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2010 2011 BMW 5 Series Forum F10 F10 Technical Topics Engine, Transmission, Exhaust, Drivetrain, ECU Software Modifications N63 intake fabrication
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      07-07-2014, 11:31 AM   #67
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So now you are able to put the bottom of the intakes back in as well as the engine cover? If that is the case all you really need is a semi shield for the actual cones themselves at least on the side that is facing the downpipes.

I wonder if parts of the M5/M6 intakes would fit our engines at all considering how similar they are. The part that makes it difficult for us to have intakes towards the front of the car is that stupid reverse bend leading into the motor. On the M5 that part doesn't have that reverse bend and it comes out facing towards the fenders instead.

Let me know if you need an LCI for a test car. Obviously I am willing to fork over the material cost etc....

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      07-07-2014, 11:43 AM   #68
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Originally Posted by gclions View Post
As far as "drop-ins" go, there is a lot of cutting and sealing involved to make a pair of filters. Plus the stock filters are glued in, and the seal comes out in pieces.

Concerning putting cones up front, I believe it can be done, but it's going to be expensive. You have a pretty good idea with an adapter to put a cone on the end of the stock air inlet, but all of those pieces fit together really loose and you would suck up a lot of engine bay crap in my opinion. I think I can get 3" tubing to the front, but I need a lot of random bends to play with. It's a process, but I'm down with whatever makes power. I think I might order a tight radius 180 degree bend to see if it will fit. That will be our tightest fit, from my current intakes circled back to the front.

Keep the ideas coming, I'll try just about anything to see if it makes power.

***Quick update

With the stock intake bottoms installed temperatures were definitely cooler. Before putting the bottoms back on the intakes would be too hot to touch, but after the spirited drive to work which allowed time to get fully up to temperature, the intakes were just warm. So without using a pyrometer, the touch test says it helped knock down the temperature.
I think our next step is to make a custom box that will reflect the heat and fit inside your cones.
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      07-07-2014, 05:41 PM   #69
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Dyno is scheduled for 3 pm (1500 for you military types) on this Wednesday. We can compare the results from before. I'm going to request HP only on one of the runs, so it puts it in MPH vice RPM, so it will lineup correctly with the previous dyno data. I feel pretty confident with the correct location for RPM thanks to a little forum assistance. Good data with HP and torque will be nice, but being able to line up the before and after will help us visualize where it shows improvement (or potentially a reduction in power).

I'm excited, it's been a long process, but if it works like I think it will, then it will all be worth it. I'm going to request runs with the hood down, so it's going to be fully heat soaked, vice running with the hood open giving us improvement that isn't there with daily driving.

The forecast says 94F with 60% humidity, so it will be plenty hot enough to see if it will work in poor conditions. If I can't see a good before and after comparison, or if torque looks questionable, I'll slap the stock boxes back together and do another run to get good data. I've gotten it down to just a few minutes getting the intake system fully stripped down.

I think I can do it with my eyes shut at this point.
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      07-07-2014, 07:30 PM   #70
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gclions View Post
Dyno is scheduled for 3 pm (1500 for you military types) on this Wednesday. We can compare the results from before. I'm going to request HP only on one of the runs, so it puts it in MPH vice RPM, so it will lineup correctly with the previous dyno data. I feel pretty confident with the correct location for RPM thanks to a little forum assistance. Good data with HP and torque will be nice, but being able to line up the before and after will help us visualize where it shows improvement (or potentially a reduction in power).

I'm excited, it's been a long process, but if it works like I think it will, then it will all be worth it. I'm going to request runs with the hood down, so it's going to be fully heat soaked, vice running with the hood open giving us improvement that isn't there with daily driving.

The forecast says 94F with 60% humidity, so it will be plenty hot enough to see if it will work in poor conditions. If I can't see a good before and after comparison, or if torque looks questionable, I'll slap the stock boxes back together and do another run to get good data. I've gotten it down to just a few minutes getting the intake system fully stripped down.

I think I can do it with my eyes shut at this point.
So if it all works out on the dyno and doesn't throw any codes, makes power, etc. when could myself and others buy a set?
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      07-07-2014, 07:52 PM   #71
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It took me a little over a week to put it all together once I started. I figured there would be interest, but I know I would want hard proof that they worked if I was buying them. I'm not a vendor, nor do I have any experience selling items, so I may need your guys advice on the best way to secure payment that protects both me and any potential buyers. Plus, I don't know what kind of quantity I can work on at a time.

So, IF they work, which remains to be seen, I can have them to people in less than three weeks I think, from order to door step. I have a good supplier for aluminum tubing, with a delivery of about five business days, one week for machining and welding, and one week for filters to be delivered. The only unknown is turnaround on powder coating, I'll need to talk to the owner to see what he can do. I didn't want to waste the guy's time if I wasn't for sure going to bring items to him.

In my opinion, we can talk interest after Wednesday's dyno run, but in any event I appreciate all the help from the forum. If the numbers aren't there, it won't matter much, but the fact that we have a small community looking for ways to eek out HP is impressive.

Cross your fingers.
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      07-07-2014, 08:37 PM   #72
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A few videos from my trip to the grocery store. Sorry that they suck, but hopefully you can hear the car. I need a camera/phone mount, but this will work for now.





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      07-07-2014, 09:20 PM   #73
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dude use youtube flicker sucks
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      07-07-2014, 10:44 PM   #74
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Good grief, thanks for the help. That was WAY harder than it needed to be. I was trying to code a space shuttle launch apparently, and I failed in about every way possible.
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      07-09-2014, 03:32 PM   #75
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Epic Fail...or at least Fail.

Well, I'm sad to say the intakes didn't work. It appears the car is cutting timing due to...you guessed it...intake air temps being too high. I had hopes the volume of air, and the free flowing filters, would cancel that out plus some positive gains.

Below you can see the dyno runs from today, and I'll also repost the RWHP only runs from before with stock intakes.

It was 96F in the shop (92F on baseline run).

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So, I'll keep thinking of ideas, but for now we need to find a way to cold air from the front of the car to the turbo inlet to show any gains at all. Right now I'm questioning how restrictive the stock air boxes really are. Looks apparently can be deceiving, because the runs kept improving before, where now they quickly start to decline.

Looking at the before and after runs on the same graph (I don't have a copy), showed the curves tracked very close with gains and losses canceling themselves out (+9 whp, -9 whp).

For now, I'm sending the filters back and will try to pick up a grab bag of miscellaneous bends and elbows to build good intakes from the front of the car.

Until then...
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      07-10-2014, 10:14 AM   #76
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Great thread, enjoying the discussion and collaboration! I've been considering autoxing my 550, you gave me a little nudge...

The intake sounds great from the videos, but the heatsoak is probably negating any gains. Did you log timing on the dyno runs? I wonder if they work better on the street with more airflow. If you checked timing on the street, maybe it would show that it isn't cutting as much timing as when stationary on the dyno. I know the hood is open with the fan, but I think there is more flow on the street.

A lot of the Evo guys use Virtual Dyno software to simulate dyno runs on the street. There are some conventions to get fairly repeatable results (settings, flat road, etc.) Again, not so much to state "actual" HP, but just to show deltas. Not sure if anything like this is compatible with our 550s...

Anyway, hopefully moving the filter to the front bumper will show significant gains. I think with coated metal piping all the way to the MAF is definitely should work.
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      07-10-2014, 12:31 PM   #77
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Why not make a custom aluminium box around the cone filters? box and piping all covered with ceramic coating inside and out.. that will for sure keep the temps cool.
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      07-10-2014, 02:38 PM   #78
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I think the main focus should be to intake air from somewhere other than on top of the turbos, this is why Dinan changed the path to the kidney grill area and placed the filters there. If we can find a better priced option to do the same we'll get somewhere with it. The whole engine bay is pretty tightly sealed and with the N55/54 motors the turbos are not on top but on the bottom of the motor, the turbos and downpipes make it really hot up there and the filters sitting on top of them with the hood closed just doesn't seem like a viable option. Right now air is being sucked in to the oem boxes from the front of the car and that it keeping the AIT's down compared to the cone filters. There also isn't much room under the hood to place filters in the engine bay so this is going to be tricky! I really wanted these to work!
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      07-10-2014, 04:14 PM   #79
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Ok, after 12+ hours of disappointment I'm back to the drawing board.

Here's my current thinking:

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Using cobra head hose adapters, I'm going to make the intake elbows go away. The reason we're ultimately screwed when it comes to M5 intakes on our N63's is because the turbos are clocked differently. But researching this option caused a lightbulb to come on. The M5 intake elbow that mates with the turbo is a cobra head effectively!

So pieces number 8 and 11 below will be removed, and the entire stock air intake assembly will be removed.

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After that I have an idea or two about how to get going in the right direction (to the front of the car). First will be using something like this sketch, where piece 1. is a silicone 90 degree elbow, 2. is the MAF housing I had built, 3. is a 3.00" to 2.50" reducer, 4. is a 2.50" section with the PCV tap, and 5. is the 2.50" to 2.31" cobra head.

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This would get me to the outer edge of the engine, and allow a straight shot down to the front of the car. Option two would be to cut off the flanges I made and weld them to 2.50" tubing, and skip the reduction from 3.00". I think minimizing the number of bends/reducers/couplings etc will help flow be less turbulent.

This nut can be cracked, but it is a lot more difficult than I thought when I started out. Any other ideas?
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      07-10-2014, 09:06 PM   #80
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gclions
Ok, after 12+ hours of disappointment I'm back to the drawing board.

Here's my current thinking:

Attachment 1056998

Using cobra head hose adapters, I'm going to make the intake elbows go away. The reason we're ultimately screwed when it comes to M5 intakes on our N63's is because the turbos are clocked differently. But researching this option caused a lightbulb to come on. The M5 intake elbow that mates with the turbo is a cobra head effectively!

So pieces number 8 and 11 below will be removed, and the entire stock air intake assembly will be removed.

Attachment 1057000

After that I have an idea or two about how to get going in the right direction (to the front of the car). First will be using something like this sketch, where piece 1. is a silicone 90 degree elbow, 2. is the MAF housing I had built, 3. is a 3.00" to 2.50" reducer, 4. is a 2.50" section with the PCV tap, and 5. is the 2.50" to 2.31" cobra head.

Attachment 1057001

This would get me to the outer edge of the engine, and allow a straight shot down to the front of the car. Option two would be to cut off the flanges I made and weld them to 2.50" tubing, and skip the reduction from 3.00". I think minimizing the number of bends/reducers/couplings etc will help flow be less turbulent.

This nut can be cracked, but it is a lot more difficult than I thought when I started out. Any other ideas?
Let me wrap my head around this 1st sucks we don't live in same area.
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      07-15-2014, 01:39 PM   #81
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gclions View Post
Well, I'm sad to say the intakes didn't work. It appears the car is cutting timing due to...you guessed it...intake air temps being too high. I had hopes the volume of air, and the free flowing filters, would cancel that out plus some positive gains.
Maybe I missed this but, did you try wrapping it with heat shield?
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      07-15-2014, 02:07 PM   #82
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Maybe I missed this but, did you try wrapping it with heat shield?
it needs an enclosure.... ambient temps under the hood are just way 2 high.
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      07-15-2014, 04:59 PM   #83
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Ok, I couldn't sleep last night, so I got up and disassembled my intakes again. This time I took everything out, including the small elbows and plastic lips at the very front. I popped out the grills and verified that my filters and 3.00" tubing will fit behind them and not cause any problems with blocking flow to the radiator.

I will say it fit pretty well. 3.00" tubing will fit where the elbow was as well.

So now the hardest part is getting it up to the turbos, but right now I'm confident a cold air intake at the front of the car is a reality.

My thoughts now are to cut down my MAF flanges, weld mandrel 3.00" 180 degree elbows to them, and run 3.00" tubing down to the front of the car. My concern without the elbows in hand is if they'll fit under the hood. Even the tight radius elbows are huge, 12.00" across edge to edge. There isn't much room to put an elbow that size vertical next to the cylinder head.

I think it will fit, but the hood closing might be the next hurdle.
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      07-16-2014, 12:00 AM   #84
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Good idea with the kidney grill placement! I was looking in there and it looks like there's a tubular brace back there in front of the oil cooler and radiator. I thought it might be an issue to get filters in there and clear all of that but if it does and doesn't block flow to the radiator and oil cooler that's great! So basically you're removing the entire intake system down to the turbos and would just be running a 3" tube to each turbo? That should make power if it works out since it'll be a lot less restrictive flow and cool air from the front! Plus a red or blue filter behind the kidney grills is gonna look sick!
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      07-16-2014, 01:22 PM   #85
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So I need to be smart with it, in the fact that it really may not work, regardless of what I do. The MAF flanges I have now are welded to 3.00" aluminum tubing, and it "will" fit in all the tight spots as far as I know currently. I think 2.50" tubing would fit even better, but I would need to pay for another pair of flanges to be fabricated (not cheap).

I've checked the tubing will fit in the front of the car, though the rectangular, thin plastic piece directly behind both grills will need to be removed (it broke with force and came right out, though removing the front bumper would probably get it out with minimal effort).

I've checked that 3.00" tubing will fit through the front hole below the hood latch on either side, my guess without pieces in hand is a straight section and a short 45 degree bend will fit through coming from the engine compartment through the hole.

So at this point that takes care of filters all the way into the engine compartment, just below the forward strut braces.

Working the other end, I have the MAF flanges on hand, and the charge elbows that I hooked them to are an interesting hurdle. The elbows aren't anything that can't be worked around, but trial fitting a combination of pieces to serve their purpose can get expensive, with no guarantee that the new piece will even work. My "plan" is to fit the MAF flanges I have to 180 degree mandrel elbows as discussed in my previous post. The problem, also discussed is the fact that the smallest radius mandrel 3.00" elbows are massive still.

From there, assuming the 180's will fit under the hood, is to connect the two ends together.

I have a few more ideas, but this will probably be my first route.
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      07-16-2014, 02:27 PM   #86
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gclions View Post
So I need to be smart with it, in the fact that it really may not work, regardless of what I do. The MAF flanges I have now are welded to 3.00" aluminum tubing, and it "will" fit in all the tight spots as far as I know currently. I think 2.50" tubing would fit even better, but I would need to pay for another pair of flanges to be fabricated (not cheap).

I've checked the tubing will fit in the front of the car, though the rectangular, thin plastic piece directly behind both grills will need to be removed (it broke with force and came right out, though removing the front bumper would probably get it out with minimal effort).

I've checked that 3.00" tubing will fit through the front hole below the hood latch on either side, my guess without pieces in hand is a straight section and a short 45 degree bend will fit through coming from the engine compartment through the hole.

So at this point that takes care of filters all the way into the engine compartment, just below the forward strut braces.

Working the other end, I have the MAF flanges on hand, and the charge elbows that I hooked them to are an interesting hurdle. The elbows aren't anything that can't be worked around, but trial fitting a combination of pieces to serve their purpose can get expensive, with no guarantee that the new piece will even work. My "plan" is to fit the MAF flanges I have to 180 degree mandrel elbows as discussed in my previous post. The problem, also discussed is the fact that the smallest radius mandrel 3.00" elbows are massive still.

From there, assuming the 180's will fit under the hood, is to connect the two ends together.

I have a few more ideas, but this will probably be my first route.
Lets see what happens! keep us posted.
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      07-16-2014, 06:37 PM   #87
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Maybe build an intake that's out of the engine bay to see what kind of gains you may or may not have before going through the trouble of making one that fits? Sounds like you probably have all the parts to do it easily.
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      07-16-2014, 07:55 PM   #88
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Maybe build an intake that's out of the engine bay to see what kind of gains you may or may not have before going through the trouble of making one that fits? Sounds like you probably have all the parts to do it easily.
There's another great idea! Just run the pipes with the maf housing to the turbos and clamp them on, hit up the dyno and see what it does! If the turbos are restrictive and the intake is not a bottle neck it may just mean we are stuck where we are with the turbos. From GC's dyno and the fact that people are also not making much if any gains with catless down pipes it may just mean the turbos are the bottleneck and BMW would have done that to make sure no one would be creeping on the M cars with a tune and an intake. I think the best dyno I've seen from an N63 was 460whp, the M cars are making around 500whp stock.
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