Advise on supercharging my BMW E46 328

hough

Road Burner
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Poole, England
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VW T5 swb 2.5tdi
Hi can any one please help, basically i want to be a tight git and supercharge my BMW E46 328i on the cheap!!!!!!!!!!

firstly does any one know how much power a BMW M52tu
28 can handle with serious mods to the engine

and how do you workout how big a supercharger can be without overloading the engine, as i was looking at different charger on ebay?

please help i know im mad but i cant help it
 
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buy a car that has a charger already on it works out cheaper and will be on a engine that was made for it

as its not only the engine you need to upgrade all fuel system gearbox diffs brakes ect
 
Don't mod anything on the cheap. Bad practice. Leads to a shedload of reliabiltiy problems.

The engine should stand 300lbft torque without issues though the non-steptronic auto boxes can be a bit fragile I'm led to believe.
 
cheer, but when i mean cheap basically i mean i like to build things myself, iv build an exhaust system including the rear box which i made using 316 stainless and motorcycle wadding and it looks and sounds great, so i thought id have a go at looking into charges next
 
Supercharging a M52 should be easy, with a little bit of a drop in compression you can have big power. How much power were you looking for? Turbocharging is also something that is not to be dismissed.
 
Fair enough, I have seen the 25i's producing 310 hp with about 7 psi of boost (rotrex supercharger conversion) with more boost and proper mapping and supporting mods then more could easily be had.
 
id be happy giving my car enough power so that it can hit 0-60 in about 6 sec not 7sec but really i suppose id like to get about 260 to 280bhp out of my 328
 
280bhp is do-able with supercharging. Because of the relatively low compression ratio you might get away with standard pistons and connecting rods. But you'll almost certainly have to sacrifice the A/C to accommodate the supercharger.
 
BMW's 328 can be tuned to stupid power.
I remember a silver chrome one out of Max Power years ago and it was around 610 bhp on standard internals.
 
i have nearly always bought faster cars if i want power and that way faster stock cars are all made to take the power ect
but i have had a modded trans am that was kicking out about 400-450bhp but that was no money spared all the best bits was used
i was looking into putting a pro charger on that to make it 500+ as all the hard work was done but sold the car lol
 
Shame, would have been a beast, I've seen stock GTi6 engines producing 400hp, you'd be supprised how much power you can get on a decomp'd NA engines....
 
the trouble is this is the family car plus i love my e46 328 touring to bit and dont want any thing else, so will look into some different super chargers and will have to do some serious research i think, but as long as it turns out quicker than my mates nissan 200sx turbo and supra mk3 non turbo ill be happy
 
it would be wise to get it done pro, there are alot of things that can and will go wrong in 'un-informed' hands, you can run whatever bhp with stock internals, its just how long they last! its not a job to do cheaply on this car thats for sure, the non steptronic auto boxes are notorius to fail with stock setup, i only know of a supercharged e46 m3 running about 450 bhp, on stock internals, i wouldnt push pass the 400 bhp on stock internals personally, ive seen an e46 m3 at 155k get charged, 2 years ago on stock internals and the owner is still using it as a daily driver.......... contact 'simpson motorsport'
 
I would say 350hp would give sufficient shove to beat your mates 200zx, non turbo supras are slow anyways so wouldn't worry about that...
 
i think 350hp would be more than plenty as that is M3 power!!! and yes i will contact simpson motorsport but can you tell me where they are based?
 
simpson motorsport are in gloucestershire, about 2.5 hours from you, but they know these engines inside out, even if you dont use them, they will point you in the right diretion and are good at sourcing parts
 
hmmm, depends if you refer to simpson motorsport as a team, or as a company.....hmm im just rambling, i dont know the difference between a verb and noun, but my spelling is good (I think) and i know my engines :bigsmile:
 
hmmm, depends if you refer to simpson motorsport as a team, or as a company.....hmm im just rambling, i dont know the difference between a verb and noun, but my spelling is good (I think) and i know my engines :bigsmile:

I'll still go for singular whether it's a team or a company. Not that it really matters to any one apart from fussy people like OG and myself :-(.

Those tds sixes are nice engines. In my opinion the best IDI car diesel engine ever made. It took the sheer brilliance of the 530d to outshine it.

Who else in 1993/94 had anything remotely as pleasant on offer?

Just help me here: Do you have a 328 and a 325tds? I'm slightly confused.
 
well been looking at the eaton supercharger range, i spoke to one of there sales guys and hopefuly will have some info for me tomorrow
 
well been looking at the eaton supercharger range, i spoke to one of there sales guys and hopefuly will have some info for me tomorrow

Keep us all up to date on this one. I'm curious because my old 528i has the same engine. Not that I'm planning to tune it, it's lively enough for my purposes - my priorities are refinement and comfort but I'm interested all the same.
 
yeah i love the tds, it was the fastest diesel of its time even over the mighty merc 300d, yet i can get it to run 50mpg on a journey, its the first bmw diesel i drove i first tried one years ago and couldnt believe the difference between it and my 2.2 hdi pug, ive owned quite a few bmws, my first car was an e36 316i compact, owned an e39 520 which bored me to death, an e36 318 is which i loved and now my e36 325 tds, and eaton for your car is a very good route to take, they are a popular choice with e46's anyway, so they must be good, weired, but most people prefer to turbo higher mileage engines on e46's...dont know why....
 
well the person i spoke to today was telling me about a small (M45) and medium (M62) eaton supercharger but he said i really need to speak to one of there tech guys as he thought to smaller model might not do much on my 328, as even tho its ment for engines 2l to 3l its fitted to the bmw mini....
 
yeah i love the tds, it was the fastest diesel of its time even over the mighty merc 300d, yet i can get it to run 50mpg on a journey, its the first bmw diesel i drove i first tried one years ago and couldnt believe the difference between it and my 2.2 hdi pug, ive owned quite a few bmws, my first car was an e36 316i compact, owned an e39 520 which bored me to death, an e36 318 is which i loved and now my e36 325 tds, and eaton for your car is a very good route to take, they are a popular choice with e46's anyway, so they must be good, weired, but most people prefer to turbo higher mileage engines on e46's...dont know why....

I had a 2.2 HDi 406 which I had remapped and it did give a superb account of itself. The torque was prodigious and usable. Good refinement, too, but I suspect that if one were to take away the DMF and hydraulic engine mounts it's four cylinder design would give it away very rapidly.

Currently I'm using a 2001 E39 528i - bit of a panic purchase for us, but it's a good and worthy car. not especially quick but not especially slow either.
 
yeah, it will be worthwhile holding back and gather as much info as you can, dont just take info from simpson though, phone everywhere this will give you a good price range for the results you are expecting and setups, i had the 2.2 hdi 406 too, paid 300 for it, 240k sweet as a nut, never got it up on the ramp though, was too scared my pockets would start to turn inside out:(
 
well managed to save myself some money by building a custom exhaust for my 328, i even made the back box out of 316 s/s which has a nice polished 3" tail pipe, so cant wait to start experimenting with a charger soon just got to finish off my polished alumunium air box first!!!
 
thanks claymore, and i hope this air box works better the out side is mirror polished to reflex heat thought a box might be better than using a heat shield plus should look quite good i hope.....plus it will have 3 air feeds, 1 being the standard air supply to the top of the kidney grills and the other 2 feeds coming from the bumper, the air box will have no lid but will be seal when the bonnet is closed so hopefully no warm air getting in
 
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