M52B28 power run

[ste]

I took Friday off work to go for a remap at Circuit Motors in Wiltshire. Without going into the specifics yet it didn't get done. I don't want to say more yet as hopefully things will get sorted out in due course. What I will say if that Paul at Circuit Motors is a good guy. I'm very picky about who works on my car but had no fears about him operating on her.

In the meantime I did manage to get a good amount of power runs done and I think the higher flow fuel pump is doing it's job, backing up what I noticed at Santa Pod - i.e. more oomph.



I personally think that's good power for an essentially standard M52B28, albeit fot the M50 inlet manifold.

During the remap power seemed to be increasing well before we had to stop, I'm fairly confident a good gain is there to be had if I manage to return and get the remap sorted out.

[Simon13]

aren't you running some special small pulleys for the power steering etc

I think they are great engines with good low end shove and bhp locked up in them which you should hopefully find!
Going by my missus 2.8 Z3 which must weigh similar to an E30 they go rather well these lumps

[Andy335Touring]

I bit of a wavey torque plot but some good numbers there mate

[Theo]

Not that I really know much at all about dynoplots and the like, but you seem to have quite low transmission losses judging by the difference in WHP and EHP. When Paul did a power run on my turd last april it had 40 and then 46 hp losses on it's two runs. It did transpire that my gearbox didn't ANY oil in though!

[ste]

Simon - powersteering pump is standard as the kit was for an M52 and I ended up with an S50 powersteering pump on - my waterpump pulley is an underdrive one but how much benefit it gives I don't know.

Very wavey torque plot Andy - it's what a hope the remap addresses.

Not that I really know much at all about dynoplots and the like, but you seem to have quite low transmission losses judging by the difference in WHP and EHP. When Paul did a power run on my turd last april it had 40 and then 46 hp losses on it's two runs. It did transpire that my gearbox didn't ANY oil in though!

Pretty much everything under mine is brand new - down to the prop bearings etc plus box/diff etc has brand new oil - all little things but I reckon they help.

[oakey]

Nice figures ste.

[snoops]

some nice figures there, very similar figures to oakeys 2.7? so when are you and oakey going head to head

[ShepsEvo3]

Not that I really know much at all about dynoplots and the like, but you seem to have quite low transmission losses judging by the difference in WHP and EHP. When Paul did a power run on my turd last april it had 40 and then 46 hp losses on it's two runs. It did transpire that my gearbox didn't ANY oil in though!

Theo, when you were here our dyno was litterally less than a week old. The dyno was still tight and hence high losses were measured. Now the dyno has seen alot more work, power at the wheels have increased. Power at the flywheel will be the same if nothing has changed

Ste, it was nice to meet you and as you saw we had great gains while live mapping your car with your old Unichip but there was a hitch with it which stopped further progress. Fingures crossed we will find a solution to the hitch over the next couple of days and reassure you with what the Unichip and your M52B28 is capable of.

The torque curve is a little wavey, but this is seen or highlighted on our dyno as the graph is autoscaled. If the torque started at zero and not 160 then the curve would be much smoother.

Also it was weird to see the lambda sensors were still working under full throttle upto 3500 rpm. This is very unusual as normally the lambda sensors are ignored by the ECU when full throttle is applied. The wavey and poor torque line upto 3500 is the lambda sensor still working and causing rapid adjustments in AFR's.

[ste]

Fingures crossed we will find a solution to the hitch over the next couple of days...

Yep, fingers crossed Paul.

[Andy325i]

Nice stuff Ste and Paul. I need to get my arse into gear and fit the OBD II stuff

Andy

[Theo]

Theo, when you were here our dyno was litterally less than a week old. The dyno was still tight and hence high losses were measured. Now the dyno has seen alot more work, power at the wheels have increased. Power at the flywheel will be the same if nothing has changed

Ahh right, well i'm toying with the idea of coming down for the April 19th action day, maybe we could see if theres interest in doing something like last year?

[jaistanley]

Nice work Ste.. Well done mate.

Like Sheps said.. If you set the base point of the torque curve as 0 the line would be more or less smoothe.. Too much info for our tiny E30Zone minds to assimilate from one graph perhaps... LOL It doesn't go below 160 lb/ft which is a lot of torque!

The power line is very smoothe and seeing as power is a fucntion of torque vs rpm, it can't be that bad! Only the dip at 2200 is really significant. Could that be due to the larger inlet plenum of the M50 vs the managements expectation of the m52 one (and your slightly altered exhaust manifold/exhaust), or would that already have been accounted for in your live mapping?

Chomping at the bit to get my S50 moving.. damn money!

[ShepsEvo3]

Theo, when you were here our dyno was litterally less than a week old. The dyno was still tight and hence high losses were measured. Now the dyno has seen alot more work, power at the wheels have increased. Power at the flywheel will be the same if nothing has changed

Ahh right, well i'm toying with the idea of coming down for the April 19th action day, maybe we could see if theres interest in doing something like last year?

Yes mate, thats a good idea, was thinking about putting up another dyno day for the E30Zone. Would love to see much more turbo and S50 stuff there this time though

[ShepsEvo3]

Could that be due to the larger inlet plenum of the M50 vs the managements expectation of the m52 one (and your slightly altered exhaust manifold/exhaust), or would that already have been accounted for in your live mapping?

Chomping at the bit to get my S50 moving.. damn money!

Get that S50 moving mate!

The larger inlet will make a difference to the amount of flow which is going into the engine. In theory the mas/maf sensor will sence the extra flow and adjust fueling and timing accordingly.. But in reality the compensation for the extra air flow isn't optimised by the ECU, hence you get dips and troffs in the torque curves. Incidently, you will see inperfections in tuning better in the torque curves.

I shan't say how i map a car, but it will be max'd - safely The dip in torque at 2000 rpm would probably dissappear once mapped properly.

[jaistanley]

I thought the extra volume in the two manifolds would have changed the resonace of the air in the tract ( in the same way as longer/shorter runners do). Perhaps an aniti-node is set up around that point whereby flow is reduced due to standing waves creating high pressure points at the inlet. Pretty sure mapping will eliminate it though..

I hope to have the S50 running around summer.. Need to do get a few bits and bobs (arp rod bolts, radiator, oil cooler, prop and exhaust mid section) sorted first and thats a money thing..

Can't wait to get it roaded.. Hopefully see the big 300bhp (at least) with the btb manifold. Will have to have a word with you about mapping it too when I do

[Jon_Bmw]

Nice One ste, proper car, proper power. perfect, although i'm curious to know what the hitch was.

I'd be up for that day Theo/Sheps. Bring the measly 205 down for a blast and dyno, do they allow slicks at castle coombe?

[suzie650]

And made a proper noise too, Ste!
I could hear you from behind camp corner!

Jon, slicks not allowed during track days as far as I'm aware. Official test days, though...

[ShepsEvo3]

I thought the extra volume in the two manifolds would have changed the resonace of the air in the tract ( in the same way as longer/shorter runners do). Perhaps an aniti-node is set up around that point whereby flow is reduced due to standing waves creating high pressure points at the inlet. Pretty sure mapping will eliminate it though..

I hope to have the S50 running around summer.. Need to do get a few bits and bobs (arp rod bolts, radiator, oil cooler, prop and exhaust mid section) sorted first and thats a money thing..

Can't wait to get it roaded.. Hopefully see the big 300bhp (at least) with the btb manifold. Will have to have a word with you about mapping it too when I do

Yes, the resonance does make a difference to the intake. Like shock waves and you do get pulsing inside the intake too.

We have an underpowered S50B30 we are trying to sort.. was 220 but now 275 with the Unichip. Its got an underlying problem with the engine itself and I rekon its in the valve gear/train area... valve clearances?

We have another giving 300+BHP and another giving 365+ but thats S/C'd. Another one is giving 340+, but it has raised CR with virtually no flywheel and its been ported, cammed with vanor removed, etc, etc. Was racing in Combes saloon car championship, but aint seen it for a year or so. Last I saw it was ex touring car guru Tony Lees has it. I got it running for him again lol. So 300 would be pretty easy

[Jhonno]

Interesting

Underpowered S50.. Checked timing? Valve clearances? If loose, valves wont be opening fully.. Compression check? VANOS still good?

340 bhp from the B30 sounds interesting What cams was it running do you know?

[Andyboy]

Are you running a Unichip on this?? If so....why? Ray at Westuning didn't have a problem getting 235 bhp or so from a 2.8 Compact. What does Unichip do that Motronic can't?

[ste]

The above run is on the standard Siemens - Moronic is nowhere near my car.

[Karan]

makes me wonder whether i should change the stock pump on my car for a wlabro or something?-however the afrs on my car were fine??

due u have afr graphs before and after the pump change ste?

[scotty86d]

Is the power dying at 6k due to std head and cams etc.

It must be entertaining at 3.5k

[ste]

Only have the ones after the pump Karan. To be honest the improvement may just be down to the old pump being 19 years old - it's entirely feasible a new standatd pump would have made a similar improvement. Having said that - the uprated one was cheaper than a standard BMW one.

Scotty, the standard cams in the M52B28 are very, very mild, I'm sure the brick wall at 6k is due to them, or at least I'm pretty confident some spikey cams would move the powerband higher and gain more power up there. Obviously the ports and valves aren't as large as an S50 so you'd only improve so far but people seem to gain good results just from fitting the US M3 cams into the M52 and they still aren't a very aggressive cam.

[Karan]

maybe worth sticking some cams in pre remap? would save mapping it twice lol, and would make it feel very very racey!

[ste]

True, but a supercharger install will require very different cams to a set of spikey ones for an N/A 'screamer'.

[Karan]

oh yes i forgot about that plan of yours..still im sure some cams wouldnt pose any problems with a charged engine? with these sr20det nissan engines cams usually have a great effect, but im sure thats prob to do with getting the turbos spinning which wouldnt really affect a super charger

[harry_p]

forced induction cams are usually quite different to n/a cams. on forced induction you want a lot of lift, but you don't really want any overlap or the pressure blows the mixture straight through the engine. on n/a you need overlap to use the momentum of the outward gasses to help pull in fresh stuff, which does tend to make fi cams more expensive as they need to be more 'spikey' which also means they need to be tougher so they don't wear out too soon.

however, a mild n/a cam just to open up the top end a little will usually still work fine, and give gains on a moderately boosted fi engine.

[Andyboy]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... 1&start=75

236 bhp on stock Motronic.....

Siemens MS40 is Motronic by any other name! If anything the Siemens ECU is better than the Bosch unit, more calcs per sec. So I'm wondering why on earth it has a Unichip when you already have one of the most tweakable managament systems on the planet?

[ste]

Andy, I have no idea what you're trying to get at. As far as I'm aware M52s all run on Siemens not Motronic, mine certainly does.

You're also referring to a remapped engine - mine is on the standard factory map and making 9bhp less than Ray West's legendary handiwork has managed. Even so, comparing the runs from different rolling roads on different days is a futile exercise concerning inconsequential figures.

I know about Ray's Work - Ian Haynes has just had his B32 mapped there and he's achieved great results. I could opt to take my car there and have it remapped by him but I chose not to for various reasons.

1) He doesn't use a rolling road for remapping, he takes the ECU out and maps it on the bench. He can do this because he has a lot of experience and a vast knowledge of what does and doesn't work. I'd personally prefer to see someone using a feedback loop and mapping the car live under load to really optimise things right up to the point of for instance det. For instance Sheps was using up to 11 degrees advance at some point and still gaining power, without the feedback I can't imagine anyone going that far. I also feel Ray's expertise and experience is with the S engines rather than a run-of-the-mill M52.

2) I intend to do further things to the car - getting a new map on my Eprom is great, but after further mods I'd be back to square 1 needing to revist and have him guess me some new maps. With a piggyback the install is still there and the map just needs tweaking.

My original intention was to go standalone, and after chatting to Dave Walker at the Autosport show last year I was led to believe the new K3 Emerald would be fine on my car. I phoned to order it last month and he then told me that despite assuming the on/off Vanos my car has would be controllable from his unit he still hadn't managed to finalise the development of that functionality. Short of going for a £4k Motec or similar I'm stuck with a piggyback it seems.

[reggid]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... 1&start=75

236 bhp on stock Motronic.....

Siemens MS40 is Motronic by any other name! If anything the Siemens ECU is better than the Bosch unit, more calcs per sec. So I'm wondering why on earth it has a Unichip when you already have one of the most tweakable managament systems on the planet?

but what do you need to to tweak it?

[ste]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... 1&start=75

236 bhp on stock Motronic.....

Siemens MS40 is Motronic by any other name! If anything the Siemens ECU is better than the Bosch unit, more calcs per sec. So I'm wondering why on earth it has a Unichip when you already have one of the most tweakable managament systems on the planet?

You've edited this post after I typed my reply - My car DOES NOT HAVE A UNICHIP. The graphs are from a run with the standard management not tweaked at all.

It may get a Unichip in the future as detailed above. ^

[ste]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... 1&start=75

236 bhp on stock Motronic.....

Siemens MS40 is Motronic by any other name! If anything the Siemens ECU is better than the Bosch unit, more calcs per sec. So I'm wondering why on earth it has a Unichip when you already have one of the most tweakable managament systems on the planet?

but what do you need to to tweak it?

A £10k Eprom reader/writer and a large brain, or about £700 a go from Ray West, and then £700 each time you change an engine component and need to have it remapped to optimise that change.

[harry_p]

stick a resistor in the wire from the coolant sensor

[reggid]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... 1&start=75

236 bhp on stock Motronic.....

Too bad the remapped dyno plot looks a bit suspect...........IT much larger than AT is suspect