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e36 tuning a 318iS engine

10K views 15 replies 5 participants last post by  Devonlad2010 
#1 ·
Hi guys well i wanna do a engine conversion in my bm over the next few weeks as at the mo i have a crappy 8 valver.What i wanna know is what can i do to the iS engine to give it more bhp before i fit it in the car.Im gunna be chipping the ecu but what else can i do.
 
#2 ·
a decent air filter with heat shield and a BBTB (alpina527 can do you one i think) are recommended along with a cat back exhaust, make sure the exhaust is for a 318iS as the exhausts are specific to them
i would leave the exhaust manifold alone, its a 4 branch already and it flows pretty well
past that i wouldnt so much else, you could try uprated plug leads
the M44 engines were pretty well tuned from the factory unless you want to throw money at it then youre not going to see much more power out of it
 
#5 ·
this is recommended
however i have seen this recommendation alot on here and to be honest not everyone can afford to do this conversion
its not the cost of the conversion itself more the stupid insurance quotes that go with it
not everyone can afford it
when i put the M52 into the 318iS i kept getting people saying why didnt you fit a M3 engine blah blah, S50/52s are expensive and the resulting insurance would have crippled me
sorry for going a bit ranty, but seeing this all the time is starting to irk me a wee bit
this isnt a dig at you niall, i do say this myself but only really in the case where people want to fit M52 2.0 6 cylinders, as good an engine it is i think its actually worth the extra insurance costs for the extra power and economy that goes with it
rant over :)
 
#7 ·
tut tut
to be honest i would probably do that too...if I knew i would get away with it :shifty:
it will only become a problem if you have an accident and then the questions start getting asked
the other problem is if the police stop you and check under the bonnet, this rarely happens, well its happened to me once only, its not really a risk worth taking especially if you get a c:censoredtstable that knows what they are on about
 
#8 ·
Exactly only reason I wouldn't cos it's never happend to me it has happend to my gals bro he crashed his golf doing 120mph it's a vr6 with a massive turbo 600bhp massive inter cooler hanging down under the smashed bonnet and great big porsche breaks under it and he never even clicked on! Lmao when he said it needs to get took away to see what caused it Matthew said no don't I crashed because I'm used to modern cars with modern breaks not old bangers haha
 
#15 ·
what sort of time frame are we talking till you do go FI?
cause as boring as it sounds dont do anything and save the money to put towards the turbo

or sort out the bits that will need upgrading to deal with the extra power
ie the brakes and suspension!
 
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