Yeah when I totaled everything I became hugely disinterested in the S55 setup especially with all the leaks you were having. Nevermind adding weight above the cars COG.
Technical Hydra Performance 135 Leichtbau State of the Art Thread
- Thread starter Hydra Performance
- Start date
Time for a much needed update.
So after long last, I'm putting the finishing touches on my //M suspension conversion which included a brand new, double-adjustable Intrax 1k2 coilover setup with optional ARC (Anti-roll control) and Black Titan (diamond-like) coating, E46 CSL rotors front and rear, and M4 (front) knuckles. Took me a LOT of time and effort to make everything fit together, especially in the rear. This is what happens when you combine an unholy mishmash of parts (E46 rotors, E92 M3 knuckle and hub, and E82 135i Brembos and e-brake assy) LOL.
The shocks are a work of art, and I can't wait to see what they can do on the road, and given what I paid for them, expectations are very high to say the least
Spring rates in case anyone's wondering are a relatively soft 5.6k F and 11.4k R, with a 128i F sway bar and a 1M R sway bar to trim things out.
So after long last, I'm putting the finishing touches on my //M suspension conversion which included a brand new, double-adjustable Intrax 1k2 coilover setup with optional ARC (Anti-roll control) and Black Titan (diamond-like) coating, E46 CSL rotors front and rear, and M4 (front) knuckles. Took me a LOT of time and effort to make everything fit together, especially in the rear. This is what happens when you combine an unholy mishmash of parts (E46 rotors, E92 M3 knuckle and hub, and E82 135i Brembos and e-brake assy) LOL.
The shocks are a work of art, and I can't wait to see what they can do on the road, and given what I paid for them, expectations are very high to say the least
Spring rates in case anyone's wondering are a relatively soft 5.6k F and 11.4k R, with a 128i F sway bar and a 1M R sway bar to trim things out.
And here is something else that came in today that I'm especially proud of - a custom motorsports-spec 6.5" thick tube and fin core I had made that happens to weigh a whopping 24lbs LESS than a stepped 7.5" race core! The pics really don't do justice to the quality of the core, it really is a thing of beauty in person. I don't know of any other non-stepped N54 cores out there that come with 9 tubes, its usually either 7 or 8 which is a testament to the superiority of its construction. According to the datasheets I should still expect to see ~80% effectiveness at my power levels, which is good enough IMHO because at this point I have more use for less weight and better response than I do for additional power and torque, ESPECIALLY when that weight loss is at the very front of what is already a nose-heavy car. I wasn't planning on making more of these, as it wasn't cheap to produce, but I might consider producing a batch of 10 if the interest is there among the road-racing N54 peeps. Are there even 10 of those to begin with I wonder?
Might be interested in the fmic given setup and tune similarity... So let's see how it performs!!!
Beehive springs can still be linear. Unless I'm mistaken those are still linear rate springs looking at the coil pattern.
Hello to all
I plan to make n53 head setup on stock postons, what springs and camshaft I can use? stock? or high lifted? I need already testet setup ….
I plan to make n53 head setup on stock postons, what springs and camshaft I can use? stock? or high lifted? I need already testet setup ….
Buy the drilled and ported head from Hydra, that way it'll fit. Use with any cam you want ... N53 cams are dirt cheap. Use stock N53 valvetrain unless picking the schrick high lift cams.
One more development before I finally put this thing back together. Turns out my Magnaflow exhaust (pictured below) weighs 18.6kg total, or 41lbs for the metrically-challenged , I've had it on the car for 3 years now, and while it looks great and sounds even better I couldn't help but think that I could cut its weight down to half, while hopefully freeing up a few more ponies along the way. Plan is to create my own oval section exhaust out of 20 or even 22-gauge stainless, with an equivalent OD of 3.5". Yes I know it'll be a massive pain to weld, and I run the risk of it sounding tinny/nasty, but this is the last bit of weight-reduction I'm willing to do to the car and the idea of shaving another 20lbs is irresistible to me, even if that weight is below the C of G.
Our misadventure begins with an M4 midpipe I'm re-purposing for my needs. This is a full-flow dual 65mm design, with a 1.0mm wall thickness (~20-gauge) to keep weight down, and it just so happens to perfectly match the contours of the underbody. N54 downpipes outlets will need to be modified to get these to mate, as they use a different angle AND a different flange design. This will allow us to get rid of the 2.25" neck in the DP. Weight as pictured so far is 5.0kg with bracket/mount. Plan for the coming few days is to move the midpipe ~20mm vertically upwards, and fab the rest of the single oval-section pipe, have some absolutely batshit crazy ideas in mind - watch this space
, I've had it on the car for 3 years now, and while it looks great and sounds even better I couldn't help but think that I could cut its weight down to half, while hopefully freeing up a few more ponies along the way. Plan is to create my own oval section exhaust out of 20 or even 22-gauge stainless, with an equivalent OD of 3.5". Yes I know it'll be a massive pain to weld, and I run the risk of it sounding tinny/nasty, but this is the last bit of weight-reduction I'm willing to do to the car and the idea of shaving another 20lbs is irresistible to me, even if that weight is below the C of G.Our misadventure begins with an M4 midpipe I'm re-purposing for my needs. This is a full-flow dual 65mm design, with a 1.0mm wall thickness (~20-gauge) to keep weight down, and it just so happens to perfectly match the contours of the underbody. N54 downpipes outlets will need to be modified to get these to mate, as they use a different angle AND a different flange design. This will allow us to get rid of the 2.25" neck in the DP. Weight as pictured so far is 5.0kg with bracket/mount. Plan for the coming few days is to move the midpipe ~20mm vertically upwards, and fab the rest of the single oval-section pipe, have some absolutely batshit crazy ideas in mind - watch this space
Probably gonna sound awful, kinda like a Ti exhaust. But I like it.
Need to get a mid-axleback fabbed for 1M tip spacing and 135i fitment soon. Wish you guys weren't on another continent heh.
Need to get a mid-axleback fabbed for 1M tip spacing and 135i fitment soon. Wish you guys weren't on another continent heh.
I know its been ages, but after my last trackday, where I thrashed my car to within an inch of its life for 45-min straight - don't ask me how or why it didn't overheat two crazy things happened in quick succession:
a) Engine increasingly felt down on power and started smoking, and
b) more worryingly, an OEM rear control arm bolt snapped on me due to all the incessant kerb-hopping which ended my day. The high-speed damping on those Intrax shocks is really something else, this is the closest I've come to experiencing "skyhook" suspension yet. Oh and did I mention that all that shock loading literally tore my exhaust apart and turned my propshafts to mush?
But I digress - trailered my car back to the shop, fixed the more immediate damage, and did a compression test on the motor only to find it down from 175-185psi to 135-150psi with a fair bit more blowby than I was used to seeing. Seems like the thorough caning the car received distorted the bores on the N54 to the point where compression was lost. You see, this being an open-decked design you eventually develop both taper and ovality in the bore, we've seen this several times on the N54 engines we've rebuilt at the shop, and after 84,000km of abuse my cylinder bores finally cried enough. There's a reason why, 1M excepted, all the turbo M motors feature closed-deck construction, as open-deck blocks are ill-suited to the rigors of boost + motorsport usage, think WRX vs. STi. So after much time, effort, trial, and error, I developed my own closed-deck N54 conversion featuring as much water flow as possible without compromising rigidity - easier said than done of course... Here are some pics below:
a)
PS - I should have half a dozen more blocks prepped and converted like this within the coming 2 weeks
a) Engine increasingly felt down on power and started smoking, and
b) more worryingly, an OEM rear control arm bolt snapped on me due to all the incessant kerb-hopping which ended my day. The high-speed damping on those Intrax shocks is really something else, this is the closest I've come to experiencing "skyhook" suspension yet. Oh and did I mention that all that shock loading literally tore my exhaust apart and turned my propshafts to mush?
But I digress - trailered my car back to the shop, fixed the more immediate damage, and did a compression test on the motor only to find it down from 175-185psi to 135-150psi with a fair bit more blowby than I was used to seeing. Seems like the thorough caning the car received distorted the bores on the N54 to the point where compression was lost. You see, this being an open-decked design you eventually develop both taper and ovality in the bore, we've seen this several times on the N54 engines we've rebuilt at the shop, and after 84,000km of abuse my cylinder bores finally cried enough. There's a reason why, 1M excepted, all the turbo M motors feature closed-deck construction, as open-deck blocks are ill-suited to the rigors of boost + motorsport usage, think WRX vs. STi. So after much time, effort, trial, and error, I developed my own closed-deck N54 conversion featuring as much water flow as possible without compromising rigidity - easier said than done of course... Here are some pics below:
a)
PS - I should have half a dozen more blocks prepped and converted like this within the coming 2 weeks
Do you have caliper photos of the ovaling?
What is different about this than the inserts we've seen done by others? I think cylinder support system does them too.
What is different about this than the inserts we've seen done by others? I think cylinder support system does them too.
This makes me want to just get an engine with the N53 head and cams from you just to have the whole setup from one spot
I know its been ages, but after my last trackday, where I thrashed my car to within an inch of its life for 45-min straight - don't ask me how or why it didn't overheat two crazy things happened in quick succession:
a) Engine increasingly felt down on power and started smoking, and
b) more worryingly, an OEM rear control arm bolt snapped on me due to all the incessant kerb-hopping which ended my day. The high-speed damping on those Intrax shocks is really something else, this is the closest I've come to experiencing "skyhook" suspension yet. Oh and did I mention that all that shock loading literally tore my exhaust apart and turned my propshafts to mush?
But I digress - trailered my car back to the shop, fixed the more immediate damage, and did a compression test on the motor only to find it down from 175-185psi to 135-150psi with a fair bit more blowby than I was used to seeing. Seems like the thorough caning the car received distorted the bores on the N54 to the point where compression was lost. You see, this being an open-decked design you eventually develop both taper and ovality in the bore, we've seen this several times on the N54 engines we've rebuilt at the shop, and after 84,000km of abuse my cylinder bores finally cried enough. There's a reason why, 1M excepted, all the turbo M motors feature closed-deck construction, as open-deck blocks are ill-suited to the rigors of boost + motorsport usage, think WRX vs. STi. So after much time, effort, trial, and error, I developed my own closed-deck N54 conversion featuring as much water flow as possible without compromising rigidity - easier said than done of course... Here are some pics below:
a) View attachment 39601View attachment 39602View attachment 39604View attachment 39605
PS - I should have half a dozen more blocks prepped and converted like this within the coming 2 weeks
Why did this thread stop so abruptly? Any conclusion on the things brought up?
Back from the dead. Have had a lot of developments going on over the past year or two, so in no particular order here goes!
Carbon rear inlet:
This took a surprising amount of effort to get fitment exactly right, but after much gnashing of teeth and tearing of clothes we made it happen. Design was basically inspired by the Alpina B3 carbon inlets, but adapted for use with the stock airbox, which I generally convert to feed just the rear turbo thereby effectively doubling its flow. Internal cross section is much MUCH greater than stock even if the photos may make it seem otherwise, and this is proven in service by a reduction in WGDCs vs relocated silicone inlets, with zero risk of collapse @ high flow rates like the stock-location inlets tend to do - hardly surprising when you consider how squashed they are once installed.
Carbon rear inlet:
This took a surprising amount of effort to get fitment exactly right, but after much gnashing of teeth and tearing of clothes we made it happen. Design was basically inspired by the Alpina B3 carbon inlets, but adapted for use with the stock airbox, which I generally convert to feed just the rear turbo thereby effectively doubling its flow. Internal cross section is much MUCH greater than stock even if the photos may make it seem otherwise, and this is proven in service by a reduction in WGDCs vs relocated silicone inlets, with zero risk of collapse @ high flow rates like the stock-location inlets tend to do - hardly surprising when you consider how squashed they are once installed.
