Update: 12/27/17
This past month has been fun and stressful. I installed e9x M3 control arms all around and had the same shop do the alignment twice, both times butchering it and charging me $100. No more with them, going to BPC for my alignments.
So along with e9x M3 control arms, I also went ahead and got the car tuned with the N54 intake manifold and throttle body! I went to BPC for the tune and they killed it. This Friday we are converting to E85 for a little more power.
Install was a breeze on the manifold, I had to cap one vacuum line from the back of the valve cover and the other one with the sensor I had to punch out the hole on the back of the N54 for it. Everything else was very straight forward plugging things in.
However, there is not a bracket for the loom on this manifold like the N52 manifold. Also there are no sensor brackets for the ambient air sensors. I will come up with something else for those two items this weekend.
TUNE:
So we made 248rwhp and 207rwtq on a Dynojet 224X
This dyno is as follows:
Stock 128i 6MT - 201whp 185tq
My car with all upgrades minus tune - 235whp 200wtq
My car with all upgrade plus tune - 248whp and 207wtq
This dyno is as follows:
N52 with 3 stage manifold and same headers with tune - 224whp 217wtq
My car with tune and N54 manifold and headers - 248whp 207wtq
So its a trade-off to go up 24whp and loose 10wtq, that's a win in my book and driveability is much better than stock. can deffinately feel even the small increase in tq, as well as much better throttle response and a linear power band until you hit about 5k then it hits pretty good!
Onto the rest of the stuff here is the plan for the weekend:
SS brake lines
SS clutch line
Brake fluid flush
Alignment
Oil change
E85 tune at BPC
034 Motor mounts
And finally detail the interior.
Very excited to be putting more money into this car, its going to be great.
As for the handling aspect I'm in the process of gathering parts for the 1M conversion and it will be as functional as possible.
PICTURES!!!!!!
