welcome back everybody welcome to exotic car play place today we're going to
talk about one of the best tuner engines in the BMW family which one is that
let's talk so if you've been following my channel for a
while then you know that the engine that I'm really intrigued with is this one
today the n54 which is actually BMWs first attempt at a mass-produced
turbocharged engine since way back when so BMW decided to get in on this whole
turbo charging game back it debuted in 2006 at the Geneva Motor Show and ever
since then it won countless awards for technology performance of what it brings
to the table so the n54 has won five consecutive engine of the Year awards
also ten top awards engines of course as well and it has been the talk of the
town by lots of tuners through and through for years ever since that engine
has come out it's been loved by a lot of tuners so what are the particulars on
this engine it's a three liter all aluminum it's aluminum block aluminum
heads open deck design of course four valves per cylinder and of course it
produces 300 horsepower and as much pound-feet of torque by factory when
this car came out it was ridiculous because there was countless guys
comparing this with the previous generation e46 m3 which was a little
rocket ship in its day and they were there was countless drag races that you
can find all over the internet and it was amazing because this new
turbocharged 335 could beat on the e46 m3 all day long now we all know M cars
are special for everything that they bring it's the balance and the brakes
and the performance the engine everything however the N 454 engine
tucked away in the 335 s was a real formidable power plant and you know what
it brought a lot to the table even in stock format with zero to sixty times of
about five seconds quarter-mile times of 13.2 and a top speed of governed 150
miles-per-hour know what's kind of unique about the n54 well it doesn't
it's turbocharged of course we know that but it's two turbochargers not the one
now that they use a twin scroll single turbocharger in the end 55 and the b-58
but this one actually had twin turbochargers and with that gave a whole
host of opportunities for performance enhancements they utilize direct
injection but BMW called it high precision injection same business it
also used an air-to-air intercooler and piezo injectors now on that injector
thing everybody knows now unfortunately after the fact that those weren't the
best injectors for this application they were a problem right from the get-go so
if anybody's tuning these engines that's something you probably want to look at
what is so special about the n54 well with a redline of 7000 rpm and a
relatively low boost pressure of 0.6 bar means that it's static compression is
relatively high at 12 to 1 and then what that translates to is a very brisk
performer with very little turbo lag and enough power to get up and get going
this car was very sprightly to say the least because of their internals their
forged internals are what made this car especially attractive but anyway moving
right along so there's a lot of things that you can do it's a sprightly
performer as it is out of the box and that's why I won many many
engine awards however if you are like me and we like performance cars then there
are some things you could consider and that is honestly why if you've been
watching the channel you guys know that I've been shopping for some of these
cars the e90 335 s particularly I'm considering the coupe the sedan not sure
yet all-wheel drive rear wheel drive not 100% still working on that however
there's a lot of different things you can do to upgrade the performance
because I'm not satisfied with 300 horsepower although it's a very quick
machine now you know I'm looking for the five six seven eight hundred horsepower
routes but today we're gonna share with you some of the options that you can
look at if you want to upgrade an n54 engine and make it just a little bit
more quick a little more sprightly a little bit more bang for your buck
let's start at the bottom of the ladder with the simplest mods so performance
upgrades comes in many different stages you could pick from tuners like Cobb and
from Dinan and the stage one is typically where you're gonna want to
start if you want to just give it a little bump in power you don't want to
spend a lot of money and you don't really want to put yourself out there
you don't want to create that Franken car you know you just want to have
something that's a little peppier and zinger it's pretty cheap and dirty to do
that it's a reflash it's a program basically
so by doing a reflash and then putting the cone intake air filters on you can
basically easily accomplish about a hundred horsepower and about 130 pound
feet of torque upgrade that makes the car very lively very peppy and of course
a great little street car for sure with that upgrade now of course another
option that you can add to the stage one tune of course is an optional front
mounted intercooler which doesn't give you more power but by adding the
intercooler you're protecting the charged air so you're you're gonna
protect the engine from detonation you're gonna allow that engine to run
harder longer so that's almost a guaranteed upgrade requirement I
wouldn't do any of these upgrade personally without an intercooler
addition to that but again it's an upgrade no extra power involved it's
some extra cash out of the pocket but again it's going to buy you some
security then there's stage two which is kind of typical again Cobb or Dinan you
know they all have their stage one and two and a lot of times it's just a flash
and some extra hardware so stage two is essentially the same thing as one which
is they do a reflash or tune they do the intake cones and now they're doing a
catalyst or a cat bypass or down pipe off the exhaust so you're reducing or
reducing the restriction in the exhaust system that is gonna get you about an
extra you know above stock about an extra hundred and twenty five horsepower
and about a hundred and forty pound feet of torque which again is it doesn't seem
like a lot but again it goes a lot you know towards the better sound snap your
performance as you reduce back pressure in the exhaust system often you'll
reduce turbo lag sometimes you'll have a little better flow of course turbos will
move the air a lot better and of course will spool a little bit quicker likely
you're going to improve the spool up time which
translate to actual numbers but it's the seat-of-the-pants that you're looking
for there and then there's another one the stage two and you can also upgrade
the intercoolers intercooler as well and again always advisable to add an
intercooler whenever you're adding boost to your engine which is what you're
doing by reflashing it it's actually cranking up the boost and the engine
it's also something that you want to add is an intercooler because that's
protecting your investment if you keep adding boost but you don't keep that
charge air-cool you're going to have a catastrophic failure at some point if
you push the car just too hard and then there's a next level we talk maybe
around stage three and that is a lot more Hardware involved of course but the
way I see this don't keep upgrading your stages have set in your mind where do
you want that project to end up do you want that 600 horsepower fire-breathing
monster or do you just want something with a little extra snap you've got to
think about that because you might as well upgrade the hardware right off the
bat so you don't keep replacing parts as you go but to do the next stage you're
going to do a flash you're going to do the intake cones the front mounted
intercooler the down pipes of course then basically the cat bypass or catless
downpipe s' you're going to add a full exhaust and you're going to upgrade the
charge pipe as well with an integrated blow-off valve so as a bet does a better
job of managing the overboost conditions and less likely a chance of breaking
that charge pipe because now you're putting something that's a little bit
more reinforced so this cars in essence is able to sustain higher levels of
boost for a lot longer and provide you more power with numbers like 150 horse
and about 160 pound feet of torque extra above and beyond stock so now you're at
about 450 horsepower which is plenty car remember the old Porsche 996 twin turbo
that car only came with 420 horsepower and they were very very quick so now
you're in the same ballpark with that now having moved down the stage line ups
of course I think we pretty much hit the maximum allowable output you know the
maximum that those turbos the stock turbos can flow would provide you 400
450-horsepower that's kind of their thermal limits and they're done they
can't push a much more air than that so if you want to hit that 500-600
flywheel horsepower then you have to start looking at some other upgrades and
so then you start looking at maybe a JB like a burger JB for tuned piggyback but
you also have to upgrade the turbos use that produce physically a lot more flow
so you're gonna have to upgrade both turbos or convert to a single turbo
that's an option as well so you want to upgrade that you may upgrade the
injectors as well for reliability as well as possible fuelling but the other
key of course is methanol injection so when you start adding all this extra
boost and pushing a lot more air through the engine another little trick that
some of the tuners are using in these cars is methanol injection so you're
hitting a lot more boost creating a lot more heat you have to support the system
so you got the turbos you got better fuelling but now you need the methanol
injection it helps keeping the intake charge cooler as well you probably want
to put an oil cooler in there as well methanol injection larger turbos exhaust
you've done the intake cones the flash on a piggyback from JB for or there
abouts there's a lot of things you've done you spent a lot of money so you
have to ask yourself is that kind of where I want to wind up or am I
satisfied with 400 horsepower do I need that 550 horsepower so those are the
things don't forget - now you've upgraded the performance but as you add
more power things start to break axles you want to make sure you have brakes
that can slow the car down you want to make sure everything else can tolerate
that so everything else has to be built around that and again if you don't
you're going to start breaking parts and that's where tuning gets very expensive
is not just adding the power it's to support the chassis support you and
safety and so that's the things that you have to consider when you're tuning
these engines but as a result they're often compared to the old Toyota Supra
twin turbo engine you know from way back in the 90s just because of its tune
ability it's forged internals and its overall performance potential so this is
a great engine for upgrades for performance and that's why I'm seeking
by possibly a 335 with the wonderful n54 because it is so tunable all right so I
hope you enjoyed that video now let's have a swig of the kool-aid all right so
I really hope you enjoyed that video guys I really just want to share that
with you this is sort of the beginning of a bit of a series we're gonna address
some of the key engines in the BMW lineups and I know a lot of you guys
have been asking about specific engines and you know some of the goods and Bad's
but really we're gonna talk about what that engine means to BMW like the n54
like we just spoke of today what that means is a new generation turbo charging
horsepower tuning the sort of a new concept for BMW as such up until then it
was more of you know you drive the car stock a lot of tuners now like these n54
s and so that's what we talk about the next engine we discuss will probably
have a different idea different concept depending on what that engine brings to
the table we will address that so I hope everybody liked the video make sure you
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you guys later bye bye