CXRacing FMIC Install on N54

[MuNkY6913]

Update: added a post for final findings and review of company. Bottom of first page.

I'm thinking about going with CXRacing for the FMIC. I was wondering if anyone has installed this on the N54 1er. i've seen a few 3 series with it installed, wondering if someone has pics or a review in the 1. Also trolling for coupon codes for them. Thanks!

EDIT: Here's the kit i'm looking at.

[MuNkY6913]

Decided to pull the trigger. Will review once installed. Now I need a charge pipe.

[RimasRS]

Please share later...

[MuNkY6913]

Should arrive tomorrow will post pics of packaging, shipping time and service so far.

[MuNkY6913]

After working over night on Thursday so I would be home to receive the package. Guess who got called into work for 2 hours and missed FedEx trying to deliver the fmic. This guy. Stupid work!

[MuNkY6913]

Got the intercooler yesterday afternoon. pretty happy with the packaging. So far the communication with CXRacing has been very good. I paid for the intercooler on Saturday night and received a tracking number monday morning. it was delivered Friday. not bad for free shipping. everything is intact and nothing is bent. not sure when i will be able to install. i'm hoping it will happen by the end of the month. here is a few pics of all of the pieces laid out.

[Lmaiuri]

You're cool with cutting up your bumper?

[MuNkY6913]

we'll see how much cutting is going to be needed but it doesnt seem like much. from what ive seen, i'm ok with trimming underneath the bumper. just did a bit of logging yesterday to compare what the gains will be from it. curious to see how much the AIT are going to lower from it. pretty excited to get it put in. great price as well.

[RimasRS]

Originally Posted by Lmaiuri

You're cool with cutting up your bumper?

There is no cutting bumper involved it is just plastic piece which have to cut almost every body who is installing after market FMIC. With this FMIC it is few inches more cutting than installing other brands.

[MuNkY6913]

Another bit of feedback so far. I'm mid install and had to call already to get a little more clarity. The service tech has been great at helping me. The only bad thing I have to say so far is the company that states they designed this kit from the ground up specifically for the 1 series doesn't have very good knowledge of how to install it on a 1 series and 0 instructions. The install instructions I was given were for a 3 series. And a few pics of it already installed on a 1 series. Not a whole lot to work with. But I'm determined to make it work out really good. More to come.

[MuNkY6913]

The intercoolers in and pretty tight. Had to do some finagling with the piping and couplers on the passenger-side. Got that sorted out. Have a little bit of problems on the bottom bracket, the holes on the bracket weren't lining up with the intercooler. Then I just pushed on them a little bit and they lined up. Huge problems with the top bracket. I ended up having to drill out more holes and slot holes that shouldn't of been slotted. The bracket wasn't even long enough to reach the holes that it was supposed to. The holes in the top bracket didn't even line up with the holes on the intercooler. I have photos of the stuff that I'm going to post on a separate thread. The quality of everything seems fairly good. Its just the manufacturing of it wasn't done very well. They could've taken some more time to make sure everything would line up on the one series. I'm not completely done yet with the driver side piping. Turns out this does not mount up to a stock charge pipe. At least not the longer charge pipe. This replaces about half of the stock longer charge pipe. And I have quite a bit of pieces left over. But the inter cooler is mounted and it's very sturdy and the hoses and piping are fitting very well. I had to cut a large chunk out of the shroud which I have pictures of as well. I'm going to make this work. I'm past the point of no return now. Which I'm not 100% disappointed with the product. Just not very satisfied with the company. I think they could've done a little bit better of making sure everything would line up and fit together well. I could give more detailed instructions on how to install than they can. To me that should never be the case. Again. This will not fit on a 2009+ charge pipe. As soon as the new charge pipe gets here next week ill finish it up. I'll be starting a thread on installation and performance once I get a day with the same temp outside as when I took my last logs. As for the vendor feed back. Customer service was good. Always pleasant to talk to and willing to help. Knowledge of what they were trying to help with. Not so good.

[RimasRS]

Thanks for sharing is your engine N54? And if I understand correctly you are not driving your car for a week or more?

[MuNkY6913]

Yes I have an N54. I'll have to ask my buddy with a N55 if he thinks it would fit to his. He was here helping last night. He had alot of problems with his intercooler installation as well. I think he went with ETS. Yes. I won't be driving it for about a week due to the lack information CXRacing could give me. If i would have known all that needed to be done i would have had everything before starting this. If everything was here i would have been able to finish it up in a day. It's in the garage with everything taken out of the way for the new charge pipe to be installed. So when I get it all I have to do is pop it on and tighten the clamps. Atleast I hope that's all I have to do. Haha. I have a June 2009 1series. I think if I had the before may 2009 charge pipe it would have work out fine an I'd be testing it today.

[MuNkY6913]

Atleast the intercooler is in and nothing is broken.

[RimasRS]

Huge and nice

[stormzusmc]

cxracing is known for cheap stuff =/

[MuNkY6913]

Stuff didn't seem like cheap stuff, just lazy workmanship. The intercooler looked well made but all the mounting hardware just didn't have any attention to detail. welds all looked good, haha, just in the wrong place with the mounting hardware.

[ShocknAwe]

Well, just a thought, if the intercooler is well made but everything else is subpar to garbage, what about using stock piping and mounting? I am guessing that the stock mounting wouldnt work, but what about the plumbing?

[MuNkY6913]

The plumbing looks good to. plumbing fit right in, connections seem really good. it was just the mounting brackets. laziness when it came to making sure the tabs were welded in the right place. another problem i'm having now is that the whole kit was designed from an earlier model 1series. with the shorter charge pipe. so now i've had to buy a new charge pipe. which i guess isn't a bad thing. the description on the website says 04-11. so as before the company has a severe lack of knowledge of the one series. they showed me a kit they have for the n55 3 series. that kit actually replaces the entire charge pipe and everything. would have been nice if they did that with this kit.

[RimasRS]

I believe kit was made for 335i that is why you have mounting brackets problems

[MuNkY6913]

no this kit was actually made for the 1 series. there are 2 different kits listed for 3 series and 1 series. i looked at the pics for both and the mounting hardware is different in shape and where it mounts. i dont think there has been very many of the 1er kits installed and sold there. from talking to them it seems like they only have info from the original mock up, fabrication, and install. so they've done this as many times as i have now.

[MuNkY6913]

So I completed the install this pas Saturday. My evaluation of this vendor is not very good. I would say on a scale of 1-10 they get a 2, maybe 3. Shipping was good, and people are friendly. I never got any attitude from them at all. I did however get empty promises that I would receive e-mails and never did. The Kit came in with no instructions whatsoever. I had to wait for the business to open to call them because the instructions on there website are password protected. After reviewing the install instructions I did get, I realized they were for a 3 series. So I had to contact them again and ask what was going on with that. The service tech I spoke with was nice and tried to help me but didn't have the knowledge of the product to do so. He said he had a few pictures that would help me out and would email them. I received the 5 pics they have listed on the website with the kit. Which isn't a whole lot when you don't know where to cut. The 3 series instructions had different places to cut and different mounting points and brackets. So I was kind of at a loss with that. I got the bumper off and took pictures of where and how it looked underneath and sent them to the service tech. He told me he would talk to the fabricator that worked on developing the kit and outline on my picture where to cut and send it back to me. That never happened. I got tired of waiting and cut what I could see was cut on the website pictures of it fully installed. After going through the parts I realised I had alot of parts that dont belong anywhere. Here's a Pic.

So after the intercooler was in I was a little worried from all the left overs. I sent the service tech a pic of all of it and asked what they were for. He said they were for a different car and wasn't sure why they were in my kit. I also didn't receive a cap for the meth bung. So even if everything would have lined up and fit I didn't have a cap. A week later I received one. THIS KIT WILL NOT FIT A STOCK MAY 2009 + CHARGE PIPE!!!!! The website says up to 2011. But i'm pretty sure they used an older 1 series to create this kit. So I was on the phone with them and sent pics back to show there is no way of installing this on my car. By that point I had already cut what was needed and had the intercooler and most of the piping installed so there was no going back. Big ups to Mike@N54tuning for helping figure that out and getting the right charge pipe ordered for me. When I finally got an e-mail back he showed me the kit for the N55 and asked if the piece they have for that would work. In the N55 kit they have the piping going all the way and replace the stock charge pipe. Why they didn't do it with this kit I don't know. So I had to explain to them the difference between the N55 and N54. I also had to tell them that they might want to fix the website because its extremely wrong with the years that this kit will fit. The mounting hardware was hastily done and attention to detail when it came to correct placement of mounting tabs was really bad. The top mounting bracket wasn't long enough to reach the mounting points. I had to slot the holes so it would fit. The same bracket had the tabs to mount to the top of the intercooler and where not spaced right so I had to slot one of those as well. It still ended up being pretty solid. I shouldn't have had to do all that. Unless your going to have a shop install this for you, I wouldn't buy this kit. I now have more knowledge about how to install this than the company that "developed this from the ground up" does. I don't think that's right. I'm not sure what the other intercoolers are doing for AIT's. I did some logs before and after. It was about 13 degrees cooler out during the before log, wont really worry about that. The before log showed an increase of 33 degrees on the stock intercooler during a 1-4 gear pull. From 96 degrees to 129 degrees. In 3rd gear the temp changed from 100 degrees to 122 degrees. The after logs showed an increase of 15 degrees through the same pull. From 96 degrees to 111 degrees. In 3rd gear the temp went from 98 degrees to 107 degrees. I'm extremely happy with that. I'm goiong to log again if I find a day that's closer to the same outside temp. And the temp went down alot quicker after the pull. So the product works, and looks like good quality materials. The workmanship on where brackets were placed is really bad. The knowledge of the 1series and how this kit fits in it is even worse. The company seemed to want to help but never really followed through with anything they said they would as far as assistance goes. I would not recommend this for the DIYer. The rubix cube of parts I got was really annoying and took up time I didn't want to spend figuring it out. So my overall review of CXRaing FMIC kit, if you can get the same results or close to it from another kit, go with the other kit. This only cost me $550 delivered and then spent another $300 to get the right charge pipe. So if you would need a charge pipe total spent is $850. Pretty sure there are similar options out there for around the same price that doesn't need cutting. If you want to know anything else about this kit experience, don't hesitate to ask.