E30 Zone

The new manifold on the zone shop has been tested on a 325i @ WRC Technologies in Silverstone.

Totallt stock car before 6 branch made 167 bhp which is about right

ONly 6 branch was added and it made a staggering 185 BHP.

Thats + 18 BHP!!

I spoke to Andrew (Demlotcrew) about this and we think its very probable that this was achieved. Andrew did point out that different dyno runs can give +/- 3 bhp easily but we can comfortably say its +15 BHP.

Graphs will be posted up tommorrow.

Heres the manifold in question:

Not too shabby, but I'll stick with my header. I think they are nicer looking

Good work Sal

It looks well designed and well put together

Cheers,

Ian.

Thanks guys!

Wouldnt mind seeing your manifold jordan.

Heres a dyno graph of the test before and after.
Red lines are before and blue are after.

Studying the curves its very clear that without remapping there is a torque and slight power loss under 3400rpm.

This manifold would work even better on 2.7's.

That is top work sal.

A proper figure, and a good figure at that, with proof to back it up.

Nice work

when you stick a chip, cams, etc on do they tend to cancel each other out a bit sal? i only ask cos of that guy who posted recently and had got 189hp, he had a 6-branch too right? (are the power differences between different 6-branches big? i mean, they all work on the same principle...and they all look similar to the untrained - i.e. my - eye!)

That 189 bhp car was done by me for nadz325i.

That uses the older style of manifold. There is no cancelling out of performance parts against each other.

This manifold is a totally different kettle of fish to any other bar Racing Dynamics.

I am looking forward to the next customer who wants the full 2.5 package, I will be using this new manifold with Schrick 284/272 cam, ITG induction and MAF conversion. In theory we should hit 200bhp if the standard engine is giving good power to start with.

There are also some current big power 2.7 owners who are wanting to add this manifold to really release the full potential of the M20.

15-18 bhp bolt on performance is something Ive been wanting to offer for ages, it makes it so easy.

If you can get a genuine 200, driveable horses out of an m20 that will be sweeeeet as. Especially wrapped up in a "200bhp package" everything included.

that is amazin. very good work mate and proof to back it all up. i'm now tempted

M5pilot wrote:Thanks guys!

Wouldnt mind seeing your manifold jordan.

You have PM, don't want to disturb the thread.

wicked Sal

i look forward to seeing the results sal forgive me for being apprehensive, it's just the e30's had 20 years for someone to get 200hp out of the 2.5 for [relative] pennies, so it's tough to believe

Ive alredy got 190 bhp out of a 2.5 so 200 is something I think is well achieveable and retain good drivability which the 190bhp car has lots of.

Jordan wrote:Not too shabby, but I'll stick with my header. I think they are nicer looking

cant argue with that except we have right hand drive cars so the manifolds tend to be a bit different to allow for the rack
someone correct me if im wrong

top job with these manifolds sal

if you can get 200hp out of a 2.5 for say Ԛ£3k it might tempt me to get one in january

let us know! whack a chip, cams, whatever on this other car that got 185hp...

If your current engine puts out good power then I'm pretty sure this can be achieved.

I will be trying it on my own stock 325i in Jan/Feb assuming my engine puts down good power to start with.

The graph says the runs were done in 3rd gear, is this a typo error because I thought dyno runs were always conducted in 4th?

Looks like a great increase Sal and a well made bit of kit. This is the sort of thing we need, new products with graphs to prove their capabilities. A job very well done.

On a separate note, does WRC do remaps? Say for a unichip for example

bloody good work sal! just need one for a four pot IS now !!

merry xmas y'all

isnt 200 bhp pretty easy to achieve since your starting at around 170 anyway, especially for around Ԛ£3000 ,unless your counting the cost of buying the car as well,moofles? whats the expected price for this quality manifold? its given you an 18bhp increase but you said theres a +/- of 3bhp so it could really be 21bhp

Interesting stuff, must admit that personally i find it quite hard to believe that the standard manifold is so poorly designed that it strangles 10% of the power of the engine away from it, must be one of the worst manifolds ever made if thats the case, god knows what BMW were thinking of at the time!!

sorry to piss on the fire a bit,but a full race spec 2.5 which u couldn't drive on the road made 250bhp back in the day!

they are after all only 2 valves per cylinder so we are limited somewhat!

I would be surprised if u could get 200bhp from a 2.5 without using something silly like a 288/288 cam which would be shocking below 3k rpm. I expect u would want very tasty pistons and a comp ratio up at 11:1

Simon13, i dont see that at all TBH, you only need to move the standard torque curve up the rev range 1000rpm and you are there with 200bhp.

Some hotter cams, a grinder to the valve throats and ports, and a decent exhaust and some decent management should see you there quite easily IMHO on a freshly built engine if its mapped for 97 octane, its hardly rockect science even with only 12 valves!

ah u are an expert are we?

I've never seen nor heard of a 2.5 with 200bhp. Even Alpina and Hartge never managed it. Go and do it then and prove me wrong! but i doubt u will

Why do all this to a 2.5 when u can go 2.7 and end up with maybe 220bhp and more torque? the difference between 2.5 and 2.7's in good tune is like night and day if u ask me.

these engines have been notoriously difficult to get extra power out of, that's the problem...

fair play to anyone who thinks 200hp is achievable easily (the Ԛ£3k was the modding budget fuzzy) i just wanna see it done first!

i didnt realise they were so hard and costly to tune....im glad ive went the direction i have then but surely if 18bhp can be gained by a manifold alone then the usual things like cams ,chip,induction kit would take you to around the 200bhp mark? i know nothing about these engines though so im not trying to make any wild claims

yeah you deffo went the right route if you want more power in the future too, i think

Simon13 wrote:ah u are an expert are we?

I've never seen nor heard of a 2.5 with 200bhp. Even Alpina and Hartge never managed it. Go and do it then and prove me wrong! but i doubt u will

Why do all this to a 2.5 when u can go 2.7 and end up with maybe 220bhp and more torque? the difference between 2.5 and 2.7's in good tune is like night and day if u ask me.

dude 0.2 litre is not worth 20bhp

a 2.5 will make 200bhp with the right bits imo

if they got 250bhp out of a race engine, it wont take over a 50bhp drop to make it driveable

Simon13 wrote:ah u are an expert are we?

I've never seen nor heard of a 2.5 with 200bhp. Even Alpina and Hartge never managed it. Go and do it then and prove me wrong! but i doubt u will

Why do all this to a 2.5 when u can go 2.7 and end up with maybe 220bhp and more torque? the difference between 2.5 and 2.7's in good tune is like night and day if u ask me.

Power is far more a product of the breathing limit of the head than the size of the bottom end generally, smaller CC plus extra rpm will normally yield approximately the same power, so if 220 is so easy on a 2.7 then getting over 200 on a 2.5 shouldnt be an issue.
But you are right, im NOT an expert on these old lumps and TBH i never will be, although i do know a very large amount about tuning engins in general (ive had 5 port mini engines with the sort of bhp per litre that you would need for 200bhp from 2.5 so im damn sure i could get it with 2 ports per cylinder!!!) but personally i view a big heavy lump of iron with a fundamentally asthmatic head on it a complete waste of time from a tuning point of view and would sooner drop in a 200bhp N/A 4 cylinder vauxhall engine and save myself about 30kg into the bargain!


Getting the power is NOT going to difficult, its just going to be pointless IMHO, and BMW obviously felt the same way to throw the rubishy M20 6 cylinder in the bin for the M3 E30

Jhonno wrote:

Simon13 wrote:ah u are an expert are we?

I've never seen nor heard of a 2.5 with 200bhp. Even Alpina and Hartge never managed it. Go and do it then and prove me wrong! but i doubt u will

Why do all this to a 2.5 when u can go 2.7 and end up with maybe 220bhp and more torque? the difference between 2.5 and 2.7's in good tune is like night and day if u ask me.

dude 0.2 litre is not worth 20bhp

a 2.5 will make 200bhp with the right bits imo

if they got 250bhp out of a race engine, it wont take over a 50bhp drop to make it driveable

Ah thank god for that, there are some people on here who actually understand how engines make power then and realise that an extra .2 litres on the same head and cams will do nothing other than drag the bhp down the rev range a little, i was beginning to think i was the only one on here who's ever actually played with engines much, LOL

That manifold is a beaut.
Good to see a dyno print out too - the std manifold is a pretty nasty bit of work.

I see no reason why you can't acheive 200BHP with the 2.5 engine. Not that it would be a particularly good idea.

I dont see why a 200 bhp 2.5 would be no good as some people may think.

Remember, 190bhp was achieved using:

284/272 cam
BTB previous generation 6 branch
Big Bore throttle Body
ITG induction Kit
MAF Conversion (includes full remap)

The car is superbly driveable throughout the rev range.

I know for a fact that head porting works well with bigger valves + I am going to use the new 6 branch.

Idle will be only very very slightly lumpy, there will be a small loss of torque under 3000 rpm but after that its much much better than standard.

Remember, we dont stay under 3000rpm on these cars as the gearing is so damn low anyway!

What's the crack

I'm used to minis where an increase of 30% is easily plausible over stanard.

I can't imagine that ANY manufacturer would produce a motor that couldn't be improved upon with relative ease. They are more concerned with longegevity after all.

I've seen big increases on my e28 528 from reltively minor mods

Mini heads are so bad you can get 20% more power with just a die grinder, i doubt that the same is true on the M20, but i dare say there are some gains to be had, especially fruther up in the rev range.

200bhp should be a pretty reasonable request from such a big engine, if people arent getting that with cams + head mods and a stand alone management system then they are doing something wrong IMHO

OR is everyone just playing with bolt on tat?

the m20 2.5 engine is a pain in the arse to get power out of it. Thats why hartge,alpina went 2.7 as it produced much better results

The standard 2.5 lump is set up for economy big time. Particulary the head. The cam is as flat as a witches tit. But yes the engine was tamed for insurance ratings like E36's 323's and 328's

Alpina never used a cam as wild as that Sal! It was 264 over the standard 252 duration.

If the stuff was there to get good results out of the 2.5 i'm sure i would of gone down this route somewhat, but reading and driving other cars etc has shown otherwise imo