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Turbocharged E36 M3

25K views 54 replies 16 participants last post by  Amos 
#1 ·
Hi All,

I'm new to this forum however I have posted on a couple of other forums. Thought id share what I have done to my E36 M3 with you guys as I have ties in the UK as I am a strong Cossie fan having owned one and worked on plenty here in Aus including having a customer that is a current record holder for the fastest street registered Cosworth powered car in the country.

After receiving an offer I couldn't refuse for my Cosworth I decided to purchase an E36 M3 and turbocharge it. The car is to be kept as a genuine street car and therefore I wanted to retain my air con etc etc. I really wanted to mount the turbo on the Exh side however being right hand drive (Same as the UK) this limited us on space. Regrettably after hours and hours of thought I decided that I would have to mount the turbo on the intake side. I am well aware of the down side of mounting the turbo on the Intake side (Heat soak into the plenum, excessive Exh pipe work, added turbo lag etc etc).

The car had to pass an IM240 Emission test for the Engineers certificate, as I wanted the car 100% street legal. The IM240 is similar to a MOT on steroids!!!! Basically the car is driven on a dyno in a sealed room at the RTA/EPA (Roads and Traffic Authority/ Environmental Protection Agency) for a period of 240 seconds (Hence IM240) simulating road conditions. They set a specific target and if the car fails on the emission test the Engineers certificate is null and void and the modifications are rejected. The car passed without a problem.

The OEM fuel pump has been removed and replaced with a pair of 500hp Walbro pumps. Im using an Autronic SM4 to control both fuel and ignition as well as running an Autronic R500 CDI. The Autronic also controls the VANOS system as well. I initially had the Autronic running the engine in N/A form prior to turbo-ing the engine so I could iron out any problems (if any) as I didn't want to figure out if any problems with the tuning occurred after being turbo-ed or if it was related to the Autronic.


The turbo is a GT35 running a 44mm Tial external gate. The Turbos down pipe is 3.5" in diameter and then spilts into a twin 2.5" system all the way to the rear of the car. We had to make up a custom made intake manifold to allow the turbo to fit. It goes without saying that a intercooler was also added.

I have a fuel pressure input into the SM4 that constantly compares fuel pressure vs manifold pressure that I set up in a GPC table. If the fuel pressure is 3psi down on its set target the ECU will turn off the CDI preventing a lean out in the event of a single fuel pump failure or any other reason to why the fuel pressure drops.

All the work was carried out by a friend and myself. Between us we have over 45 years in the performance industry so we are not new to the game. I have been Pro tuning Autronic/Motec ecu's for over 15 years so managed to complete the whole project ourselves without having to rely on out sourcing any work other than purchasing of materials.

I have intentions of rebuilding the engine to be able to handle up to 30psi boost and have thus far collected a few parts (Carrillo Rods, JE Pistons etc etc). Currently the engine runs 8 psi boost and on a safe tune the engine made 397 rwhp on a dyno dynamics dyno and 385 rwhp on the same dyno
however in "Shoot Out Mode". I mentioned this as it was brought to my attention (on another forum) that any figure claimed in non "Shoot Out Mode" can be fudged..

Twin In tank Walbros.


Tial External Gate.


3.5" Inch down/dump pipe.


Twin 2.5" Exh System.


Intake Manifold.


AP Brakes.


Intercooler.


Engine Bay.




Shoot Out Mode.


Normal Mode.
 
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#34 ·
Thanks Ash and Boostist, :thumbsup

I have not raced the car over the 1/4 as yet however am planning to do so. I have set up the Autronic to run 5 psi in 1st gear, 8 psi in 2nd and 10 psi in the remaining gears. When I do run the car, by no means will I be trying to run as fast as possible as I really don’t want to break anything.

It would be nice if the M3 can run a high 11 however it will be heavily dependant on the launch. I’m really just going to give it a run for fun at the moment and will get serious about running a good time once the engine is built for higher boost. :)
 
#40 ·
This is a very useful thread, im planning on turboing my 3.2 evo engine next year once funds are available and reading this makes me think its not going to be as hard as originally thought as long as i can find the right tuner!

BMEP

Just wondering but do you just tune the autronic system or can you supply them aswell as i could do with someone who knows what i need to get parts from as to be honest one concern of mine is that ill go out and get parts and have to be constantly swapping them for better stuff to make it work?!
 
#43 ·
I was not having a go at you. Not one bit.

I was just telling m3estate that any advice on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt and that for him to get specific answers to his wants and needs a new thread might be better.

I say this only because I frequent a number of forums and read them to better my understanding and hopefully pass along my experience to others, but I do see a lot of internet know-it-alls which people who are let´s say new to the game tend to believe without question. You for instance I do not consider one know-it-alls without actual imperical knowledge, I´ve read about how long you have tuned and what you have achieved. That thread would then also help somebody else later perhaps.

Mark Shead is my work neighbour and uses our dyno. He literally is in the workshop next to ours.

The reason I didn´t ask in your US thread is that I just didn´t notice any talk about different or standard head gaskets.
 
#44 ·
Fair call Gunni,

Your post was open to interpretation and I guess I took it the wrong way.

I agree with you Re; the “Internet know it alls”. This is the main reason to why I have chosen to not be so active on internet forums as I was in the past. I believe that most information/advice passed on the internet is someones “thoughts or opinion” on how somethings works or should be done rather than advice from someone that actually is doing or has done the thing in question. Vanos control with a boosted engine is a good example. The amount of BS I have read on internet forums regarding this topic is so obvious that people have not tried it to know the truth.

I believe that the people that have a small amount of knowledge are far more dangerous to themselves or perhaps I should say more dangerous to their engines than the genuine people that don't know and seek advice and sadly it is these people that are the ones that you refer to that end up with mis-information.

Mark is a good guy. Does he use your dyno often or does he still prefer to do his tuning in car on the road?

At this stage my engine is totally 100% standard internally including the OEM head gasket and OEM head bolts with the exception of one heat range colder plugs. I have no doubt the stock engine can handle more boost (with the correct tune) and I am waiting on a set of injectors to arrive from the States that I had sent away to get modified (I prefer to use a particular spray pattern) so I can increase the boost a little more.
 
#46 ·
Your details of engine performance inspire confidence in the work I´ll be doing later. I had discussed the S50B32 to some people and their advice was the it detonates easily. And that 550-600 S_HP would only be achievable even with forged internals and 8.5:1 compression. But your information definitely tells me I won´t have any problems running more then that on pump fuel.

Mark uses the dyno now and not the road.

What is your experience in tuning vanos , is it in any way different then normal cam timing tuning on NA engines?
 
#47 · (Edited)
Hey Mate.

Very interesting thread. After reading it several times and laughing out loud nervously on more than one occasion, I realise how far far away i am from understanding what it takes to boost an engine. I'll just have to keep reading but ithink it might take a while. LOL.
Thanks guys and keep it up, you are an inspiration.

Cheers

Donut.
 
#49 ·
What I meant about the vanos tuning is did you find you tuning the cams in the same way when you tune cams on na engines.

i.e high rpm means advanced cam and retarded exhaust
Only one tuner in this country has access to the vanos tuning on the oem ecu´s for S50´s and S54´s. He´s the one gaining the most, his revolation of how to achieve this however came as no news to me in terms of standard cam tuning.

Very recently I read from a tuner of a different engine that he had actually seen gains from lowering the overlap extremely,. and this goes against what I know of cam timing and higher rpm´s. So I was wondering what your experiance has been

I´m leaning to the situation that the people telling me about the S50B32 tuning had infact only had a problem once, solved it with E85 fuel and then never ever looked back at the problem.
 
#50 ·
My S50B30 has vanos control on the Int cam only, not the Exh, so any comments I make regarding the Exh cam timing will only be based on my opinion, not experience.

The Int cam timing was similar (to n/a vs turbocharged) at throttle angles less than 10%. At throttle angles above 50% and below 3,500rpm I found that if the cam timing was as advanced as the n/a cam timing figures I couldn't run any decent amount of ign advance (the engine would det) due to elevated dynamic compression with the OEM 10.8 comp plus boost and advanced cam timing.

I reluctantly chose to make the engine mechanically less efficient (via non optimized cam timing) at anything above 50% throttle and below 3,500rpm simply to allow me to run a “decent” amount of ign advance to prevent the EGT's increasing and giving the Exh valves/seats a hard time. If I had cam control on the Exh side like a S50B32, then I would have tried delaying the Exh valve opening point to see how much it decreased the EGT's and how it would have effected the power. I have no doubt that with a built engine running lower static compression that the same power (if not more) can be had at wot/below 3,500rpm compared to the high comp when the Int cam timing can then be optimized while being able to use a decent amount of ign advance.

If the engine is going to det, it certainly is easy to make it det at wot below 3,500rpm with the OEM high comp plus boost with very advanced cam timing so I would be cautious in this area while tuning. Also bear in mind that my findings are based on the fuel we have here in Australia and my understanding is that our fuel is crap compared to other countries.

Personally, at the stage and the power level I am at I'm not concerned about the stock pistons, piston ring lands nor the stock head gasket as being weak links. Believe it or not, I am more concerned about retaining too much heat in the chamber considering the OEM piston to bore clearance and piston ring end gaps as well as trying to find out what the engines max BMEP limit is before starting to stretching the OEM head bolts.
 
#51 ·
Excellent information

And your comment about the sub 3500rpm detonation validates my assumptions I had.
Simply to much cylinder pressure for the given fuel and cylinder temps.

And I agree with your reasoning for running cooler exhaust temps by lowering the intake cam advance and higher advance due to lower dynamic compression.
Also great info on the use of a stock gasket and oem bolts with that fuel and powerlevel.

Am i right in trying to calculate about 315-350lbs rear wheel torque and your never going above that? Do you have any charts to show the torque?
 
#52 ·
Yes, you hit the nail on the head in that I do limit the output based on torque vs rpm. I don't think its a good idea for me to specify a rear wheel torque figure as that can vary based on final drive (Diff) ratio, rear wheel diameter, the gear that the power run is performed in etc.
 
#54 ·
At the end of the day, another way to combat detonation if people dont want to run race gas (impractical in the robbing old uk) is water injection

Weak points on the S50 B30 and B32 engine is pistons. Max I have heard of running safely with stock pistons is 550rwhp with a VERY good tune

Conrods are next.

The rest of the engine is totally solid :hihi

Great work to the OP

This is a great thread. Keep it coming :D
 
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