M50 Tuning

[MickyDojoh]

Without going FI whats the best way to squeeze power out of a 2.5 m50? Would megasquirt make a diffrence? And does anyone know anything about s50 cams? And again would ms be able to control this

Cheers
Mick

[appletree]

If its a VANOS engine then i dont think MS would be able to contorl it.

[BIGJO]

When was the Vanos introduced in the M50 range? Facelift?

I'd be interested in how you could increase the bhp on an M50.


Kind regards

[DanThe]

I believe there are E36 owners out there that are using MS on their Vanos engines with no troubles

S50 cams no
US S52 cams yes!

Chips are good for 10hp or so
M20 flywheel makes a noticeable difference

M52B28 crank

[MickyDojoh]

Its non vanos. Im just looking for the easiest way to squeeze some power out of it tbh

[e21Jason]

Hi

Cams, exhuast, intake, chip or standalone.

Cams can be done with engine in car

Jason

[jaffro]

whats the deal with vanos & non vanos which is the best to have??

[n1tr0_9]

Wikipedia is pretty good for a description of vanos systems. Plus there is post on it, think its in the m50 engine conversion sticky.

[DanThe]

I will be tweaking the standard intake cam timing on mine pretty soon, seen quite a few posts on various forums about doing it, no results posts though.
Just want to get my other car on the road first so I dont shoot myself in the foot

[M5pilot]

You don't need standalone on an engine like this. There is nothing to gain by going standalone. The resolution of the OE ECU is more than enough.

You can get the same gains and probably alot better driveability with alot less effort from a Uni-Q setup fully mapped on the dyno.

Most chips on the market will probably gain you nothing and just add loads of fuel.

[MickyDojoh]

Dan if i go 2.8 crank will i need to change the pistons or will it run ok standard. Also what gains are to be had?

Pilot - surely a MS does the same as a uni q at a much lower cost. I dont understand how a uni q qould be better than MS? Surely if you map the engine with a standalone on 99 ron it will make a difference as most factory cars have a standard map of 91 ron for the foriegn market

Also do you guys sell m50 performance cams?

cheers
Mick

[M5pilot]

Mick,

I didn't suggest Uni-Q was better, if I came accross that way my apologies.

The Uni-Q supplied, fitted and properly mapped on dyno and finished off on road comes in at £575.

An MS unit on it's own may cost alot less but you'll need to get someone to map it for you properly.

Road mapping alone will no way give you the optimal map.

The Uni-Q has 5 switchable maps (which can be switched via bluetooth or by a switch).

You have proper 3d maps and a hell of alot of control.

The best thing about this is that you start with a base map - The hundreds of hours of BMW's development. Let's face it, BMW out of the box don't exactly drive like crap.

With standalone you start with nothing. The ignition and fuel maps aren't going to be that hard to create but what about all of the compensation maps?

I have yet to come accross a car on standalone which does not have major compromises in some way or another.

With Uni-Q you don't get compromise.......unless of course the guy mapping it is no good! But then most of the dealers know what they are doing and ALL have rolling roads with load holding capability.

We sell most performance parts on the market (our website lists hardly any of them!)

Thanks
Sal

[DanThe]

Not sure on what piston/rod combo you could use other than the 2.8, you wouldnt be able to 'just swap' the two cranks though, the 2.5 pistons rise above the block face at TDC so with the extra stroke of a 2.8 crank they will hit the head

Gains would be about 30bhp and a similar dollop of torque

Much more productive than cams

Chip I have livened the engine up very well

[Jhonno]

S52 cams only work in the VANOS engines i believe..

[DanThe]

Yeah, ive read on the US forums their favorite cam mod for the non vanos is to fit the inlet cam in the exhaust side and buy a lumpier inlet

[MickyDojoh]

cheers guys some great info here

[MickyDojoh]

Dan any ideas on which cam for the inlet is ideal?

[DanThe]

Well, I suppose a Schrick would be nice but they are pricey.

Contact Ant and ask him about a Cat cam

[Jhonno]

For the S50 Shrick are cheaper than CAT cams..

[Andyboy]

Pilot - surely a MS does the same as a uni q at a much lower cost. I dont understand how a uni q qould be better than MS?

Both are a waste of time on the 24v, neither do anything the standard Bosch or Siemens Motronic cannot do. Unless you're planning something radical, a competent remap of the standard ECU is more than enough. There is no need to start sellotaping piggy back stuff on. The Siemens ECU is an incredible thing.

[Gunni]

It´s not like ecu physical remapping is available everywhere or cheap for that matter.
The piggyback is all good and dandy until you run the maf up to it´s max.

[E30BeemerLad]

Just stick a nitrous kit on it, the M50 in an E30 is gonna give you sufficient grunt 95% of the time for normal road use (i hope) The for the occasional traffic light grand prix against something more exotic you have some extra shove

[MickyDojoh]

Not a fan of nitros tbh. I think my plans will be stroker kit, cams then tubby. Id better get saving

[Andyboy]

It´s not like ecu physical remapping is available everywhere or cheap for that matter.
The piggyback is all good and dandy until you run the maf up to it´s max.

It wouldn't cost anything like £575 to remap an M50. Unichip has a place on an old M20 where you're fitting a MAF, but the M50 already has a MAF so it would be like having a car with two steering wheels. One thing to consider is that if you run without an oxygen sensor/Lambda probe it immediately runs richer anyway. On both of my E36's I disconnected the probes to bsee what would happen and the idle mixture went up to almost 3% CO for example - and they had better throttle response.

I would save the money and spend it somewhere else. A standard 2.5v M50 engine is a very decent thing. Spend some of the money of sensible stuff like a new sump gasket and service items before it goes in the car.

[Gunni]

what would it cost and where?

there are alot of options that come with piggybacks and standalones that oem ecu´s don´t have.

nitrous control
boost control
wideband closed loop

There are benefits and negatives of having a ecu that you can not connect to and mess with.

[MickyDojoh]

going back to the stroker idea. I have found this http://www.zionsvilleautosport.com/stor ... y_Code=CKE

What do you guys think?

[Yaninnya]

Check this:
http://wp1016621.wp027.webpack.hosteuro ... f01140.htm
Jan

[MickyDojoh]

[Yaninnya]

Don't be a girl:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr
is your friend.
Jan

[DanThe]

That stroker kit is VERY cheap, find out how much the shipping is

[M5pilot]

Pilot - surely a MS does the same as a uni q at a much lower cost. I dont understand how a uni q qould be better than MS?

Both are a waste of time on the 24v, neither do anything the standard Bosch or Siemens Motronic cannot do. Unless you're planning something radical, a competent remap of the standard ECU is more than enough. There is no need to start sellotaping piggy back stuff on. The Siemens ECU is an incredible thing.

Clearly shows how little you know about Uni-Q and the benefits of it's 3d mapping capability.

It is not anything like the old Unichip.

Most of the 'generic' remaps out there are shite and a tuners have to resort to bullshitting their dyno graphs to show a power gain.

Most of the mobile tuners maps are even worse and they rely on placebo.

I appreciate the seimens ECU is enough but you find me someone with a proper emulator (which is stable) which can be used to remap the Seimens.

I know guys who used to work with your dad very closely and they said even he hated working with emulators due to them crashing so often.

Uni-Q offers proper 3d mapping with excellent resolution which gives the exact same result as making changes to the ECU itself.

[Andyboy]

I was aware a Unichip was a piggy back unit to alter signals on an unchippable ECU such as Fords and some Jap stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against Unichip - I've seen it in action a number of times back in the Fast Ford days and it's very good. I met the main man down at a dyno in Bristol when they were fitting one to a cammed up Mondeo for a Fast Ford mag competition winner. I was very impressed with it, a revolution in EEC-IV tuning. I wrote a glowing report about it too!

But on a 15 year old BMW ECU? You're right - I don't understand how a UniQ is needed when Guys were successfully redoing these 10 - 15 years ago! An example is a 320i converted to a 328i (crank/rods/pistons) in 1995 - no problems altering the fuelling and timing there. So what's changed in the intervening 13 years? Our 328i Touring was successfully remapped by you-know-who 6 months ago. It took about 40 minutes and transformed the car.

[M5pilot]

Andy,

the difference of the map you had done by 'you-know-who' and a proper live job using Uni-Q is quite staggering.

I also tried the exact same remap he does which actually comes from a German tuner.

The ignition timing under part throttle loads has so much more scope giving both better driveability and efficiency.

Hardly any of these generic remaps are properly developed. You look at them and you fall off your chair laughing because all they've really done is add percentage changes through the map to part load ignition and fuelling. Under full load you usually find +10% everywhere.

Now I'm sure you would agree that is not what is considered to be proper tuning.

You don't have to use Uni-Q, it really is intended for those who want the best out of their cars or for those who have cams fitted or other major hardware changes. There are no files for example for an M52 with Schrick cams.

I'll be putting the Uni-Q on our 328i Sport with the M50 inlet manifold to demonsrate the difference of a so called well developed generic file and the difference after it's been live remapped with some very clever trickery of the lambda signals going to the ECU for full throttle fuelling upto 3500rpm.

Uni-Q for us is also a clever way of developing new files properly without resorting to the industry standard perctange changes. We map the car live with the uni-q and then transfer all of the changes made at the specific load sites into the actual ECU via WinOLS or similar editing software.

Thanks
Sal

[fowler]

Bugger it just supercharge the bad boy stroker is Na shite !!! FI all the way
I have heard you can run a bar of boost down the neck of a n M50 on stock internals

[BIGJO]

What are the likely gains on a M50 Vanos with S52 cams? Will it require a re-map for it all to work effectively?


Kind regards.