Richard in NC

Neat but did you know that Dodge tried that in 1990? Unfortunately they couldn't control the heat well enough and cooked the Variable Nossle Turbo (their name) mechanism and dropped it in a year.

I have always been a fan of the Porsche 911 Turbos but just pull the trigger to own one.

studavis

Ah, come on in! The water is great

AlexFW

4.3 for 510 HP .
120 HP/liter, wow

Member545

I read an article about the BMW I-6 and they said because of packaging the 3.2 Litre in the E46 M3 was as large as they could go. The engine would get too long to fit in the car.

redwhiteblue

Too bad they dont go with a refined version of the 3.2L. Even with similar specs to the N52 with current 272 where they are getting 91hp per litre, if they upped it to 3.2 that would be an extra 20hp and wold put it very close to 300hp from a nice smooth NA engine. Really not sure why that was never implemented. Especially in the 5 but even in the e90 there is plenty of room for it

pennetta

You can get the HP numbers up that way but the torque sufffers compared to a turbo motor.

redwhiteblue

Well of course, anything non-turbo is much less torquey but just based on heritige I am a bit surprised in general how much a role the turbos are starting to play with them. Talking about TT v8 now. I LOVE turbos but tradition is important in a company like BWM which is why it surprises me more they would not have gone a route like getting 300-320 hp out of a 3.2l Design incorporating new technology and what they learned from the e46 m3 engine.

The reason I say that is because the new TT engine is VERy similar to the old m3 engine so its not like they didnt want to use that design. I just thought they could take what was good from that engine, which was its size and hp output and take what was good from the n52 which was its very lightweight and fuel efficient and come up with a new 310hp I6 NA engine.

Just something neat about having a bmw I6 with lots of power. Anyone including all sorts of little chevs such as the cobalt can throw FI onto the engine and produce a bunch of torque and hp-So it just is not that inpressive for bmw to make 300 hp with a tt engine.

I dont know maybe its just me. Completely nothing wrong with the TT motor and had it been any other maker it would be amazing but I would have liked to see BMW continue with tradition and define trurly great engines.

The other reason I dont like to see the Turbo trend is it takes away from the creativity and new improved designs otherwise reruqired to keep up with the market and technology. When you throw turbos on an engine it takes no thinking. Where as each of the previous bmw engines have been better than the last in most respects. They produced more hp, were more fuel efficient, yet were still smooth. I just hate to see them lose the need to keep upping the ante with cool new technology because they can simply throw turbos on old technology which is what they essentially did by throwing turbos on the M54 engine-not quite but you get what I am saying.

And once they start turboing the v8s. Again awesome power and maybe that is all people care about and I understand at the rate MB and lexus is going and most companies they understand the need to compete with HP numbers and building NA engines will always lose the HP and torque battle to turbo engines but that is why I respect corvettes. There Zo1 is a supercar that beats ferraris and porsches and yet is a simple NA v8 engine with gobs of technology and amazing design that sitll puts out 500 plus horsepower.

pennetta

There are gobs of new technology in the new TT motor, it also won the best engine of the year award in europe. The M version needed to be rev'd to get good accelleration, but since since its application was solely the M car that was OK. As powerful as the TT motor is, it is being used across the models that BMW is producing which includes more mainstream drivers that don't want to rev it to get power. Also with all of the pressure towards fuel efficient cars, the TT motor is more fuel efficient when driven at normal or steady speeds when the turbo has a minimum effect.
The Corvette motor is like a Harley Davidson motor, old school and low comparative technology. Both incidently use pushrods and are based off of engines from the 50 and 60's. Thats why they need such hugh cubic inches to compete with Ferrari and the like.

550isport

Hey there,

I believe what you're commenting on is known in engineering terms as specific output. Horsepower as divided by the size of the engine. The magic mark is 100 hp per litre. This mark is met with the M5's V10, the previous and current M3 I6s and V8s. If Porsche's 3.6 litre flat 6 in the standard Carrera was as aggressive as an M engine, it would have 360 horsepower, instead of the 325 it produces (and the 3.8 from the Carrera S would have 380hp instead of 355). Short of twin turbo engines, only Porsche's GT3 engines have met (and exceeded) this magic 100 hp/litre mark. The GT3 engines, like the M engines, are essentially racing spec units with expensive additional components. Ferrari is another thing all together. Almost all of their car's engines have been producing over 100 hp/litre for the last 6+ years, and their racing edition models (stradale, scuderia etc...) post incredible power to size and weight ratios. But these engines are the result of a cost-no-object obesession to win on the race track. Also, they don't hold up in day-to-day circumstances like a BMW M engine, or Audi RS engine.

Obviously I'm biased, but I think BMW deserve the M in their name because when you consider smoothness, reliability, tractability (useable power) and specific output, no company on earth offers a better mass-produced engine.

My two cents...
DRP

swajames

Right, but the key is matching output to what the engine has to deal with - depending upon the model the 325 hp in the Carrera and 355 in the S only have a little over 3000 to 3200lbs to deal with, hence the low 4 second 0-60 times that you get with the S (Porsche like BMW understates performance with its official specs which for 997S is at 4.6). BTW the new F430 Scuderia produces 118bhp per litre, which is only 3bhp per litre over the GT3's engine - that's pretty impressive for a $107K car.