Best Engine Combination for Boost

[lbennyboobool]

Trying to help a friend out and i'm not sure what the best combination is.

He has a 92 bmw m50 non vanos engine that he wants to turbocharge. Easiest way would be to get an .140 mls head gasket and arp head studs correct?

He's only wanting around 400-500 whp as it is a daily. Trans will be swapped to a ZF.

Here's my question. Well tuning other than VEMs or Megasquirt (sp) but other than that....i have a spare m52b28 bottem end. Would anything be gained by putting the m50 non vanos head on that block? Sure a little displacement, but is the crank and rods etc better in the m50 non vanos than the m52b28? I've searched some and it doesn't appear to be a common hybrid. I know to retain obd1 the sensor for the crank shaft would need to be in the front cover but other than that i think sensors and such would all cross over.

For the power goals what would you do? m50 or m52 bottem end mind you they would both remain stock.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

M52 all day, every day

[lbennyboobool]

M52 all day, every day

and why's that?

[Boostedhoopty]

If you really want to get crazy, I would pull the rods out of the M50 and put them in the m52 and then use the nv head. The NV rods are significantly stronger but probably won't really matter at that power level. The extra stroke from the m52 crank does make a pretty noticable difference in torque.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Boostedhoopty]

The m52 will have all the correct provisions for obd1 sensors, you just have the rear crank sensor in the m52 block not plugged in

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[NOTORIOUS VR]

and why's that?

More displacement and better cams off the bat and VANOS. At the power level you're looking for M52 will hold that without an issue. With a simple swap to S52 cams it will be a completely different animal again.

[lbennyboobool]

If you really want to get crazy, I would pull the rods out of the M50 and put them in the m52 and then use the nv head. The NV rods are significantly stronger but probably won't really matter at that power level. The extra stroke from the m52 crank does make a pretty noticable difference in torque.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

are the rods the same length? I've heard of the non vanos rods being stronger or heavier but haven't really researched the difference since I haven't really messed with a non vanos motor before

Sent from my 2PYB2 using Tapatalk

[someguy2800]

M50 rod on the left, M52 rod on the right. The M50 non vanos rod is 135mm, same as the M52/S50/S52 rods. The M50 vanos rods are 140mm



You do not need to upgrade the M52 rods to make 400-500 whp, the stock M52 rods are perfectly fine at that level.

My advice would be to use the M52 bottom end to gain the extra .3 liters displacement. Either put the non vanos head on it or source a complete M50 vanos head. With a little trimming on the front of the head you can put vanos on the non vanos head. You will need a set of cams, chains, sprockets, valve cover, vanos unit, and vanos oil line in order to put vanos on it.

The best combo of factory parts BMW made for real high HP is the non vanos rods, non vanos head, and an M52 crank, but the power level your looking at doesn't need it. The extra displacement of the M52 though will make a pretty big difference in spool and torque.

[lbennyboobool]

Other than adding vanos to the engine itself would it just need a new wiring harness and a vanos ecu?

I know tuning support is allot better for vanos engines, but can you use a red label 413 that has vanos and run a Miller WAR Chip and program the vanos off and use it for the non vanos engine? I haven't heard anyone doing that so i doubt it would work but i'm curious. also don't know if the red label 413 ever came in a non vanos form

[Mklock]

Best bet is headgasket the non-vanos with studs or buy an M52 and headgasket and stud that. I'd use an M52 dropout IMHO if I had ANY e36 chassis at this point. Lots of people can tune OBD2 stock ecu so theres really no reason not too. Plus you gain torque too. If you wanna go the extra step, throw s52 cams in but now its getting expensive if you just looking for a daily rocket.

[lbennyboobool]

I still don't understand how the obd2 conversion into an obd1 chassis works. Is it all in the ecu to make the obd2 wiring harness and sensors talk to the obd1 chassis?

[Kingtal0n]

So this is an interesting question that I would have liked to ask but had no reason to,

So if you want, try to play creative comments about engines game, try to estimate their daily driver ability at some power range (make sure to state what you consider a daily driver also)

Examples:
5.3L Gen3 2001-2003: 500-600rwhp ex. "random tahoe/silverado/escalade iron engine is free"
5.3L Gen4 2004-2008: 600-800rwhp ex. "L33 usually does the trick"
3.0L 2jz-gte 1995-98: 500-600rwhp "sometimes 800rwhp club for quite a long time 10 years+"
3.0L 2jz-gte 1998-2002: 500-700rwhp Quote: "I have tuned 500 ft lbs out of them at 3300 rpm before. " -someone I trust
M52 "input years" 500-600rwhp "insert comments"
Next BMW engine years comment
2.0L sr20det 1995-2002 300-380rwhp "for twenty years like this with any 95-02"
2.5L RB25DET 1995-1998? 450-600rwhp "upgrade oil pump collar"
4g63 needs to be filled

what is daily driver: gasoline, 30-50 miles per day, 3-5 starts per day, 93 octane with water injection is typical, 25mpg+, 10,000 miles per year for 40k to 100,000 miles in 3 to 9 years with fewer issues than brand new cars which typically have many issues, and one of them is almost never broken longblock, high fuel quality tuning window forgiveness, the engine should be likely to survive and valvetrain hardware is low lift&rate with weak springs and lower redlines with tighter bearing clearances, high quality filtration, fully intact PCV and thinner synthetic oils. Higher power than posted is possible but the engine becomes less likely to survive with regular pump fuels (not including E85). E85 can be used in comparison but it should only be compared to other E85 applications as it is essentially a racing fuel and adds cost over using pump fuels + water to control safety factor.

stuff to avoid:
5.7L 98-99 LS1 Aluminum engine 400rwhp "turbo makes this one sad" years to avoid
5.7L 1995-1997 avoid at all costs 400rwhp with optispark
any Chevrolet 5.7L before 2000
RB20det because parts and lol 2.0L
Any V6 "all the hassles of a V configuration without the two extra cylinders is always a bad deal"

[lbennyboobool]

not sure where that post came from lol

Sent from my 2PYB2 using Tapatalk

[Kingtal0n]

Its a "best engine for boost" (thread topic title) post comparing different engines. Now the BMW stuff can be filled in by somebody who knows about BMW, stock longblock typical-engines that are 'boosted'

[lbennyboobool]

ok, I was curious since I didn't see any BMW stuff listed

Sent from my 2PYB2 using Tapatalk

[328iFun]

King no one here needs to fill it in because the ones who have done it already know. Do your research you can find the correct answers.

How do you think the guys found out what the motors you listed were / are capable of. 1 they just tried it or 2 they know enough about engines and how they work to know what there capable of

M52s are a dime in the dozen. I haven't found many NV engines around me

From my research the m52b28 seems to be the choice engine for guys who are newer to boost. As said earlier hg, spacer, s52 cams, 93 Oct, and maybe meth would be perfect for a 350-400 daily and if you want more there are tuners who have done it

If you are more experienced like pbon, somebody, and the others guys on here you could be build a virtually bullet proof e36 for a good price (wiith the stuff your friend already has -cams)



Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[328iFun]

But if I were your friend I would just boost the engine that's in it and run 7-10 psi for about 340-380HP with a EBC and push when he wants too....

That's plenty if its going to be a streetable E36

Oh and everything else will eventually break, keep that in mind

[lbennyboobool]

engine will be pulled to make it easier to do the head gasket and to replace the getrag with a zf. it wouldn't be hard to put the head on the m52 block if needed.

I just don't know about tuning a non vanos since all of the e36 tuners don't touch the non vanos engine

Sent from my 2PYB2 using Tapatalk

[someguy2800]

Didn’t you say you were doing megasquirt or vems?

[lbennyboobool]

I know of those two options. wasn't sure if there were more options or a cheaper route since Vems is $1400 new

Sent from my 2PYB2 using Tapatalk

[328iFun]

for $1400

22rpd could prob tune the non vanos on stock DME, not sure though

[lbennyboobool]

I'm sure my friend would like to not spend that much money on just a tune since you also have injectors and all the turbo stuff to buy

I also have no experience with Megasquirt but it may be a good option although i don't think it's a plug and play like the Vems unit

[Kingtal0n]

Everytime I've tuned a megasquirt I regretted it

constant supply of problems from them. Not saying they don't work, just that in the hands of mortal men the MS ecu has too many ways you can screw up without realizing it.

For example gold-box plug and play, my friend installed one and when he hits the switch for his gauges all the tps/map sensor voltages of the MS ecu start jumping around like crazy.
Impossible to tune now and needs ten hours of re-wiring and diagnosis for months now to trace this problem with MS's "best pnp box". Now it won't even connect to the laptop anymore. the ECU might be corrupted.
links: http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=122&t=69207
: http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=131&t=69215

Sure if I had installed it, it probably would have been fine because I am aware of cross talk and EMI interference. But regular people? Just tend to put wires wherever and this is what you get.

Next a friend installed MS ecu on 2JZ and could never get a crank signal. Spent months coming back to the car and never got it to work properly. turning internal resistor pots etc... Had to open the ECU several times and finally gave up on that one because the wiring was just not good enough. Once again wiring issues (Not the MS fault, just mortal man) the wiring output on MS2 style was very archaic and easy to screw up.
link: http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=131&t=68080

Next MS ecu on a VW Jetta, I think 2.5L, I spent a loooong time generating a pinout and turning resistor pots and doing firmware. Finally got it fired up and running, timed it, but it still ran weird as hell and didn't sound strong. I could tell the ECU needed "fine tuning" of its sensitivity to the cam/crank triggers because it would hit and miss and drop signal at certain times, it had specific rpms of "interference" where the software tried to bandaid with "noise suppression algorithms" that never worked right. The combo of the engine may have also kinda sucked and all together the owner gave up on it after driving and tuning for a couple hours. moved on to a different platform...
link: http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewto...?f=101&t=63168

Never had this kind of shit with other stand-alones. never spend 30-50 hours wiring, diagnosing, taking ECU covers off, updating firmware, making posts on the MS forums asking for help... and getting no where.
The MS people and owner/mods are very very helpful. This isn't an "MS SUCKS" post, its just my perspective as a potential tuner for other people's vehicles that have decided to use MS ECU and its been far more difficult and troublesome and getting-nowhere-fast than any other computer I've ever seen.

in comparison:
This last Sat. I tuned a PnP Haltech ECU for 2.0L Nissan. From 1pm to 8pm I took the owner through every single setting and not only taught him how to use it (to some minor ability) I saw the car, compression test, pressure test, timing test, and completely tuned it from top to bottom in that one single day without any issues. And that was only my 2nd PnP Haltech this year (I don't see many of those on 2.0L engines)

As an owner/tuner I think the MS ecu is GREAT. Extremely customization is my middle name and I could have one whipped into shape within a short time in my own car, I am sure of that. The mistakes that keep happening are unrelated to the ECU/design per its FUNCTIONS (it functions exactly as it should), instead they mistakes are much more related to it's installation, error handling, software programming, sensitivity scale, and above all else requires that the owner be aware of every little functional detail in order to use it successfully (which is fine if its YOUR CAR). To put this another way, I think its great if you plan to tune the car yourself, handle everything yourself, because you WILL LEARN how to deal with these issues and how complex an ECU really is. It just isn't great when you approach a random car with a bunch of small wiring and installation mistakes, with everything the owner already "buttoned up" so you can't even inspect the wiring, and asks you to tune something that won't give a clean TPS or Crank signal. They don't want to hear "we need to take everything back out and re-do it" or the price attached to that service. IMO Deal with the MS ecu yourself and only yourself and put 100% effort into it and it will be fine. There is no other way though, don't expect somebody to come magic away the problems with a laptop.

[lbennyboobool]

Everytime I've tuned a megasquirt I regretted it

constant supply of problems from them. Not saying they don't work, just that in the hands of mortal men the MS ecu has too many ways you can screw up without realizing it.

For example gold-box plug and play, my friend installed one and when he hits the switch for his gauges all the tps/map sensor voltages of the MS ecu start jumping around like crazy.
Impossible to tune now and needs ten hours of re-wiring and diagnosis for months now to trace this problem with MS's "best pnp box". Now it won't even connect to the laptop anymore. the ECU might be corrupted.


Sure if I had installed it, it probably would have been fine because I am aware of cross talk and EMI interference. But regular people? Just tend to put wires wherever and this is what you get.

Next a friend installed MS ecu on 2JZ and could never get a crank signal. Spent months coming back to the car and never got it to work properly. turning internal resistor pots etc... Had to open the ECU several times and finally gave up on that one because the wiring was just not good enough. Once again wiring issues (Not the MS fault, just mortal man) the wiring output on MS2 style was very archaic and easy to screw up.

Next MS ecu on a VW Jetta, I think 2.5L, I spent a loooong time generating a pinout and turning resistor pots and doing firmware. Finally got it fired up and running, timed it, but it still ran weird as hell and didn't sound strong. I could tell the ECU needed "fine tuning" of its sensitivity to the cam/crank triggers because it would hit and miss and drop signal at certain times, it had specific rpms of "interference" where the software tried to bandaid with "noise suppression algorithms" that never worked right. The combo of the engine may have also kinda sucked and all together the owner gave up on it after driving and tuning for a couple hours. moved on to a different platform...

Never had this kind of shit with other stand-alones. never spend 30-50 hours wiring, diagnosing, taking ECU covers off, updating firmware, making posts on the MS forums asking for help... and getting no where.
The MS people and owner/mods are very very helpful. This isn't an "MS SUCKS" post, its just my perspective as a potential tuner for other people's vehicles that have decided to use MS ECU and its been far more difficult and troublesome and getting-nowhere-fast than any other computer I've ever seen.

in comparison:
This last Sat. I tuned a PnP Haltech ECU for 2.0L Nissan. From 1pm to 8pm I took the owner through every single setting and not only taught him how to use it (to some minor ability) I saw the car, compression test, pressure test, timing test, and completely tuned it from top to bottom in that one single day without any issues.

Have you ever used Vems ECU?

[Kingtal0n]

Nope I am not sure what tht even is. If you tell me about it maybe I can help tell you whether or not its a good design.

All computers work the same. Trigger input hardware sensitive to some kind of voltage signal typically setup for a specific kind of sensors. Which can take years and years of revisions to get perfect, depends on the sensor style.

Ex. optical sensor: Apexi Power FC for Nissan engines will use the OEM CAS optical disc unit, whereas even AEM stand-alone cannot acceptably use the OEM disc. AEM decided to produce their own disc for the trigger because the factory one was "too much resolution" apparently, for it's stand-alone hardware.

Ex. Gen3 cranktrigger: factory HPtuners ECU (OEM LS computer) "knows" its own crank/cam trigger signals, even if they are piled under mountains of other wires, run long distances around hot manifolds, will STILL recognize and maintain a sequential firing without dropping signals


So you really need to "know your crank/cam trigger" extremely well. Its the first thing I teach people trying to learn how to tune an engine. Everything goes through that pickup first.
If you get a good computer that 'knows' its trigger systems, then it won't give trouble, misfires, signal dropping, that sort of stuff that Megasquirt ECU is extremely likely to do because all of those setting are either user-customizable (MS2 style 'pots') or factory setup without extensive research and development (my position on their PnP "gold" box stuff)