MyE28.com

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Yes, it's tight. Yes, the turbo and downpipe will require removal to service the spark plugs but it fits and it's available.

Todd

looks great! I love the valve cover as well!

This would be awesome for the LHD Vehicles as well! For the crowd that likes putting the turbo for those to see 8)

HEY!

Is that my VC back from the Powder Coaters?

I love it! The whole time the answer to the RHD dilemma was simply turning the manifold upside down!

T_C_D wrote:
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Yes, it's tight. Yes, the turbo and downpipe will require removal to service the spark plugs but it fits and it's available.

Todd

A couple of these should make removing and replacing the downpipe a little less painful.

M635CSi wrote:

T_C_D wrote:
[url]

Yes, it's tight. Yes, the turbo and downpipe will require removal to service the spark plugs but it fits and it's available.

Todd

A couple of these should make removing and replacing the downpipe a little less painful.

That's already in the works but #1 plug will still require removal of the turbo.

Todd,

Nice work. That's beautiful. Looks like Turbo removal is easy enough.

I can almost see the paint bubbling off my bonnet behind the right front headlights right now!

How much does ceramic coating the inside of the bonnet run to?

DRP535 wrote:I can almost see the paint bubbling off my bonnet behind the right front headlights right now!

How much does ceramic coating the inside of the bonnet run to?

Turbo actually isn't very close to the hood. It's not even an issue. Prolly 4 or 5 inches from the hood. Ceramic coat the exhooassed housing and downpipe and call it a day.

Todd

DRP535 wrote:I can almost see the paint bubbling off my bonnet behind the right front headlights right now!

How much does ceramic coating the inside of the bonnet run to?

DRP535, your car is crying out for a turbo. Resistance is futile...
If you're that worried about heat, insulated jackets are available for turbochargers.

M635CSi wrote:DRP535, your car is crying out for a turbo. Resistance is futile...

Don't I know it! Everytime I go in to see my mechanic he tries to sell me one of the two M106s he's got sitting on the floor. That or the M88/3 he's got sitting there too. The thought has crossed my mind once or twice. Trouble is though, this sort of modification in my mind really is one for doing when your car needs a serious overhaul regardless. ie. you do it when the engine is on it's last legs anyway with worn valve stem seals, a worn camshaft, blown oil seals etc. Then it's worthwhile doing because you're spending a heap of labour anyway. Trouble with my car is that it's still in too good a condition. I would hate to tear apart a very good original car to do this mod.

One day though...

DRP535 wrote: One day though...

"Do it, just do it. Do it."

Hotness!!

That looks sweet! Out of curiousity how big (what type) is that turbo? Is it the TO4E?

DRP535 wrote:

M635CSi wrote:DRP535, your car is crying out for a turbo. Resistance is futile...

Don't I know it! Everytime I go in to see my mechanic he tries to sell me one of the two M106s he's got sitting on the floor. That or the M88/3 he's got sitting there too. The thought has crossed my mind once or twice. Trouble is though, this sort of modification in my mind really is one for doing when your car needs a serious overhaul regardless. ie. you do it when the engine is on it's last legs anyway with worn valve stem seals, a worn camshaft, blown oil seals etc. Then it's worthwhile doing because you're spending a heap of labour anyway. Trouble with my car is that it's still in too good a condition. I would hate to tear apart a very good original car to do this mod.

One day though...

Your car is the perfect candidate. The only major thing you remove from the engine is the exhaust manifold

What's the downside to this location, save for some possible heat issues? Maintainence/removal seems like it would be a breeze and the heat issue can be dealt with.

Me likes!

Bill in MN wrote:What's the downside to this location, save for some possible heat issues? Maintainence/removal seems like it would be a breeze and the heat issue can be dealt with.

Me likes!

The down side is weight placed high and far forward, accessing the spark plugs and possibly needing an adapter to relocate the wastegate if the AC compressor is retained... this were not sure of yet.
For RHD guys it eliminates the need to find the rare and oft misunderstood steering gear/turbo combo unit.

What are the advantages to this mounting method? (I know next to nothing about turbo systems, just trying to edumacate myself...)

stuartinmn wrote:What are the advantages to this mounting method? (I know next to nothing about turbo systems, just trying to edumacate myself...)

The one real advantage is that guys with right hand drive cars can fit a turbo with this manifold. With the standard turbo placement the turbo occupies the area where the steering box resides.
One other "advantage" with this mounting is you get to see the turbo... if you consider that an advantage...

Sweeney wrote:Your car is the perfect candidate. The only major thing you remove from the engine is the exhaust manifold

Yeah but that would require removal of my just fitted Fritz's Bits S/S headers which I'm still very much in love with!

One other consideration is fuel consumption. I'm not worried about cost so much but more range. Range is important in as sparsely populated place as W.A. Before my headers, driven gently, my car could do only 500km on a tank. Now it gets to 550km, which is still only just adequate. I'm imagining that a turbo will easily bring this down to well below 500km again. Maybe as low as 400km. That will require the fitting of an Alpina-like B7 extended tank for sure.

Also, with a single large turbo arrangement like this, is lag much of a problem? Do TCD run some sort of an anti-lag system to compensate for this? I'd imagine not if the system has to pass US emission tests. Can't imagine that squirting raw fuel straight into the exhaust will do much that's positive for emissions.

Are there any plans for a smaller twin turbo staggered spool up arrangement like say on a Nissan GTR to get around the lag issue?

Theres an easy solution to "lag". Downshift

My car gained an enormous amount of REALLY low end torque.

I cruise up hills in 4th and 5th gear at 1200rpm with little Throttle input. Give it a little more gas and the car will accelerate from that low no problem.

Really amazing, I could have never done that before the turbo.

DRP535 wrote:

Sweeney wrote:Your car is the perfect candidate. The only major thing you remove from the engine is the exhaust manifold

Yeah but that would require removal of my just fitted Fritz's Bits S/S headers which I'm still very much in love with!

One other consideration is fuel consumption. I'm not worried about cost so much but more range. Range is important in as sparsely populated place as W.A. Before my headers, driven gently, my car could do only 500km on a tank. Now it gets to 550km, which is still only just adequate. I'm imagining that a turbo will easily bring this down to well below 500km again. Maybe as low as 400km. That will require the fitting of an Alpina-like B7 extended tank for sure.

Also, with a single large turbo arrangement like this, is lag much of a problem? Do TCD run some sort of an anti-lag system to compensate for this? I'd imagine not if the system has to pass US emission tests. Can't imagine that squirting raw fuel straight into the exhaust will do much that's positive for emissions.

Are there any plans for a smaller twin turbo staggered spool up arrangement like say on a Nissan GTR to get around the lag issue?

There is very little perceptible lag in our systems. My last stock 535is made 17psi at 3000rpm. It made positive pressure as soon as the dyno operator went WOT. The only lag is from the inception of WOT to peak boost. In the case of the dyno it took 800rpm from closed throttle to 17psi.

It's my opinion that there is NO lag issue with our kits.

A turbo will increase gas mileage at cruise but your gas mileage will suffer at WOT.

My biggest concern for you is that we will not be offering a RHD turbo kit only some hardware and software. It'll be up ot the RHD owners to complete the job.

Todd

WOT = Wide Open Throttle?

I've only driven two turbo-charged cars before (much to my amazement now that I think of it). Both I found produced amazing performance when they were going well but were extremely irritating at other times. One was a home-DIY-conversion of a Mazda RX-3 and since that was a DIY job I think it's best forgotten. The other one was a factory installed Mazda 626. 2.2 litre I think 4 cylinder FWD with turbo. Also sold as Ford Telstar TX5 down here.

Anyway, I drove that Mazda quite a long way down from Geraldton to Perth ~400km and the most irritating thing I found with it was that you simply couldn't just flatten the throttle and leave it there for overtaking. It had a dash mounted boost gauge with a green, yellow & red zone. As soon as the needle got to the border of the yellow and red zones, the waste gate opened and the result of that was approximately the same as switching off the ignition.

I'm a simple person. I need simple driving controls. When I need to overtake I want to be able to stamp on the loud pedal in the expectation that the car will accelerate continously for as long as I leave it there no matter what. I can't tolerate being half way alongside a 100m long triple trailer roadtrain doing ~150km/h with oncoming traffic and then have what feels like the ignition switched off as happened to me more than once on this particular drive.

Driving that thing was mental. You had to constantly have one eye on the road, one looking along the verge for speed cameras and one constantly on the boost gauge balancing the throttle to keep it in the green zone. That would have been fine except my third eye blind had a real close up view of the driver's seat squab fabric at the time. The trouble is that overtaking in country Australia means crawling along at 60km/h or less behind massively long road trains and then suddenly needing to accelerate to over 150km/h to get around them. Going WOT @ 60km/h in this turbo Mazda spiked pressure in the inlet manifold to where the waste gate would just turn out all the lights. It sucked royally. That said, on the rare occasion I did manage to keep the gauge in the green zone, the car would verily pull your face off.

Is driving on the boost gauge normal for turbo-charged cars? Is it required practice for the TCD system as well? Does the waste gate just lunch everything all at once or is it possible to have a staggered, variable rate of pressure release?

Also, does the waste gate release to atmosphere for that pffttt, pffttt, pfffttt WRX noise through the gears or into the exhaust downstream for that more distinguished silent running mode?

Correction: 3 turbo-charged cars. I have driven a Ferrari F40 too, but since that's not really what anyone would describe as a "normal" car I don't think my impressions of it are relevant. Needless to say though, it didn't have the same issues as the Mazda 626 but I probably ran out of talent and bravery long before the waste gate would have been getting nervous.

Considering your past experience, I think you would be very pleased with the driving characteristics of a well sorted turbocharged car. Especially something along the lines of a TCD car. Even cars that are considered peaky and laggy by modern standards are nothing like what you describe. And Todd's cars are universally praised for smoth power delivery. I would expect you would be more reminded of the F40 than the Mazda.

There was something terribly wrong with that Mazda... The old Saabs had an over pressure switch that would cut fuel... often referred to as the "face in the windshield" switch. It would only engage when something in the system failed.
Our TCD kits exhibit virtually zero lag and you don't lose boost unless YOU want.
I think you're referring to the bypass valve or blow-off valve and not the wastegate... the woosh would most likely be a blow-off venting to atmosphere. A bypass valve vents the intake system pressure back to the inlet side of the turbo to keep it spinning. A blow-off valve vent the intake to atmosphere and the wastegate diverts exhaust energy around the turbine to control boost pressure.

This is a local club member's 528i now fitted with M106 with alternative turbo placement (and probably different turbo altogether actually - it looks bigger than the M106 turbo to me). The solution is the same as far as turbo placement. It's the only place it can go I suppose, although I don't really know why you can't redirect the exhaust over the top of the engine and put the turbo on the intake side where there's enough room to hold a party in a RHD. There's a lot of plumbing well forward and up high in the engine bay.

This car goes like stink, although that said my M535i did manage to hang on to it just on the club run when this photo was taken, but its driveability leaves something to be desired from what I've heard. It has some issues at the moment though mostly concerning worn valve stem seals, so to be fair it probably isn't running at its best at the moment. Certainly with my car weighed down by every optional luxuried-up extra money can buy and this one being a fairly standard base model car, it should verily blow my car's door handles off.

I had the opportunity to drive Kyle in NOs' car thursday night. I have driven a few and owned one turbo car previously.

Let me just confirm how seamless TCDs' kit is. When driven normally the car acts just like a stock car. But when you step into it it's like you just added another engine. I never noticed anything unusual in the drivability. It was very smooth transitioning on and off boost.This is just the S1 kit. Kyle confirms that the S2 is significantly faster again.