BMW S58B30T0 Tuning

"All you need to know about tuning the BMW S58 engine!"

The BMW S58 have loads of potential and with the best sports parts like remapping, turbo improvements and camshafts you will greatly enhance your driving pleasure.

Here we examine S58 tuning and report on the best upgrades. BMW S58B30T0 are popular engines and with the ultimate sports modifications like remapping, turbo kits and camshafts you will substantially maximise your driving opportunities.

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History, Power & Specs of the Engine

Straight-six Displacement 3.0 L (183 cu in) based on the B58 block essentially an M version was created to become the S58

S58B30T0
353 kW (480 PS 473 hp) at 6,250 rpm)  (443 lbft) at 2600–5950 rpm 2019

• 2019-present F97 X3 M
• 2019-present F98 X4 M
• 2020-present G80 M3

S58B30T0
375 kW (510 PS 503 hp) at 6,250 rpm (443 lbft) at 2600–6250 rpm 2019

• 2019-present F97 X3 M Competition
• 2019-present F98 X4 M Competition
• 2020-present G80 M3 Competition

Tuning the BMW S58 and best S58 performance parts.

Best S58 upgrades

The top S58 parts on an engine are sensibly the ones that give the best value for money.

We won't be swayed by popular S58 parts, they need to be cost effective.

Altering your S58 cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine power band. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the power band accordingly.

Fast road cams usually raise the bhp and torque over the rev band, you could drop a little low down bhp but top end will be higher.

Race cams, raise the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

On a daily driver you need to optimize your torque band to your driving style.

You will never have ever thought or claimed that a S58 Race cam is a pleasure to live with when driving around busy urban areas. This is because a competition cam causes a very lumpy idle, and makes the car more prone to stall or jerk along in stop start traffic, sadly though many ignore this and end up ruining a perfectly good car and having to revert back to a fast road, or OEM cam profile.

Some S58 engines respond better to mild cam durations so view each engine as unique.

Heat is a big issue on these engines, and BMW provided an array of radiators and oil coolers to keep these down and it works quite well.

The map and fuel pump and injectors also will make differences on the power gains you'll achieve.

Altering valve durations can alter the power band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

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Best mods for your S58

1. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - Adding a turbocharger is the most significant way to raise the intake air supply, this means you are able to utilize more fuel and make more power. Although one of the most expensive upgrades it offers big gains.
2. ECU Tunes - A tune/remap gives the most power for your outlay, replacement ECUs, and Tuning boxes are all alternatives.
3. Fast road Camshafts are are often the best upgrade for an engine, but they must be fitted by someone who knows what they are doing and tracking one down can be a challenge but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock cam .
4. Intake Upgrades and Exhaust - Please note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER on most cars, but they can help release power after other mods by losing a restriction.
5. Lighter flywheels - a reduced weight flywheel will improve the engines rev changes. But not always suitable for all S58 engines.
6. Flowing and porting the Head - Head work will get air flowing into the engine while removing turbulence or restrictions.

S58 Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Intake manifolds, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Fast road camshaft, Panel air filters, drilled & smoothed airbox, Sports exhaust header/manifold.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: fuel pump upgrades, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, Ported and polished head, induction kit, high flow fuel injectors, Fast road cam.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Competition cam, Twin charging conversions, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing & blueprinting, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves).

Mapping should help to unlock the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your S58.

(In some cases, as the factory ECU is locked flashing is not an option, so an aftermarket ECU is the route to take, and many of these will outperform factory ECU's but make sure it has knock protection and that you get it setup properly.)

It will usually give you around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NA (naturally aspirated) engines, but your mileage usually differs on the upgrades you've applied and the condition of your engine.

Shoving more air into each cylinder is the whole point to any engine modification project.

The intake plenum take the air during the suck phase from the air cleaner and allow it to be fed into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

The bore size, shape and flow rate of the Intake manifolds can make a noticeable change to fuel atomisation and engine efficiency on the S58.

Many mass produced engine intake manifold are begging for motorsport parts, although a few OEM provide reasonably good intake manifold.

Fitting big valve kits, carrying out port work and head flowing will also boost performance, and as an added benefit will give you increasing the performance increase on other tuning mods.

Turbo upgrades

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes major power gains.

When a car is turbo charged tuning mods are relatively easy and most turbo engines are made using better components.

However every engines will need better parts at higher power limits. The twin scroll setup works really well on the S58 and the intake area contains some clever tech to maintain boost and the fast responding wastegate make this a very responsive engine. It does feel like BMW have taken the S58 to the max and left only a little room for improvement, which is a nice problem to have.

It is important to find these limitations and upgrade to a more solid crank and pistons to handle the power hike.

It's not unheard of mechanics spending a loads of money on turbocharger upgrades on the S58 only to suffer the indignity of watching the engine block literally blow up on it's first outing after it's been completed.

Bigger capacity turbos will usually suffer low end lag, and smaller turbos spool up more quickly but do not have the high rpm bhp gains.

Thanks to new tech the world of turbo chargers is always moving on and we are seeing variable vane turbo chargers, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end performance.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust flow into two channels and feed these at differently angled vanes in the turbo charger. They also improve the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there is a restriction in the air flow sensor AFM/MAP on the S58 when considerably more air is being sucked into the engine.

We see 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor was restricting torque at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large bhp gains, although more complex to get working. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Fuelling

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will have to uprate the fuelling when you start going beyond 20% of a bhp increase.Most tuners we speak with say to be generous with your flow rate on the injectors.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% to the flow rate when specifying an injector, this accounts for injector deterioration and allows some spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

Injection pressures on the S58 were tweaked and raised from 200bar to 350bar.

Exhaust

You should look to increase your exhaust if the current exhaust is actually creating a flow problem.

On most factory exhausts you'll see the flow rate is still ok even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts balance the flow of gases through the engine.

But if your exhaust pipe is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Usual exhaust restrictions can be traced to the emissions filters installed, so adding a higher flowing race alternative such as a sports catalyst pretty much removes this restriction, thanks to it's larger size and surface area, and will effectively raise the performance to levels you would expect without having a catalyst installed, but keeps the car road legal.

Weak spots, Issues & problem areas on the S58B30T0

The S58 engines are generally reliable and solid units, as long as you follow the manufacturers service schedules, and use a good quality oil to ensure longevity. Few problems should happen as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Carbon build up in the head, particularly around the valves which will sap power or create flat spots, this is a larger issue on direct injection engines but should be looked out for on all engines. We have tips on removing carbon build up.

Please let us know if there are any other problems or issues we have missed. and are better made and have fewer problems than the B58 it was based on .

Regular oil changes are vital on the S58, especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your S58 engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our S58 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which modifications work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these S58 tuning guides which get regular updates and revisions.

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This article was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under BMW. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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