearbox on this particular car in it's two seperate parts. Normally it's easiest to bolt the bracket together in one piece on the floor, chuck it on the box and then just bolt it to the car when the box is lifted up into place.
When he was bolting the two parts of the mount up, he found that with a breaker bar on the bolts, it was possible to shift the gearbox just enough on it's mounts so that the edge of the gearbox casting JUST touches it's own mount. Sigh.
It was literally JUST touching too. 350 miles in on my car, and it had only just made this tiny little mark when I removed my mount again to check it.
30 seconds with a flap wheel on the grinder to take 4mm off the mount and box casting and the noise is completely gone and the car is fine. Talk about a ball ache. However I'm delighted it's sorted, just one of those things. It was the rear left of the box that was touching, so I suspect the lateral force of the car turning right along with the twist on the mounts in the driveline under power was just enough to make it touch and cause the knocking.
Now that that's sorted, it's brilliant and I've had a chance to give the new box a bit of a shakedown. Changes are brutally quick with the xHP map, and the box should take up to sort of 1100/1200nm on the xHP map with their line pressure bump according to them, so I shouldn't need to worry about the box again going forwards.
From the factory the M140/HP50 has these black rubber guibo donuts at both the diff and gearbox end of the prop:
I've replaced these with tougher stiffer items that are supplied to the gearbox end of the HP70, however I've replaced the diff end one on mine also. This has noticeably taken some of the slack out of the driveline and sharpened the feel of the car up.
To celebrate it being in rude health again, I've had full screen CarPlay coded to the car too. Standard CarPlay only utilises 2/3 of the pro nav screen for some ridiculous reason which is infuriating, so this is much nicer to use and look at:
It's also had a bath and I've adjusted / tightened up the handbrake mechanism:
Tuning wise, the guy in Florida didn't work out. He was clearly too busy and thinly spread and the waiting between tune revisions / progress was too frustrating so I called it a day and I've since been tuning the car with a guy called Kirill Olyabiev (ODINTuned) from Russia. He seems to be a total wizard with the B58 platform and my pump fuel map is just about complete. The car feels phenomenally strong now and is making 28psi of boost peak.
In the next few weeks hopefully we'll get an E30 ethanol version of the map completed too. At that point I'll head back to the dyno and see what the car does in comparison to last time. It's not ideal for tuning at the moment though as the ambient temps are so high.
If you made it to the end of that marathon thanks for your interest!
toon10 said:
Ah the Mrs had the car out today. I'm WFH so my motorway cruiser sits on the drive most of the week then she takes it out for shopping! Bit of a waste and I often thought I should have kept the mineral grey 3 door M135i! Sounds like you've had a busy time with your 140. Some impressive work done on your car now. Can't imagine how quick it will get down the road.
She picked the best space in the car park for avoiding car park dings, I love that one Cheers mate, it's a doing a great job of ensuring I never have enough money to develop a drug or gambling habit
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