jon dee

Some interesting stuff in that .pdf linked above. Looks like the ECU starts cutting back the power as temps go up until eventually you reach limp-mode levels if things get hot enough. Read quite a few threads about high engine and oil temps but never saw any reference to a gradual cut back ? Maybe most drivers just see the oil temp heading North and back off before the ECU reads 150 deg ? I know I would Cheers...

Oh dear... I must have touched a nerve then... sorry about that But I say what I think and if anyone disagrees with my opinions they are welcome to voice an opposing view. An opinion is not worth holding if it cannot stand up for itself in open debate. And if my opinion is defeated in honest combat with well considered, technically correct, logical and skillfully presented arguments, then I will graciously admit defeat. Cheers...

I'll take that as a compliment... thanks Cheers...

Times change... 120 deg used to be considered a safe max but a bit of digging shows that the N54 is apparently designed to run hot. In the warmer climate of the US of A temps of 130-132 are not considered unusual when pushing the car reasonably hard. I also read that if you reach 160 the car will go into limp-mode ? After that I went and checked to see if my car has the factory oil cooler, and it does Apparently some earlier models did not get the cooler. Considering that the gauge temp is likely the pan temp, oil temp in the bearings can be 20 deg higher. So safe to say that the N54 works the oil pretty hard and if you go racing you want to have some fresh high quality stuff in the pan. High temps degrade the oil fast and since your oil is the only thing between the bearings and disaster, it is not something to cheap out on. Cheers...

Minor thread jack... I noticed that my logs show the throttle opening to 80% and staying there when my foot says go WOT. Is that a normal BMW thing ? Something to do with the ECU considering that 80% TPS is optimum for intake velocity/power ? Cheers...

There are groups of people, organisations and individuals in this country, so insulated from the ugly realities of life, that they think they can change the course of human development by making a bunch of regulations forcing people to be nice to each other. When you consider that after 4000 or so years half the world is still tearing at each others throats, I find it somewhat naive for anyone to think that human nature can be regulated. Perhaps we can teach all NZers to respect other cultures, people, their property and ideas ? Perhaps I would feel better if a large person holding a weapon was to say to me... Pardon me sir, but due to certain exigencies of a personal nature, I would be sincerely grateful if you would surrender to me your car keys and your wallet. Due to certain traumatic events in my formative years and a lack of community support, I have developed certain disquieting personality disorders that prevent me from achieving my full potential as a person. I apologise in advance for any pain or psychological damage that you may suffer as a result of my unsolicited request, and trust that you will not prejudge me because of my race, religion or appearance. Hey... lots of luck with reforming society... but base instincts are base instincts and they are born anew with each generation. Cheers...

This is an interesting thread as I went thru a similar process trying to cure a mid range stumble on a small supercharged engine (not a BMW). It showed up as a droop in the boost trace over a span of around 1000rpm, and I managed to convince myself (wrongly as it turned out) that it was an ignition breakdown/spark blowout event. Below that rpm band the engine pulled hard and above the band it ran fine all the way to redline. I tried everything I could think of... upgraded the ignition from twin coil packs and wasted spark to COP's fired sequentially; tried one step and two step colder plugs; tried non-projected insulator plugs; multiple different settings for the water/meth injection; changed to larger injectors to make sure I had enough fuel and keep the IDC below 85%... made innumerable logs and minor adjustments to the fuel map, but nothing worked. Finally, I tried backing off a few degrees of timing in the ignition map and dang me if the droop in the boost trace disappeared In my defense, I have to say that although I had a knock detector wired to the ECU it was essentially useless. There was just too much mechanical noise (false knock) in the frequency band where real knock could be expected. Anyways, once I had the timing sorted it ran like a champ. Sold the car to Australia and the guy that bought it told me when he took it for a run it ran like a dog... wouldn't take full throttle were his exact words ???? Couldn't figure that out for quite a while until he told me it was about 40deg that day. I also doubt that he had put any water in the injection tank, so the engine which was tuned for 20deg ambient here in Wellington was sucking in hot air with no water for charge cooling. Poor little engine must have been knocking like crazy I felt a bit guilty about that for a while, as TBH I clean forgot that the car might need to be re-tuned and have the cooling system upgraded for Australian conditions. It worked fine without an intercooler and never over heated here in NZ, but an extra 20deg ambient changes things quite a bit. All of this is likely irrelevant to your particular hesitation issue, but will give you an idea of what happens when you don't keep an open mind to any of the many possibilities that can cause a stumble. Cheers...

Thread right here... https://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/65398-n54-intercoolers-nz-source/ Cheers...

I am certifiably not racist. It makes no difference to me who makes a product, but if it is a crap product I will call it as such. I see no need to pussyfoot around the issue... if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then I will call it a duck.... not an anas platyrhynchos domesticus to avoid offending a countries sensibilities. Ultimately, by telling the truth, you are providing valuable feedback to the supplier that will help them select and stock a better quality product Incidentally, I consider that the jack stands I bought from a local store are perfectly adequate for my purposes and I have no complaints. Cheers...

Yeah... I'd agree with getting some logs to see what is actually going on. Oil temp at 120C is getting up there. And 6-10 laps of hard WOT pulls thru the gears only relieved by a bit of off-throttle braking into corners is likely to push the intercooler temp up and efficiency down resulting in high IAT's. Add in a tune that no doubt has pushed the timing up a bit and you have a recipe for detonation around peak torque. If you get knock in that zone there is a good chance the ECU is pulling timing. Logs will tell the story !!! Cheers...

There was a time when I believed that I needed to buy the best British made hand tools for doing a bit of DIY woodwork in my shed. Now those fine trade quality tools are quietly rusting away while I use cheap electric or battery powered tools when I feel the need to saw, drill, sand or plane. So what I have learned is that a person should buy the tools that are suitable for and appropriate for their needs. Trades people should buy the best quality, handymen can manage with medium range and DIY "FARK!!! hit my thumb/cut my hand!!!" type people might as well buy cheap as they are going to end up getting someone else to finish the job anyway. Back on topic... I have four Chinese "3 ton" jack stands exactly as shown in this pic... These same stands are sold in every country that has covid and yet the news media are not reporting a pandemic of crushed bodies or severed limbs due to stands failing in service. Yes, I have no doubt that there have been failures but covid vaccines appear to have contributed to a few deaths as well. How many ? Who knows... maybe one for every ten million jabs ? About the same with jack stands I would guess. In any event, I put four of my "3 ton" jacks under my 1700kg car, so assuming equal weight distribution they are each carrying around 425kg which is 14% of their rated capacity. That gives a safety factor (LOL) of 7 for the Chinese stand. I'm OK with that. But there is no way I would put three tonnes on one of those stands and want to be in the same room. It's just basic risk management Cheers...

Don't know how they do that but I figured this one out Cheers...

Should look like this if you do it right.... Cheers...

Probably better to go back to the old tried and true methods... Cheers...

Just because the ratchet part doesn't work you can still make good use of the stand... Cheers...

1kg is the basic size mandated for Clubsport level events, and I have one in my car. Thankfully I have never needed to use one to put out a fire. But a few years back I read about a guy who had spent a couple of years building up his road car and a small fire started in the trunk on his very first test drive. He had to stand by and watch two years work burn to the ground as he was unable to control the fire without an extinguisher. That convinced me that even a small extinguisher is a worthwhile item to carry on any vehicle. Cheers...

Just noticed that I am missing this part from my left headlight. It's a rubber strip that sits on top of the headlight glass and is held in place by two plastic clips that slot into brackets molded into the bodywork above the light. I guess it is a gasket to keep rainwater from flooding thru the gap between the front edge of the hood and the light. The BMW part number is 63 11 7 174 517. I'm guessing that it is common to the e91, e92 and e93 335i and possibly to other 3-series cars. If anyone has one lying about that they are prepared to part with or sell, please let me know. Wellington area is good but happy to pay postage. EDIT: According to RealOEM this part is found on all variants, so 320, 325, 330 etc. Part 63117174517 was found on the following vehicles: 3' E90   (01/2007 — 07/2008) 3' E90 LCI   (03/2008 — 10/2011) 3' E92   (05/2005 — 02/2010) 3' E92 LCI   (09/2009 — 06/2013) 3' E93   (09/2005 — 02/2010) 3' E93 LCI   (07/2009 — 10/2013) Cheers...

There are a lot of systems on the market, most of them coming out of the USA where bolt-on superchargers have become a big thing in recent years. Every manufacturer claims that their system is the best and most of them will do a reasonable job. The differences are mainly in the way the mix is atomised, how many safeguards there are and how the rate of injection is varied to allow the flow rate to increase as the boost increases. If you want something simple , There is one system used by rotary guys in Aussi that originally just used water and applied boost pressure to the container to force the water out a nozzle into the intake. I think that it has got a bit more sophisticated now, but in my book simple is always best. Read about it here... http://riceracing.com.au/water-injection.htm Cheers...

A few years ago I looked at all the then available water/meth kits, and ended up installing an AQUAMIST HSF-3 setup on my 1600cc Corolla. Probably a bit of an overkill but I was running a twinscrew S/C without an intercooler, so needed something that would track injector duty cycle. As it happens Aquamist have the best hardware and arguably the best controller for W/M injection. Their components are a work of art... all manufactured in house and not bulk purchased from the local hardware or irrigation shop. I ran two nozzles, one just after the S/C and one just before the intake manifold. Took a while to learn how to get it working properly and the only real problem I had was getting the flow rate down low enough for such a small engine. The HSF-4 kit is said to be the one to use on direct injection engines, and you can read a bit about it in the link to Aquamist Direct. The diagram shows the major system components. Depending on how serious you want to be, you can just run a single nozzle (maybe two if you have an aftermarket charge pipe with two bungs) and take your chances with equal distribution to the cylinders. Or you can go all out with port injection if you are pushing the limits. Aquamist have a decent forum and having a browse there will be educational. A BM is obviously on a different scale to a Corolla but the principles are essentially the same. For charge cooling I used 50/50 water/meth by volume, which gives 44% meth by weight and makes measuring easy. Or you can mix 440ml of water plus 560ml meth for 50% meth w/w. That's probably enough to get you started Cheers... http://www.aquamist-direct.com/806-400-direct-port-bundle-options-2-4-weeks/

Standard type car batteries (not being deep cycle design) don't like being run flat or near flat frequently. They like to be always charged to 85% full or more and that means having a decent commute (like 20km each way) or getting at least one decent run every week if not in daily use. After killing a couple of new batteries by running them dead flat with an old style high drain car alarm system, I hooked up a solar panel battery maintainer and that was enough to offset the alarm system drain. Charging a battery is always a better option than driving around aimlessly for an hour hoping that it will charge up enough to start next time. If you have a car that gets little use, I highly recommend a battery maintainer. That will keep your battery fully charged and when you do use the car it is ready to go Cheers...

Part number is CHAMPION BS1610 for the 6 x 50 if anyone else need to know I've not been able to find anywhere around Wellington where I could safely do a hard 1st thru 5th gear pull, so I'm not fussed about the IAT going up a bit at the end of that kind of run. But anecdotal evidence and a number of casual tests reported on the internet indicate that generic stepped made in China IC's do hold the temperature down much better that the OEM IC on single gear pulls. And that did interest me for situations where there are repeated hard acceleration / hard braking cycles, or simply high speed cruising. Cool air is the best thing you can feed a turbo engine, so I figured chuck one on, get some benefit now and have a bit of headroom for future mods Cheers...

A bit of poking around on the internet suggests that the DME cutoff occurs around 9 volts, and if your battery is on its last legs it would be getting down there during cranking. The starter digs deep to get the engine spinning and after that the cranking voltage will recover a little, but by then the DME has likely latched the "I'm not going to start" relay. When the battery is weak two things happen. The starter being a DC motor, draws a certain amount of power (volts x amps) to do its job. So when the voltage gets lower the amp draw goes up and this equates to a bale of hay being thrown on the Camel's back The second thing that when the battery plates are sulphated the battery cannot be charged properly. The battery gets a "surface charge" and when tested with a voltmeter it will read as fully charged, but as little as one attempted start will kill it dead. My "smart" charger has a "rejuvenation" setting that is claimed to overcome the sulphation problem by pulsing the battery for 24 hours with different voltages according to some secret algorithm. I have just re-installed the 10 year old Jap battery in my Mitsi after having it die on me a couple of days ago. Tomorrow I will see how effective the rejuvenation has been Cheers...

Just theorising... but if the car cranks over like normal but doesn't fire, maybe the ECU (or ignition system) requires a certain minimum voltage to operate ? Battery voltage drops substantially while cranking and if the battery is getting tired the cranking voltage may be dropping below that threshold. Adding the jump starter will lift the voltage above the threshold and it fires right up. Could be worth checking with someone who knows more about BMW electronics than I do Cheers...

CONCLUSION: Yeah, looks like Synergy 8000 has quietly been discontinued (as it was in Australia) and replaced by Supreme+ 98. So if you are looking for an e10 98 octane blend then Gull is probably the name of the game. Looks like Mobil changed more than product names when they rolled out their latest fuel lineup. Biggest problem is that the internet never culls anything out and brings up ten year old press releases mixed in with this years news. If you don't pay really close attention to the dates you are going to get confused... I was for a while Cheers...

Just thinking about this cloud of BS Mobil put up about the fuels they sell in NZ... can anyone confirm that the Synergy 8000 (e10 blend) is still being sold ? Seems to me that it would be a bit unusual for Mobil to have two 98 octane fuels competing with each other in the marketplace. Their latest web advertising only lists the Supreme+ 98 with no mention of 8000 so maybe the same as Singapore where Supreme+ is stated as replacing Synergy 8000 ? Obfuscation seems to be the name of the game for ExxonMobil marketing... and they are good at it Cheers...