My Z4M CSL - Stage 3 Mods

Ah crap, Z4M_CSL, sorry to hear that. You've been a great addition to the forum! Love that M and appreciate all the work you've done. Will key an eye out for you in the magazines and if you decide you just want to pop along to a meet some day, please do :thumbsup:
 
Z4M_CSL, sorry to see you go mate, this has been one of the most interesting threads in a while. If you change your mind, you know where we are. :)
 
Right i have a few things to say here......... (Magic Bubble engage)

king i must say you have to give us Z4m owners alittle more credit... you said we dont not much bout the s54 over here... well i can honestly say weve got some Very knowledgeable members on here, Lots of us on here including myself are WELL aware of the s54 motor and its shortcomings, i no for one its very difficult to make the 375+ bhp on this motor without MEGA money being spend on it, BUT and this is a big but what we didnt want to do was steam in on the OPs thread saying it cant be done bla bla bla.... i DO however agree its very diffcult to make the power advertised by the OP, and if it was so easy BMW would have done so on the CSL, and im sure alot of us on here had those feelings but maybe we just decided to keep em to ourselves??? What you posted however was interesting, welcome!!!

OP i have to say, please dont take this the wrong way but REALLY?? you leaving the forum because you were challenged..... surely thats what these forums are about? We put these threads up for peoples opinions and views, ALOT of those views will probably piss you off, or even insult you (i no i have been offended many a time) but surely your reaction is abit much.
My car was ESS charged are pretty much everyone knows, do you no how many people have said to me its to much power for the car.... We dont like the sound of the charger, bla bla bla... but what i do is constructively answer the questions. Kings may have gone slightly overboard with his approach and maybe could have challenged things more sensitively but i do think you last reply is well................. alittle bit ........ dare i say childish....

At the End of the day we are all here because we own and love our little m powered beasties/non-m-powered beasties........ opinions and views are just that........ if we dont have our own opinions and views in life we havent got anythink. Its a shame to loose members that are trying to push the envelope and i for one was looking forward to learning more about your suspension mods, anyway good luck in life and seriously !!!!! MAN UP!!!! :tumbleweed: :thumbsup: :fuelfire: :( :cry: :)
 
I've not posted in this thread because I didn't have anything to add, and most of you know my current, mostly negative views on tuners' claims, and will also know that these views are based on my own experiences rather than through friend-of-a-friend-of-a-forum-poster.

All I'll say on this subject is i've had negative experiences of the companies on both sides of this argument, so take from that what you will :headbang:

BTW, never had a problem with Simpsons, but then I've never used them - in that I've not needed to, rather than chosen not to :D
 
peddy said:
Beedub, my thoughts exactly... how's the vacuum cleaner? :poke: :P
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Hooovering the road like like a dyson.....LOL

Unfortunatly havent seen much of the car as its in winter hibernation, under a cover and on trickle charge.... its going really well..... i miss the noise, with that engine and exhaust combo overlaid with s/c noise = perfection.

The TT on the other hand is proving to be a great all weather Daily Driver im really enjoying the ALL weather usuablility. so im not missing my zm to much @ the mo.... as soon as the bad weather receedes it will be back, my z4m only see's dry weather. :thumbsup:
 
mmm-five said:
I've not posted in this thread because I didn't have anything to add, and most of you know my current, mostly negative views on tuners' claims, and will also know that these views are based on my own experiences rather than through friend-of-a-friend-of-a-forum-poster.

All I'll say on this subject is i've had negative experiences of the companies on both sides of this argument, so take from that what you will :headbang:

BTW, never had a problem with Simpsons, but then I've never used them - in that I've not needed to, rather than chosen not to :D
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you cant leave that their....... what experiences have you had? im intrigued? are we talking about AL tuning or CA?
 
Isn't the best way to clear this up is to just quote BHP at the wheel and compare that to a stock Z4M?

What is the quoted BHP at the wheel for a Z4M anyway? IIRC I think flimper got 284 BHP recently?
 
peddy said:
Isn't the best way to clear this up is to just quote BHP at the wheel and compare that to a stock Z4M
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It's not that simple, and a lot of trust is needed with any tuner (I've not got a lot left). The only thing I'd use a dyno/rolling road for is for fun or to map a car for drivability over outright power.

BHP at the wheel can be 'manipulated' as easily as guesstimates flywheel figures. I've see a demonstration where both n e34a 535 an e34 3.8 M5 were shown to have 300bhp at the wheels on the same dyno. At the same time, the dyno operator could use one set of the M5’s figures to give a printout showing 300-400bhp at the flywheel.

The closest you're going to get without taking the engine out and strapping it to an engine dyno, is to use a hub dyno where the wheel is removed and the dyno is bolted to the hub.

Beedub said:
you cant leave that their....... what experiences have you had? im intrigued? are we talking about AL tuning or CA?
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Byron, I've never used AL-tuning!

Experiences I've had, and experiences from attempts to rectify the resulting issues:
  • trying to charge a full day's labour for fitting a HID kit, despite quoting hours
  • making the bodywork 'live' after fitting said HID conversion kit (possibly 'payback' for complaining about the labour cost)
  • breaking a MAF, then fitting a faulty 2nd hand MAF from the wrong car (from a 3.6, not a 3.8 M5) and trying to charge for a new one
  • fitting brake pads incorrectly so that the pad 'pops out' when you're driving and ends up scoring a new £200 floating rotor
  • having a remap done where the dyno sheet 'proof' provided ended up being from another car
  • doing donuts in a customer's car to prove how good their 'driving skills' where - I was laughing at their antics until I realised it wasn't one of their own cars

I'm not going to name & shame them as I know other people on this and other boards have had what they consider excellent service from them, and I wouldn't want them to worry that they may have been ripped off or screwed over.
 
imo dyno figures are AT BEST rough estimates...... even little things like upping you tyres pressure changes the result.... they ae a tool to give us a rough estimate of power, simple as, if you want TRURE figures the motor needs to be pulled and placed on an engine dyno.

i would much rather see a car accelerate from 30-130mph, so say the OPs car Vs a stock car... then we'll see how quick it is... or my car against the OPs car from again 30-130mph at least thats a real world test and we can all SEE the results.

dyno figures are so effected by so many different variables.... but they give you a Rough educated guess.
 
mmm-five said:
Experiences I've had, and experiences from attempts to rectify the resulting issues:
  • trying to charge a full day's labour for fitting a HID kit, despite quoting hours
  • making the bodywork 'live' after fitting said HID conversion kit (possibly 'payback' for complaining about the labour cost)
  • breaking a MAF, then fitting a faulty 2nd hand MAF from the wrong car (from a 3.6, not a 3.8 M5) and trying to charge for a new one
  • fitting brake pads incorrectly so that the pad 'pops out' when you're driving and ends up scoring a new £200 floating rotor
  • having a remap done where the dyno sheet 'proof' provided ended up being from another car
  • doing donuts in a customer's car to prove how good their 'driving skills' where - I was laughing at their antics until I realised it wasn't one of their own cars

I'm not going to name & shame them as I know other people on this and other boards have had what they consider excellent service from them, and I wouldn't want them to worry that they may have been ripped off or screwed over.
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Please name and shame! :o
 
I'm not interested in the tit-for-tat chat on the veracity of AL/CA's claims but I do like to see someone doing something interesting with their zed.

This looks like an interesting project and is way beyond anything I'd ever attempt on my own car. I think if you spend the kind of cash we're talking about here it's bound to generate some negative comments as to the wisdom of that spending but hey, at the end of the day it's your cash z4csl, I'm still interested to see what other mods you might have planned.

Personally I'd love someone to forget trying to squeeze any more horses out of the already hard pushed S54 and attempt a Birds Autos style handling challenge where someone has a go at cracking the suspension setup to get the most of out of the ZM on good old British tarmac...any takers? :)
 
peddy said:
mmm-five said:
Experiences I've had, and experiences from attempts to rectify the resulting issues:
  • trying to charge a full day's labour for fitting a HID kit, despite quoting hours
  • making the bodywork 'live' after fitting said HID conversion kit (possibly 'payback' for complaining about the labour cost)
  • breaking a MAF, then fitting a faulty 2nd hand MAF from the wrong car (from a 3.6, not a 3.8 M5) and trying to charge for a new one
  • fitting brake pads incorrectly so that the pad 'pops out' when you're driving and ends up scoring a new £200 floating rotor
  • having a remap done where the dyno sheet 'proof' provided ended up being from another car
  • doing donuts in a customer's car to prove how good their 'driving skills' where - I was laughing at their antics until I realised it wasn't one of their own cars

I'm not going to name & shame them as I know other people on this and other boards have had what they consider excellent service from them, and I wouldn't want them to worry that they may have been ripped off or screwed over.
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Please name and shame! :o
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imo i think its a poor show when people cant share their experiences.... i personally would not like to take my car to these people accidently, would it really hurt for you to name them so i know.... pm their name even if its that much problem... me? im in business, poor service means, poor feedback, simple as that.
 
tjlazer said:
Personally I'd love someone to forget trying to squeeze any more horses out of the already hard pushed S54 and attempt a Birds Autos style handling challenge where someone has a go at cracking the suspension setup to get the most of out of the ZM on good old British tarmac...any takers? :)
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:thumbsup:

Okay, A-L Tuning. Had mixed feelings of my dealings with them as previously mentioned. The badly cocked up the rear bumper to the point where I did the work myself (Bumper cut out fix), they offered to fix it bu I had no faith.
There was an utter shambles with the supply of a carbon induction kit, in the end I got my money back - eventually.
Kind of made the remap pointless. I had before and after dynos (done independently) to check everything was okay, results were near identical. Although the chap at DK didn't adjust the results for air pressure / temp changes, which he thought would have seen a couple of BHP increase.

Full report here...
Mapping and dyno run :!: Non-M!
Just to reiterate, I don't think that this is 100% accurate, it was the before / after comparison I was interested in.

Don't think I would A-L them again to be honest. I got on with Mike, seemed like a good chap. I think the problem is that he does the remaps and the like (don't want to get into a debate about how capable he is) and has other people to do the rest, taking the bumper and a couple other niggles, I don't think they're that up to the job. That said, I love the look of what they've done with Z4M_CSL's M.

(I do realise this is an M thread but has turned into a discussion about tuners and the OP's cleared off anyway :driving: )
 
The problem I have with naming & shaming now, is that I've not used any of them again, and I can't say whether they've changed, improved, become more honest in the 2 to 10 years since I last used them. Some of these tuners have changed ownership, some have received Internet justice, some have closed, or moved to other parts of the country. Some have gotten rid of their experts and are still trading on that expert's reputation.

Therefore it would not be fair for me to say (for example) München Myths carried out a pre-purchase inspection for a certain customer on this board and then carried out remedial work before purchase, only to find much more work was needed before the car was roadworthy, never mind in "A1 condition".

I've use the above example as I know the company is now under new ownership, and have assurances from said new owner that "things will change". Not that I'll be going back mind you!
 
Have say it was very late last night so I may have gone off on one, so appologoes to all on here for my comments. I thought here we go again though.

I am first to agree there is always two sides to every story. So please read CA-AUTO comments to here both sides of the story. Again I can only say that my own experience with CA-AUTO and Al-tuning has been very good. But am very sorry to here that others had a bad experience.

With regards to powers figures I will be getting another trusted independent dyno run very soon. Will post the results on both sites what ever the outcome. That should be interesting when I do that. Wished I had a pound for every view :-)

Please don't miss-understand me, but I think all these discussions from everyone is great. It has been very good fun but honestly there's nothing more I can say anymore. :-)

But it's been great, the amount of views on both forums (3500 views) is fantasic. I will be carring out my stage 4 mods and will post an another independent dyno. But have to thank everyone for all the comments, didn't ever think my changes would generate so much interest.

Also I'm still interested in meeting up soon in one of the meets as it's great to meet people with same passion about their cars.
 
CSL your happy with your car. simples!!

now forget all this power malarky, talk to me about your Ground control ARBs? you you need to mod your car to get these fitted or are they direct replacement?
 
Beedub said:
CSL your happy with your car. simples!!

now forget all this power malarky, talk to me about your Ground control ARBs? you you need to mod your car to get these fitted or are they direct replacement?
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Your car already has ARBs. The GC ones are thicker, and replaces the existing ones. Not recommended unless you have coilovers to compliment them. Also, there have been cases of the arbs ripping the metal joints, where they are attached, where the owner was on OEM suspension.
 
kings im well aware the z4m has arbs fitted hence why i asked if the GC ones were direct replacement, and has decent sized ones as stock, what i was wondering is their mods involved to fit these much beefier items or are they direct replacement, ill be honest its one area i not really noticed an issue, i dont think the z4m sufferes crazy roll as stock, infact i love the stock handling balance of the car and will only upgrade parts as they wear/need replacing. The OPs nitron suspension kit i do rate though!
 
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