318iS OIL & PLUGS

[satty]

Hi all,

on an 318iS m42, what type of oil does it take & what is the best brand to go for?

Also with spark plugs, is bosch platinum the best you can get for an iS, or are those denso iridium plugs any better?

cheers...[/quote]

[stuartgallafant]

castrol semi-synthetic 10w 40 is the oil BMW made the engine to use, however, I use Castrol 0w 35 fully synthetic in mine, it works fine

NGK plugs will be absolutely fine, the ones with the twin-tip...

hope that helps

[hoshy]

I've heard that mixing semi and fully synthetic oils is not good ??

[stuartgallafant]

you dont mix them... you drain one out and put the other in!!

[hoshy]

yeah but of course there's some residue. It's just I've heard it coagulates and can block things like spray bars.

btw see my LSD thread for a link to somewhere that you might be able to organise a diff. Doesn't state that he has a 4.27 on the site but he might have one in stock or be able to build you one.

[mash320i]

it will be fine to just drain it and change the filter the residue wont make any difference!

ash

[kevin316i]

Make sure you drain the oil when its warm (not hot in case you scale yourself) and leave the drain pan there for a while and you should very practically all of the oil out.

I use Duckhams 10W40 semi-synthetic in my iS and runs fine on it. Everyone has their preference wrt oil, so you probably won't get a simple answer to your question. My local BMW dealer stocks Denso plugs and the car runs fine on them. Don't know which ones they sell me though, I just ask them for plugs and they give me the appropriate Denso ones.

[Cava]

Just to add on the spark plug subject - the items you'll get from a bmw main dealer are the same NGK items you can buy from halfords. The only difference is that they have a BMW and NGK logo on the plug (they even work out to be about the same price).

[Templ8e30]

I've always used the Bosch yytrium jobs in the wife's M42, seem to work pretty well and only £10 a set from GSF.

Oil wise I have started getting Motul 8100 xcess fully synthetic 5w40 £30 from the oilman www.opieoils.co.uk, again seems to be really good gear for the price.

Cheers,

Iain T

[satty]

cheers guys for your input.

Now, to gain more BHP, is gas flowing the head a good place to start?

i was also thinking of a superchip and sports cams, but whts the best way to get more power frm the good old M42?

cheers again

[ShepsEvo3]

The 318is always responds VERY well to a chip. The zone chips I have heard are great, but I personally have had no experiance of them. I have however had plenty experiance with the Unichip which always works great. But these are mapped live on a rolling road to ensure you have the very best out of your car. Results depend on what money you have to spend, The Unichip ensures the very best, but it may only give about another 5 or so BHP over a zone or superchip, so may not be worth it if you are short of the old cash??

[satty]

hi,

the isn't too much of an issue, i knw tht superchips charge £300 for their chip fitted, which adds 8 bhp. However, ive heard tht an M42 chip isn't tht straight forward, bcoz BMW used 3 diff types of ecu's when developing the car, so the chips are very specific, and all these manufacturers making chips for the M42, are just 1 generic type, tht aren't very well optimised for the M42. Have you heard about this problem b4?

thanks

also, whts your view on the cams and head gas flowing??

[ShepsEvo3]

I think cams and gasflowing is a good idea, but the gasflowing should be done by someone who knows what tey are doing.

If you are going for that route I would recommend the Unichip. If Superchips are quoting 8BHP I can assure you that realistically the ultimate gain will not be anything more than standard. They would have just removed some flatspots.

I have seen much better gains the the Unichip. But thats £450+vat fitted and mapped.

Get what you want done to the engine first, then have it re-mapped.

[stuartgallafant]

talk to kos about a live remap. you're right about the generic chips

cams, you're looking at £500 AT LEAST, gas-flowing, etc, you're looking at another monkey, IF you can find someone that wants to do the work

M42's are great engines, but they cost to 'work' coz they're not as popular

[iDreamBeemer]

If the car is still standard you can get quite a gain from having the timing chain fiddled with. I forgot the correct term but the m42 was detuned and can manage 150bhp+ from having the timing changed. I'll need to double check with Randomdave but there were a bunch that did a Rolling Road at Fritz's Bits near Wellington. That showed a bunch that were putting out 153-157 bhp (at the flywheel). So you can get some decent gains before you go anywhere near a live remap or gas flowing etc.

Cold air intake will be on the next for me to try again should be a couple bhp and it should be only a few £Â£s