Tuning the BMW S85

"Building the best modified BMW S85 engine!"

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

This pages aim is examine S85 tuning and outline the greatest upgrades. BMW S85 are good project engines and with carefully picked tuning parts like ECU maps, turbo improvements and camshafts you will dramatically improve your driving fun.

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

The S85 is a naturally aspirated V10 and was the first and only production V10 engine BMW produced.

• S85B50
• 373 kW (500 bhp)@7,500 rpm
  520 nm (384 lbft)@6,100 rpm

Tuning the BMW S85 and best S85 performance parts.

What are the most effective S85 tuning mods

When talking about the best best for your S85 engine, we are going to concentrate on the mods that give the best power gain for you spend.

Significant gains on the S85 can be made from camshaft upgrades. Altering the camshaft profile alters the intake and exhaust durations on the engine and can dramatically change the torque and power output.

Fast road cams commonly boost the power across the rev range, you could sacrifice a little low down power but your top end will be lifted.

Race cams, boost the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

In a car used daily should ideally to match your torque band to your typical driving style.

I'd be surprised if you find a S85 Motorsport cam is a pleasure to live with when on the daily commute.

Each engine responds better to mild camshaft durations so set your engine up on a rolling road.

The engine timing and fuelling also have an effect on the bhp gains you'll make.

Longer valve durations can alter the bhp 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:

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

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

ECU mapping should help to to establish the full potential of all the mods you've done to your S85.

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 often differs on the mods you've fitted and the condition of your engine.

It is vital to any tuning job to force fuel and air into your S85

Intake headers flow the air during the suck phase from the air filter and allow it to be fed into the engine cylinders.

The size of bore and shape and flow rate of the Intake can make a noticeable change to fuel atomisation on the S85.

Commonly we find the plenum chambers are ripe for a performance upgrade, although a few makers provide reasonably well designed plenum chambers.

Increasing the S85 valve size, getting port matching and head flowing will also boost performance, this will make space for increasing the performance increase on other tuning mods.

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 S85

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

You'll commonly see there is a limit in the air flow sensor AFM/MAF on these engines when a lot more air is being drawn into the engine.

You'll see that 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 harder to setup. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.

Fuelling

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so should look at the fuelling when you start exceeding 20% of a bhp increase.Most tuners we speak with say to over specify your injector capacity.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% to the flow rate when specifying an injector, this allows for injector deterioration and allows you some spare capacity should the engine need 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 upgrade your exhaust if the current exhaust is creating a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the exhaust flow rate is fine 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 generally help improve air flow from the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Typically exhaust restrictions can be located the filters installed, so adding a faster flowing high performance alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Weak spots Issues & problem areas on the S85

The S85 engines are generally reliable and solid as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Regular oil changes are vital on the S85, especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

For more information on Tuning your S85 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 modifications work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these S85 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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