The Bavarian

[tenwierdufos]

Well, you asked for it...


Here is my current project. Not my first attempt at diesel tuning although the first diesel BMW i have ever owned.

As a forewarning, this is going to be a very SLOW progressing project haha. Partly due to time and money, mainly down to the fact that i want to get it right, first time wherever possible! Lots of head down researching action

I have before me, a 1998 BMW 318TDS Touring, it weighs 1400kg and is very lacking in the power department.

The engine is a "M41D17" which is heavily based on the "M51D25" that you find in the 325tds. The pistons are identical, the head design is the same, etc etc, in fact 86% of the engine is, but they lopped 2 cylinders off, hence the odd displacement!

It has 1665cc to play with... 107,000 miles, a cast iron block, ally head, Garrett GT15 and an electronic controlled pump like you get on the XUD11BTE, allbeit Bosch and a lot stronger AND has an electronic lift pump in the tank, which seems totally unnecessary to me, but makes bleeding the system a total breeze.

90bhp and 140lb/ft torque as it and most of that seems to be used by the belt driven rad fan (needs to go get lost somewhere!)



The first things that are going to happen, is stuff that is needed before its next MOT (Jan) brake lines, bushes, a good hit with the underseal stick.

Clutch, its a bit "soft".

Then coilovers, and i want to send it on a run up the poddington strip, think of it as a way of seeing the difference


At the moment i am thinking of trying plonking a TD04 on it, purley because thats what came on the 325TDS, which means its a bolt on mod. No funny business. But i do eventually want to end up in VNT land. Low down boosts is super fantastic!


I dont have to worry too much about the power the standard clutch can take luckily BMW use the same part on the small 4 cylinder engines as they do on the 6 cylinders up to the 328i, which has muchos more power, so there is some fair room in that and the drive train. Good times!


The main concern i have with this engine, is, keeping EGT's down, the only example i have to go off is people who have tuned its bigger brother, and they have issues with the heads cracking if the air inside gets too warm. Dont fancy cracking any heads... they arent amazingly easy to come by!




Pictures, everyone loves pictures.

The day i got my hands on it.



Rear shocks were a bit, erh, faulty.


Surprising how much interior has to come out to replace them, didnt even have to jack the car up though!


The important bit, look at all that ROOM

The plastics on the left hand side of the engine is actually an air box, that sits just above the exhaust manifold and turbo, so much more room to be had with a different air filter re-located somewhere.

Its canted over to the left, just as the pugs are canted backwards.


Radio in, priorities guys.


And the most recent update, e38 wheels Low offsets are good offsets (if you put coilovers on these without low offset wheels the coil presses against the tyre and it wont even turn! Found this out the hard way on an old project...)

Also its not actually lowered here, just has a boot full o'crap!