Quote:
Originally Posted by TurboM
It may not be perfectly linear but it's proportional and a fairly reliable reference point for the amount of stress and pressure in the cylinders 
Nice reference to the 80's ford rally motor 
The N20/26 is far from a limited production motor meant for big HP. It is basically BMW's base motor meant to get good gas mileage without sacrificing power. Any motor running 17lbs of boost straight from the factory is not going to have a ton of room for improvement (yes, I know there are exceptions to this). I really think people need to take it easy with this motor or were going to see an increased number of failures popping up in the near future. |
I agree with you... The N20 is a pleasure driving engine. It's design was to do just as you said... give you gas mileage and a bit more power than your typical 4 banger. It's also 6 grand less - making the BMW more affordable to the average buyer (until you are like me and get every damn feature to make the car over 50k). With that said, I think it would be foolish to think that BMW made the engine performance to the near max limits. Normally engine producers make engines that will allow a percentage of higher power to allow for miscalculations or different situations (such as gas combustion, etc). Now, I do think there are flaws in the parts. I'm not sure if everything is x-rayed before being installed or not ( I doubt it seriously). I actually watched a youtube video of the N20 being built in Germany.. and to be honest, if every engine was built like this, there shouldn't be very many failures at all... I could see the parts they get from different manufacturers having the bad flaws... and just not breaking under their in factory stress test... but then we add gas, combustion, crud, crap gas, and boom - problems... I read these forums and some other forums that talk about performances and such... I had a 335 (2008 N54) and added the cobb tune to it- and LOVED the extra speed... but that exposed more problems that caused the engine to break... and I was on aggressive stage 1 maps... heat was the cause of 90% of my problems... the N20 doesn't have a lot of tunes yet, but the BMS tune (stage 1) seems to be a very small bump and from what I've read it doesn't really cause much more heat or stress on the engine. It also depends on the driver and if that driver is flooring it every single time they get in the car or not... personally, I want to get the extra power. while the n20 has spunk and some getup, I've found lately that it sometimes wants to hesitate - something that my cobb tune use to do a good job of counter acting. I do not like pulling into traffic and flooring the car just to hear the car sound like its about to die because it is holding back on power... I think as BMW becomes a super supplier of cars (such as Toyota and GM, Etc.) you are going to see the quality of the engine go to shit and tunes will be something you do with a fully modified engine... (and no warranty). Just my opinion...