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| How to Add Over 100HP to Your N55-Powered BMW in an Afternoon
Beginning with its debut in the 2002 Turbo, BMW has been messing about with forced induction since the 1970s. By the mid-2000s, BMW gave the world the ‘European 2JZ’ in the form of their N54 engine, the culmination of years worth of work that brought massive tuning potential to the street and track thanks to the twin turbos hanging off its side. While the N54 offered wild horsepower figures in the right hands, it wasn’t without a number of drawbacks, chiefly related to maintenance and reliable performance when heavily modified. With a few key design changes, BMW rolled out its successor, the N55, which has found its niche in the tuning community as a more reliable, equally capable, and easily tunable platform that stretches across several of BMW’s models. With just a few basic tools, some simple upgrades, and an afternoon’s worth of your time, your N55-powered F30 can experience its hidden potential thanks to our work at Turner Motorsport. With these basic upgrades, you can easily squeeze out over 120 more horsepower, making the N55 one of the best platforms when it comes to bang for your buck. Today, we’re going to show you what you need to pull possibly the highest horsepower per modification options from four upgrades for a tuning quartet.
While the caveat here is performance, it is important to note the equal part your BMW’s appearance plays in how you experience the car. So, to kick things off, let’s take a look at Turner Motorsport’s newest piece of carbon fiber art. The Turner Motorsport N55 Carbon Fiber Intake System is an attractive modification that solidly improves the power output of your engine and does so through a beautiful design that fills the gap between your engine and core support with glorious carbon fiber. Although the additional 7HP doesn’t sound like much to write home about, the Turner Motorsport intake is a crucial first-step and works hand-in-hand with this series of modifications to allow for the biggest gains with the least effort. |
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| | | With the intake side of the TwinPower Turbo experiencing greater volume and reduced intake air temperatures, we can’t leave the link between the turbo and intake ports to pick that heat back up. The new N55 Stepped Intercooler from Turner Motorsport drastically reduces charge air temperatures before the intake air is introduced to the combustion chambers, significantly improving horsepower figures and maximizing the turbocharger’s effectiveness. The intercooler alone adds 18HP (potentially 36HP with supporting mods, which we will cover shortly) and increases the front surface area by 56% over the stock unit. Reducing air temperatures is a big part of the formula for noticeable power gains, which makes the intake and intercooler both ideal first modifications to your N55-powered BMW.
After the intake and intercooler, the addition of Genuine BMW M Performance exhaust will provide both increased performance and more of the noise you want to hear from your BMW. Thanks to a little help from BMW, the M Performance exhaust reduces back pressure and improves the power output from your N55 for a well-rounded modification. Most importantly, however, it is the final physical modification necessary to benefit from the bow that ties the whole package together with impressive horsepower increases. This piece of the puzzle makes our next modification reach its peak potential. |
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| | | | Lastly in our list of upgrades to add over 120HP to your N55, the new Turner Motorsport Stage 2 Performance Software significantly increases the power added by the intake, intercooler, and exhaust beyond what they can do as bolt-ons without a tune. The Stage 2 software requires those supporting upgrades to reach its highest output potential, which is a hearty 103HP from the tune alone. A software tune is the easiest of all your modifications to install, but the most important to maximize the output potential from the physical mods we mentioned. The 103HP, plus the 36HP from the intercooler when paired with the tune, and the 7HP from the intake itself make the total number somewhere around 146HP over stock. This figure is more than impressive, considering the relatively low cost of all the parts combined which offers a staggering cost to power ratio not found anywhere else. |
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| | | | By adding only three physical parts with a software tune from Turner Motorsport, your N55-Powered BMW can expect nearly 146 more horsepower, which brings your engine to a totally different realm of performance. The unmodified engine itself is nothing to scoff at, as it produces upwards of 300HP from the factory, but with relatively few modifications, you can experience unbelievable power thanks to the new N55 Carbon Fiber Intake, Stepped Intercooler, M Performance Exhaust, and Turner Motorsport performance software. If you’re ready for the fastest way to break into a different bracket, these modifications from right here at Turner Motorsport are the best places to begin. Get ready to experience a completely different car with these four easy mods!After the intake and intercooler, the addition of Genuine BMW M Performance exhaust will provide both increased performance and more of the noise you want to hear from your BMW. Thanks to a little help from BMW, the M Performance exhaust reduces back pressure and improves the power output from your N55 for a well-rounded modification. Most importantly, however, it is the final physical modification necessary to benefit from the bow that ties the whole package together with impressive horsepower increases. This piece of the puzzle makes our next modification reach its peak potential. | |
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