Poll: Forced induction E36 track car setups, history, breakages

[sideways]

Trying to gather a little information.
Details.....
Engine:
Type, displacement, compression ratio, OBDI/II, FI type, fuel type/octane, track boost level, intercooler/aftercooler, machine work, other engine mods to support increased power output.
History:
Total # of events, track hours/mileage. type of useage,(DE/Racing) driving habits.
All Breakages: What happened, why did it happen, how was it fixed and how many events since it has been fixed.
Thanks in advance for your input,
Randy

[eXpLiCiT]

Good post. I would also like to know.

[Steve J.]

Simply put, you are better to spend the money with an NA setup.

[94green325i]

It depends on what you are trying to do with it, how often etc.

I happen to have a blower on a different car. I use this car to drag race, although it is still street legal. I knew this going in, and put a blower on it, with a stock motor. To be safe, I upgraded the fuel injectors, fuel pump, added an auxillary pump, and reprogrammed it for the blower. Power wise, there is no comparison to the normal NA mods. I suddenly had a 40% increase easy. No intake/cam/shark will give me that, and it was relatively easy to install (about 12 hours of work if you have never done it, now I can install one in about 3-4 hours). And, it sounds the same as stock, no peakiness with a cam, and passes emissions with no trouble. For just driving around, it won't really shorten the lifespan of the car because it's not working that hard around town. However, I was there to race it. I probably got about 50 events (about 300 drag passes) on it before the motor cracked a piston. Was it worth it? For me the answer was yes, it was. I replaced it with another stock motor (used and cheap), and ran it another 2 years, 50 events, and blew a piston again. I knew I had a timebomb, but for me it was great power, and easy to install. Now, I'm going to try to take it to another level, and I have a few more bucks put aside for it, so I'm rebuilding a new motor with all forged components, and lowering the compression so it will last longer. But, for example I have a friend, same motor, he doesn't race it at the track, and he's got 120,000 on the blower, and it's still fine. This matches with my girlfriend's car. We put a blower in her car 60,000 miles ago, and it's just like new, no smoke, but it's just for a peppy street car, not for racing.

I think if you are racing/stressing the motor, if longevity is the key, it's a safer step to stay NA and have less power. If you only race occasionally, it's a very nice mod. Since I do the work on the car myself, my only cost is the hardware. If I was out paying thousands to have someone build me motors, I wouldn't do it, unless I was ready to buy a new forged motor also.

I hope this is of some help.

-94green325

[Jim M3]

I have over 4 years of track time on my M3 with the supercharger. I use W/A injection and run 10lbs of boost. I have the stock radiator but added and oil cooler and rear dif cover. I really don't have any other major cooling additions that I have done. Nothing to do with the motor has broken on the car. When I recently installed my cams and locktighted the oil pump nut we discovered no issues in the motor at all. The car was supercharged at around 30k miles and now has 73k miles on the clock. I do about 5 DE's a year and average around 300 track miles per event. The things that have worn out have been related more to wear and tear. I have replaced all the front ball joints and bushings but that is about it.

[techno550]

Simply put, you are better to spend the money with an NA setup.

A wee bit confused/misguided are we?

[sideways]

I have over 4 years of track time on my M3 with the supercharger. I use W/A injection and run 10lbs of boost. I have the stock radiator but added and oil cooler and rear dif cover. I really don't have any other major cooling additions that I have done. Nothing to do with the motor has broken on the car. When I recently installed my cams and locktighted the oil pump nut we discovered no issues in the motor at all. The car was supercharged at around 30k miles and now has 73k miles on the clock. I do about 5 DE's a year and average around 300 track miles per event. The things that have worn out have been related more to wear and tear. I have replaced all the front ball joints and bushings but that is about it.

Jim, thanks for your RELEVANT post, encouraging to hear you are having such good luck with your car.
A few more questions:
Other than the cams, any internal motor mods done?
If the track pipe was added after the blower went on, what type of difference did it make? Any numbers?
What fuel type and octane do you run?
Thanks again for your input,
Randy

[Steve J.]

If its just a track car and its not being raced or pushed close to the limit, you can spend some extra coin and make it reliable for a long time. its when you go to race it when you either have to spend a LOT more to make it handle the load, or just build an NA race motor

[Jim M3]

Jim, thanks for your RELEVANT post, encouraging to hear you are having such good luck with your car.
A few more questions:
Other than the cams, any internal motor mods done?
If the track pipe was added after the blower went on, what type of difference did it make? Any numbers?
What fuel type and octane do you run?
Thanks again for your input,
Randy

No other internal work was done when the cams were added. I use 93 octane gas with some 100 octace unleaded race fuel on track days to help with detonation. The largest increase I saw on my car was when I added the track pipe with the M50 manifold. This simple change resulted in 40 whp on my car, with no tuning changes. My next project will be charge cooling and then the car is done.

Look for Bimmer next month there will be an article on the car with impressions from the author who drove it.

[MrBlonde]

Simply put, you are better to spend the money with an NA setup.

I disagree.

[Steve J.]

For track days where you are going 8-10ths its not bad, but for racing it's going to take a lot of development to get it to hold up to the conditions. Also, you will be in a class where a lot more hp is available.

[Jim M3]

What BMWCCA race cars make 400whp? It would be interesting to see with some suspension development how the car would do. Especially with charge cooling. I think the car could hang with quite a few NA monsters and probably win. I have been on the track against very well developed E46 M3's that were fully prepared and my car could walk away from them. With some Motons and corner balancing this car could really be very formidable. Especially if it lost some weight.

[Def]

For track days where you are going 8-10ths its not bad, but for racing it's going to take a lot of development to get it to hold up to the conditions. Also, you will be in a class where a lot more hp is available.

Oh, so your engine is comforted by the fact that there are restrictions on passing, so it can hold up to DEs but not racing?



My engine has done fine on the track, but it was a factory FI engine. The only real difference between it and an S50/S52 is that the compression ratio is lower and I have sodium filled exhaust valves(which are major pimp, heh). Really though, there isn't a huge difference as long as you have a good tune and bump the octane up a bit at the track to account for the increased charged temps and cylinder head temps.

[Steve J.]

Ok, well there's a reason why people don't race them. Other than Mcmillin, I have not seen many FI E36's race that have not had significant problems. And just slapping motons on won't do much.

[sideways]

For track days where you are going 8-10ths its not bad, but for racing it's going to take a lot of development to get it to hold up to the conditions. Also, you will be in a class where a lot more hp is available.

In my original post I asked for FACTS. You are posting your opinions. If you have some FACTS that are relevant to my ORIGINAL post by all means, share them. If not, do not post.

[Steve J.]

There ARE facts. Is there a reason you want FI power, are you already able to drive the stock m3 on slicks to its full potential? If so, you should definitely think about racing, because you have no need for DE's anymore. Seriously, if you feel you can handle 250-300hp to its full potential on semi-race/track susp with sticky tires, you should considering getting out of DE"S and go race. A lot of HP will just restrict you from learning ultimate car control. Just trying to help out as I have seen a lot of people get in over thier head recently with 400-600hp cars on the track and run pathetic lap times. And all this HP comes with a price, both financially and time when it comes to problems occuring.

[magnetic1]

There ARE facts. Is there a reason you want FI power, are you already able to drive the stock m3 on slicks to its full potential? If so, you should definitely think about racing, because you have no need for DE's anymore. Seriously, if you feel you can handle 250-300hp to its full potential on semi-race/track susp with sticky tires, you should considering getting out of DE"S and go race. A lot of HP will just restrict you from learning ultimate car control. Just trying to help out as I have seen a lot of people get in over thier head recently with 400-600hp cars on the track and run pathetic lap times. And all this HP comes with a price, both financially and time when it comes to problems occuring.

Where is Krisko... he and I both know that the FI B5 S4s would destroy M3s around the TT reace series anyday.

[B.Watts]

What BMWCCA race cars make 400whp? It would be interesting to see with some suspension development how the car would do. Especially with charge cooling. I think the car could hang with quite a few NA monsters and probably win.

As it should, because it would be classed much higher than the NA cars due to the 1.5x engine displacement increase you get for running FI. To fairly compare it, you'd need to be racing against a built 5 liter M5 motor.

[Steve J.]

five liter shmive liter, bring em on

[techno550]

A well tuned turbocharged M50B20 would stomp all in the 3L and under class. Or is the cap 3.2? I forget.
Either way, a 450hp reliable ~2L turbo is easy. More reliable than a 450hp ~3L NA engine as well.
Oh, and did I mention a lot more torque? A more usable power band?

BMW CCA isn't the only one with a formula of "X litres NA or Y litres (Y < X) FI". LMP cars are this way. When was the last LeMans winner an NA car? Beyond that, what is the rebuild interval for the NA cars versus the FI cars? Do you know? I do.

[B.Watts]

I'm not disagreeing. A 2.0 liter Turbo would be fun. But Joe Blow can put together a decent 400 hp S50B32, which is more than enough power needed to win CMod in BMW CCA.

A properly setup FI system is actually preferrable in my opinion. The problem is that most people want to try to track/race one of the typical bolt-on systems and run into all sorts of problems.

[Steve J.]

Techno, go build one on the same budget as a normal Euro 3.2L and see if you can win easily...without the time to develop, test and fix the problems that come up under racing conditions.

[techno550]

Techno, go build one on the same budget as a normal Euro 3.2L and see if you can win easily...without the time to develop, test and fix the problems that come up under racing conditions.

You make it sound as if it would be the first time anyone pulled a 3L engine out of a car and replaced it with a 2L turbo.

I don't see lots of need for "development" beyond the normal build for that type of motor. I also don't see much in the way of potential problems. If its a race motor, build it like one. (even though a modestly sorted street motor would work in an application like this where there are no restrictors or boost limits.) The motor should be more reliable and less stressed than its high-revving NA counterpart. A 450hp NA 3L is usually good for a few weekends. a 500hp turbocharged 2L is good for a season. Been there, done that.

You give me a decently sorted chassis and a modest engine budget, I'll throw together something. Hell, It could even easily be done with an M44 and we could save a little weight.

[B.Watts]

You give me a decently sorted chassis and a modest engine budget, I'll throw together something. Hell, It could even easily be done with an M44 and we could save a little weight.

I've got the chassis and $1000. Let's go.

I'm tired of 320hp. It's such a bore, even if we are kicking arse on cars with 400+ hp. Eventually some of these folks will learn that they need to invest in the chassis instead of the motor.

The problem is that very few of the typical BMW race engine buidlers have much experience with FI. And very few club racers have the knowledge and/or skills to build a proper motor. Would a good FI setup work and be better? Sure. But it's just easier for most folks to stick with the easy stuff.

[jmsanders78]

OK, so true or false: Standard supercharger kit, properly installed on a track car typically = bad.

If true, why? Hoses pop off? Detonation? Oil temps? Other stuff?