Estimated HP gains - bolt on mods and reflash?

[3scapist]

Originally Posted by carbonBLUE

not sure if i read somewhere if it was aluminum and it was coated in a plastic resin to avoid heat soaking the IM

See, now that would make more sense. Or some kind of ceramic thermal coating like what Grimspeed has for manifolds, pipes, and turbos. http://www.grimmspeed.com/catalog/pr...roducts_id=168

I also hope GrimmSpeed comes out with some options for this car. Give me 250whp with such a lightweight car and I'll be one happy camper.

[carbonBLUE]

Originally Posted by Driftster

just because the manifold is plastic doesn't mean it has a poor internal design.

nor does it mean there are big gains to be had...

Reminder..

BMW used plastic intake manifolds on quite a few of their M engines (s50 included)

The real power was to be made as a result of varying smog laws at the time, not because of the manifold being made of plastic..


Thus far there is nothing that leads anyone to believe this car is starved/choked for air...


And you cannot assume potential HP gain for one engine......based on the gain of another engine..

So it doesn't matter what your moms Honda Odyssey got or C63 Bloke Series...

exactly, the only thing i worry about with a plastic IM is heat soaking and chipping i dont want plastic bits going into my engine a lot of cars use them though so its not that big of a worry

[old greg]

Originally Posted by carbonBLUE

exactly, the only thing i worry about with a plastic IM is heat soaking and chipping i dont want plastic bits going into my engine a lot of cars use them though so its not that big of a worry

A plastic intake manifold will be much better than AL in the heatsoak department. And in the extremely unlikely event of chips (I can't even imagine how that would happen), Nylon is a thermoplastic so any of it that gets into your cylinders will be soft and squishy and soon turned into soot in your exhaust.

[Syldrin]

I/H/E - E85......... i'd say 230wheel.

[KidWonder]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is an engine tune?

[RiskyTrousers]

Originally Posted by KidWonder

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is an engine tune?

I think its when a big hairy guy in greasy overalls takes a hammer and goes at it in the engine bay for a couple of hours.

[Longhorn248]

Originally Posted by KidWonder

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is an engine tune?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_tuning

[ahausheer]

Plastic intake manifolds are used on many Toyota and Lexus V6 engines and are way way more robust than you would think. Plastic is used to save weight and it will NOT chip or deform. It is a proven design.

[3scapist]

Originally Posted by Driftster

BMW used plastic intake manifolds on quite a few of their M engines (s50 included)

Probably why a CF IM was the first upgrade BMW especially e36 M3 owners did...

I'm sure they'll have a manifold upgrade down the line. Or at least a thermal spacer.

[whitejdm]

Originally Posted by 3scapist

Probably why a CF IM was the first upgrade BMW especially e36 M3 owners did...

I'm sure they'll have a manifold upgrade down the line. Or at least a thermal spacer.

Let's put this intake manifold discussion into perspective. On the M3 CSL going to a full carbon intake manifold (feeding individual throttle bodies), VERY aggressive cams, and ditching the factory engine management netted them 20 CRANK hp over the stock model. And you should ask those Euro E36 M3 owners about losing 25lb/ft everywhere by bolting the same intake on a stock motor and drilling holes for their MAF sensors.

Not to be rude but based on experience by the time your engine is built to the point when the intake manifold becomes a bottle neck you're gonna be WAY past intake/exhaust/tune territory. You'll start messing with cams, valves, port matching and all those other wonderful things that make you wake up 4000 dollars later with an engine on a stand and say "whoops, should have supercharged this thing 6 months ago"

[Mitch]

Originally Posted by 3scapist

Probably why a CF IM was the first upgrade BMW especially e36 M3 owners did...

I'm sure they'll have a manifold upgrade down the line. Or at least a thermal spacer.

CF intake manifold? I've never seen one before. Schrick did an aluminum manifold back in the 90's for the North American e36 M3, and flow bench tests showed that it actually flowed worse than the stock plastic manifold. Perhaps you're thinking of the CF airbox (semantics, but it really is a different part) that people used on the rest-of-world cars (Canada only got ~45 of those) equipped with an S50b30, S50b32 or S54b32.

A plastic intake manifold is just fine. Strong enough for any NA application and even a good amount of boost. Plastic has the lowest friction loss, and there's really need for a thermal spacer on a plastic manifold (spacer would just be made out of plastic anyway). I'm not sure what they'd upgrade on the manifold later on.

EDIT: Driftster with a much better writeup. I will say this on boost, though. The plastic manifold is still strong enough for good boost duty. ICS got 635whp on a 328i with a plastic intake manifold. I haven't followed Cardcounter's threads in a long time, so I don't know if he's had any problems with it by now, but he ran that for a long time. The custom jobs are really nice, though. Are people seeing any sort of power increase from those, or are they just for peace of mind?

[fa5tco]

Don't forget the higher compression. Knowing what we know about subaru stock tunes...and subarus horribad choked off exhaust. I'm gonna say this car will hit 200whp easily.

Cobb will have an AP out sooner rather than later and with the dual fueling in this engine it will be easy to tune.

[whitejdm]

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

Jesus Christ. I should have known better than to open this thread.

Honestly, it's going to be hard to tell what kind of power you're going to make from bolt ons because it's all determinative of how efficient the factory stuff is to begin with. Additionally, a tune may be cost prohibitive, depending on whose engine management software they went with. Few people are going to run a piggyback or standalone for boltons on a street car if this is as untuneable as most Toyota ECUs have been in the past.





The engine isn't "detuned." It's tuned safely because cars are sold with warranties to people who don't know how to take care of them. So the factory tune is pig rich and leaves some timing on the table. What people do with stock tunes is advance the timing, dial back the knock retard, and lean the car out.



Ghetto shit? Really? Here's another car with a plastic intake manifold.








See that nice shiny alterna......oh, wait, that's a blower. Because ECS throws 12lbs of boost at these manifolds (with meth) all day long.



This. Plastic intake manifolds are no longer the weak point in the chain they were in the 1990s. They're also no longer plastic. They're composite.



Isn't that like 4k worth of (quality) parts and labor, even if you're only having someone else do the tune? Value for money is severely lacking here.

haha +1 to all of this, uh except the C63 part. Unfortunately Levi is correct and that motor is detuned, Mercedes has a hierarchy to maintain, so not the BEST example but definitely the exception to the rule. As far as N/A motors go the Japanese are not known for "leaving" much power on the table software wise so we can't really expect that from the 86.

[RegisBou]

Originally Posted by LSxJunkie

Isn't that like 4k worth of (quality) parts and labor, even if you're only having someone else do the tune? Value for money is severely lacking here.

Sure its 4k in quality parts for NA. But boost on stock internals will be extremely limited (maybe 5psi..) and will cost around the same I would think for a "quality" 5psi setup.

So if at 5psi you get the same WHP as a 4k (equal price) N/A setup, I don't see a problem with that.

I dont think I will ever want more than that anyways, longevity and fun can still be attained at that level of power.

These blocks are not like LSX's (i frequent ls1tech at least 4 times a day haha) so I'm not in it for HUGE gains ya know.

This isn't a V8 where that amount of money will increase your WHP as much, but percentage wise its the same bang for your buck if you really look at it with an economics standpoint..

For example:
1) $4k will get you 30whp out of a 200bhp car. So lets say 170whp (15% drivetrain loss rule of thumb) 30/170= .1764 or 17.64%

2) $4k will get you 60whp out of a 400bhp car. So lets say 340whp (15% rule). 60/340= .1764 or 17.64%

So like i said before technically this is good bang for you buck. If for the same price I get the same increase over a higher displacement engine, I am happy!



I agree with everything you say, rather, I never said this engine was de-tuned (lol) and I never said composite intake manifolds were BS, I was hoping for a composite aftermarket one anyways. Metal is too soaky and heavy.