[ozinaldo]

Originally Posted by urban_alchemist

No, because you run out of puff at ~5,000rpm. That's my point - it's really the only shame with our cars that you can't really search out every last rpm before the (admittedly awesome) change-up...

Really the only thing I miss from my past M cars.

5000? My dyno runs showed that the peak power was reached at around 5500 (BMW claims 5900 rpm) and remained quite close to peak even around 6000, in fact 1M still produces more hp (and more tq too) than a M3 at 6000 rpm (from idle to 6200 N54T has more power and torque), M3 catches up and passes only after that, precisely at around 6200-6300; but revs are noticeably better up there after the exhaust, cp and filter mods I did, that's true, I admit it.

What I say is I never felt that the N54T looses its mojo alltogether at 5000; 6000 maybe yes, especially bone stock car, but not 5000, not that early. I take this car to 6700-6800 at second-third and fourth at a heartbeat quite often and it just zings there, easy to hit the rev limiter before you remember to avoid it at second and third gears which are the gears that count more in real world driving. Just because it has abundance of juice a bit before those high rpms doesn't mean that it is weak afterwards.

You say it yourself, if you want to keep the car at 3000 to 5000 rpm all the time, all you need to do is to shift more frequently which is a joy to do.

Honestly, I find the engine bonkers between 2500 to 6000, and at the same time doing a respectful job before 2500 and after 6000 as well. Which other engine has this kind of broad capacity? Plus, there are always tunes, again relatively cheap, to give more life at higher revs. We can't have it all, but I think we have the best fitting engine.