E30 plug and play ecu

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reggid
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Tue Dec 31, 2013 10:45 pm

freeflow wrote:You obviously know your stuff reggid, but I think the point you are missing is this, the stock E30 325 [our car] was running a std motronic ecu with the flappy air flow unit, so we are looking at 30 year old technology with a processor that's works on egg timer speed.
So by removing the restrictive AFM,and mapping the fuel and sparks the increase we got is very real.
The stock injectors max,d out at around 5k and started running lean, the 200cc units we now have installed cope with demand ok.

All the work we are doing on this car is experimental,so one step at a time and ultimately extracting the power that BMW could,nt 30 years ago with technology available to them at the time.

We have loads of things palnned for the coming year on both this car and another we are building, the M20 is a great engine with lots of potential and all the results will be posted both on here and our website.

cheers Keith
hi keith,

ive been there done that with getting rid of the vane AFM and i highly recommend others do this as there is a noticeable difference but have doubts that its worth 32bhp. to get those gains you need to dramatically alter the breathing i.e. camshaft, ported head, tuned length extractors, proper ITB with tuned runners etc

if the engine was leaning out alot then that could affect the peak hp of the baseline but i dont think leaning out substantially is the norm on these engine when everything is in top nick, in time a plug and play system put on other test mules will prove or disprove this i guess

you can retune motronic, get piggybacks, standalone to easily get fuel and timing correctly at WOT (i have done each of these methods at one point in time on a M20 engine). WOT is the easy part to tune. part throttle and driveability is the harder part but that is getting slight off the issue. you cant beat ITB's and alpha N ;) im using a wolf v500 plugnplay standalone for the M20 and have been since 2007

as for injectors there are guys making 25-30% more hp on the stock injectors and also as said Alpina made just over 200bhp with them so im not convinced leaning out is the norm though i have seen it on some engines but these were obviously not running as healthy as they could.

thanks for taking the time to play with the 12V M20 many seem to go after the scrap metal 24V M5X engines these days
E30 325is with M20B31
bss325i
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Tue Dec 31, 2013 11:22 pm

reggid wrote:thanks for taking the time to play with the 12V M20 many seem to go after the scrap metal 24V M5X engines these days
:cool: Respect! And that's not to discredit the M5X engines as they are great, more for the respect of the M20 which no one bothers with these days!
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ross_jsy
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Tue Dec 31, 2013 11:42 pm

Could your injectors not have been miles off from factory calibration hence robbing you of power?

Sending them to someone like injectortune would confirm this and remove some doubts over your hp claims.
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reggid
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Wed Jan 01, 2014 12:05 am

bss325i wrote:
reggid wrote:thanks for taking the time to play with the 12V M20 many seem to go after the scrap metal 24V M5X engines these days
:cool: Respect! And that's not to discredit the M5X engines as they are great, more for the respect of the M20 which no one bothers with these days!
nah it's to discredit............j/k lol
E30 325is with M20B31
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freeflow
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Wed Jan 01, 2014 9:45 pm

reggid wrote:
freeflow wrote:You obviously know your stuff reggid, but I think the point you are missing is this, the stock E30 325 [our car] was running a std motronic ecu with the flappy air flow unit, so we are looking at 30 year old technology with a processor that's works on egg timer speed.
So by removing the restrictive AFM,and mapping the fuel and sparks the increase we got is very real.
The stock injectors max,d out at around 5k and started running lean, the 200cc units we now have installed cope with demand ok.

All the work we are doing on this car is experimental,so one step at a time and ultimately extracting the power that BMW could,nt 30 years ago with technology available to them at the time.

We have loads of things palnned for the coming year on both this car and another we are building, the M20 is a great engine with lots of potential and all the results will be posted both on here and our website.

cheers Keith
hi keith,

ive been there done that with getting rid of the vane AFM and i highly recommend others do this as there is a noticeable difference but have doubts that its worth 32bhp. to get those gains you need to dramatically alter the breathing i.e. camshaft, ported head, tuned length extractors, proper ITB with tuned runners etc

if the engine was leaning out alot then that could affect the peak hp of the baseline but i dont think leaning out substantially is the norm on these engine when everything is in top nick, in time a plug and play system put on other test mules will prove or disprove this i guess

you can retune motronic, get piggybacks, standalone to easily get fuel and timing correctly at WOT (i have done each of these methods at one point in time on a M20 engine). WOT is the easy part to tune. part throttle and driveability is the harder part but that is getting slight off the issue. you cant beat ITB's and alpha N ;) im using a wolf v500 plugnplay standalone for the M20 and have been since 2007

as for injectors there are guys making 25-30% more hp on the stock injectors and also as said Alpina made just over 200bhp with them so im not convinced leaning out is the norm though i have seen it on some engines but these were obviously not running as healthy as they could.

thanks for taking the time to play with the 12V M20 many seem to go after the scrap metal 24V M5X engines these days


Hi reggid, your right, the M20 is a great unit and we constantly get comments when we are at track days,the last one was from a guy in a mint MK1 Escort with a N/A YB Cozzie asking to have a look under the bonnet, he was gutted when i took it off and saw the M20..

I am back to work tomorrow and will get all the info i can on the engine to back up the work we have done. I did forget one thing and that is it does have a tube manifold...not a great one but tubes none the less, the exhaust is a single 2 1/4 inch from the collector to a single rear box..

To answer bs325i q,s on the injectors, we did numerous runs on our dyno and the AFR guage proved that the stock injectors where leaning off with readings of up to 14.5 at 6k and above.The fuel pump has not been touched as yet but we are going to fully upgrade the system to a fuel cell swirl pot lift pump and main pump very soon.
We also checked the injectors as we are also ASNU dealers,they were in need of an overhaul as the flow rates differed slightly on all 6 injectors[not enough to cause a lean mixture]. Upping the delivery pressure on std injectors will give more flow,but we like to spec the injectors to the demand of the engine at a maximum of 80% duty cycle,this leaves a little room for abit extra power when needed.

The calculations say that to produce 170bhp across 6 cylinders with a BSFC of .5 you will need 185.9 cc/ min or 17.7lb/hr.

Producing 200bhp means our 200cc jobbies are in fact to small but they work for the moment.

We are also involved in the 24 valve conversions , while they look nice under the bonnet,they totally detract from the look of the stock E30.

Stroked M20,s and stand alone,s are the way foreward.

Cheers lads and a happy new year

keith
www.questmotorsport.co.uk
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pikanibbles
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:26 pm

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NoTurbo
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 4:31 pm

I am enjoying this thread. :D
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freeflow
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 11:21 pm

Right o lads , help is needed, I cant decipher my engine number apart from its a 2500cc inline 6 ,

the numbers are 25 6K 1

20624879 on the ID boss

its also fitted with a 885 cylinder head which is the big valve unit??

As you can tell my knowledge of BMW e E30,s is errrrmm limited..but an engine is an engine and we are good at making them go well.

If this number proves to be the lower C/R model then I have to assume it has been fettled,in which case I will pull the motor down at some stage and have a measure up ... a refresh before the sun shines wont hurt..

cheers Keith
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Speedtouch
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 11:29 pm

That is a low compression (1989-on, K for Katalysator - catalytic converter) M20B25, and the 885 is the standard 325i head.
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bss325i
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 11:49 pm

Yep, low comp 8.8:1 and all 325i's had an 885 head.
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Simon13
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Fri Jan 03, 2014 12:43 am

The stock 2.5 injectors and AFM flow enough for 210bhp. Alpina did it in 1986.

The inlet side of M20's certainly for a 2.5 or a 2.7/2.8 isn't restrictive. On S14's the AFM is restrictive but not as much on M20's as people go on about.


There must be a fault in the fuel system somewhere to lean out the injectors, FPR. A dirty air temp sensor in the AFM will throw the fueling out for example. As a whole the fuel pumps are strong and they either work or they don't. When they're this old everything needs to be checked renewed before you start playing about and making claims i think
Jon_Bmw
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Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:00 pm

Seems a bit magical to me.

If its the same chassis dyno i reckon there is some expert strapping going on there!

Good work getting a plug and play Ecu though. For most people I reckon the wiring aspect of most ecus is the single most off putting thing.
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