N54 water to air intercooler street build

[bantam]

Hey guys, it runs!
I realize these aren't great logs, but I drove around for an hour trying to find a spot to do this...

This was ~83F ambient, so the results aren't thrilling in terms of charge air temp, but not bad either.

https://datazap.me/u/bantam/n54-w2a-intercooler-dp-oft-stg-1-tune?log=1&data=3-19-26-27

https://datazap.me/u/bantam/n54-w2a-intercooler-dp-oft-stg-1-tune?log=0&data=3-26

Unfortunately I don't have any apples to apples datalogs as far as I can tell.

This one shows a 3rd gear pull with my old A2A setup, but the ambient was much cooler.

https://datazap.me/u/bantam/oft-stg-1-55-ambient-night?log=0&data=4-15-21

 

[doublespaces]

Glad to see its all together!

 

[ShocknAwe]

Awesome. Assembled pics?

 

[bantam]

Thanks!

I have really only had time to sort out the misfire, throw the bodywork on and make those datalogs...

Awesome. Assembled pics?

Here are some current as-assembled pics:
Driver's side:


Passenger's side:


Remaining action items:

Re-fit cowl and BMS vent filters

Add ducting shroud for Heat exchanger

Add cool-air source for intakes

Create replacement custom heat exchanger:
Custom bar and plate cores have been received, so I will just need to fab up some end-tanks, and I should be ready to upgrade!



Future desires would be some sort of trunk-mount reservoir.

 

[Team503]

That's pretty nuts. Do you feel it was worth it, outside of doing it just to do it?

 

[bantam]

That's pretty nuts. Do you feel it was worth it, outside of doing it just to do it?

I am personally super-pumped and really enjoyed doing the design and installation, car runs great and if you have the time and are not necessarily worried about time spent or hp/dollar, then have at it!

As for a dose of reality...

I think the improvement will be marginal for the average street driver. Someone serious about drag racing could see some improvements in repeatability by using one of these with an ice box.

The testing to definitively quantify the transient response improvement and HP improvement would likely require quite a bit of work on a dyno, followed by part-swapping, followed by swapping back. I would need loaner A2A parts and a friendly shop to do something like this. So it is not in the cards at the present time.

 

[ShocknAwe]

I still think this is pretty promising, if for nothing other than weight balance. 40lbs in front of the front wheels is not great. So thanks for taking the time to work through it!

 

[bantam]

well the heat exchanger is still at the front of the car, so I am not sure you gain much in terms of weight balance...

Though I did take the opportunity to replace my steel front bumper support with the CF one from the M3 to save a few lbs

 

[Team503]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[jturboawd]

whats up guys/gals. The white 135i A2W with speedtech is my daily. Glad to see other people doing the same thing. If you guys have any questions let me know.

 

[MoreBoost]

It's a nice build. Being water you can daily drive it where i only use my co2 sprayer at the track. Or I should say I intend to. I didn't use it yet and I have an 8 month old now so I might not get to try it for some time but then I get to leave the big CO2 cylinder at home.

Must be pretty cool if you can chuck a bag of ice in the water tank. It'd be good to monitor the water temps after alot of use. See how high they get.

 

[jturboawd]

Guys checking out the CO2 cooling, i have done this before in my youth and it was never worth it. It is much more effective to use the HVAC system. There is a bolt on kit for this.

2016 BMW F80 M3 Interchiller – Fi Interchillers Online Store

Pure Turbos 2016 BMW F80 M3

fiinterchillers.com

I dont think this is needed though. If you are a track car and not using meth it would be nice. I use a cm3 before and a cm5 after the intercooler and the IATs are just silly low. I live in Houston so I do get soak in traffic, but after one pull its gone. I really like the chillers but i just dont need it.

 

[MoreBoost]

Guys checking out the CO2 cooling, i have done this before in my youth and it was never worth it. It is much more effective to use the HVAC system. There is a bolt on kit for this.

2016 BMW F80 M3 Interchiller – Fi Interchillers Online Store

Pure Turbos 2016 BMW F80 M3

fiinterchillers.com

I dont think this is needed though. If you are a track car and not using meth it would be nice. I use a cm3 before and a cm5 after the intercooler and the IATs are just silly low. I live in Houston so I do get soak in traffic, but after one pull its gone. I really like the chillers but i just dont need it.

Co2 done right is definitely worth it for a quick wide open throttle run. It's incredibly simple. A solenoid, a tank and a hose.

-80C surface intercooler temps. With water you might get -3C

I have 8 meth nozzles on my car. It works great but you only get a little below ambient temps and the cooling takes about an 8th mile to get to the lower temps.

 

[bantam]

Just an update that this is not dead, I made the mistake of suggesting to my wife that we could remodel our master bath, basically went into a 4 month time warp.

The good:
-The car made 402hp and 430 wtq on 93 octane on a dynojet (Std correction, 65 degree day),
-The crappy hack job heat exchanger seems to manage heat well on the highway.....

The bad:
-Transmission torque limit 4 was interfering, causing timing cuts on the dyno (xhp flash should resolve this).

-This thing heat soaks like crazy when stopped or creeping in traffic, had to wait quite a while for it to cool down between runs and IATs were still much higher than on the street

I would guess that if I can get the IATs managed on the dyno and the xhp flash, I could probably hit 420whp on 93 octane, seems pretty good to me for an auto trans on stock turbos, but probably not record-breaking.

I have more or less settled on a plan to upgrade the heat exchanger, but what I have yet to figure out is a way to make the fan trigger to help draw air across the cooler. In general, with mild weather, the fan is never running hard enough to cool down the heat exchangers. I can switch to the sport cooling flash, but it would seem that something extra might be necessary if you want to go to the track or dyno.

Anyone have any good ideas? best I can think of is trying to install a manual override switch that could trigger the fan at 100%, though I am not entirely sure that I can do that without causing problems with the DME.

 

[RSL]

Bought yourself a lot of goodwill there lol You'll never manage temps on a dyno like on the road. Shop fans and blowers aren't even close, but if you get it decent on a dyno, will be even better on the road.

I think you just want the biggest area exchanger you can fit in front of the rad and then closed cell foam around the edges between it and the rad (i.e. like a gasket), so air has to come through the exchanger when the fan is pulling. You want some space between the exchanger and rad, but don't want air leaks between them.

If you're custom tune, can set the fan to run at higher DC as you see fit.

 

[bantam]

If you're custom tune, can set the fan to run at higher DC as you see fit.

Am I missing something in the XDF files? I have looked through the tables and only see the ability to switch modes “normal-sport-race”, not the ability to explicitly dictate fan duty cycle

 

[RSL]

There is a switch for manual/fixed DC in the rom somewhere too, but this should work. Fan DC based on actual ECT vs. target ECT. Setting them all to 99% should run it full blast 24/7, which will get annoying.

 

[MDORPHN]

There is a switch for manual/fixed DC in the rom somewhere too, but this should work. Fan DC based on actual ECT vs. target ECT. Setting them all to 99% should run it full blast 24/7, which will get annoying.

View attachment 25244

Good info, but not really sure there's a benefit running it hard full time. Once the car is moving quickly, it really doesn't need the fan.

Neil

 

[RSL]

Good info, but not really sure there's a benefit running it hard full time. Once the car is moving quickly, it really doesn't need the fan.

Neil

Oh yeah, I'd never run it that high all the time, but on the street when the fan would normally be off, I'd set it for 25-33% minimum to keep air moving through an exchanger all the time.

Edit: 100% all the time on a dyno.

 

[bantam]

Thanks for the idea, this seems like it is worth trying at least!

Have a street flash with maybe 20% min duty cycle and then a drag/dyno flash that would run it full tilt non stop.