Uprated turbos for N54 in an E89 35is

pbondar

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May 30, 2020
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My Z4 35is is 11 years old and 50k miles.

Currently fitting an Evo 1 FMIC, VSRF downpipes, fresh Index 12 injectors and coils n plugs.

Using MHD stage 1+, looking to go to 2+ with these mods.

Car did around 340 BHP stock and 390 BHP (crank) with stage 1+ ( on old coils n injectors and stock pipes)

All on 98 Ron fuel.

So planning ahead to maybe next winter and treating the car to a fresh pair of turbos.

My car is street use, ‘hooning’ as we call it in Scotland, so fast road work, overtaking on non freeway type roads.

I’ve uprated the chassis, Ohlins, Quaife, 437m with big tyres, M3 steering parts, H&R ARBs etc

My question is what’s the recommended set up for the next step up in power n torque given I want good instant acceleration without having to work the DCT box unnecessarily?

I want to keep a decent filtration system and want at least 50k miles out of the setup.

This is on 98 ron fuel, RHD car.

I assume oversized turbos will suffer spool up time issues?

Given my self imposed constraints do I need to go to 2” pipework?

Any brands to avoid?

I’m sure this has been beaten to death, but humour me pls!
 
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General.Massacre

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The options for Turbos are expansive and only really limited to whatever your budget might be and your power goals to be honest mate.
the Chinese 17T turbos are very popular right now, and have proved their worth.
@Osiris and I are both running Mamba TD03-14T hybrids, he is fully modded on a custom tune and doing around 500whp with Port Meth.

Me personally i am not chasing big HP, so ill be doing my Custom tune soon with one of the guys here, just waiting on a few things to sort out before finalising.
 

fmorelli

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It has ... that's ok. There is a fair bit of religion around this. I'll post a starter and I'm sure others with chime in.

Also you asked about brands to avoid - again there is religion. Almost every turbo producer listed below has had some kind of issue, especially those that started early on the N54 ... comes with the territory and I think people sometimes don't respect that. As of current purchases, below is what I would consider. I suppose you can infer that what I don't have on the list, I would personally not consider. One man's opinion and remember, you got what you paid for! lol
A few additional thoughts to throw in. Some folks will have a "Black Friday" sale and there could be discounts. 50k miles is not much, especially if the car had been left stock. The stock turbos, tuned on FBO, will rock and roll. Now ... there are prerequisites on that comment. First off you have to have good fuel - where I am, I found the Shell fuel superior to anything else (with same fuel rating), for example - logs made that clear. You may have already found this out playing with the N20. That said OTS can be fine; or you may find yourself with a tuner (again we can recommend if needed). On the 98 RON, depending on where you are that may or may not have 5% ethanol (a good thing). Can you not get ethanol mixed gas? My friend in Paris run on E85 which is France is made from beets (in the USA made from corn). Depending on what kind of fuel available there can be other discussions.

I'll stop there. Others will have input.
 
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NoGuru

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I have DAW 19T turbos and the spool is pretty close to stock turbos, only tiny bit of lag. But that as far as brands, go with a well know brand such as Pure unless you don't mind changing them. I have beaten on these DAW's for 10K now and they are fine but I don't expect them or any other china brand to last very long.

If you are worried about the DCT holding the power, get xHP and increase the line pressure.
 

fmorelli

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You asked a few other questions. On the exhaust, we have no definitive data, I'd say, so this is just pure opinion from working on my Z4. I personally find the stock exhaust to be crap. There are some serious kinks in it. Downpipes certainly help by getting the restriction out from right behind the turbos. Fitting those is tight and requires some finagling. I actually swapped my first set of downpipes due to construction variances. Anyway ... I also wanted to run a catalyst, so I had my exhaust built with a hi-flow cat in the mid-pipe (reducing impact to spool), and I actually extended the post-cat 02 harness so I could run the 02 sensor on a J bung. Works great. This makes my car reasonably road inspection legitimate.

Depending on how you like to approach your projects, I'd say the exhaust can wait - once you have downpipes you've hit the big thing. If you like to structure your project in a way that gets certain things done at certain times, have at it. My phase 1 had an LSD and the custom-made exhaust, so I'm a little weird but hey ... it's your project!
 

pbondar

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May 30, 2020
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I have DAW 19T turbos and the spool is pretty close to stock turbos, only tiny bit of lag. But that as far as brands, go with a well know brand such as Pure unless you don't mind changing them. I have beaten on these DAW's for 10K now and they are fine but I don't expect them or any other china brand to last very long.

If you are worried about the DCT holding the power, get xHP and increase the line pressure.
Thanks, I've got my xHP ready to go, my choice of language was probably not clear, I was alluding to the fact that we often go out for say 2,3,4 day trips, with around 200-250 miles per day on very twisty, bumpy, usually empty and often fast roads..so the eay I like to drive and it worked very well with my N20 E89 20i that was re-turbo'd and does 300 BHP+ and 450NM over wide rangem allied to the well sorted ZF8HP box, meant I could drive at a fast pace, handling 'obstructions; wihout having to manually go up and down the box..I'd like to retain that feeling rather than a not much then massive whooshhh!!-:)
 

pbondar

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May 30, 2020
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You asked a few other questions. On the exhaust, we have no definitive data, I'd say, so this is just pure opinion from working on my Z4. I personally find the stock exhaust to be crap. There are some serious kinks in it. Downpipes certainly help by getting the restriction out from right behind the turbos. Fitting those is tight and requires some finagling. I actually swapped my first set of downpipes due to construction variances. Anyway ... I also wanted to run a catalyst, so I had my exhaust built with a hi-flow cat in the mid-pipe (reducing impact to spool), and I actually extended the post-cat 02 harness so I could run the 02 sensor on a J bung. Works great. This makes my car reasonably road inspection legitimate.

Depending on how you like to approach your projects, I'd say the exhaust can wait - once you have downpipes you've hit the big thing. If you like to structure your project in a way that gets certain things done at certain times, have at it. My phase 1 had an LSD and the custom-made exhaust, so I'm a little weird but hey ... it's your project!
My tech has discovered the hard way that the VSRF pipes don't quite marry perfectly to the stock exhaust, so a bit of cut n shut is called for, which is OK as he's a very good welder..

In the UK, with the secondary cats in place in the stock exhaust the car will (just) pass the annual emissions test, so not keen to junk the rest of the exhaust just yet, plus, being a mature citizen, I find the 35is exhaust plenty loud enough..-:)

Fuel wise, our 98/99 RON now has upto 5% ethanol, the 95 RON now has 10% ethanol. Access to ethanol /methanol is very restrictive not practical for a car that spends a lot of time from home base when its 'hooning'..
 

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pbondar

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May 30, 2020
422
242
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It has ... that's ok. There is a fair bit of religion around this. I'll post a starter and I'm sure others with chime in.

Also you asked about brands to avoid - again there is religion. Almost every turbo producer listed below has had some kind of issue, especially those that started early on the N54 ... comes with the territory and I think people sometimes don't respect that. As of current purchases, below is what I would consider. I suppose you can infer that what I don't have on the list, I would personally not consider. One man's opinion and remember, you got what you paid for! lol
A few additional thoughts to throw in. Some folks will have a "Black Friday" sale and there could be discounts. 50k miles is not much, especially if the car had been left stock. The stock turbos, tuned on FBO, will rock and roll. Now ... there are prerequisites on that comment. First off you have to have good fuel - where I am, I found the Shell fuel superior to anything else (with same fuel rating), for example - logs made that clear. You may have already found this out playing with the N20. That said OTS can be fine; or you may find yourself with a tuner (again we can recommend if needed). On the 98 RON, depending on where you are that may or may not have 5% ethanol (a good thing). Can you not get ethanol mixed gas? My friend in Paris run on E85 which is France is made from beets (in the USA made from corn). Depending on what kind of fuel available there can be other discussions.

I'll stop there. Others will have input.
Filipo, thanks for the list..

I'm not keen on 'cheap' if it means I'll be ripping the car to revisit them..

Drawn to these German babies, not sure if any has any comments on them?


Did anyone address my issue of 2" pipes over stock and if I insist on a decent paper filter how soon that limits BHP increases?
 

JohnDaviz

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Jan 6, 2019
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I am from Germany and TTE is a well known brand here. If these turbos are within your budget i highly recommend them to you.

I tuned a set of TTE500 and TTE550 and both are great. If i had to choose i probably would choose the TTE600.

Personally i am running the HP650 and i have to say. On pump fuel the spool is really not great. They spool great on E85.
If you want to remain stock spool style you may want to avoid the 650s. But they give you more power due to the bigger exhaust housing and less exhaust gas back pressure.

But:
We also figured that we can run with 102 ron pump fuel more timing than on TTE500/550s or any stock exhaust housing turbos. Friends run TTE500/550 and do a 7,x s 100-200kph at 24psi with the timing possible while me and a friend run 6,5s 100-200 on 21psi with 5-6 degrees more timing than possible on the TTE500/550.


In the end it depends on your goals but the turbos market is huge for the N54 and there are many many good twin options.
 

pbondar

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May 30, 2020
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I am from Germany and TTE is a well known brand here. If these turbos are within your budget i highly recommend them to you.

I tuned a set of TTE500 and TTE550 and both are great. If i had to choose i probably would choose the TTE600.

Personally i am running the HP650 and i have to say. On pump fuel the spool is really not great. They spool great on E85.
If you want to remain stock spool style you may want to avoid the 650s. But they give you more power due to the bigger exhaust housing and less exhaust gas back pressure.

But:
We also figured that we can run with 102 ron pump fuel more timing than on TTE500/550s or any stock exhaust housing turbos. Friends run TTE500/550 and do a 7,x s 100-200kph at 24psi with the timing possible while me and a friend run 6,5s 100-200 on 21psi with 5-6 degrees more timing than possible on the TTE500/550.


In the end it depends on your goals but the turbos market is huge for the N54 and there are many many good twin options.
Great report..do you think the TTE600 with stock air box will be acceptable?

The TTE600 needs 2" pipework?

Plus TMAP N20 sensor?
 

JohnDaviz

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Stock air box gets restrictive at some point. I did the testing on my own car because i had some weird behavior my friend with DCIs didn´t have.
Long story short. The change from Stock Airbox to DCIs (proper ones) reduced WGDC by 3% on my car.

I recommend 2" inlets on all upgraded turbos.

N20 sensor is only needed when you want to target more than 21.5psi (which you probably will)
 

pbondar

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May 30, 2020
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Stock air box gets restrictive at some point. I did the testing on my own car because i had some weird behavior my friend with DCIs didn´t have.
Long story short. The change from Stock Airbox to DCIs (proper ones) reduced WGDC by 3% on my car.

I recommend 2" inlets on all upgraded turbos.

N20 sensor is only needed when you want to target more than 21.5psi (which you probably will)
So pardon my lack of knowledge on the matter, if you have 2” outlets on the turbos does that mean the rest of the pipework to and from the FMIC and the FMIC have to be all 2” diameter?

Also I see some people have put an auxiliary air pipe feed into the stock airbox to ‘avoid’ DCIs?
 

JohnDaviz

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This is about the inlets of 2 inch. Not outlets.

About Intake there is also the so called MR5 intake which you probably are referring to.

Outlets stay mostly stock.
 

pbondar

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Studying the TTE500/TTE600 family..as a road car where instant acceleration is preferred without having to 'build boost' and absolute power is not the aim..the TTE500 literature states 'fast spool' whereas the TTE600 literature is silent on the matter?

For my tastes going from 420 ish crank BHP with a MHD2+ map on VSRF pipes. stock airbox to something approaching an alledged 550 is BHP, derated due to stock airbox to say 525 NHP crank sounds ok?

Or is the spool issue a non event?
 

carabuser

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Also consider the turbo outlets. Since you are RHD then most of the larger twins require upgraded outlets and that's difficult with the steering column in the way.
 

fmorelli

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Studying the TTE500/TTE600 family..as a road car where instant acceleration is preferred without having to 'build boost' and absolute power is not the aim..the TTE500 literature states 'fast spool' whereas the TTE600 literature is silent on the matter?

For my tastes going from 420 ish crank BHP with a MHD2+ map on VSRF pipes. stock airbox to something approaching an alledged 550 is BHP, derated due to stock airbox to say 525 NHP crank sounds ok?

Or is the spool issue a non event?
They make the smaller setup for a reason. It's why I went with the HP650 over the HP800, given what I was looking to accomplish. And I discussed it with Omar as well, to get feedback, since it is his product line.

You might consider talking to TTE if you are looking to go that direction. You seem to have a strong idea of where you want to end up - that's to your advantage on these kinds of decisions.
 

SLOWESTN54

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I've been looking for my next set of turbos as well recently, I've landed on RB Game finishers hf's. You can chose between high flow and standard flow. The other option i was considering was offerings from Hydra. Although, i'm not sure about outlet fitment in a RHD car for either. @martymil can probably chime in regarding that.
 

fmorelli

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Actually not to go off path, but you bring up a good point ... we custom built our outlet for the Hydra's. What's the solution these days? And if it exists off the shelf, LHD and RHD?
 

SLOWESTN54

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Actually not to go off path, but you bring up a good point ... we custom built our outlet for the Hydra's. What's the solution these days? And if it exists off the shelf, LHD and RHD?
Hydra offers a outlet setup now. Although i can not confirm RHD fitment. On that note i just went through my emails will Omar from hydra, and HP800's are a lot cheaper then RB GF's.
 
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