Upgraded maintenance items

Panzerfaust

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Jul 3, 2018
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Hey guys, I'm knocking out a bunch of preventative maintenance this summer since I'm already FBO and plan on going the upgraded Turbo route next summer.

I'm sure many of you have seen the aluminum coolant flange which is much better of an option than our shitty plastic hose which I've already ordered, and I also ordered an aluminum power steering pulley since I'm an 07 and want to further eliminate any issues with my belt.

What other options like that do we have for heartier maitenance/non-performance parts? Obviously things like the 335is engine mount and M3 suspension parts but is there any other little one-off or under the radar things we can use to fix weak points BMW gave us?
 

Rob09msport

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Charge pipe, coils, injectors, n20 plugs, rb pcv with mishimoto catch can low side, bms catch can high side, any bushings i went poly apparently could gone solid aluminum on subframe and would been no additional nvh with better longevity. Lpfp ,hpfp , brake lines , valve cover gasket,people use Monroe mounts when refreshing suspension instead of dinan they are $10 as opposed to over hundred are better than stock and all suspension arms can be purchased with m3 logo ground off branded trw which is identical and like half price but make sure you get adjustable end links if ever planning on changing ride height
 
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Panzerfaust

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Charge pipe, coils, injectors, n20 plugs, rb pcv with mishimoto catch can low side, bms catch can high side, any bushings i went poly apparently could gone solid aluminum on subframe and would been no additional nvh with better longevity. Lpfp ,hpfp , brake lines , valve cover gasket,people use Monroe mounts when refreshing suspension instead of dinan they are $10 as opposed to over hundred are better than stock and i believe give extra 10 mm travel and all suspension arms can be purchased with m3 logo ground off branded trw which is identical and like half price but make sure you get adjustable end links if ever planning on changing ride height

Yeah, like I said I'm already FBO+ so I'm good on things like the charge pipe and lpfp, I also already have external PCV and catch can etc.

I was just wondering if there were more things that were strictly a preventative maintenance upgrade to bulletproof other weak points, like how the aluminum coolant flange negates having to fuck with plastic hoses breaking on you or how the aluminum PS pulling will stop the belt from getting shredded.

Just to put a list together for anyone else looking to get rid of non-performance weak points so far things like this I know of are:
Aluminum coolant flange (Black Market Parts, or the cheaper eBay or Amazon polished option)
Aluminum power steering pulley (ECS tuning, Amazon)
External PCV setup (Rob Beck sells a full kit, VTT has individual pieces for a custom modular set up)
1/8" ID Rubber fuel line to replace plastic coolant vent line running along radiator(any auto parts store)
 

fmorelli

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You price 335is motor mounts? Specifically passenger side? Might as well sell your left nut to Goodwill first. It's ridiculous. Your factory motor mounts are likely worn out. I'd put new BMW mounts in (Rein FCP Euro lifetime warranty for $100/set) or if you are willing to deal with a little more NVH the Revshift 80a mounts for $350.

Filippo
 
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Panzerfaust

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You price 335is motor mounts? Specifically passenger side? Might as well sell your left nut to Goodwill first. It's ridiculous. Your factory motor mounts are likely worn out. I'd put new BMW mounts in (Rein FCP Euro lifetime warranty for $100/set) or if you are willing to deal with a little more NVH the Revshift 80a mounts for $350.

Filippo
Yes I did, and promptly decided to go the Rein from FCP route too lol. I don't remember exactly where I read it, but while looking into the difference I saw somewhere saying it was just 5 durometer rating points equivalent stiffer than the non-is passenger side mount. Definitely not worth that price point.

I considered the Revshift mounts but I'm friends with a local BMW shop who's done a ton of different N54 builds and the guys who run it said they've stopped using poly mounts on this platform altogether because of failures with them probably caused by the excessive heat of our engine - they stick to solid for any track cars and recommend OEM for anything street driven. I know RevShift is shipping their mounts with a blanket to help combat heat and it looks like an excellent product but I don't want to be a guinea pig on whether or not the blanket will help on a car that's daily driven for 6 months of the year. Maybe further down the road I'll upgrade but I'd rather replace slighlty too-squishy of engine mounts in a year than I'd like to replace too-smashed of anything in the engine bay if the RS mounts fail too.
 
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Rob09msport

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Yeah, like I said I'm already FBO+ so I'm good on things like the charge pipe and lpfp, I also already have external PCV and catch can etc.

I was just wondering if there were more things that were strictly a preventative maintenance upgrade to bulletproof other weak points, like how the aluminum coolant flange negates having to fuck with plastic hoses breaking on you or how the aluminum PS pulling will stop the belt from getting shredded.

Just to put a list together for anyone else looking to get rid of non-performance weak points so far things like this I know of are:
Aluminum coolant flange (Black Market Parts, or the cheaper eBay or Amazon polished option)
Aluminum power steering pulley (ECS tuning, Amazon)
External PCV setup (Rob Beck sells a full kit, VTT has individual pieces for a custom modular set up)
1/8" ID Rubber fuel line to replace plastic coolant vent line running along radiator(any auto parts store)
For some reason i read that wrong thought you wrote were going fbo sorry about that
 

Rob09msport

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And one thing is vac line to blow off valve uprade to whatever rec for your blow off valve i have braided 5mm helps response and flutter.
 

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Panzerfaust

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For some reason i read that wrong thought you wrote were going fbo sorry about that

And one thing is vac line to blow off valve uprade to whatever rec for your blow off valve i have braided 5mm helps response and flutter.

No worries man, at least you were trying to be helpful.

I have replaced a lot of my vac lines with better tubing too which certainly has helped with several different things, but I actually still have the original lines on my DVs still. That's mostly due to time constraints being that I live in an apartment right now so I either have to sneak my work in or go to my buddies garage lol, replacing those lines is near the top of my list though.

I suspect that degraded vac lines on the stock DVs largely contributed to the myth that the stockers were prone to leaking boost. Maybe it's just because my turbos are still pretty healthy but replacing those other vac lines helped me nearly eliminate any WG rattle I had.
 

fmorelli

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Yes I did, and promptly decided to go the Rein from FCP route too lol.
That's what I would do in your shoes.
I considered the Revshift mounts but I'm friends with a local BMW shop who's done a ton of different N54 builds and the guys who run it said they've stopped using poly mounts on this platform altogether because of failures with them probably caused by the excessive heat of our engine - they stick to solid for any track cars and recommend OEM for anything street driven. I know RevShift is shipping their mounts with a blanket to help combat heat and it looks like an excellent product but I don't want to be a guinea pig on whether or not the blanket will help on a car that's daily driven for 6 months of the year. Maybe further down the road I'll upgrade but I'd rather replace slighlty too-squishy of engine mounts in a year than I'd like to replace too-smashed of anything in the engine bay if the RS mounts fail too.
I went the guinea pig route, and I think you have this right. I hate poly as a general rule of thumb. Smart move is wait a year and see what people say.

Filippo
 

Panzerfaust

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I went the guinea pig route, and I think you have this right. I hate poly as a general rule of thumb. Smart move is wait a year and see what people say.

Filippo
Yeah, poly mounts can be an absolute bitch. My old E36 M3 had them and I swear at some points in the RPM range it felt like I was going to shake a bumper off lol. The revshift mounts are another thing I have squarely filed under "too risky right now but hopefully I'm completely wrong" because we really don't have any good aftermarket options for streetable engine mounts. I did shoot an email to Rogue Engineering to see if their E9x rubber engine mounts were compatible with the N54 but never got an answer back, however the description does say they drop the engine height a few mm and if that's true that might not be good for our subframe contact issues :(
 

The Convert

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I truly believe motor mount options depend on whether you're running an oem dual mass flywheel or not, on manual cars at least. I had the PTF/Motiv solid aluminum engine and trans mounts and loved them...until I moved to a spec twin disc clutch. When the OEM SMFW was still in play and able to absorb a good deal of the vibration as well as the stock clutch being very forgiving, the car just felt very connected. The dash didn't rattle or anything like that, but it just felt more direct. After the forgiving flywheel was replaced and the clutch became significantly more grabby with the Spec units, the dash rattling, and super jerky take offs from a stop became extremely prevalent. After swapping back to oem motor and trans mounts, the majority of the rattles and jerkiness went away. Long story short, if you stay on an oem clutch and flywheel, but want a more connected feeling, I would suggest solid motor and trans mounts.
 

Panzerfaust

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I truly believe motor mount options depend on whether you're running an oem dual mass flywheel or not, on manual cars at least. I had the PTF/Motiv solid aluminum engine and trans mounts and loved them...until I moved to a spec twin disc clutch. When the OEM SMFW was still in play and able to absorb a good deal of the vibration as well as the stock clutch being very forgiving, the car just felt very connected. The dash didn't rattle or anything like that, but it just felt more direct. After the forgiving flywheel was replaced and the clutch became significantly more grabby with the Spec units, the dash rattling, and super jerky take offs from a stop became extremely prevalent. After swapping back to oem motor and trans mounts, the majority of the rattles and jerkiness went away. Long story short, if you stay on an oem clutch and flywheel, but want a more connected feeling, I would suggest solid motor and trans mounts.
I'm an AT, but just out of curiosity is your car daily driven or driven on the street at all? And were the mounts the only stiffer parts you upgraded prior to the flywheel? Obviously it's well known the more stiff and chatter-y things are, the worse all your NVH will add up to be which makes your decision to revert to OEM unsurprising after upgrading other parts too. As a car that's currently a DD on "Race" springs with other stiff suspension components I can't even imagine how horrible a solid aluminum engine mount would be for me lol, and I'm certainly not even close to on an all-out track setup suspension wise. I did decide to go with slightly stiffer rubber trans mounts just because they were about the same price but common opinion seems to be us AT guys don't need stiffer trans mounts (which makes total sense) so I don't see myself ever going solid there either tbh. If I were to someday strip it down and turn it into a track only car I'd consider it, but otherwise I just don't think it's personally a route I'd enjoy.
 

fmorelli

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I went with Ben Liaw's rubber trans mounts, and some aluminum cups to keep anything from moving. That was a win ... no noticeable NVH. I dropped Ben a note to see if Rogue is planning to do any rubber mounts for the N54 ...

Filippo
 
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Panzerfaust

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I heavily considered getting the cups with my trans mounts but passed for now due to the aforementioned AT thing - the stiffer (not to mention much newer!) rubber mounts should do me well enough for now.

You'll have to let me know what he says when he gets back to you - even if we don't get N54 specific ones, if they find a way to make their existing ones work for us with some sort of enclosure/spacer to prevent contact and handle the heat I'd be thrilled and more than happy to swap them in
 
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The Convert

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I'm an AT, but just out of curiosity is your car daily driven or driven on the street at all? And were the mounts the only stiffer parts you upgraded prior to the flywheel? Obviously it's well known the more stiff and chatter-y things are, the worse all your NVH will add up to be which makes your decision to revert to OEM unsurprising after upgrading other parts too. As a car that's currently a DD on "Race" springs with other stiff suspension components I can't even imagine how horrible a solid aluminum engine mount would be for me lol, and I'm certainly not even close to on an all-out track setup suspension wise. I did decide to go with slightly stiffer rubber trans mounts just because they were about the same price but common opinion seems to be us AT guys don't need stiffer trans mounts (which makes total sense) so I don't see myself ever going solid there either tbh. If I were to someday strip it down and turn it into a track only car I'd consider it, but otherwise I just don't think it's personally a route I'd enjoy.
All very good points. Those were the only points that were "stiffer" than oem. I have solid rear subframe mounts for my dog lockdown, but have yet to install any of them. So, no clue on how it all would have played together.
 

Rob09msport

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I still say the 10 dollar Monroe rear mounts are huge bang for buck it's a wear item and a noticeable upgrade from stock way cheaper than stock
 
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Panzerfaust

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I still say the 10 dollar Monroe rear mounts are huge bang for buck it's a wear item and a noticeable upgrade from stock way cheaper than stock
Their strut mounts or something else? I actually did a full suspension refresh when I hit ~115k (aside from my lowering springs, which I want to replace them with an entirely different set anyway. Just don't know what route to go yet).

But I absolutely agree, anyone with a vehicle made pre-2011 or any vehicle over 75-80k should replace several different parts of their suspension if not the whole thing imo. Even going non-performance and non-OEM will make the ride much better and help with everything from handling to putting your power down properly. I went with Lemforder for anything that wasn't replaced with a higher performance part and stuck with OEM for my tie rods because I don't want to fuck with my alignment constantly.