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a31drifter

bmw 1998 e36 sluggish

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hey guys my old man has got a 1998 bmw e36 320i manual and ever since he has owned it it seems really sluggish in low revs especially in 1st gear but seems fine once u get the revs up, we put a cheap pod filter in it a year ago and it made alot of difference but is still not as good as it should be. any one got any ideas or is this common for this type of car

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There's really not to much you can do without spending more than the cars worth in which case you should sell it and go for the 2.5l atleast, the 320's not designed for performance but better fuel economy, even if you do go for some more expensive mods your limited by the displacement (no replacement for dicplacement). Anway you probly don't want people telling you what you can't do. The one thing I can suggest which is inexpensive and probaly the best bang for your buck would be take out the cat. Prety much a must for most cars(some bimmers, such as the car i got actually has an almost non-restrictive cat, there real efficient and no point in removing) but in your case it should show some difference. The other thing to look at is your air-filter, unless you did a realy good job I'd be surprised if you got any gain at all(may sound louder tho at high reves), have a look through the pages under the thread about 'clutch stops' in the performance section, I posted up some pics of my CIA(cold air intake) using a pod-filter to the best of it's potential. Heaps of people will say pod filter's are useless, if you set them up right your in for good gains, one of the fastest cars in australasia(a porche turbo GT, 0-100, 2.9sec- custom modified), uses to pod-filters to suck in its air, so they can't be that much of a joke.

hope that helps.

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It needs to be scanned first.

As I said ^^^^ scan it first to make sure there are no issues before you do anything. It may have a camshaft position sensor fault or air mass sensor problem. Sometimes the air mass sensor wont throw a fault code. You need to drive it with the scanner hooked up and check live data for Kg air flow

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As I said ^^^^ scan it first to make sure there are no issues before you do anything. It may have a camshaft position sensor fault or air mass sensor problem. Sometimes the air mass sensor wont throw a fault code. You need to drive it with the scanner hooked up and check live data for Kg air flow

He knows what he's doing, take his advice :)

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sorry about the late reply, when u guys say "scan" do u mean do a diagnostic check? my dad did one ages ago when he was trying to fix the problem and he said it was fine and didnt thro back any codes. any other ideas?

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sorry about the late reply, when u guys say "scan" do u mean do a diagnostic check? my dad did one ages ago when he was trying to fix the problem and he said it was fine and didnt thro back any codes. any other ideas?

Hi, I have a 2001 320i and had the same problem about 6 months ago, took 3 mechanics before it was fixed, it was a camshaft sensor problem, the 2nd mechanic had it on a scanner but nothing showed, I know nothing but I think his scanner wasn,t hi tech enough for a BEMA!!! HaHa, Anyway, good luck with that, I know how frustrating that problem is!! <_<

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