e39 tuning. What do you guys recommend

[heavyhammer]

I have an e39 540i. I'm looking to get a little more performance out of it. I have done some research on CAI's and exhaust modification, however I am completely clueless on the actual tuning front with this car. to clarify I have owned American cars and have tuned them (with various tuning softwares and tuners) nut I'm not sure the dos and don'ts of the BMW brand. any help you can provide me with this would be greatly appreciated

[shogun]

moved to E39 forum from 5 series general

[JimLev]

Your going to pay a LOT of money for any BMW performance part and then a tune for very little gain that you can actually feel.
Your first mod should be a 3.15 diff, LSD from an M5 or just a pegleg 3.15 from a 540iA.
The only real mods that a real gear head would enjoy would be a supercharger, nitrous, or turbo. Turbo being the hardest to put in.
Good luck.

[blarf]

Your going to pay a LOT of money for any BMW performance part and then a tune for very little gain that you can actually feel.
Your first mod should be a 3.15 diff, LSD from an M5 or just a pegleg 3.15 from a 540iA.
The only real mods that a real gear head would enjoy would be a supercharger, nitrous, or turbo. Turbo being the hardest to put in.
Good luck.

Weight reduction too. Sawzall the damn thing and make a ute. Fun for the whole family.

[JimLev]

Weight reduction too. Sawzall the damn thing and make a ute. Fun for the whole family.

^-right, open chassis should drop a 1000 lbs.

[philly98540]

You can get a more peppy feel with a retune. It basically remaps the throttle curve and some other minor tweaks. It will not yield any major gains in peak horsepower though. Contact dudmd on this forum. He seems to have the most knowledge of tuning these cars and can send you a tune via email that you can load in.

Some decent gains can be had by changing to the pre-TU non-vanos intake manifold. They are cheap and give some increase up top in the rpm bands with just some minor losses in low end torque. Junk yard part that is pretty easy to find. Removing the restrictive exhaust manifolds with those pre-cats helps too, but that ups the costs if you go headers. Some just hollow out those pre-cats, to help the engine breath a bit more. A re-tune after those hardware changes will give something noticeable, but still not huge. To get big gains, you need to drop some big bucks on a SC kit.

[geargrinder]

^^^ all what the guys said. This is an old topic for n00bz to ask about. Headers are worth it but typically very expensive, retrofitting intake manifold from older cars is worth it, diff is a huge upgrade for real-driveability even if its not "ENGINE TUNED" sexy to talk about.

As philly says, the available 'tunes'are more of a 'feels faster' than 'is faster'... but then again - as I used to say about the Shark Injector - even if it doesn't really make power, if you like how the car drives better, what the helll maybe its worth it.

- - - Updated - - -

might add - in the "FAQ" department - "no you can't get cams for it"...

[heavyhammer]

Your going to pay a LOT of money for any BMW performance part and then a tune for very little gain that you can actually feel.
Your first mod should be a 3.15 diff, LSD from an M5 or just a pegleg 3.15 from a 540iA.
The only real mods that a real gear head would enjoy would be a supercharger, nitrous, or turbo. Turbo being the hardest to put in.
Good luck.

long term goals is some form of boost (would love a roots style blower but haven't found anything yet). what diff comes factory in these cars and will I be replacing the entire Dif or just the ring and carrier?

- - - Updated - - -

^^^ all what the guys said. This is an old topic for n00bz to ask about. Headers are worth it but typically very expensive, retrofitting intake manifold from older cars is worth it, diff is a huge upgrade for real-driveability even if its not "ENGINE TUNED" sexy to talk about.

As philly says, the available 'tunes'are more of a 'feels faster' than 'is faster'... but then again - as I used to say about the Shark Injector - even if it doesn't really make power, if you like how the car drives better, what the helll maybe its worth it.

- - - Updated - - -

might add - in the "FAQ" department - "no you can't get cams for it"...

lol I figured I would catch some flack about the question however you never learn anything if you never ask questions.

[geargrinder]

No worries.. Appreciate the understanding, normally the kiddies get these "less than super cheap and easy fun" answers and say "BUT NO WAY MAN YOU GUYS JUST ARE ALL LAME AND I AM SUPER BALLAR AND I'M GONNA FIND A WAY TO MAKE IT WORK..."

Re: the diff, you have an open diff now, and to sort that, you have several routes.

1. You can go torque-biasing LSD - WaveTrac, Quaife, "Mfactory". Suboption 1.A. is you can get the core and swap it into your existing case yourself (philly did), Suboption 1.B. is you can buy one all built (I did... diffsonline is local to me and connected to friends of mine...)

2. You can swap an M5 LSD diff in - traditional clutch-based.

If you go #1 then you just keep all your axles & driveshaft. If you go #2 you need to swap the DS, and either the axles for M5, or axle-flanges at the diff. Search around here there's LOADS of threads explaining it.

For non-centrifigual blowers, search around for the "Toolman2" posts - he makes adapter kit to fit junkyard blowers. Its not a real "plug and play kit" ala Dinan or VF etc. as much as it is a "DIY-guy kit with the most important custom parts assuming you can sort the rest out". "Wagons Ho" is also working on a product/solution but slow-and-steady in his development so that's been in the works for years without a commercially viable product quite yet.

If you want some amusement go dig up the "deadpool" thread for all the successful and failed efforts to boost these motors...

[edjack]

There's always a Chebbie V8...

[heavyhammer]

There's always a Chebbie V8...

was quite hoping to keep it all bimmer lol. just the unique factor of a roots blower is appealing to me. lots (relative to the boosted bimmer world) of people do turbos or "pro-chargers" and I don't like doing the same thing as everyone else.

[1999 540i m]

There is this option,
IMG_1021.jpg

[computiNATEor]

There is this option,
IMG_1021.jpg

Oooh. Range Rover supercharger?

[1999 540i m]

Oooh. Range Rover supercharger?

Jaguar, but very similar

[geargrinder]

There is this option,

For benefit of da n00bz0rz - 99540iMMZZZ is an example of Toolmans 'starter kit' being built up into a full motor. "All" of the Toolman builds (not sure how many are rolling these days but 3, 4... 6? Toolman?) tend to be a little different because of choices with engine managment or other... 99540iMmmmz refreshed his motor inside for instance.. lightly bored...

Speaking of which... Your homeboy homebrew honejob seems to be working working great, eh? Assuming so that's good to know...

[tptrsn]

Speaking of which... Your homeboy homebrew honejob seems to be working working great, eh? Assuming so that's good to know...

+100!

[1999 540i m]

Speaking of which... Your homeboy homebrew honejob seems to be working working great, eh? Assuming so that's good to know...

+100!

Update thread coming soon, I have 100 lbs of stuff coming from clemster