Lotus99

What does the spacer do? You're one of the first here I recall who's put that on his car, so it's a pretty rare mod.

pocholin

They are supposed to give you about 5-6 HP, but there's a lot of controversy about them. Most people will say it does nothing for HP, or nothing at all. In my experience, it does do something, not sure what but it does, here's my experience when I added this one to my 535i, you be the judge:

I got my TBS because it was on sale at Bimmian for a great price, so I took my changes since I wasn't very convinced it would do anything on my car, being forced induction. Before doing the installation, everything in my car worked well but I had a hesitation between 6200 and 7000 rpm, dealer acknowledged it but they said they couldn't do anything because there were no engine codes to diagnose the reason. As soon as I put it, car idled rough and threw pre-cat o2 sensor codes. Just to be sure, I took it out, clear codes and test drove the car, everything normal. Put it back in, same o2 sensor codes back on. Does it do anything at all or not? Changed the pre-cat sensors, take the TBS out, and then the post cat sensor codes came on, at the end of all this I ended up with new o2 sensors (all 4), new injectors and walnut blasted the intake to get rid of all the codes. Again, you be the judge whether it does something or now.

I do get great gas mileage in my car. on the freeway, if I behave really really good (like a grandma) and keep it at 60 MPH I can get over 30 MPG efficiency, on my day to day commute to work (12 miles never on the freeway) I usually get 18-18.5 MPG, and up to 22 MPG if I behave really really good (hardly ever though).

Here's a little more reading....probably biased because it is from a company selling performance parts: Best Bolt On Mods for BMW F30 328i/428i ? N20/N26 Engines Part I ? ECU & Intake ? ModBargains.com's Blog

Lotus99

Yeah, It must be controversial as you say, because this was the first I had heard of it, and I've been in the 335 tuning forums for like 8 years.

That links says by increasing the runner length of the intake manifold, power and torque is increased. In addition to increasing the runner length, special rifling in the spacer optimizes the combustion cycle for a more complete burn, and works with any intake system, stock or aftermarket..

Hmmmm....
.

pocholin

Well, it does something for sure...just don't ask me exactly what ;-)

ericono

Thought I'd add an update on the car. My wife has been intimidated to drive the new car as there are just enough different things going on in the interior to get her flustered. As you can guess she's a bit hesitant with new technology. Anyway, she told me to drive it first and get used to it and then train her. Who am I to complain?

So this past Sunday we finally went out for a drive with her in the captain's chair. We first went through getting her all set up with the seat settings and steering wheel, etc. Got her radio stations programed in and explained how the shifter worked and the stalks around the steering wheel. With that done, we set off. She didn't have any difficulties and is actually a pretty good driver. I was surprised she quickly locked onto the steering being lighter than the e39 and commented about wishing it were heavier. I told her that I hope to be able to arrange than sooner than later. (I've actually got a cable coming and have been helped with some study material on software I need and how to use it so I do hope I can get things like SAT set up. Will keep you posted.)

Things were going so well I made her head over to the DMV and practice some parallel parking (the one thing she never really learned, well besides how to drive a manual). Everybody likes pictures so here's a shot of the car ready to be parked. She actually did pretty well at it, but never really got comfortable.



Take care,

Eric

GTYellowJacket

Eric,

Regarding your comments on the steering weight, you may be able to make some adjustments as soon as your cable arrives (before any SAT retrofit or flash). The same steering weight codes exist for KOMFORT mode as well as SPORT. I've never tried it, but you may be able to adjust the steering weight to be heavier at all times.

Check out this thread below (I may have already sent it to you):

https://5series.net/forums/diy-do-you...9/#post1571266

I linked directly to the posts discussing steering, so you'd just need to look for the same lines but with KOMFORT instead of SPORT.

I may have to give this a try tonight and report back if I can tear myself away from scouring eBay for parts for my next mod/retrofit.

Glad you're still enjoying the wagon!

Robert

GTYellowJacket

Well, I reached the end of the internet, so I did a little test coding/driving tonight. I was definitely able to change the steering feel in both Komfort and Sport modes.

I really like the heavy feel that I had already coded as follows:

GESCHWIN_WERTE_SPORT_KGM
wert_01

STROMWERTE_SPORT_KGM
wert_01

But wert_03 is much more manageable for low speeds. To me, the suggestions from the forum link I posted above feel too light.

Using NCS Dummy, I learned that the Komfort mode settings do not exactly match the Sport mode settings, and selections are controlled into groups of valid selections (e.g. wert_02, _07, _17 for Komfort vs wert_02, _05, _06 for Sport).

Most Komfort mode settings felt very light, with the exception of wert_01, which matched the heavy weight of the Sport steering I like. This might be overkill for your wife though.

In the end, I left both Komfort and Sport modes at wert_03. I'll take it for a longer drive at higher speeds tomorrow and get a better feel for the changes.

oclvframe

I take it that none of this coding applies to the 07 models right?

-r

GTYellowJacket

I'm doing all of this on my 2010 LCI, so I can't say with certainty if any of it would apply to 2007. Apparently, there is a different mod to activate Sport on the pre-LCI cars (see pocholin's link to binmerfest above), so there may be comparable steering changes if the pre-LCI cars have servotronic steering adjustments as well. I am just not that familiar with pre-LCI e6X's.

E61mendo

I'm wondering if this applies to cars with manual transmission...