E30 Zone

Hi Guys/Gals,

I have a K&N cone filter on my S50 and it was sitting right behind the radiator sucking in warm air.

I have cut away the bracket next to the water header tank to enable the filter to moved further to the right and it now sits directly behind the main beam.

I want to create a cold air feed directly to the filter and the obvious way is to remove the main beam headlight.

I don't really want to do this if I can get away with it and wondered if any one has any other suggestions.

I could cut a 50mm intake and hose between the the two headlights, which will just fit but will that supply enough cold air?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

Why not make a heatshield aswell to try and reduce heatsoak? it is possible to cut some of the blanks out in the headlight grilles for a little bit more airflow too (i presume its in an e30?)

Thanks Cook, yes it is an E30.

Do you think that would provide enough airflow then? (50mm inlet plus blanks cutout)

Keep em coming guys.

Just for interest I have a Samota c/f cai on mine which has a fairly large intake mouth (covers nearly both lights) also have some blanks cut out and it ran over 330hp so I'm assuming it gets enough air. I originally ran it with a straight through to an ACS (of an E36 M3 EVO)back box and got 317hp and low on torque. Ray West recommended an center box cos I needed back pressure, had one made and fitted, gained me all them extra horses and restored the torque to standard.

HenryM3 wrote:Just for interest I have a Samota c/f cai on mine which has a fairly large intake mouth (covers nearly both lights) also have some blanks cut out and it ran over 330hp so I'm assuming it gets enough air. I originally ran it with a straight through to an ACS (of an E36 M3 EVO)back box and got 317hp and low on torque. Ray West recommended an center box cos I needed back pressure, had one made and fitted, gained me all them extra horses and restored the torque to standard.

Thanks Henry,

So is your car not used on the road then as my understanding of what you have done is removed both headlights?

Always that back pressure thing raising it's ugly head.....

sorry back on topic. Went with a friends to a Dyno, a E30 with S50B30 fitted. Cone filter right next to the radiator. Dyno operator comment: Oh, that's bad and will cost you power.

Well it pulled 300bhp on every run. Considering that the engine is supposed to deliver 286 in an E36 with all the right gear and was back firing due to a duff MAF and had a cobbled togther exhaust on it (with NO or not a lot of back pressure...) I am a bit puzzled of what to believe about cold air intakes. Or back pressure

Well, I think the back pressure got me back the missing torque. I'm not sure it had any great influence on the hp, the extra hp I think came from the c/f intake which wasn't fitted on the first run. Surely if your flowing vast quantities of cold(outside)air through the filter then the heat in the engine bay doesn't have time to influence/heat it up. There is probably a far greater influence at idling speed or in slow traffic and on those occasions who cares. It would be interesting to run it again now that I have the MZ3 quad exhausts fitted. People always seem to say that the 3.0l will make it's hp and a bit more where as the 3.2l rarely makes it's hp. I know that Ray West was very surprised at the figures.

sure cold air can't hurt. But without measuring intake temp we will never know how hot the air is while driving.

How about sticking a Sunday roast probe in the air intake with the gauge inside the car and comparing it with the OBC temp.

HenryM3 wrote:How about sticking a Sunday roast probe in the air intake with the gauge inside the car and comparing it with the OBC temp.

you want a probe inside your bonnet and one in your plenum.

I have a wideband kit with a few thermocouple inputs. May hook that one up one day if I get bored

sorry furbster I missed your post, no I haven't removed the headlights, I've just removed some of the slats around the headlights which is barely noticable.