Tuning the BMW N62

"Building the best modified BMW N62 engine!"

Carref prides itself on providing the latest tips and guides to your modification project.

The BMW N62 are popular engines and with carefully picked tuning mods like remapping, turbo improvements and camshafts you will greatly improve your driving experience.

The N62 is a naturally aspirated V8 and boasts being the world's first engine to use a continuously variable-length intake manifold and BMW’s first valvetronic engine.

Here we provide a guide to N62 tuning and point out the greatest modifications.

We rely on our visitors to pass on tips and tell us about their projects and what worked on their car, and this article is the culmination of the feedback we have received. First let us look at the history and specs of this engine and then consider which tuning modifications work best on it.

History of the Engine

• N62B36 200 kW (268 bhp)@6,200 rpm 360 nm (266 lbft) @3,700 rpm
• N62B40 225 kW (302 bhp)@6,300 rpm 390 nm (288 lbft)@3,500 rpm
• N62B44
  235 kW (315 bhp)@6,100 rpm 440 nm (325 lbft)@3,700 rpm
  245 kW (329 bhp)@6,100 rpm 450 nm (332 lbft)@3,600 rpm
• N62B48
  265 kW (355 bhp)@6,200 rpm 500 nm (369 lbft)@3,500 rpm
  261 kW (350 bhp)@6,300 rpm 475 nm (350 lbft)@3,400 rpm
  270 kW (362 bhp)@6,300 rpm 490 nm (361 lbft)@3,400 rpm
• H1 368 kW (493 bhp)@5,500 rpm 700 nm (516 lbft)@3,500 rpm
  390 kW (523 bhp)@5,500 rpm 725 nm (535 lbft)@4,750 rpm

Tuning the BMW N62 and best N62 performance parts.

What are the most effective N62 parts

Just because particular parts are appear in lots of N62 projects it doesn't mean it is good, we will optimum parts that will give your N62 the biggest power gain return for your cash.

The camshaft profile plays a big part in the engines power output so camshaft upgrades make quite a large difference. The intake & exhaust durations will alter depending on the chosen camshaft profile, so large engines power gains are on offer for camshaft upgrades.

Fast road camshafts normally bump the bhp throughout the rev band, you may lose a little bottom end power but higher rpm power will be higher.

Race camshafts, bump the higher rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

A Race camshaft won't do well if on the daily commute.

You should ideally optimize your engines power to your cars usage so for a car driven daily stick with a fast road N62 camshaft

Different N62 engines respond better to different cam durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The ecu map and injectors and fuel pump also have a large bearing on the torque gains you'll hit.

Longer valve durations can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Drilled & smoothed airbox, Sports exhaust manifold, Fast road camshaft, Intake headers, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Panel air filters.

Modifying to Stage 2:

 Fast road cam, induction kit, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injectors, fuel pump upgrades, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 Engine balancing & blueprinting, Twin charging conversions, Competition cam, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression.

A remap helps release the full potential of all the mods you've done to your N62.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but the outcome usually rely on the mods you've applied and the condition of your engine.

Feeding more air into the N62 engine is the main goal to any engine modification job.

Intake headers flow the air from the intake filter and allow it to be pulled into the engine cylinders.

Design and flow rate of the Plenum can make a large difference to to fuel engine efficiency on the N62.

Commonly we find the air intake manifolds are crying out for a performance upgrade, although a few OEM provide decently flowing air intake manifolds.

Larger N62 valves, doing a bit of 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also increase bhp and torque, and importantly will allow you to get a better bhp and torque increase on other parts.

Which turbo upgrades are best?

NASP engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your N62

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes excellent power gains.

When your car is fitted with a turbo tuning mods are going to make more power and you'll see that turbo engines are made using uprated components.

There are tuning limits for every engine, with some being extremely strong and some only able to handle stock power

It is important to find these limits and fit better quality components to handle the power.

It's not unheard of car owners spending a a stack of money on turbo charger upgrades on the N62 only to suffer the indignity of watching the N62 explode soon after it's completed.

Larger upgraded turbo units will usually experience no power at low rpm, and smaller turbo units spool up really quickly but don't have the peak rpm torque gains.

Thanks to new tech the market of turbo units is always evolving and we commonly find variable vane turbo units, permitting the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end performance.

Twin scroll turbo units divert the exhaust gases into two channels and push these at differently profiled vanes in the turbo. They also help the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a limitation in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on these engines when considerably more air is being sucked into the engine.

Going up you'll find 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor was restricting bhp at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large performance gains, although more difficult to setup. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Fuelling

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so must ramp up the fuelling when you start extending past 20% of a performance increase.We would recommend you to be generous with your flow rate on the injectors.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% to the flow rate when specifying an injector, this accounts for injector deterioration and gives some spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

Choosing the right performance exhaust

One of the most common mistakes and problems we see in tuning projects is usually down to the exhaust, or rather a poorly chosen exhaust for your engine.

You only need to to replace your exhaust if the current exhaust is actually causing a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the exhaust flow rate is still good even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts can help equal out the flow of air through the engine.

But if the exhaust is too large, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Usual exhaust restrictions can be traced to the catalyst and filters installed, so adding a higher flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Weak spots Issues & problem areas on the N62

The N62 engines are generally reliable and solid as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Regular oil changes are vital on the N62, especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

For more information on Tuning your N62 engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which parts work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these N62 articles which are continually updated.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under BMW. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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