New ride
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Looking good! Those are my favorite OEM 335i wheels.
Nice to see that the HPFP was done. Plugs are never a bad idea. Coils are probably fine if you're not having any misfires or stumbles. If you are, replace them and take a look at the injectors. Turbos or injectors could be the cause of your startup smoke. Keep an eye on your oil filter housing, if you notice leaking or seeping, those gaskets should be replaced. Do you hear any wastegate rattle on decel?
No misfires, only one bad thing that happened bad so far; I was leaving a toll booth on the way home and bounced it off the rev limiter (accidentally, forgot to move foot off the go pedal), car immediately went into reduced power mode. Stopped 2 miles later and turned it off, sat for 5 minutes and turned it back on again and everything was back to normal. I guess that could have been from a misfire but idk.
I'll keep an eye on the smoking, and I did make an appointment with my local shop to have him do an oil change and check for leaks or anything else that needs attention. I won't be surprised if the gaskets are due.
I don't hear any rattle, but would I know it if I hear it? Is it an obvious noise? Keep in mind I've never owned a turbo or a manual car before, so it makes loads of new sounds to me.
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It sounds like someone is spinning a ratchet under your hood and yes, it's loud. For limp home mode all you have to do is turn it off then back on and the car will be fine unless something is seriously wrong, in which case you'll turn it off then wait an hour or so for the tow truck to show up.
Is your mechanic familiar with n54's at all?
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No misfires, only one bad thing that happened bad so far; I was leaving a toll booth on the way home and bounced it off the rev limiter (accidentally, forgot to move foot off the go pedal), car immediately went into reduced power mode. Stopped 2 miles later and turned it off, sat for 5 minutes and turned it back on again and everything was back to normal. I guess that could have been from a misfire but idk.
I'll keep an eye on the smoking, and I did make an appointment with my local shop to have him do an oil change and check for leaks or anything else that needs attention. I won't be surprised if the gaskets are due.
I don't hear any rattle, but would I know it if I hear it? Is it an obvious noise? Keep in mind I've never owned a turbo or a manual car before, so it makes loads of new sounds to me.
It sounds like someone is spinning a ratchet under your hood and yes, it's loud. For limp home mode all you have to do is turn it off then back on and the car will be fine unless something is seriously wrong, in which case you'll turn it off then wait an hour or so for the tow truck to show up.
Is your mechanic familiar with n54's at all?
Pat did a pretty good job of describing it. You can hear it while driving with just the passenger window down while decelerating next to a curb or wall on that side of the car. Keep the music off. Otherwise you can free-rev it in the driveway and listen for a fast metallic clicking noise on the way down. When I bought my car I thought it was a rattling heat shield.
I've put my car into limp mode many times. It always fixes itself if you turn it off and back on again. The one time it was still missing after restarting it was when my motor was shot.
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It sounds like someone is spinning a ratchet under your hood and yes, it's loud. For limp home mode all you have to do is turn it off then back on and the car will be fine unless something is seriously wrong, in which case you'll turn it off then wait an hour or so for the tow truck to show up.
Is your mechanic familiar with n54's at all?
Okay yeah, definitely haven't heard anything like that in the car. I thought I heard something like it the second time I fired it up but it must have been something else.
And yeah, I spoke to him about working on these cars specifically before I picked one up, knowing I won't be able to do a lot of this work myself. He's an old BMW guy and actually worked with my last mechanic who worked on german cars almost exclusively, specifically Audi and BMW, for over 30 years. I trust him and he seems like generally a nice guy, they've treated me well on everything else I've done through them including the wheels and water pump on the last car. He likes 335s and thinks they aren't that bad to work on.
Pat did a pretty good job of describing it. You can hear it while driving with just the passenger window down while decelerating next to a curb or wall on that side of the car. Keep the music off. Otherwise you can free-rev it in the driveway and listen for a fast metallic clicking noise on the way down. When I bought my car I thought it was a rattling heat shield.
I've put my car into limp mode many times. It always fixes itself if you turn it off and back on again. The one time it was still missing after restarting it was when my motor was shot.
That's good to know, I'm glad the car is smart enough to protect itself from my screw-ups. I'll definitely keep an ear out for that noise, but is that something to worry about if the rattle does start? I've heard mixed things about it, from needing new turbos to some people saying its completely normal. And apparently MHD can keep them quiet, is that legit? I don't want to tune it until I get more comfortable with what I have now.
I'll also be bringing it to the car show in Eau Claire this weekend if anyone is out that way and wants to come see it, should be hanging out with some friends up there all weekend.
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MHD only hides a problem by holding the wastegate open to prevent rattle. The only fix is replacing the turbos. You can also run this band aid on a 0 map I believe so it's a stock tune but really, who the fuck wants a stock tune? The problem only becomes exacerbated when you start modding. I was lucky enough to get my turbos under warranty immediately after buying the car. Welcome to n54 ownership!
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That sounds expensive...
I guess we'll find out soon enough, fingers crossed. I'd rather not worry about it too much for now, cold air is coming and I want to enjoy it a little first.
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In my opinion, it's only annoying. If your turbos struggle to hit target boost and start throwing 30FF codes, then it becomes a problem.
For what it's worth, my 135i had no problem peaking at 22psi and making 450whp with turbos that rattled like a son of a bitch. They didn't smoke or anything, but had horrible wastegate rattle. You can tune it out with settings in JB4 and/or MHD. I used JB4 to mask the rattle and still made gobs of power.
Enjoy the car!
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In my opinion, it's only annoying. If your turbos struggle to hit target boost and start throwing 30FF codes, then it becomes a problem.
For what it's worth, my 135i had no problem peaking at 22psi and making 450whp with turbos that rattled like a son of a bitch. They didn't smoke or anything, but had horrible wastegate rattle. You can tune it out with settings in JB4 and/or MHD. I used JB4 to mask the rattle and still made gobs of power.
Enjoy the car!
Thanks man, I needed that haha
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Experienced a couple of firsts in the car this weekend.
Heard my first wastegate rattle while leaving the hotel, which I'm assuming stemmed from not letting things cool off properly after beating on it a little. It never came back the rest of the weekend but at least I know what it sounds like now.
I also did my first race. A friend of mine owns an 07 300 SRT8 and we've been talking about running it against whatever I buy for a while now, so that finally happened. I should have beat him in a 20 roll but I hesitated going into third, just inexperience on my part. We both agree that I should have won with a better driver, but I'm extremely impressed that it performed that well. I'm still completely stock so he has at least 100 hp on me...
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haha, I'll get one at the october cruise
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Experienced a couple of firsts in the car this weekend.
Heard my first wastegate rattle while leaving the hotel, which I'm assuming stemmed from not letting things cool off properly after beating on it a little. It never came back the rest of the weekend but at least I know what it sounds like now.
I also did my first race. A friend of mine owns an 07 300 SRT8 and we've been talking about running it against whatever I buy for a while now, so that finally happened. I should have beat him in a 20 roll but I hesitated going into third, just inexperience on my part. We both agree that I should have won with a better driver, but I'm extremely impressed that it performed that well. I'm still completely stock so he has at least 100 hp on me...
Wastegate rattle won't have anything to do with you not letting things cool off. However, wastegate rattle is most prominent on cold starts.
Get JB4 or MHD, you'll thank me later.
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2nd that. It is a cold start issue but not necesaarily heat dependant. Get MHD. The car is going to break eventually so you might as well have fun before hand.
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2nd that. It is a cold start issue but not necesaarily heat dependant. Get MHD. The car is going to break eventually so you might as well have fun before hand.
Stop telling me its going to break, that ruins it!
MHD is coming first, is that compatible with a water/meth kit though? I thought JB4 and cobb specifically have maps for running those but I don't know if MHD does as well.
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Stop telling me its going to break, that ruins it!
MHD is coming first, is that compatible with a water/meth kit though? I thought JB4 and cobb specifically have maps for running those but I don't know if MHD does as well.
To my knowledge, JB4 is the only one that can trigger water/meth. I love my JB4 and would highly recommend it to anyone, even if you don't want more power. It allows you to monitor tons of variables, scan for codes, delete codes, and comes with some cool features (gauge hijacking, sweeping, wastegate control, 2-step, etc.)
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Whoa now! Put the brakes on the water/meth! You don't even have a tune yet and you're worried about meth? Go fbo and worry about meth later. MHD does literally just about everything that jb4 does except 2-step which you don't need unless you're drag racing, gauge hijacking/sweeping which loses it's cool factor quickly and meth control which you don't need until you max out your injectors and you're far from that. You could even get an external meth controller if you really wanted.
Flash the car, add some parts, do another flash. Jb4+MHD is great for maxing out the car but you're not even close to being there yet. Enjoy the power gains incrementally while you learn how to drive it.
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I'm not that interested in the huge power gains from it, its more something I was looking into for the cooling. There isn't any real downside to it after the install so I figure why not, it sets the car up nicely for later. I started looking into E85 a little but that sounds like a bigger pain.
I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but heat kills everything so it sounds like a relatively good way to keep things a lot cooler. I just wasn't sure how the tunes play with it.I really want to invest in parts in an order that will keep things from blowing up on me.
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Whoa now! Put the brakes on the water/meth! You don't even have a tune yet and you're worried about meth? Go fbo and worry about meth later. MHD does literally just about everything that jb4 does except 2-step which you don't need unless you're drag racing, gauge hijacking/sweeping which loses it's cool factor quickly and meth control which you don't need until you max out your injectors and you're far from that. You could even get an external meth controller if you really wanted.
Flash the car, add some parts, do another flash. Jb4+MHD is great for maxing out the car but you're not even close to being there yet. Enjoy the power gains incrementally while you learn how to drive it.
Those were three of the differentiators I pointed out

As you can tell, Pat seems to be an MHD guy and I'm a JB4 guy. I run both and the car always ran PERFECT on stock turbos. I don't think you can go wrong with either, but JB4 has more benefits in my mind. If you want meth at some point, get JB4. It even integrates with port injection so you don't have to run a secondary controller.
PS: Your injectors won't max out. It's the HPFP and LPFP that can't keep up. These direct injectors can supply fuel for days.
I'm not that interested in the huge power gains from it, its more something I was looking into for the cooling. There isn't any real downside to it after the install so I figure why not, it sets the car up nicely for later. I started looking into E85 a little but that sounds like a bigger pain.
I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but heat kills everything so it sounds like a relatively good way to keep things a lot cooler. I just wasn't sure how the tunes play with it.I really want to invest in parts in an order that will keep things from blowing up on me.
I agree with Pat that meth wouldn't be my first mod, but it definitely benefits to cool things down. I'm thinking about adding it now with my current build, but need a new motor first. It never hurts to keep things cooler, but I'd get bolt ons and a tune first. If you have E85 in your area, it's worth mixing. JB4 even has an auto-tuning map that will give you the best performance for your current fuel and temperature conditions

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There is nothing wrong with meth injection on a stock car. You can just use water injection at first for cooling. If you run out of injector, meth would be a risky solution if you are running an off the shelf kit. The shurflo pumps don't last very long, and if you run out and do a hard pull things can happen. Meth injection is going to give you the benefit of running high octane fuel with out the 7 dollar a gallon price.
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