A story about outlets from someone who knows

Aaron

Lieutenant
Nov 3, 2016
544
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Colorado
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Silver 2013 335is 6MT
I was one of the first people to get outlets, a multi-piece kit from MMP. 2013 335is, FBO. Car was tuned by @V8bait, and I ran it on the dyno. Put on outlets, had a single log/tune done, and hit the dyno again the very next day, which showed a 13whp and 52wtq gain, and a significantly stronger midrange. So I established that outlets are absolutely worth it. The dip in between the torque peaks is due to overboost cuts, would've loved to dyno with those corrected, but V8bait thought taking med-school exams was more important. Shows how much he cares about us. #NOTmyPRESIDENT

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The multi-piece outlets were difficult to install, had a lot of hose clamps, and I encountered a failure in the silicone not long after. This was coincidentally around the same time Mauricio introduced his 1-piece silicone outlets, so I picked up one of those to replace the failed multi-piece. This went well for a few months, until I encountered a failure at the bend coming out of the front turbo. It got too close to the front exhaust manifold. I ordered a replacement tube, but this time made an ugly aluminum adapter to replace the elbow to the front turbo (Seen below). Fast forward a few months, and I had another failure, this time in the straight leg coming from the rear turbo. This was about the same time that Dusty from Faster by Pinnacle released his aluminum outlets. Mauricio has always treated me well, and stood by his product. I never used heat tape, never removed a heat shield I've heard you should remove, and probably didn't spend as much time as I should on installs. But the failures suck. Outlets, although easier to install than inlets, still suck.

A word on overall outlet install. The MMP silicone piece fits well, install is fairly straight forward. First I attach just the CNC adapter to the front turbo, tightening the V-band clamp before the outlet is installed. This clamp can be difficult to get to, so doing so without the outlet tube on makes it a breeze. Then I installed the rear silicone leg to its CNC adapter on the bench, tightening the T-bolt clamp. Then I put the entire piece into the car. The V-band clamps to the turbo are surprisingly easy to get on, mostly because the CNC adapters hold themselves onto the turbo. I get to the rear V-band from underneath the car, I can reach up with one hand. I orient the V-band to where I could, with 2 extensions, reach it from underneath the car fairly well. Lastly, I clamp the front leg of the outlet to its adapter with the included T-bolt. Do the best you can to keep clearance from the exhaust manifolds...

Pinnacle's outlets are more difficult to install, you have to hold the outlet against the turbo with one hand, while positioning the V-band clamp with the other, all while making sure the O-ring doesn't fall out. If you're planning on doing it alone, go pay a hooker, you'll need her to hold your pipe while you stick it in. In other words, don't, get a friend to help you. I did it alone, but doing so added several hours to the install. I did the rear leg first. Put the O-ring in, slide the rear leg into the general area from the top. Leave it dangling down there (not attached to the turbo). Attach the silicone coupler to the front outlet leg, and tighten it down on the bench. Note the silicone coupler is as short as it can be, my clamp had to be on the very edge in order to cleared the bead rolling on both outlet tubes (Dusty, for future customers, an extra 1/2" length on the silicone coupler would help). Without the O-ring, slide the front outlet into place, then put the O-ring in, and have fun as you attach it to the turbo, making sure the O-ring stays put. Once the V-band bolt is started, the pipes won't fall out of place from the turbo, so get the bolt started a few turns, then stop there, leaving the front loose. Now slide the silicone tube over the rear outlet, peering down there by eye to make sure it's the appropriate length to perfectly mate to the rear turbo. Putting the rear outlet into the coupler will hold it while you attach the V-band clamp from underneath. This is an absolute pain in the ass.

The Pinnacle outlets fit well, even with my passenger side inlets (Though they made things tight for sure). Note I had to source a longer (About 6"), coupler in order to attach the outlet to my intercooler (ATM). There is good clearance to all exhaust manifolds, and they flow more, though I didn't notice any performance differences from my ass dyno (Which is more accurate than a dynocom).

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bshotts

New Member
May 16, 2017
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3
0
Ride
2009 SGM E90 335i 6MT Msport
Yeah AAaaaaaron very nice write up. Sounds like you captured the tips and tricks as well as the pros/cons of these outlets. I'm assuming stock turbos wouldn't see a huge gain without a dyno reflash but thinking you'd see a similar gain you experienced by installing outlets (silicone or otherwise) if coming from stock outlets.
 

Aaron

Lieutenant
Nov 3, 2016
544
200
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Colorado
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Silver 2013 335is 6MT
I have the hot-side VRSF inlets, which I don't particularly care for to be honest. It's a tight fit no doubt.

On the rear leg the new outlet comes up higher, so the inlet needs to bend higher in order to clear. On the front leg is where they're much tighter. But everything does fit, and I haven't had any problems since I stall.
 

RSL

Lieutenant
Aug 11, 2017
937
501
0
I’ll add. Dusty does nice work. Stock location inlets with zero issue, no issues with length on the connector to the Wagner FMIC, no issues with o-rings. I'll feel the need to port match the comp housings if I ever have to take the turbos off the car now though lol

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Install is straight-forward, I removed just enough to access the outlet clamps, did not remove the DPs or disconnect the coolant tank. The rear would be easier with 2 people for sure, but managed alone. The piping fits perfectly, but with the size of the pipes, room to work at the clamps isn’t exactly unlimited.

Two changes I made:

1) I bought early and they sat around a month before I installed them, so might've changed since, but the silicone that connects the pipes really could've been about .5-.75” longer to use the supplied t-bolt clamps, as mentioned in the OP. Once fitted, I could either get one clamp fully seated (with silicone connector fully under it) or most of the other clamp on silicone or split the difference. It was likely enough to hold, but wasn't feeling it, so I swapped the t-bolt clamps for regular worm-drive clamps that are significantly narrower and fully seat on silicone on both sides with room to spare. No biggie.

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2) There's decent clearance from the exhaust manifold, but the reflective tape wasn’t quite wide enough to cover all of the exposed silicone clamp-to-clamp and I'm not a huge fan of it anyway, so I pulled the shield off of the stock pipe, cut it length-wise and fitted it directly over the entire connection, clamps and all. I used safety wire to fasten it. Done.

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Cheezy

Lieutenant
Nov 7, 2016
611
225
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Toledo Ohio
Lots of great infor in here, ill be installing my inlets soon. Vrsf silicone, so im gonna heat tape the whole damn thing.
 

ddang06

Lurker
Feb 19, 2017
18
11
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Sugar Land TX
Ride
FBO 2009 E92 6MT 335
I have pr inlets with vargas outlets and they fit but are on top of each other touching
Thank you ! I didn't think they would fit due to spacing constraints but glad to know I'm wrong lol .. I did you relocate your vacuum canister? I deleted mine and haven't had any issues . Just wondering if you did the same .
 

Cheezy

Lieutenant
Nov 7, 2016
611
225
0
Toledo Ohio
Thank you ! I didn't think they would fit due to spacing constraints but glad to know I'm wrong lol .. I did you relocate your vacuum canister? I deleted mine and haven't had any issues . Just wondering if you did the same .
Unrelated to which outlets i have, i deleted my vaccuum canisters for about 3 months once and then re installed to see if there were any differences, i didnt notice anything except whether the engine bay looked crowded with them or oddly out of place without them.
 

Aaron

Lieutenant
Nov 3, 2016
544
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Colorado
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Silver 2013 335is 6MT
I hate that logic, it is flawed to the very core.

BMW has expensive engineers. They spend billions in R & D. Somewhere, sometime, under a specific set of circumstances you and I may never know, it became evident that those canisters were needed. They had a 6 digit engineer design, test, and design mounts for the canisters. Then they paid a programmer to program a machine to cash them. Then they paid for the machine to do so. Then they produced them on every single N54 ever made.

Sound cheap to you? Let's say those parts cost $1.26 per car, everything accounted for. I'm going to estimate 5 million produced, which is probably a quarter of actual. If BMW could save $1.26 per car by eliminating the vacuum canisters, they would save 6.3 million dollars. I'd say that's probably worth it.

BMW does not add components for fun. In fact they have hundreds of engineers employed whose only job is to eliminate unnecessary components. This is the entire reason for the N55, save component cost.
 

ddang06

Lurker
Feb 19, 2017
18
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Sugar Land TX
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FBO 2009 E92 6MT 335
^^ calm down Aaron . BMW engineers also decided to use shitty water pumps , fuel injectors , seals , turbos , hpfp, etc and also recommends 10k oil changes with "lifetime" fluids in our MT trannys. Explain the logic in that? We deleted our cansiters with no adverse effects. I'll continue to not run them, while you keep thinking everything bmw does is correct because of blah blah.
 

dyezak

Major
May 4, 2017
1,768
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Plano TX
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335is
^^ calm down Aaron . BMW engineers also decided to use shitty water pumps , fuel injectors , seals , turbos , hpfp, etc and also recommends 10k oil changes with "lifetime" fluids in our MT trannys. Explain the logic in that? We deleted our cansiters with no adverse effects. I'll continue to not run them, while you keep thinking everything bmw does is correct because of blah blah.

According to the Continental engineering team that did the injector design the flaws we see were introduced due to BMW. Due to fear in HPFP reliability (a founded fear as it turned out) BMW demanded that the N54 be able to run on LPFP pressure alone in the case of HPFP failure up to 120kph. That meant a DI piezo injector that could flow enough fuel in a DI environment to run off 70psi instead of the normal 3000psi. Badda bing badda boom we have 3300cc/min injectors that should be able to flow enough fuel at 3000psi for 1500hp HAHAHA. Nothing like this had ever been done before (gasoline DI was still really new in 2005 when N54 design was being done). So we got to go through 12 iterations of redesign until Continental got it right (we think).

Sorry, we got way off topic.
 

Rob09msport

Major
Oct 28, 2017
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Monroe CT
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09 335i msport le mans 18 x5
Thank you ! I didn't think they would fit due to spacing constraints but glad to know I'm wrong lol .. I did you relocate your vacuum canister? I deleted mine and haven't had any issues . Just wondering if you did the same .
Relocated to firewall where old rear inlet was like behind throttle body plenty of room on driver side after inlet install its great
 
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BQTuning

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Jul 18, 2017
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www.bqtuning.com
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E89 Z4 35i 6MT M Sport
I hate that logic, it is flawed to the very core.

BMW has expensive engineers. They spend billions in R & D. Somewhere, sometime, under a specific set of circumstances you and I may never know, it became evident that those canisters were needed. They had a 6 digit engineer design, test, and design mounts for the canisters. Then they paid a programmer to program a machine to cash them. Then they paid for the machine to do so. Then they produced them on every single N54 ever made.

No, they did not use canisters for the 740i and X6 that carried the N54. They did however used a vacuum box of some sort instead of two canisters.