Maximum power from a stock M42.

[anthonymax007]

So, all in all, there may very well be nothing wrong with your M42 and 115WHP is what that particular dyno told you on that day. You can try to get a hold of a MarkD or Conforti chip and try one of those to see if it makes a difference, too. If you have fairly easy access to a dyno, I can mail you my Conforti chip to borrow for the dyno (if I can find it) since it is of no use to me on my 2.1L M42. Heck, any chance you could do a couple of pulls with all 3 chips (stock, Ssquid, Conforti) and post the results?

I need to track down my stock chip, but if you mail me the Conforti chip I'd be happy to have some pulls done. The dyno is local so it won't be hard at all. My car also has well over 150k, so that makes sense.

OP: Sorry to thread jack.

[avt007]

Don't worry about the thread jack, I'd be interested in seeing chips dynoed back to back.

[irish44j]

Just offhand I'd say what many here have already said:

1. keep stock intake box, no gains to be had from CAI.

2. chip. Mark D is popular. I have the Conforti chip and am happy with the range, particularly in the high end.

3. I doubt that exhaust is helping, and may be hurting. My M42 didn't seem to run as well when I was catless, and runs much better with the cat re-installed and stock M42 exhaust except a dynomax muffler. Just my impressions though - I have no actual evidence.

What kind of racing are you doing? The M42 will be a substantial upgrade over the M10 (my car ran a season with its original M10).

[avt007]

1. Since the factory AFM and airbox end up so close to the front end anyway, I'll probably just plumb in a tube to feed the stock airbox with cold air.

2. I'd like a MarkD chip for 93 octane, since it's readily available in Canada.

3. My M10 header is 2.5" and it runs to a Flowmaster of the same size. Since the M42 header is 2", I'll probably run that to a performance muffler of some sort, but no cat.

4. Check out the start of the thread, I run short track oval, 5,000-6,700 rpm, 2nd gear, over and over again.

Thanks for the input- what kind of racing are you doing?

Just offhand I'd say what many here have already said:

1. keep stock intake box, no gains to be had from CAI.

2. chip. Mark D is popular. I have the Conforti chip and am happy with the range, particularly in the high end.

3. I doubt that exhaust is helping, and may be hurting. My M42 didn't seem to run as well when I was catless, and runs much better with the cat re-installed and stock M42 exhaust except a dynomax muffler. Just my impressions though - I have no actual evidence.


What kind of racing are you doing? The M42 will be a substantial upgrade over the M10 (my car ran a season with its original M10).

[irish44j]

I'm doing rallycross (and next year stage rally). But I did spend about an hour going round and round a very slick 1/2-mile dirt oval track a couple weekends ago, just messing around (not actually racing) And yes, I was high in the range the whole time, almost entirely in 2nd gear.

sorry, no sound, but here it is. Getting the rear end out takes some work with super-fresh rally tires that have very sharp and square shoulders, lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QndPbKWBhs0

and here's what we were really there to do. The dirt track was just for fun afterwards...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7COMz_DCXFM

[JonnyOg]

I'm running a kamotors intake with highbeam velocity stack and I noticed it definitely helped my top end. I have a small flat spot around 3k but it pulls better from 5k plus and all the way up to 7200(instead of dying off around 6500)

[avt007]

Thanks Jonny. What are you using your car for?

Unfortunately I have to run a stock intake.

[gespinal0301]

Yup, the stock air box is best. Don't touch it. I have a 2.1L ~205bhp m42 and I did a bunch of datalogging on it that showed ZERO performance gain with a MAF and M30 air box (60% more filter surface area).

The same goes for the exhaust. On an internally stock engine, just leave the exhaust alone.

Chips...MarkD 93 octane if you have access to the gas. Otherwise a MarkD or Conforti 91 octane chip is good.

As mentioned above, the only other bolt-on worth a damn is a lighter flywheel. That assumes that you can change that and still meet the racing class rules. The M42 was prettymuch optimized from the factory, with the exception of the weak ECU chip tune. Back in 2003, I put down 131whp with an internally stock M42 and Conforti chip on an Dynojet. After wrecking that car, I put down ~120whp with another 1991 318iS and the same chip in 2006. A very clean, low mileage M42 with a good chip is going to make 150hp at the crank, tops. No amount of bolt-ons or other trickery will change that.

BMW knew what they were doing when they designed this engine (and all of them for that matter). There is nothing that any of us are going to do or think of that was not already considered in the design...except the chip tune. The general thought is that they used a weak ass tune on the 318iS so that it would not be as competitive with the more expensive M20-based 325 models and eat into their bottom line. It was also the most technologically advanced engine they put into the E30, so maybe they were just playing things safe.

How did you get that power out of it? Also, is it reliable enough to daily? I'm planning on rebuilding the engine if it lasts me throughout college, it'll be the engine's graduation present haha

[fresh_TD]

How did you get that power out of it? Also, is it reliable enough to daily? I'm planning on rebuilding the engine if it lasts me throughout college, it'll be the engine's graduation present haha

Most likely he has the Metric Mechanic rally M42 2.1L, that's rated at 205hp..big money though $9,500 plus $800 core charge

Sent from my Samsung Note 4

[digger]

Most likely he has the Metric Mechanic rally M42 2.1L, that's rated at 205hp..big money though $9,500 plus $800 core charge

Sent from my Samsung Note 4

and like much of there other stuff probably optimistic unless you have full exhaust, intake and all the bells and whistles not included in the price

[bmwman91]

Yeah, as noted it is the MM Rally 2.1L. Their big thing is, according to them, making reliable DD engines that pull hard and have broad, useful powerbands. A lot of that comes down to the custom cam profiles that they developed. As for reliability, they say that the lightweight parts that are used contribute a lot to it, as well as machining things to "better than factory" tolerances.

And yes, the "205bhp" figure is from them, so it might not be entirely accurate. I have yet to get this onto a dyno since I am still looking for someone local that can tune Motronic 1.7, because I bet that there is a little more power to be squeezed out with a tune done on this specific engine. The chip that they sent was developed for this 2.1L engine design, but it was not tuned for it individually, and every engine differs a little.

Oh and yes it is a bank-buster. The price is almost embarrassing to mention, considering what you could do with an S50 for a heck of a lot less. But, I had wanted that engine since 2006 when I was a broke student, and by the time 2012 rolled around I was working and happened to have some cash in the bank, so I decided to get the MM engine instead of a newer, more reliable car lol.



digger, I did talk to them about exhaust and whatnot. They said that the stock header and other parts of the system were best left stock to maintain the broad powerband for street use. They also cautioned against boring out the throttle body. My data logging on here shows that the AFM is also not harming anything. So really, the head and cams are the big bottleneck for the M42, which MM does a lot of work on. Anyway, I always assumed that there was some degree of "marketing speak" going on regarding statements of absolute numbers. Regardless, it pulls pretty well for a 2.1L, and I pulled ~1/2 a car length on a 2007 Infiniti G35 from 0-65MPH (with my wife in the car holding groceries...the guy in the Infiniti looked pissed lol). The nice part is that it pulls solidly from 3K RPM, which is nice around town, and it just keeps on pulling all the way to 7700RPM. Then again, for the prices they charge, it had better run strong.

[gespinal0301]

Yeah, as noted it is the MM Rally 2.1L. Their big thing is, according to them, making reliable DD engines that pull hard and have broad, useful powerbands. A lot of that comes down to the custom cam profiles that they developed. As for reliability, they say that the lightweight parts that are used contribute a lot to it, as well as machining things to "better than factory" tolerances.

And yes, the "205bhp" figure is from them, so it might not be entirely accurate. I have yet to get this onto a dyno since I am still looking for someone local that can tune Motronic 1.7, because I bet that there is a little more power to be squeezed out with a tune done on this specific engine. The chip that they sent was developed for this 2.1L engine design, but it was not tuned for it individually, and every engine differs a little.

Oh and yes it is a bank-buster. The price is almost embarrassing to mention, considering what you could do with an S50 for a heck of a lot less. But, I had wanted that engine since 2006 when I was a broke student, and by the time 2012 rolled around I was working and happened to have some cash in the bank, so I decided to get the MM engine instead of a newer, more reliable car lol.



digger, I did talk to them about exhaust and whatnot. They said that the stock header and other parts of the system were best left stock to maintain the broad powerband for street use. They also cautioned against boring out the throttle body. My data logging on here shows that the AFM is also not harming anything. So really, the head and cams are the big bottleneck for the M42, which MM does a lot of work on. Anyway, I always assumed that there was some degree of "marketing speak" going on regarding statements of absolute numbers. Regardless, it pulls pretty well for a 2.1L, and I pulled ~1/2 a car length on a 2007 Infiniti G35 from 0-65MPH (with my wife in the car holding groceries...the guy in the Infiniti looked pissed lol). The nice part is that it pulls solidly from 3K RPM, which is nice around town, and it just keeps on pulling all the way to 7700RPM. Then again, for the prices they charge, it had better run strong.

Haha I hope it pulls strong for that price tag. I might reconsider that rebuild now. m50, m52 or s50 has always sounded nice to me haha

[fresh_TD]

Yeah, as noted it is the MM Rally 2.1L. Their big thing is, according to them, making reliable DD engines that pull hard and have broad, useful powerbands. A lot of that comes down to the custom cam profiles that they developed. As for reliability, they say that the lightweight parts that are used contribute a lot to it, as well as machining things to "better than factory" tolerances.

And yes, the "205bhp" figure is from them, so it might not be entirely accurate. I have yet to get this onto a dyno since I am still looking for someone local that can tune Motronic 1.7, because I bet that there is a little more power to be squeezed out with a tune done on this specific engine. The chip that they sent was developed for this 2.1L engine design, but it was not tuned for it individually, and every engine differs a little.

Oh and yes it is a bank-buster. The price is almost embarrassing to mention, considering what you could do with an S50 for a heck of a lot less. But, I had wanted that engine since 2006 when I was a broke student, and by the time 2012 rolled around I was working and happened to have some cash in the bank, so I decided to get the MM engine instead of a newer, more reliable car lol.



digger, I did talk to them about exhaust and whatnot. They said that the stock header and other parts of the system were best left stock to maintain the broad powerband for street use. They also cautioned against boring out the throttle body. My data logging on here shows that the AFM is also not harming anything. So really, the head and cams are the big bottleneck for the M42, which MM does a lot of work on. Anyway, I always assumed that there was some degree of "marketing speak" going on regarding statements of absolute numbers. Regardless, it pulls pretty well for a 2.1L, and I pulled ~1/2 a car length on a 2007 Infiniti G35 from 0-65MPH (with my wife in the car holding groceries...the guy in the Infiniti looked pissed lol). The nice part is that it pulls solidly from 3K RPM, which is nice around town, and it just keeps on pulling all the way to 7700RPM. Then again, for the prices they charge, it had better run strong.

There's always the turbo kit from jake over at classic daily.. For around$2k you get 200whp/200tq. Just another option. I prefer NA, but for that kind of money, makes you think twice about going the MM route

Sent from my Samsung Note 4

[bmwman91]

For sure. It was one of those, "well, I am getting married next year so I guess I had better buy something dumb while I can" choices. I had grenaded the original engine anyway, and at that point I wasn't interested in buying some questionable high-mileage engine. I had been in the timing case 3 times in the 2 years before the engine finally died, and I was completely done with wrenching on an old engine. But yeah, I was (and am not) under any illusion about the horespower-per-dollar value on the MM engine.

I am not sure how many M42 and M44 engines MM has sold, and I would guess that it is on the order of a couple dozen. Oddly, very few people who have bought them seem to be active in the forums. I would think that someone "enthusiastic" enough to pay that premium would be active in the community too.

[fresh_TD]

For sure. It was one of those, "well, I am getting married next year so I guess I had better buy something dumb while I can" choices. I had grenaded the original engine anyway, and at that point I wasn't interested in buying some questionable high-mileage engine. I had been in the timing case 3 times in the 2 years before the engine finally died, and I was completely done with wrenching on an old engine. But yeah, I was (and am not) under any illusion about the horespower-per-dollar value on the MM engine.

I am not sure how many M42 and M44 engines MM has sold, and I would guess that it is on the order of a couple dozen. Oddly, very few people who have bought them seem to be active in the forums. I would think that someone "enthusiastic" enough to pay that premium would be active in the community too.

most people that make this type of purchase, don't really like being public about it.. They don't want to catch slack from the rest. If I'd spent this type of money for an engine, I'm telling everybody...lol