How does one raise 340bhp to 500bhp?

Actually... yes it was an ST and not the new RS, meaning my pride is dented slightly more as the ST is 240hp and not 300hp. How on earth did this chav cart manage to keep up?

After 3 months owning my M, I'm of the conclusion that first gear is next to useless in building up reasonable speed and that one must get into second to start going really fast, so many this is where other cars have the edge..
 
I've owned both a Focus RS Mk1 and a Focus ST and both were remapped. I couldnt see either having a Z4M "off the lights" especially the ST, the diff in the RS helped in this repsect. Problem with these cars is cus they are turboed they are easier to drive quick, the M needs to be wound up more as the max power is 7900rpm right before the 8000rpm red line.
Of course i'm talking if both drivers are of comparable ability. I've seen the M pulling mid 4secs to 60 mph and 11.5s to 100mph in mag tests which a stock or even mapped RS or ST wont live with.
Quite a few RS's are probably putting out 300bhp+ which is gonna be quick as they weigh 200kg less than the M, the ST at ~85kg less than the M can be upped to upper 200bhp's easily and Wolf, Pumaspeed etc do bigger turbo's etc which look at 330-350bhp usually or even up to 400bhp. Obviously fitment of a diff becomes a must.

EDIT

The Dreamscience remap i had on my ST made a massive difference, running the race plus map it upped the torque to ~320-330lb/ft at a low rpm (stock about 236lb/ft), this made 3rd gear feel like 2nd! It also removed or relaxed heavily the electronic power limiters which are in the first 3 gears.....TC was a pain in that car though, always cut in, useless and needed to be turned off for sure.
 
Might have been lighter on fuel, modified engine. I know the Z4M would beat a Focus ST everyday of the week (where legally permitted) :driving: .
Mike :D
 
One of the guys from my office used to run a nissan 200sx tuned to 400hp, dead easy units to tweak, as part of the mods he installed racelogic TC with launch control, this thing blew just bout anything away from the lights! Not a difficult mod for a high tuned turbo car and stunning results. :x
 
BigChewy71 said:
One of the guys from my office used to run a nissan 200sx tuned to 400hp, dead easy units to tweak, as part of the mods he installed racelogic TC with launch control, this thing blew just bout anything away from the lights! Not a difficult mod for a high tuned turbo car and stunning results. :x
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Couple of friends have 200SX's, one is running ~350bhp so considering they are only mid 1200kg's and RWD for better traction than FWD it shifts.
 
Heck, if all you want to do is go fast in a straight line, there are any number of cars faster than any BMW. If, however, you want to drive the car and take advantage of almost perfect weight distribution on a track, our Zs are more than adequate to the task.
 
500 -hp Corvette Z06 may scream bargain at $65,800 used/ off lease 2006 perhaps $50,000. The RFTs go for $800 each on the rears though. :o
 
So many turbo'd cars have re-maps to give additional power you never really know what you're driving against. It's only a matter of time before the new Z4 35i is re-mapped up to 340-370 BHP (think someone's already brought out a tuning kit) and with it's DCT gearbox and launch control it will blow away just about everything in a traffic light dash. Probably be some Focus RS owner moaning on their forum cos he got hammered off the lights by a hairdresser in the new BMW Z4! :)
 
I followed a GGR tuned ST Focus a while back. May have been a development car as it had GGR all over it. I was in my JCW MINI at the time. He booted it coming out of a roundabout and that thing really did take off well!!

http://www.grahamgoode.com/website/tech.php?item=81&nav=0&website=9

Even with that upgrade it is still .1 of a sec slower to 60 than the 3.0si Z4 to 62 though! :wink:
 
But can they put their roof down, and amble around with a big NA 6 pot motor.

No, they have a fat family hatchback with a blown 5 pot Volvo engine that is as old as the hills. Coolness to the extreme :rofl:
 
Nobody ever tried to burn me off in my TVR T350. Guess it had 'respect' from the yooths.

Everyone tries to race me in my Panda 100HP though - they seem to think it is a granny wagon and pull up next to me expecting a slow getaway :driving:
 
The Focus ST will have been fettled with, not many aren't these days! Great cars and an easy 300bhp can be had. Don't knock it just because of what it is ;)
On the same subject, my other half has a 437bhp Vauxhall Astra GSi, yes that's right, a Vauxhall Astra :P The Astra GSI is a 2.0 turbocharged engine and standard they are 197bhp. His was standard when he bought it, he messed with it a bit last year and was running 311bhp for a while but soon got bored of that so decided to go all out. It was off road for 4 months up until about a month ago and this is the result...
We went to Santa Pod a couple of weeks ago to put it to the test and managed a 12.8 second quartermile with a 120mph terminal speed on the shittest tyres in the world (which helped contribute to bad sets offs and spinning through 1st and 2nd gear) Also a full interior as opposed to everyone else who generally strips their cars out when they're going for this sort of power, and the mk4 Astra is a similar weight to the Z4, so it weighs an average of 400kgs more than most things that it was up against :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMGJJHqECw&feature=channel_page[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMGJJHqECw&feature=channel_page
The guy who he was up against in the video competes in TOTB (Ten of the best, for the Vauxhall team) and said he was amazed and didn't expect him to keep up at all. And after his good performances on the strip he managed to get himself in the top 16 shootout out of all the people that ran on the strip over the weekend, and out of the 16 he came 4th. And he is now on the reserve team for Vauxhall at TOTB incase anyone has to drop out.
We didn't expect this at all and weren't sure what power it was running at this point as it hadn't been on the rolling road since the rebuild. So it went on the mobile one at Santa Pod:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGWDlBs1mpA&feature=channel_page[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGWDlBs1mpA&feature=channel_page
and this is what it came out with:
4668_210041190436_648785436_7209129_6743981_n.jpg

Now the map sensor currently on the car maxes out at 1.5 bar which is pants, so once a couple more bits are on (possibly a diff) then it's gonna be changed to a 3 bar one and hopefully able to run 2.2 bar of boost and 500ish bhp. Sort the launch control out and then it's looking like 11 second quarter miles :)
2866_191721370436_648785436_6795931_5230308_n.jpg

4668_210041185436_648785436_7209128_2795901_n.jpg

4728_214365935436_648785436_7318951_6259896_n.jpg


Not bad for a Vauxhall used as a daily runner eh ;)

So the moral of the story is - it doesn't matter what make a car is, or what it looks like, it's not necessarily standard and it's what's under the bonnet that counts ;)


As for getting 500bhp out of the Z4, probably the supercharger would be the best route to go down.
 
Still front wheel drive, and shopping trolleys...

Z4M R is oodles cooler, totally composed with what it has, and probably runs the same 1/4m times out of the box... and probably cheaper to 'obtain' considering the costs needed to tune plenty of these cars :)

Dave
 
Also forgot to mention that the 2003 Astra GSI cost about 8k to buy and has had less than 10k spent on it. So not a bad price for that power really.
 
Hubby has fun with all those "racer kids"--they pull up beside him when he's driving the F150 and think they'll bury him. This thing is heavy has heck-4WD, tow package, extended cab. BUT it has a 5.4l Triton engine. Usually all they see is a blue Ford oval on the tailgate.
 
It is fairly easy to raise the power on a turbocharged engine, however every any power increase they squeeze out of it will be inversely proposional to the life of the engine.

I am happy in the knowledge that my engine was designed AND QUALIFIED by BMW to extremely high standards to ensure its durability at this power output. This means that I have the confidence that my engine, if maintained correctly has at least a 90% chance of running trouble free until its end of life (probably designed to around 150k miles).

I know the level of work that goes into making sure the engine can survive its environment and I know that enthusiasts and most tuning companies cannot match the level of investment and resources available to the OEM. Most of the time nobody knows the impact these performance accessories may have on the reliability, durability and safety of these engines.

If I want a 500Bhp car I will go buy (assuming I can afford it) a car that has been designed to run at 500bhp.
 
alexman said:
I put my foot down at some lights last night next to a Ford Focus RS and the fu**er kept up with me quite well, but it did put a dent in my smile for the evening.. :evil:

Its interesting that whilst the Z4M is 340hp and RS is 300hp, official torque figure for the M is 269 lb-ft but RS is 325 lb-ft.

I've read countless stories about people raising performance of performance cars from stock bhp levels to sometimes 30-50% more.

How would one raise performance of the M even more. Is this a "chipping" procedure or does it require boring out the engine etc. Just curious to know what it involves and inevitably if it would cost more than just buying the next car up in performance.

Any thoughts?
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I read somewhere that someone put an M5 engine inside a Z4M. That would give you 500hp but why would you care? Who cares about the stupid Focus? You'll always find a faster car on the road. Enjoy your car!!!
 
Inuit said:
An old ford focus ST blew me away at the lights the other night, did not have the road, time or the speed limit to catch and pass the little twerp. Yes my pride was dented (especially as he gave me a one fingered wave, mind you he got an approriate gesture back, which was very unfitting for a lady to do :D ) , until I looked at his car with the stupid exhaust, crappy interior, leds on the windscreen wipers and i thought i would rather be driving a 2.0 Z (no offence to the 2lt drivers meant here) as it is a stunning car to look at. Personally for me it not just about speed, though i would not say no to an upgrade if i had £9k to throw at the car and then had the money to track it on a regular basis.

Has anyone got the ESS upgrade on here? i think i would scare myself to death in anything much quicker than the M on general road driving. I cannot imagine so much power in the Z4, not sure it would be a pleasent daily drive?
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I used my ESS CFR500 supercharged Z4 M as a daily driver for almost a year during testing and it was great. Power delivery is very smooth the car drives very much like stock around town. As far as software alone you wont get much more then about another 10 WHP out of a tune alone.

Here is a pic of the kit installed.

ESS_final.jpg
 
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