RE: 2003 330i Intake questions

robertplattbell — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:16:00 GMT

After many years of playing around with cars, I have come to the conclusion that spending a lot of money "upgrading" a car is really not worth it. Cheaper to buy an upgraded car, frankly.

As you note, the cone filter and/or CAI intake adds maybe 10 hp to the car. If you look at the performance curves (K&N is honest enough to have these on their site) this 10HP comes at nearly redline. During the rest of the time, the HP increase is not nearly as much. So you won't notice much performance improvement, frankly. Maybe a 2-3% increase. Is that even noticable off the track?

It is super-cool loud, though! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I had a K&N on my truck, and I took it off and sold it on eBay (sale price: $5). It added little or nothing in the way of HP, the things are a PITA to clean. You have to take them off, clean them with detergent, let them dry overnight (no hairdryer or compressed air allowed!) and then re-oil them with K&N fluid (no ATF, that's cheating).

If this is your only car, taking the car out of service for 12 hours to clean the filter might be a PITA. If you have multiple cars, trucks, boats, etc., adding a high-maintenance item to your "to-do" list makes little or no sense. To me, anyway.

So you spend all this money, get a fitler than is a PITA to service, adds little HP, and if not serviced properly can let dirt in the engine or oil in the intake if you over-oil. Ask me how I know this.

It does sound cool, though. I have one on the '99 M Roadster, but it is coming off with the next oil change. (Anyone want it? it's FREE for the asking, no CAI, though! Should fit the 3.2, 2.8, 2.3, etc.). Paper filters are cheap and you maybe have to change them 5-10 times during the life of the car.

BMW exhausts are remarkably durable and will last 10 years and 150,000 miles or more. Taking one off to add an aftermarket exhaust has similar results. More noise, yes. More cost, yes. More HP, not really. Since the cat system is the main restriction, a "low restriction" exhaust does little to the equation other than to make it louder (and sometimes really annoying).

It can be embarassing, if you are taking clients out to lunch or something and you start your car and it sounds like a refugee from a high school parking lot. Plus a lot of spouses will flat-out refuse to ride in such a car, and spending on aftermarket parts becomes a tense battleground in the marriage (particularly with kids on the way or something). A friend of mine got divorced over stuff like that. And frankly, I can't blame his wife. He spend $8000 "upgrading" a $10,000 used E36 and when he got done with it, it was basically undrivable - at least for daily commuting.

It is far cheaper to buy a faster car if you really want that (like a 335i, with 300 HP twin-turbo engine, that beats the snot out of all the cone filters and aftermarket exhausts combined).

But trust me, no matter how fast a car you buy, some aftermarket guy will tell you that you "need" a ton of aftermarket parts to "upgrade" it. Some yahoo told me I need to tear out the suspension on the M Roadster (at 22,000 miles) and go to "coil overs" to make it a real racing machine. That would be helpful on my trips to Wegmans, to shave off that extra 1/10th second on my trip times.....

Read the BavAuto and other catalogs carefully sometimes. Look to see the language they very, very carefully use to sell "upgrades". Strut tower bars are not listed as giving an actual performance upgrade, but "seat of the pants" improvement in driving feel. Stainless steel brake lines are said to give "better pedal feel" but no real change in braking performance. Exhausts and intakes will provide "UP to 20 HP**" gains, provided you add other parts and that 20HP is for a much larger engine than yours.

It is like a lawyer writes these catalogs. The reality is, in modern cars, there is no "hidden horsepower" that the BMW engineers "forgot" to give you. Yes, in 1965, you could buy a Chevy, and overcarburate it and get a lot more power out of it for not a lot of money. But with modern engines that are already putting out pretty incredible specific outputs for the Cuibic Inches involved, nothing short of turbo or supercharging is going to give you much bang for any buck. And radical mods like that have their own downsides.

They also enthusiastically describe how all this stuff "looks cool" too. Most of it is purely cosmetic - even the things like lowering springs ("give your car that lowered look!") that you might think are actual performance upgrades. They just make the car hit speed bumps.

Its great that you are enthusiastic about the car, but I would recommend living with it a while before blowing a lot of dough on this stuff. It will require some repairs over time (I presume it is out of warrranty) and if you blow your wad on aftermarket stuff, you may get discouraged when REAL works is needed on the car.

BMW or not, it is just a used car.

These things have a history of eating window regulators and other issues.

The 3.0 engine is bulletproof, though. I have had to replace only some rubber bits on mine (in a 2002 X5).

Here are some DIY links about that:

http://rides.webshots.com/album/563129867vscxVj

http://rides.webshots.com/album/555907728PiQlhw

Good Luck!

2003 330i Intake questions

Flatblak — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:35:21 GMT

I just picked up my first BMW car, an '03 330i sedan sport package 5 spd manual, the car has a magnaflow exhaust and I might like to make or buy an intake that replaces the air filter box for the car . I do not want to make it excessively loud though, or create any problems. i have seen some dynos that may indicate a 10 whp addition though which would be nice and noticeable.

what are your suggestions or opinions on the intake? thanks, Eric

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RE: 2003 330i Intake questions

2003 330i Intake questions