Had a talk with a few individuals in the area that have been building engines for some time and everyone says the same thing. Once youre boosted then your engine won't last that long. With mixed opinions I decided to investigate to see if there were any threads that had some mileage of members with boosted motors. Since I will be dailying my car I want to see what I could expect long term.
So here it is. Lets see who has had the most success for reliability and what set up they were using.
List your mileage
Whats your current or what was your mileage when you decided to change the set up?
who tuned the car?
what were your mods?
There are lots of people happily putting lots of miles on these cars long after they were built. Many people leave the forums after they have gotten there cars sorted out. Lots of people read on here for advice but never register or post. A lot of them get sold to other people that aren't active on forums. You probably won't get a huge number of responses but that doesn't mean a turbo e36 is unreliable.
Last edited by someguy2800; 12-09-2017 at 10:19 PM.
Its more related to how much restraint you have versus how much the motor will take.
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1989 535i - sold
1999 M3 Tiag/Dove - sold
1998 M3 Turbo Arctic/black - current
2004 Built motor TiAg/Black - Sold
2008 E61 19T Turbo-Wagon - current
2011 E82 135i - S85 Swap - current
1998 M3 Cosmos S54 swapped Sedan - current
1998 Turbo: PTE6870 | 1.15 ar | Hp Cover, Custom Divided T4 bottom-mount, 3.5" SS exhaust, Dual Turbosmart Compgates, Turbosmart Raceport BOV, 3.5" Treadstone Intercooler, 3.5" Vibrant resonator and muffler, Arp 2k Headstuds | Arp 2k Main studs | 87mm Je pistons | Eagle rods | 9.2:1 static compression, Ces 87mm cutring, Custom solid rear subframe bushings, Akg 85d diff bushings, 4 clutch 3.15 diff, , Poly engine mounts, UUC trans mounts W/ enforcers, 22RPD OBD2 Stock ECU id1700 E85 tune, 22RPD Big power Transmission swap w/ GS6-53
Just my advice....
I've put over 1000 miles on my car. I'm a pretty shitty mechanic and had zero knowledge of FI or BMW for that matter.
The guys on her helped me reach my goal.
The car has hit 16 PSI on base tune and begs for more
oh, and I have spare b28 with trans + I bought for 200 bucks.
chicks also love e36.
win.
I’ve had forced induction for about 115,000 miles / 185,000 km. First with a Vortech SCer, then a GT3582R, GTX3582R and now an EFR 9180.
When SCed I went through a couple of head gaskets pushing it to hard for the available fuel. I also had an incident where an injector flooded a cylinder and slightly bent a rod which I didn’t know about until I pulled the engine apart to build when going turbo. The set up was reliable except for the never ending tuning issues due to fuel and strange set up vs tune issues that no one had heard of before.... it was long and painful.
With a turbo I’ve had a bunch of smaller issues and a couple of major issues (nothing a few thousand dollars couldn’t fix). It’s had a head replacement due to major over boost and an engine rebuild due to fuel pump wiring issue.
A note to readers: follow our advice as we have spent the money and learnt the lessons so you don’t have to.
Last edited by chikinhed; 12-10-2017 at 07:52 PM.
I acquired my car at 77k and it was already supercharged so I’m not sure when exactly it was done but I have over 170k now with no issues. I don’t exactly baby it either. I will say it’s starting to make me more nervous though the older it gets.
It’s a DINAN Vortech setup that was tuned by DINAN.
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Someone recently was bitching about how much money they have spent on their car so far. So I happily listed all the clutches and transmissions I have blown up and what they cost. Then a third party listener mentioned I might want to learn how to drive stick.
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1996 332IS
Built 3.2
CES/Steed TS Precision 6466, spraying a "$π!℅" load of meth.
Technique Tuning 80# tune.
1/4 mile 10.84 @ 136.72
Your 1 and only stop for all your BMW performance needs
WWW.CESMOTORSPORT.COM
Typically people will boost until it explodes or there is some sort of limit reached
but 10psi or something low like that you could expect it to last as long as a stock n/a motor, that you floor everywhere you go btw.
I could never leave well enough alone to accumulate miles on one setup. That would be worse than driving slowly to try to get the best fuel economy. I have had forced induction for 11-12 years and 80k miles, but was supercharged for 3-4 years and turbo the last 7-8, blew a couple of HG and a motorwhile supercharged, and built an engine to handle more power while turbo.
List your mileage: 5000km since built
Whats your current or what was your mileage when you decided to change the set up: 180k km engine
who tuned the car? Me. OBD2 stock ecu, open loop boost control implemented on ECU
what were your mods? Copper spacer with cutring. 26psi
my car has been turboed since 1998 and as far as i know it has had 3 engines in it. pretty much had the original aa turbo kit on it for most of that time. until i got it, 112k miles on it now.
one lap of america s52/gt35r 318ti..500whp 533wtq 19psi via rk-tunes....
follow me on instagram @whitecord1
if anything the supercharger boys are going to have the most miles since they're stuck with the low power/boost.
I did not have a good supercharger experience. I bought a used supercharger and had it overhauled by Vortech for $700 before I installed it. It lasted about 21,000 miles until it started to rattle. It went back to Vortech and they determined it was not repairable, everything was junk. They gave me credit towards a new SC which ended up costing $2000. I had the new SC on the car for a few months until a turbo kit came up for sale and i didn’t look back.
SCers sound kinda cool and they make some, not a lot, of hp for a split second at redline. Turbo is much better and more reliable in my experience.
@chikinhead:
I need your turbo stuffs!!! I tried sending you an PM about it, but it doesn't show up in my "sent items" folder. I need a bunch of stuff, so if you could do a nice package deal, it would be much appreciated!!! I'll probably also bug you about some other small bits and bobs too down the line...
Looking for the following, good sir:
Steedspeed open T4 turbo manifold $750
Custom made heat blanket for the Steedspeed $80
GTX3582R turbo with open T4 0.82 $1250
3.5" stainless steel down pipe with WG pipe $300
3.5” aluminum turbo inlet pipe and filter $200
Rallyroad turbo engine mount arm $125
I REALLY need the manifold and turbo...but not really one without the other.
Shoot me a PM if you can! I'll check back in this thread too.
Cheers
"You don't win silver....you lose gold."
~5k miles on the first build 1,800 bucks ~350whp.
~5k miles the recent build ~6,000 bucks ~350whp.
Recent round i expect it to last numerous years. (stock block 200k miles, stock head 350k+ miles)
Capital Driving Club Car # 102
How to turbo your car:
Step one. Install ecu and learn to tune and or have it tuned.
Step two. Install injectors and retune.
Step three. Install turbo parts and bits. get it running with out leaks. DO NOT DRIVE IT. Idling should be ok
Step four. Retune car
Step five enjoy
I agree with Perry.
The kind of person that puts high miles on a Turbo BMW isn't the kind of person that might post on here.
Heck....some people change their turbo combination more often than they need to change their oil.
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