ITB M42

[MLM 57]

This is my first major project i have undertaken on my car. By starting a thread im hoping it will be a good way to document my progress for myself and others.

For a while I have looked at tuning my M42 engine. Im not chasing outright numbers but rather the fun and learning which comes from messing about with engines.

As part of this I happened to come across a set of Dbilas throttle bodies for a good price and therefore the start of the project.

But for now this arrived yesterday.

Making themselfs feel at home.

More pics as progress is made.

[hybrid 1043]

badass .. should be interesting to see the difference.

[Forrest 35]

Awesome stuff, good luck

[Creaver 55]

Can't say i've seen photos of your car? Interesting project!

[Guest Ari Gold]

Dbilas for the right price eh, lucky find!

[MLM 57]

Can't say i've seen photos of your car? Interesting project!

There are pics about somewhere but not since I put my refurbed wheels on so I wil get some updated ones up..

Dbilas for the right price eh, lucky find!

Yep was, Im the 3rd owner so the plenum chamber is a bit molested however i have ideas for a new, possibly carbon one if i can do it for the right price.

[sp8s 1]

Looks a nice setup

But like Carroll Shelby said "There aint no substitute for cubic inch's"

[CamB 48]

I don't think Carroll Shelby was au fait with turbo's when he said that

[DRTDVL 0]

Looks a nice setup

But like Carroll Shelby said "There aint no substitute for cubic inch's"

In drag racing maybe...

but throw a less powerful better handling car on a B road and lets see how it goes...

[Eddie 66]

Cool- Are you going to stay with the factory Ecu or change it?

[MLM 57]

Had a wee bit of a look to see how things may fit together today. But first here is the chopped and welded end of the plenum chamber. Im pretty sure its not factory and not particularly impressive from a flow point of view. But then the general design of the plenum is not that great anyway due to packaging constraints.

It appears there are a set of water valves on the fire wall which feed the heater unit behind will be in the way. So thats why the plenum has been modded... They dont look to difficult to relocate if need be.

Valve block inside yellow box

Also on the "I wonder if thats ok/good enough" list is the brake booster vacuum feed from behind a single TB. Is this sufficient? would a vacuum log fed from all four runners be better? Again easy enough to do.

Edited February 7, 2010 by MLM

[MLM 57]

Cool- Are you going to stay with the factory Ecu or change it?

Depending on how carried away i get, and of course bugdet, im am only planning to chip the stock ecu at this point. It would be nice to get rid of the air flow meter though with a link or similar.

[MLM 57]

Quick Update: Trial fitting on spare engine.

Before

With setup

Inlet port for interest sake.

[Guest Simon*]

That looks the biz Matt. Watching this one with interest

[hybrid 1043]

Sweet! .. take you your porting and flowing this ? I vote cams too! should be an angry bee when finished!

[MLM 57]

The inlet port and gasket mismatch you can see in the above port results in a poor injector spray path. Half the injector port is blocked! All this from factory....?

Time for some machine work me thinks. to port match the head/gasket/throttle body.

Only thing holding me back is the fact the factory inlet manifold is the same so there might be a reason for it. Maybe the spray patern misses this "blockage" and has no real effect?

[MLM 57]

Just a quick update: unfortunatly no photo's as my laptop died this week.

This weekend I installed the throttle boddies on to the E36. After a bit of a battle with wiring and the fact im doing it 2 days after tearing the cartilage in my knee and having to hobble everywhere they went on without any dramas, just as advertised.

Initial start up went well as good if not better than factory and after allowing it to warm while monitoring everthing I reset the idle to a still slightly fast 800rpm.

Initial results are:

- Idles really smoothly

-Still drivable with very smooth power delivery and awesome throttle responce

-Top end pull feels better by the butt dyno. The engine generally feels much free'er reving. Bottom end feels the same,maybe slightly perkier due to throttle responce.

-Sound it is utterly amazingly .....quiet!!! The pod fileter was louder! Go figure?

So kinda got the opposite to what i was expexting which was lots of noise and less or equal power.

The tune is still standard however so it wont get much road time until im more confident all is well there.

Photos as soon as i can

[CamB 48]

Keen for those photos

[thorburn 121]

unfortunate about the knee

any chance of a video once the laptop is revived

[hybrid 1043]

headers, exhaust and remap = 1 stage done!

nice! .. +1 for photos too!

also manditory one tree hill meet up too

[MLM 57]

unfortunate about the knee

any chance of a video once the laptop is revived

Always, though any action shots would be a red E36 whistling past quietly... Pics asap

headers, exhaust and remap = 1 stage done!

nice! .. +1 for photos too!

also manditory one tree hill meet up too

Yep thats my thoughts at this point too. Then ecu, cams + head work for stage 2...

Will try for the One tree hill meet though clutch usage is a bit hard with a naff knee

[sp8s 1]

Always, though any action shots would be a red E36 whistling past quietly... Pics asap

Will try for the One tree hill meet though clutch usage is a bit hard with a naff knee

I am so sure there will be a volunteer to take the car for a spin so saving your knee

[Eddie 66]

Those injector holes??? could there be a difference in the m42 and m44? what was the manifold off?

[MLM 57]

Those injector holes??? could there be a difference in the m42 and m44? what was the manifold off?

The offset you can see is a factory arangement I.E the same mis-match exists between the factory manifold and head also. I initially questioned this but it appears it is as BMW intended. The spray pattern of the injector misses the ledge therefore is is not an issue. Well as far as i can tell anyway. The manifold is designed for a M42 and I am unsure the differences between M44 and M42 heads in that area. As far as i can tell its all as it should be.

[MLM 57]

Pics at last