M50 turbo project finsihed

[usherboy83]

Time for a new turbo. I knew i was on borrowed time since there was shaft play after the m50 spun a bearing from no oil pressure. 12 psi was fun, 14psi blew off a coupler, i get the car home, fix the piping and start her up to have the garage filled with smoke. Check the turbo and no seals!!! What route to take now???

[m3mods]

I didn't start a build thread because I wanted to finish it all before I shared. the build took me a year due to only having one day off a week and some of those days being cut short due to errands dentist appts etc. My car was at a buddies shop and I was working in between shop hours so that meant no lift, but a jack and jack stands and hand tools, but hey I did it. I started off with a stage 2 AA C30 s/c kit pushing 10psi making 280whp but only 220wtq with stock exhaust manifolds not cats and a bosal brospeed cat-back. I wanted more power but was on a budget. Sold the kit for $1700 and was planning on using the s/c tune so no need to spend more money on a tune. I know, what was I thinking. After extensive research and talks with AA I knew that wasn't gonna end well for my build, so I figured id worry about the tune later just go on with the build. Ebay build its gonna be, because I wanna prove done right, a cheap build will last. I found a fastwayracer kit on ebay that came with everything I would need with gauges, intercooler, piping, turbo feed and return lines, catch can, turbo timer, godspeed wastegate, dump tube, hks BOV, adjustable fpr, and best of all a TURBONETICS T3/T4 t04E turbo with a 2 year warranty, that they honor as soon as the build is complete. it cost me $1100. So now I have $600 to spare. I spent that in 3" flowmaster mandrel bent exhaust piping, 3'' performance CAT, 3" flex pipe, and a $70 spa bottom mount manifold. I start on the build, quickly to realize I didn't want to blow my motor with boost creep from an ebay wastegate and I want to go top mount because I was running into fitment issues. I sold the godspeed wastegate and bought a turbonetics 38mm wastegate. I bought a CX racing top mount manifold. I sold the ebay kit turbo lines and bought new lines from cavalier hose. I sold the small new intercooler and bought a used larger intercooler for half of what I sold the small one for. I sold the ebay fpr. I used ebay for couplers, but bought t-clamps from a reputable tractor supplier company called Kennedy's. I used 12 n54 exhaust bolts from a blown engine sitting in the shop for those hard to reach exhaust spots on the manifold. I finished the mock up and decided to go with the miller performance tuning package so that I could do tuning myself and get remote tuning help if I needed it. I got it for $1000. Long story short, total cost of this build was $3390, but after selling the s/c I paid a total of 1690 out of pocket. Only because I didn't want to use cheap ebay items, otherwise it could've cost way less, but maybe cost me more in the long run. My goal was to spend $2000 or less, and since I did all the work myself, with the help of my buddies here and there with welding, my goal was accomplished. I wouldn't call this a budget build, but being under $3500 total is pretty good using reputable parts with a very good tuning source. have to redo the exhaust due to ground clearance issues but no biggie just a couple cuts and welds.

Time for a new turbo. I knew i was on borrowed time since there was shaft play after the m50 spun a bearing from no oil pressure. 12 psi was fun, 14psi blew off a coupler, i get the car home, fix the piping and start her up to have the garage filled with smoke. Check the turbo and no seals!!! What route to take now???

Time to cash in that warranty..?

[Butters Stoch]

Time for a new turbo. I knew i was on borrowed time since there was shaft play after the m50 spun a bearing from no oil pressure. 12 psi was fun, 14psi blew off a coupler, i get the car home, fix the piping and start her up to have the garage filled with smoke. Check the turbo and no seals!!! What route to take now???

I will sell you a T3 35r ; )

[usherboy83]

Time to cash in that warranty..?

That warranty is voided since its my fault it went bad! I drove the m50 with low oil pressure even though at the time i didnt know it so its from my own negligence.

[usherboy83]

I will sell you a T3 35r ; )

How much? Oil and water cooled? I'm getting married in 3 months so i cant spend alot of money lol.

[usherboy83]

Well...my turbonetics turbo now has a garrett CHRA in it. Buddy had one with same exhaust turbo size as my turbo but smaller compressor. So i swapped over CHRA so i didnt have to take the whole turbo off. Much easier to take of 6 bolts, pull, and replace. Then put my conpressor housing on. This will hold until i decide if i want go 35r in the near future. I could tell with my turbo having play it wasnt hitting boost like it should. Had my ebc duty cycle set at 50% for my turbonetics to hit 10psi on low boost, and with the garrett it was hitting 12. What fun. So tonight im taking that duty cycle back to around 35% so its not over boosting. 10psi is perfect for me right now seeing as to how i need to get a good tire setup in the rear and probably some bushings

[E36 HateR]

glad you have the car back on the road

what were the power numbers?

[usherboy83]

Unfortunately i haven't seen dyno yet but my buddys 335i wss dynoed at 385whp so hoping im at least there or higher at 10psi giving how bad i jumped him last week

[E36 HateR]

Unfortunately i haven't seen dyno yet but my buddys 335i wss dynoed at 385whp so hoping im at least there or higher at 10psi giving how bad i jumped him last week

Did you won? Give me alittle recap of the kill story lol

[usherboy83]

Long story short.....We left a meet and my buddy wanted to see where we stood. From a dig in 1 and 2 my car has no traction up to 7500 redline and i slide side to side so he killed me from the light. He jumped so far there was no catching up. So we went from a 30/40 roll in 3rd and i let him hit first. As soon as i got traction i jumped on him by a couple cars and i kept pulling. And i was only at 8ish psi with that bad turbo lol

[E36 HateR]

We left a meet and my buddy wanted to see where we stood. From a dig in 1 and 2 my car has no traction up to 7500 redline and i slide side to side so he killed me from the light. He jumped so far there was no catching up. So we went from a 30/40 roll in 3rd and i let him hit first. As soon as i got traction i jumped on him by a couple cars and i kept pulling.

Nice, get som3 good rubber on there and work on the suspension you'll semi hook 2nd

Some higher octane fuel and 16-19psi should really wake her up!

[usherboy83]

Yeah I've got some 255s but about 50% tread. Going to do poly bushings and hopefully bc coils and 245 radials. Only have 100 octane around here but with the .140 mls im planning to run 20psi (high boost) for kills/strip, keep it at 8psi daily and 15psi (low boost) for street fun.

[E36 HateR]

Yeah I've got some 255s but about 50% tread. Going to do poly bushings and hopefully bc coils and 245 radials. Only have 100 octane around here but with the .140 mls im planning to run 20psi (high boost) for kills/strip, keep it at 8psi daily and 15psi (low boost) for street fun.

Nice bro keep us updated ☺

[bry195]

we want to hear about that new tune you got! should be pretty damn close for what you are running. just went through all of this again and its crazy how close our builds are.

[usherboy83]

Im trying to get another mini laptop since mine won't connect to the internet so i can download the tune from email. I cant wait, especially since i drove the car for the first time in a couple weeks last night and hit 15psi just on base tune. Blew off my throttle body boot so i couldn't enjoy it but it felt good while it lasted!

[bry195]

fix that boot! you have another 5psi to go.

[usherboy83]

Haven't posted in a while. Car is running smoothly for now. Been working mostly on getting the car looking the way i want it.
DTM fiberwerks front gtr rep lip
E38 front mpars
ForumRunner_20150615_154448.png



ForumRunner_20150615_154519.png



ForumRunner_20150615_154545.png

[usherboy83]

Bought some 14k 7" swift springs. The h&r sports compressed too much under WOT. Im happier with these.

ForumRunner_20160110_084119.png

Also purchased a 51" non adjustable harness bar. More for rigidity than anything, but also for a go pro mount. I dont have harnesses nor really plan to buy any.

ForumRunner_20160110_084424.png

Waiting on my new to me pte6162 (sc61). Gonna be nice being able to safely boost over 12psi again since im afraid to with my fill in turbo

ForumRunner_20160110_084614.png

[E36 HateR]

Nice! Gar is looking good

[usherboy83]

Nice! Gar is looking good

Preciate it bro. Don't have that frank hp, but your first build was the push I needed to get away from my supercharger.

[E36 HateR]

The sc61 is a great turbo, ms109 and 22-24psi should be 600whp, it gets addictive.

[usherboy83]

Yeah, ill just have to find some good fuel around here or somewhere to ship me some. I try not to drive the car everyday so I'm not bored with its power now to try for more. And having the war chip im tuning myself, and haven't found anyone to want to tune the chip for me. IF JORDAN would do it for me it would be great, but i understand why he wont lol. My areas high hp competitors are v8 guys and turbo fwd, so hopefully that keep my boost addiction at bay haha

[chris72798]

Awesome car man looks great. Kinda jealous at the moment. I have an honest question for you and anyone else who turboed an m50. I have a 93 325i that I plan on turboing in the next few months. I was planning on doing s52 cams, arp head studs, and mls gasket. What's is the most amount of power I can crank out of it with that little motor work? Oh and I also need to rebuild my vanos as well but that's just maintains work.

[usherboy83]

Awesome car man looks great. Kinda jealous at the moment. I have an honest question for you and anyone else who turboed an m50. I have a 93 325i that I plan on turboing in the next few months. I was planning on doing s52 cams, arp head studs, and mls gasket. What's is the most amount of power I can crank out of it with that little motor work? Oh and I also need to rebuild my vanos as well but that's just maintains work.

Depending on what size headgasket spacer, you can reach goooood power. E36hater (frank) runs that setup and e85 and dynoed 717whp. What are your power goals?

[chris72798]

I wanted like 600-650 hp. You think that can be accomplished with a good enough gasket?

- - - Updated - - -

or gasket spacer i should say and 93 pump not e85. e85 isnt easy to get for me