Came across this on my buddy Brendans facebook this morn. Turbo E92 M3 build by Savspeed.
E92 M3 V8 Turbo S65 Motor
Almost four months ago, a very humble, generous client and friend, Martin Kriel from P.E gave me a call and said, "why can't we turbo a V8 M3 E92".
I said, "that you can do anything if you try hard enough"; but the thought at the back of my mind was that surely if nobody has tried to do this there must be a good reason. Martin offered me a car to do R + D on and I gladly accepted. He said, "I want a V8 M3 anyway so if it can be done, do it, and if not i'll pick up the car, and that's that".
Well! Once we got the car up on the hoist, removed all the covers and trays and eish! Where the hell were we supposed to put these turbo's? There really is no space, and putting them in the tail end of the exhaust system was a definite no-no.
The steering side (R/HD) is cluttered so the only option was on the LH/bank. Removing the branch didn't help much, so a custom engine mount would have to be designed. With this done, the idea with Alex, Andrew and I were to run a single big turbo with a cross-over pipe and utilize the branch in its original position from the RH bank. This would be efficient with minimal lag and good flow would be easily achieved. Also a big plus with this setup is that you can retain the aircon, so you can keep cool while going fast.
A jig was made with engine in the car because it was absolutely impossible to build a custom branch in place, the engine then removed and a branch design decided upon. After 4 failed designs due to lack of space, we finally came up with a solution to get this lump of iron pipework to squeeze in. With this out of the way there are no bolt-on-turbo kits available at Savspeed. The engine was stripped down and forged pistons ordered and made to suit. The compression was reduced and rods and pistons balanced. The bottom end was rebuilt with new bearings, gaskets and O-rings. A quick look at any M cylinder head made us realize that it's a work of art. Our engineers, JR Cylinder Head Service, cleaned and gave them a quick check over, with only a set of seals and custom race seats done to the valves. The engine was assembled with a decent stud kit, and lots of love. The clutch kit is a twin plate setup, and for this we decided to beef up the two friction plates and pressure plate.
The objective of this conversion is to achieve 850hp plus and see if the assembly will hold up. Later after 2000 kilometres of testing, we will boost the beast and try and achieve 1000 plus horses. The turbo is a custom unit due to space restraints a mix and match of housings was the only way to fit a custom T72 race ready (equivalent to GT 42 setup) for now only time will tell if the block will hold up. So we will have to be very cautious.
Most of the components, like intake manifold and pipe work are all custom built and are an experimental 1st of many I guess as the project goes on. The exhaust is also a make shift 3inch custom unit just put together for start up and actually get the car running, so we can see what the way forward is in terms of turbo specifications lag and all other factors including cooling and intake temps, etc.
So yes, we started the beast up and all seems good so far. The exhaust tone is superb, nothing at all like the six cylinder versions. This car is angry and growls with style, we've run 140km on the dyno already and all is going well. We will be running the car in for a good 1000kilomoters and then fit management and injectors and fuel pump.
It's exiting times for the crew at Savspeed, having just won the BMW racing league championship and hope to achieve our goals with this, the first S65 turbo build in the world. For now, here are some pics and start up video. Keep you all posted on the progress.
Site:
http://www.savspeed.co.za/secret.html
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Hope this isn't a repost, dont remember seeing it.
Update: Dyno Videos