@NoQuarter received a few early units, and one dog-legged my way. Very nicely done, @Asbjorn, very high quality and well executed!
Filippo
Filippo
Feeler Aluminum quick connect fittings & DIY auxiliary radiator kit
- Thread starter Asbjorn
- Start date
Derp, thought I replied to this!
To answer your first question about the DCT refilling, I was under the impression that the DCT fluid was what flowed in the coolers? I might be 100% incorrect with that but I know about the intense process of refilling the DCT fluid and expense.
Now; regarding pricing. I realized I was a bit over my head in regards to these parts. I want to bullet proof my N54 but I really don't have the funds to achieve your awesome results. I do not track the car due to a multitude of issues I am trying to resolve with the car (turbos? DCT? tune?) but it does overheat easily at autocross or spirited driving in the mountains. I figured the fittings would be enough to bullet proof but I am convinced I need to go all in and need to wait for funding.
Now, DCT cooler; I have a 335is with the PPK package (MSport bumper). Driver's side bottom of bumper is transmission cooler, passenger side is oil cooler. Now, like above, I assumed the transmission cooler used the DCT fluid? I am not running aftermarket as I haven't hit any DCT cooling concerns. In fact, my DCT seems extremely sluggish and just UNDERWHELMING and I cannot understand the allure of this trans.
Doing a 1M front conversion on my 1er and the lack of aux rad on my 135i and thus absence of way to mount the drivers ductwork has me looking into this.
Are you saying that you have a cooling solution for the N54 using stock radiator and one upgraded aux radiator? Is the 1M ducting sufficient to feed it?
School me.
Are you saying that you have a cooling solution for the N54 using stock radiator and one upgraded aux radiator? Is the 1M ducting sufficient to feed it?
School me.
Noted, and added to the list.
Derp, thought I replied to this!
To answer your first question about the DCT refilling, I was under the impression that the DCT fluid was what flowed in the coolers? I might be 100% incorrect with that but I know about the intense process of refilling the DCT fluid and expense.
Now; regarding pricing. I realized I was a bit over my head in regards to these parts. I want to bullet proof my N54 but I really don't have the funds to achieve your awesome results. I do not track the car due to a multitude of issues I am trying to resolve with the car (turbos? DCT? tune?) but it does overheat easily at autocross or spirited driving in the mountains. I figured the fittings would be enough to bullet proof but I am convinced I need to go all in and need to wait for funding.
Now, DCT cooler; I have a 335is with the PPK package (MSport bumper). Driver's side bottom of bumper is transmission cooler, passenger side is oil cooler. Now, like above, I assumed the transmission cooler used the DCT fluid? I am not running aftermarket as I haven't hit any DCT cooling concerns. In fact, my DCT seems extremely sluggish and just UNDERWHELMING and I cannot understand the allure of this trans.
First of all I do not understand why your DCT is sluggish, but it sounds like a tuning issue? No matter what, it seems like you were misinformed about the DCT cooling on your car. Let me explain:
The DCT needs heating and cooling. Heating after a cold start, and cooling if revved out a lot (track use) or launched a lot (red light / drag strip), which besides heating the dct oil, also heats the clutches. The non-M versions of the DCT uses the heating circuit to also stabilize the DCT temperature. The M versions come with separate heating and cooling circuits. Lets divide:
Non-M
So for the non-M DCT, you have oil from the DCT going through an oil-to-coolant heat-exchanger which is physically placed near the bottom of the main radiator (you cant see it from the outside). Coolant is then sent through the other side of this heat-exchanger by the water pump and through a separate core of the main radiator. So even if the main radiator is closed, coolant is heated up by the engine and used to heat up the oil of the DCT. When the DCT is up to temperature, it is then kept at that temperature by the coolant + dct radiator core independent of the main radiator. This, just like the cabin heater is used to stabilize cabin temps independent of the engine. The main problem with this system is that the coolant-to-dct oil heat exchanger and associated flow and DCT radiator core can only transfer a limited amount of heat. A secondary problem with this system is that it takes away some radiator core (14% or so) causing the N54 to overheat even faster on track. This brings us to the M version:
M
So for the M DCT, you have a similar circuit as with the non-M, but where coolant is only used to heat up the DCT. So while the DCT-oil to coolant heat exchanger is still there, no part of the main radiator is used for cooling/stabilizing this independent circuit. When the DCT reaches around 100C, it closes this heating circuit and turns on a separate DCT oil cooler instead. So in the case of M cars, the DCT oil cooler is a separate circuit, where pressure sends oil directly from the DCT through an actual oil cooler and back to the DCT. On the E92 M3 the DCT oil cooler sits where the engine oil cooler sits on N54-based cars. On S55-based cars it sits in front of the main radiator, and the GT4 version of the S55 uses the M5-M6 version of the DCT oil cooler.
The aux cooler you find on the driver's side on the 335is and 1M is an auxiliary radiator. It is connected in parallel with the main radiator, and is not part of the DCT heating/stabilizing circuit. Check this link:
RealOEM.com - Online BMW Parts Catalog
BMW parts 3' E92 LCI 335is Additional radiator
www.realoem.com
After having made changes to this radiator, you just follow the normal coolant bleeding procedure to get air out of the coolant system, and there is no need to touch the DCT oil, because it only passes through the heat exchanger.
On my car I have the SSP DCT oil cooler which indeed requires refilling the DCT oil. It would actually make sense to convert to the MT version of the radiator on my car, as the heating circuit would still work even without the AT core, but obviously some custom hoses would be needed.
I am not familiar with the 1M ducting myself, but a friend of mine @zcchen managed to install an upgraded custom radiator in the same spot as the oem radiator. I remember he was struggling a bit to make new ducting, but maybe @zcchen you could share some pictures and experiences?
But yes, in essence what I am proposing here is a ppkv2 kit that includes all the hoses, fittings etc necessary to run an aux radiator on non-PPK equipped cars.
BTW If anyone running the 1M/335is aux radiator wants to upgrade, you can use the existing aux radiator hoses, and I just make a kit to extend them to connect to a larger custom aux radiator. Then the ducting will be the main challenge from there.
Anyway here's how my ducting ended up looking on mine.
No, even the AN16 fittings are too big and bulky to weld in this case. I had the same idea before, so already checked haha.
Last edited:
Unpainted they look like this.
Initially I limited the feeler to these E-series cars
They can also be made for F-series, but that is a slightly different type, and wouldn't count towards a volume production of the E--series type. Here's the list:
However, for the M2 N55 you don't really need the fittings, unless you just like upgrading stuff. If you "need" anything, it would be a larger aux radiator and a converter kit as I proposed for the 1M/335is because the hoses are already there. But now that I think about it, isn't the aux radiator on the M2 N55 already bigger than the ppk/1M?
Anyway, the reason I recommend getting the fittings for non-ppk equipped cars when doing the ppkv2 is because you need to install Y-fittings to run the new hoses, and that puts stress/work on the plastic fittings, so they might break as they did on mine.
Absolutely. The 800W fan is only really beneficial for people who drag race or do drifting. On track the fan is not working, and just acts as an airflow restriction.
The M4 has two low temp radiators, one in the middle and one on the side. They are used to cool the A2W intercooler. A similar setup is found on the M5/M6. The way they designed the cooling setup on the S55 is super clever as they maximized the frontal area while keeping overall thickness down. Three things made this possible:
1) A2W intercooler. It is much easier to find space for and stack coolant-based radiators compared to air-based coolers. The main reason the N54 radiator is so tiny is because of the air-to-air FMIC and related ducting taking up space below it. This is also why I converted to the thinner ER FMIC - then I was able to place a second aux radiator below the main radiator:
2) They opened up an additional outlet below the bumper, making it possible to mount a flat oil-cooler. The same idea was implemented with the E92 M3, but with a standing oil cooler and a duct. In my understanding this increases the frontal area available in a similar way as mounting coolers at an angle does.
3) Parallel setups (main+aux) were implemented both for the low and high temperature circuits. At low speeds, the main radiators do most of the lifting together with the fan, whereas at higher speeds, the aux radiators start to do more lifting. They eventually get better and cooler flow as they aren't restricted by a fan assembly, air-conditioning condenser unit etc etc.
Btw for track use I would only focus on enlarging the aux radiators and the DCT cooler on the M4. It might also need a differential cooler if you really want to do long track sessions. For drag use I would just enlarge the middle low temperature radiator and the actual A2W unit on top of the engine instead. I note that almost all cooler upgrades currently available for the M4 are drag-oriented.
For anyone still interested in the fittings, check this out: https://bmw.spoolstreet.com/threads...nt-billet-silicone-n54-coolant-hose-kit.5950/
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