Author Topic: stock turbo summary Q's (Read 5797 times)

B318M42W · « **on:** May 31, 2010, 12:06:13 AM »

I've been reading a lot lately and here's what I understand of what I'll need if I plan on running about 7 psi boost If i'm missing some major stuff, feel free to add!!

Hardware (obvious)
-turbo and manifold
- oil feed lines
- BOV
- intercooler
- larger exhaust
- larger fuel pump

not sure parts
- larger injectors?
- oil cooler?
- radiator?
- vacuum, intake boot (silicone)?

engine management

this is unclear: will i be ok running on the stock ECU chip? If not, is there a ''boosted'' chip what comes with predetermined fuel and spark maps that's just plug and play? Also, will a wideband O2 sensor be needed?

wazzu70 · « **Reply #1 on:** May 31, 2010, 12:14:55 AM »

Stock engine management will not work. If you really want to go FI get a standalone and learn to use it.

There may be turbo chips on the market, but I have never bothered to look for those.

I also think you may want to do some more reading. At this point it seems like you are in over your head. Thats not meant to be offensive, Im just trying to save you money and frustration. You will be much better off waiting and reading so you do it right the first time.

http://www.e30tech.com has a decent turbo section as does bimmerforums.com

bmwconnect · « **Reply #2 on:** May 31, 2010, 09:05:37 AM »

Quote from: NickHertlein;93072

Stock engine management will not work. If you really want to go FI get a standalone and learn to use it.

There may be turbo chips on the market, but I have never bothered to look for those.

I also think you may want to do some more reading. At this point it seems like you are in over your head. Thats not meant to be offensive, Im just trying to save you money and frustration. You will be much better off waiting and reading so you do it right the first time.

http://www.e30tech.com has a decent turbo section as does bimmerforums.com

Stock engine management will work. I have tuned many turbo 318s with stock motornic. standalone is more user friendly that is all

RouteZeroDesign · « **Reply #3 on:** June 02, 2010, 03:23:52 PM »

Nick, I mean no offense by this, but that is utter garbage.
Your opinion comes across somehow as both uneducated yet condescending at the same time.

The stock motronic WILL work, it is one of the best stock ECUs that i've come across, standalone is only needed for fine tuning and/or if you plan on going over 7psi in the future.
An adjustable rising rate fuel pressure regulator (RRFPR) combined with 46lb injectors will be enough to get you running, and with a little bit of work, will allow you to safely daily drive the car with this setup (there are members on the forum that have been dailying a similar setup for over 2 years)

I'll try to list off the top of my head what I can.
I am going to performing my turbo conversion over the summer (need more power per € than NA has been providing), so I'll be fitting a very similar setup myself until I get my second low compression engine built.

Hardware

Turbo

Many thousands of different types to choose from, just have a browse through the forum and you will see. Make sure that it can produce the flow and pressure that you require at a reasonably rpm, generally a smaller turbo will spin up faster than a bigger one, but you will be limited by its maximum pressure, in the event of you upping the boost.
Im looking at either a t25/t28 off a Nissan Silvia myself as they are widely available here and provide enough head room to work with my second engine.

Manifold

You can either DIY this or do as a lot of people on here do and buy an m50 turbo manifold off ebay. They then cut the last two flanges off, blank the open pipe and create an up pipe to the turbo.

Oil feed

There is information in a few threads in this subforum about where the best place to T this from is. From what I can remember there is a threaded plug at the back of the block that is ideal. You will also have to create a return line to the sump.
You may also need to run water lines to and from your turbo if they are required.

BOV

Can be DIYed with a good bit of effort, best to get a junk yard item for the moment

Intercooler

Again, available from the junk yard or ebay

Larger exhaust

Im not sure if this is necessary, maybe a cat back system would suffice.
The idea is to create minimal back pressure for the turbo, as they create boost due to differential pressures.

Larger fuel pump

Not really sure about this one, ill have to look around and see if it is required at low boost levels or just the higher levels.
[/LIST]

not sure parts

Larger injectors

I think 46lb injectors is what most people use, and can support upto roughly 260rwhp

Oil cooler

Depends on your local environment, might be required if you experience high temps

Radiator

Same as with oil cooler

Vacuum

There are a good few points where you can T off vacuum for the wastegate, bov etc. The idle control valve and carbon canister stick out in my mind as places but ill have to double check.

Intake boot

There is a silicon 90* bend available that works. Its part no. is listed on the forum, ill have to find it later.

The other things that I can think of at the moment...
...sorry, its 4.10am :rolleyes:

10w50 Oil (slightly heavier oil is required as the standard oil gets heated up too quickly by the turbo)
1 degree colder spark plugs
emm, a good service...dont give your engine a reason to fail on you :D

I'll come back and tidy this up tomorrow, and add anything to it that I can remember. My apologies for the half, I only realized how tired I was after starting to type lol

wazzu70 · « **Reply #4 on:** June 03, 2010, 01:29:13 AM »

True, motronic or "moronic" as its known will work, but that does not mean its a good idea. You could also increase your engines compression to 12:1 and run it on 87 octane, does not mean its smart or good for the engine. When I said it will not work, I should have said its just a really bad idea.

People can do what they want, but if you want to run a ghetto fabulous setup you will get ghetto fabulous results and will be at a much higher risk of failure.

Not disclosing that using motronic is the worst possible route you could take is really misleading to people who are trying to learn. I guess you just need to define how well you want your engine to "work" and for how long and take that into consideration.

I am very educated and I have a lot of knowledge in this area. I stand by what I said and anyone who works on turbo cars and does not settle for the absolute bottom of the barrel will agree.

Everyone has the choice to make their car as accident prone as they want. For the low cost of a VEMS system that is virtually plug and play with an M42 why you would even bother to screw with stock moronic is beyond me.

Your post is incredibly uneducated. Wait until you build your turbo system and then come back and read this and you will understand.

RouteZeroDesign · « **Reply #5 on:** June 03, 2010, 05:23:54 AM »

Hi Nick,
Sorry we may have gotten off on the wrong foot here.
How are you? Whats your favourite colour? Now that all the pleasantries are out of the way...
In all seriousness, if I came across as a dick (which I kind of did) it was most likely because I was projecting my frustrations with the local "experts" onto you, so I apologize for that. They have the tendency to project their opinion's as facts and maybe I jumped the gun in assuming that your advice was doing the same thing.
For example, one of them tried to tell my friend (a fellow Mech. Eng. student), that putting a fuel pump from a Golf into his Polo would give it 10 extra bhp, regardless of the fact that the Polo is a bone stock 1000cc 8 valve, with a perfectly functioning fuel pump.

Yes, it would be possible to run 13:1 static compression, 10 atmospheres of boost and WD40 as engine oil, but I don't think those levels of idiocy are comparable to running a turbo on the stock Motronic. Of course the Motronic isn't ideal, as it doesn't have the resolution required for fine tuning a force induced engine, but that doesn't mean that it can't be made to work.
If on a very tight budget, the ability to get a turbo to "work" before investing in a piggyback/standalone can be very useful.
I was just trying to present all the options available, similar to how I said "thousands" of turbos, when realistically, there are only a few dozen suitable for a standard engine setup.

This isn't the first turbocharged car that I have worked on. A number of builds that I have been involved with have competed and won the circuit of Ireland rally championship along with competing in the Irish and British rounds of the WRC. Thats not even thinking about the numerous Rally cross and Drift cars that have passed through these doors.

As a matter of full disclosure, I only plan to use the stock Motronic ECU on my build to get the car drivable enough to bring over to Emerald, where they will be fitting a multi-map ECU. Although trailering the car may be a more reasonable option.
The Emerald ECU will have three maps; Street, Sport and Race, selectable by a dashboard mounted switch.
Street will be tuned with drivability and economy in mind with low boost settings,
The water/meth injection will only turn on after the IAT and/or RPM sensor exceed a certain parameter and the soft cut rev limiter will also be set reasonably low.
Sport will be tuned quite similarly, but with the IAT and RPM parameters for meth/water injection being set lower. The rev limit and boost settings will also be raised.
Race will set the meth/water injection to turn on very early in the RPM range to prevent pinging and the boost and rev limit will be set to the maximum that the engine will reliably allow.
For what its worth, these maps can be changed on the fly using the Emerald K6 ECU.

Sorry again for causing an argument, I'll know in future not to come on here after working on a project for 14 hours

wazzu70 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 03, 2010, 11:07:50 AM »

No problem. I could have handled it better as well. The key point is you CAN do a lot of things but that does not mean it's advisable or a proper solution.

Many people who are learning by reading these posts equate this kind of info as something that's a good idea or advisable since people say it CAN work.

These statements need to be followed by "I would do it the proper way if I was not going cheapo at the expense of performance or reliability." unfortunately it usually comes across like it was a consious decision and not a last resort band-aid.

I'll try and be more chill in the future

RouteZeroDesign · « **Reply #7 on:** June 03, 2010, 01:25:32 PM »

No problem man, just thought i'd clear things up, i've no need nore want for causing forum drama, it just gets in the way of the information

I suppose you're right in saying that whatever we say, should be said with precaution.
This site seems to used as the main BMW m42/44 reference on the internet, so there are a lot of people using it to gather information for their projects, so you're probably in right that we should say "just because you can do it this way, doesn't mean its advisable".

B318M42W · « **Reply #8 on:** June 05, 2010, 03:36:49 AM »

Thanks guys! really great info! Main reason why I was planning on using the stock ECU is because, well... i'm not a millionaire (yet

). When time and money will allow, a piggy-back will be considered.

Parts for the build up here are not as cheap as down in the states, trying to keep costs down.

So basicly, I don't need to mod anything (sensorwise) to run the stock ECU?

bmwconnect · « **Reply #9 on:** June 05, 2010, 07:46:28 AM »

sensors no but I have had better results tuning the m42 motronic with a push threw afm apose to draw threw for turbo setup's . I'm located in ottawa if you would like to come down I can tune your car . it will be $250 for 10psi and you supply the wideband O2 sensor and boost guage as a permanent install on your vehicle. I also suggest you get some metric blue or arp head studs. Min 30LB injectors will be needed or bigger if you plan to go with more boost in the future

FTW the stock motronic unit with a tune can handle up to 70LB injectors. Also it can handle high boost just as well as any stand alone system if tuned correctly

bmwconnect · « **Reply #10 on:** June 05, 2010, 08:04:55 AM »

also you should introduce a check valve between the intake to the charcoal canister. In some cases you can blow air into your fuel tank

NisseJ�rnet · « **Reply #11 on:** June 05, 2010, 01:55:14 PM »

Or just throw out the tank