Hello from Austin, Texas...

[Wizeguy]

Grady here... I have a 2003 BMW Z4 3.0i that I keep as the occasional Sunday driver. Recently I have been considering doing a few upgrades to give the car a little more punch and make it more fun to drive. However.... it has an automatic transmission. Am I waisting my time? Should we bite the bullet, sell the car and pick up another Z with a manual transmission? Or... can this vehicle be upgraded to yield a more punchy and fun performance as an automatic? My gal really likes the lines and look of the Z car and this year model would only bring chump change if we were to sell it. Any feedback would be helpful.

 

[obi_waynne]

Hello and a very warm, welcome to TorqueCars from me the admin! Glad you're enjoying the site, it's taken many years of work to get it to this point, and we keep trying to improve it.

An automatic shouldn't hold you back although it will limit the upper power gains for some mods. I think with a set of coilovers, uprated cam and remap you'll have plenty extra to play with. I don't actually know where the power limits are on the auto transmissions but generally speaking you can push out another 20% without worrying and even then you can raise the low end and keep the top about the same if there was a limit.

Keep reading the articles on our site and this forum... you'll pick up loads of good common sense tips and don't be afraid to post questions, were all here to share our knowledge and experience.

We run a really fun and interesting car community and many have said we're the friendliest around, always ready to help out where we can.

Enjoy your time with us, post loads and feel free to ask any questions or begin new threads and discussions. We're always interested to hear your comments and views on our existing topics and in the hot polls.

 

[Fabia17]

Grady here... I have a 2003 BMW Z4 3.0i that I keep as the occasional Sunday driver. Recently I have been considering doing a few upgrades to give the car a little more punch and make it more fun to drive. However.... it has an automatic transmission. Am I waisting my time? Should we bite the bullet, sell the car and pick up another Z with a manual transmission? Or... can this vehicle be upgraded to yield a more punchy and fun performance as an automatic? My gal really likes the lines and look of the Z car and this year model would only bring chump change if we were to sell it. Any feedback would be helpful.

Welcome to the family. I'm sure you'd have great fun with a few motor mods, but I'd bet if you hunt around, you might find some auto trans upgrades over there. When I lived in Oz we used to get USA imported mod kits which would sharpen up the changes, kick downs up to the red line etc. Now I'm going back many years, but I can't see why trans upgrades would fall by the wayside. Go and talk to the drag race guys and the transmission rebuilders / refurbishers..... Look forward to hearing how you get on.

 

[Wizeguy]

Hello and a very warm, welcome to TorqueCars from me the admin! Glad you're enjoying the site, it's taken many years of work to get it to this point, and we keep trying to improve it.

An automatic shouldn't hold you back although it will limit the upper power gains for some mods. I think with a set of coilovers, uprated cam and remap you'll have plenty extra to play with. I don't actually know where the power limits are on the auto transmissions but generally speaking you can push out another 20% without worrying and even then you can raise the low end and keep the top about the same if there was a limit.

Keep reading the articles on our site and this forum... you'll pick up loads of good common sense tips and don't be afraid to post questions, were all here to share our knowledge and experience.

We run a really fun and interesting car community and many have said we're the friendliest around, always ready to help out where we can.

Enjoy your time with us, post loads and feel free to ask any questions or begin new threads and discussions. We're always interested to hear your comments and views on our existing topics and in the hot polls.

Obi_wayne... thanks for the feedback... And, the welcome. I am enjoying the site! loads of information... I think I am going to go ahead and keep the Z and work with some of your suggestions. After looking around, there seems to be plenty of performance upgrades that will make the Car more exciting, so we are going to give it a go!

 

[Wizeguy]

Welcome to the family. I'm sure you'd have great fun with a few motor mods, but I'd bet if you hunt around, you might find some auto trans upgrades over there. When I lived in Oz we used to get USA imported mod kits which would sharpen up the changes, kick downs up to the red line etc. Now I'm going back many years, but I can't see why trans upgrades would fall by the wayside. Go and talk to the drag race guys and the transmission rebuilders / refurbishers..... Look forward to hearing how you get on.

Fabia12, Thanks for your reply. I am definitely going to speak with our transmission guy. Great suggestion! when we rebuilt my son's 71 Cutlass Convertible we modified the transmission to a stage 2 which made a big difference... don't know why I didn't think of it myself. Appreciate the feedback!

 

[Fabia17]

Fabia12, Thanks for your reply. I am definitely going to speak with our transmission guy. Great suggestion! when we rebuilt my son's 71 Cutlass Convertible we modified the transmission to a stage 2 which made a big difference... don't know why I didn't think of it myself. Appreciate the feedback!

Hope it goes well

 

[thexav]

Hi there and welcome to the site. There is a wealth of knowledge on here, and although you might not get many replies or much off topic banter the tips you get are worth their weight in gold and I would take quality over quantity any day.

I hope you stick around and add your voice to the unique community that only TorqueCars.