Supercharger for the N52
- Thread starter DPG
- Start date
Taz said:bmwZ said:ba3bas said:
Yes, I will fit it myself
Is it a big job?
It looks pretty easy, but since the kit is for a E90. I can strugle a little bit with space problems for the air hoses. But that should be ok to fix.
The kit has no change of fuel nozzles and no intercooler, this is something that are time consuming on other kits. So very good for me installation wise
That's wheel HP quoted, not crank HP.
pokeybritches
Member
Wow... for a kit that doesn't include injectors or an intercooler, that's kinda pricey. It does include the flash cable, which is nice. Vortechs are much cheaper to service than ASA superchargers, so they've got that going in their favor too. ESS is the only company that spent the money to develop a kit, so I guess they have to recoup some of those R&D costs. I still think the kit should retail for $4k USD considering they reuse the stock injectors.
It's a kit without cooling and without additional lubrication, so fitting looks very easy. As easy as it gets.
But if I look/calculate correctly it's only about 66hp extra to the crank (ess calculates 15% loss on drivetrain).
That's 68USD/hp, and that's a lot. I alway's calculate money/HP, so that you can compare different kind of engine power upgrades to their relative cost.
The VF kit is about 45USD/HP, for similar hardware (non cooled centrifugal FI) and engine/torque characteristics.
So not cheap but better than nothing.
But I wonder what the true gain is. The dyno says custom headers, catless...
Some people will state that that alone will gain 66hp
(yes, in their dreams.... :roll: )
Also I always thought that the n52 had a 7200rpm redline (or something like that), and the dyno stops at around 6800. Last 400rpm not interesting?
So it still looks like a very premature kit (with probably/maybe some more gain in the future?)
Maybe the want to keep the gain low to see how much engines will fail and if anything that head of development(marketing?) said in that one interview about the n52 block power capabilities....
also timing for this kit is really bad. The biggest market for this kit is still the US and the 3 series (so e90 323 - 330i). I don't know what they go for nowadays in the us, but I think it's not much. Certainly not to justify the 4,5k investment. The 335i is probably a much cheaper upgrade and that car is highly tuneable with very little money.
The only suitable candidate for this kit is the z4 3.0si. The z4m is still significatly more expensive, and with this kit you can sort of get into that power range. But the z4 is a very small market....
I wonder why they couldn't come with this kit much earlier (when the n52 was still kind of mainstream)... Problems with ecu tuneablility? (that's not a good sign though)
But if I look/calculate correctly it's only about 66hp extra to the crank (ess calculates 15% loss on drivetrain).
That's 68USD/hp, and that's a lot. I alway's calculate money/HP, so that you can compare different kind of engine power upgrades to their relative cost.
The VF kit is about 45USD/HP, for similar hardware (non cooled centrifugal FI) and engine/torque characteristics.
So not cheap but better than nothing.
But I wonder what the true gain is. The dyno says custom headers, catless...
Some people will state that that alone will gain 66hp
(yes, in their dreams.... :roll: )Also I always thought that the n52 had a 7200rpm redline (or something like that), and the dyno stops at around 6800. Last 400rpm not interesting?
So it still looks like a very premature kit (with probably/maybe some more gain in the future?)
Maybe the want to keep the gain low to see how much engines will fail and if anything that head of development(marketing?) said in that one interview about the n52 block power capabilities....
also timing for this kit is really bad. The biggest market for this kit is still the US and the 3 series (so e90 323 - 330i). I don't know what they go for nowadays in the us, but I think it's not much. Certainly not to justify the 4,5k investment. The 335i is probably a much cheaper upgrade and that car is highly tuneable with very little money.
The only suitable candidate for this kit is the z4 3.0si. The z4m is still significatly more expensive, and with this kit you can sort of get into that power range. But the z4 is a very small market....
I wonder why they couldn't come with this kit much earlier (when the n52 was still kind of mainstream)... Problems with ecu tuneablility? (that's not a good sign though)
NeilMick said:
Though it had? FemmeT's build blog for an Alpina Roadster states that they have a kit for the M52 and M54 engines? So IIRC that would cover the 2.2i, 2.5i, 3.0i (the M54 engines) unless I'm missing something... ?
incidentally the blog makes for an interesting read for anyone thinking of an ESS kit... and other mods.
