ROLL CALL Highest mileage on a single set up

[ryanshamal]

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?

[328iFun]

[someguy2800]

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.

[vollosso]

Its more related to how much restraint you have versus how much the motor will take.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[328iFun]

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.

[chikinhed]

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.

[wydizzle]

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.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Butters Stoch]

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 Leary the lessons so you don’t have to.

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.

Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk

[Robocop]

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.

[pbonsalb]

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.

[ba114]

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

[whitecord]

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.

[Robocop]

if anything the supercharger boys are going to have the most miles since they're stuck with the low power/boost.

[chikinhed]

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.

[danomite]

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

[euro2fast4u]

~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)

[PEI330Ci]

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.