The BMW E30 M3's Forced Induction Journey: A Story of Reliability and Power

BMW's first real journey into production cars with forced induction, the E30 M3, was a groundbreaking experience. This iconic car has been a favorite among enthusiasts for decades, and its reliability is a testament to the engineering prowess of BMW's engineers. In this article, we'll delve into the world of the E30 M3, exploring its capabilities, limitations, and what makes it a formidable force on the track.

The E30 M3 is still considered one of the most underrated performance cars of all time. Its bone stock internals make it an excellent candidate for forced induction, as BMW's engineers wisely overbuilt the engine to withstand the demands of turbocharged power. The result is a car that can produce hundreds of horsepower without requiring extensive modifications or repairs.

In fact, many owners have successfully pushed their E30 M3s to incredible levels of performance, often exceeding 800 horsepower with little to no modification. This is a remarkable feat, considering the car's stock components and lack of tuning. The E30 M3's engine management system, in particular, has proven to be a challenge for many tuners, but its reliability and durability make it an attractive option for those looking to push their car to the limit.

One of the most significant advantages of the E30 M3 is its ability to grip on the track. The car's weight distribution, combined with its advanced suspension system, makes it an agile and responsive handler. However, this also means that it can be prone to understeer if not handled properly. To address this issue, many owners opt for performance upgrades such as aftermarket sway bars, springs, and anti-roll bars.

The MHD (Motorsport Dynamics) setting is another feature of the E30 M3 that sets it apart from other turbocharged cars. This advanced system allows drivers to fine-tune their engine response, adjusting parameters such as boost pressure, fuel injection timing, and exhaust gas recirculation to suit their driving style. The result is a car that can deliver incredible acceleration and responsiveness, but also requires a high level of driver engagement.

Despite its impressive performance capabilities, the E30 M3 still has some mechanical issues that need to be addressed. For example, the fuel system needs significant tweaking to optimize engine response and power output. Additionally, the throttle body is prone to sticking, requiring owners to install a kill switch or disconnect the ground wire to avoid damage.

The air conditioning system is another area where the E30 M3 falls short. As we spoke with Chris earlier, he mentioned that the car's air conditioning is currently disconnected due to issues with the system. This is a common problem among many E30 M3 owners, and it highlights the need for more attention to detail when building or tuning these cars.

In conclusion, the BMW E30 M3 is an incredible performance car that continues to push the boundaries of what's possible on the track. Its reliability, handling, and responsiveness make it a favorite among enthusiasts, but its mechanical limitations must be addressed through proper tuning and maintenance. With its unique blend of power and character, the E30 M3 remains one of the most exciting cars to own and drive.

Special Thanks to Movement Watchers

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To celebrate their partnership with our channel, we're offering Movement Watchers an exclusive discount code (MovementWatches) that will give you 20% off your next purchase. This is the perfect opportunity to upgrade your wardrobe or gift a Movement Watcher watch to someone special. Visit their website today and explore their incredible collection of watches.

Florida's Wide Open Roads

While we're away from our car, Chris mentioned that one of his biggest complaints about owning an E30 M3 is that he often finds it difficult to find suitable roads for spirited driving. This is a common issue for many owners, who crave the freedom and thrill of driving on open roads but struggle to find suitable locations.

To address this problem, we urge our readers to join forces with local racing clubs or participate in track days to take their E30 M3s out for a spin. With the help of other enthusiasts and expert guidance, you can push your car to its limits while staying safe on the track.

Drop-Off at PSI

As part of our ongoing efforts to keep our car in top condition, we're currently taking it to PSI in Winter Park for a thorough inspection and tuning session. The team there will be fine-tuning various components, including the fuel system and throttle body, to ensure that our E30 M3 is running smoothly and efficiently.

The benefits of regular maintenance are clear: with proper care and attention, your car can go far beyond its original specification. We'll keep you updated on our progress as we work to optimize our E30 M3's performance and reliability.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys um as I told you in yesterday's video I thought I would make a little bit of kind of not necessarily review but like a first impressions of the mode of 700 single turbo kit now we're still kind of in like the working out the kinks stages so the car is definitely not how it will be in the future but I wanted to drive the car one last time before we go to Japan and kind of talk about some of the stuff that I notice as you can hear we have the exhaust miked up and you'll soon hear the engine bays actually backed up as well so we'll be able to hear the sweet turbos cool noises the clutch is different it kind of reminds me the clutch that we happen to close to 40 because it's very soft but it grabs very hard its motives twin disc clutch it hasn't slipped on me yet and I don't think it ever will because it holds like 1200 foot-pounds of torque but unlike some of the clutches I've driven on drift cars it's very soft and it's very drivable you just kind of have to get used to the touchiness of how hard some people said I'd see better gas mileage with a single turbo kit as opposed to the stock twin turbos I can tell you that my gas mileage is about the same however I'm also an 85 and I know 85 requires a lot more fuel so probably when I go back to 93 my guess is I'll see maybe like three or four miles to the gallon increase but I think that has more or less to do with when I'm on the highway I'm Way less enthused and I will resistible solo yes so nervous every time I start from the stop that I'm gonna like stole the car feature right now probably the only thing I'd say I'm not super crazy about with this car is the school so right now we're at around 3000 rpms and I'll step on it and it kind of starts reaching like full spool around 4,500 rpms however I talked to motive Jake from motive thinks that he'll be able to tune this car a little bit differently with timing and something to do with the cams and he truly believes that he can get the turbo to reach full spool by 3,500 rpm and I'm sure he can I've seen a lot of their dyno curves and I've seen their dyno videos he just lives pretty far away and it would have been difficult to do a remote tune last minute before I left for Japan so I believe I mean psi are gonna get together and try to like tweak the car and just kind of fine-tune it a little bit while I'm gone and I should see a lot quicker school I know it's gonna school way faster but like even now if this is how the car was forever I still a lot of fun with it kind of having that power range shifted up Todd makes the car a lot more exciting to drive and a lot more reckless all right I'm gonna hop on the highway just so I can get a good like second to third gear pull because I don't really feel comfortable doing it anywhere on like non highway roads because this car is quick it's scary I don't have an LSD yet I ordered one before I even got the single turbo kit but it just hasn't come yet so I'm sorry once it straightens out I'll drop it in a second we'll get on it I get so like excited every time to go hole in the sky oh my god every time I'm like you guys could probably sit in my face I go on to like it's so fun I need to balance my wheels they're really vibrating it's really fun to drive I don't have very much traction the no lift shifting is really fun it's really really weird getting out a habit of taking my foot off the gas while I shift I know and I I know it's not the best thing to do all the time but it does keep the car in boost which is really important otherwise it would kind of fall out of boost in between shifts is my guess I think they said it hold somewhere around 10 psi boosts it's so fun I love it I hope that I hope the exhaust sounds do it justice because it sounds so lovely I wonder if it spit flames I probably I didn't bring it to read limiter rev limiter I have to bring it to rev limiter if I want to make a flame I also notice after the switch to the single turbo my oil temps dropped around probably like 30 degrees just with normal driving and I think from what I've been explained to that has something to do with not having all that oil just kind of being like held up in the twin turbos because it is such kind of like a place where the oil just circulates and gets very hot where the single it flows much more freely and I'm not constantly in boost like I am with the twins I may sound like an idiot explaining these things but like this is what was explained to me and it makes sense but I'm not always the best at articulating things so there are a lot of comments on the last video asking if this engine was still stock internals and yes this engine is still bone stock like not even opened up still stock head gasket stock head studs stock bottom end people make 800 horsepower on these things like reliably so I'm pretty confident that we can make like 700 750 horsepower on stock engine stock everything and just be fine so this was actually BMWs first real journey into like a production car with a forced induction setup and they definitely over built the crap out of it which is why people can push so much power out of these things without really building and taking apart and swapping out stuff the verbal setting on the MHD thing is kind of fun too a lotta burbles the fuel system still needs some tweaking right now the port injection kit that I have I was told I need a return setup for it and will be able to hold pressure a little bit better allowing us to add more fuel allowing us to make more power why do you need more power in this well it grips pretty well and I don't have an LSD yet or grippy tires so I think it'll actually be able to put the power to the ground somehow which I didn't think like I thought I'd like 500 I'd be spinning all over the place like the car actually cooks pretty well while we're waiting to find the next spot where I can safely do a pull I'd like to give a huge shout out to movement watchers for sponsoring this video they've been the longest outstanding sponsor on this channel and a lot of stuff that we do could not be possible without them they have a large collection of really stylish watches that are simple affordable and have also started making a lot of nice sunglasses as well Nicole really likes their women's stuff definitely a good gift for a significant other if you you're slacking for Christmas season I guess it's a little too early for that but I do have a code that will get you a fat discount as well as free shipping and free returns I'll put that code on the screen right now and you'll also find it in the description I'd like to give another massive thank you to movement for sponsoring this video go check their watches out join the movement and don't forget to use that code it's right here do you notice how much this car sounds like a jay-z I don't know why sometimes my bluff out just doesn't work and it kind of has a little bit of a turbo flutter and I like it I don't know if it's supposed to do that but I like it it makes me happy it goes I'd smile a lot driving this car that's a testament it's hard to make me smile a cynical oh I guess I could be a second complain about this car is that now it's so fast I have a hard time finding somewhere where I can get on it if that's a complaint Florida you need more wide open roads come on governor can't remember if I mentioned it or not but there's still like a few mechanical things that need to be buttoned out with the car so while I'm gone I'm actually dropping off the car at psi right now in Winter Park and they're going to kind of go over everything make sure everything's okay and there's a few things that need to be replaced like I said the fuel system needs to be tweaked I think my throttle body is going bad because it keeps getting stuck and doing weird stuff I need a kill switch so I can turn off the port injection when I'm not on the 85 right now I just have to go under there and disconnect the ground not the biggest deal but just like you know the little luxuries of life like air conditioning the system is not charged right now it's a little warm not gonna lie overall in terms of throttle response I do notice that with this single it feels a lot more responsive with the twins I used to take my foot off the gas and the car would still kind of keep going and I guess the factory like wastegates did a bunch of weird stuff that kind of like held boost in and just made the car feel really funky where it feels a lot like I wouldn't say a lot like but more like an older car now where you actually feel more connected to the car so I do really enjoy that hey Chris come up in real quick I wanna do one more pull for the video see what I mean a distraction by 60 I got 60 a little before I said that radagast really could get me to that all right everybody's I hope you guys enjoyed this little video on the back into good hands at psi make sure you hit the like button for mad loud noises because the car sounds rad and let me know if there's any other stuff they let me talk about because I'll probably make a video once the car gets tuned again and feels a bit different again yeah cool thank you Thanks that when you saywhat's up guys um as I told you in yesterday's video I thought I would make a little bit of kind of not necessarily review but like a first impressions of the mode of 700 single turbo kit now we're still kind of in like the working out the kinks stages so the car is definitely not how it will be in the future but I wanted to drive the car one last time before we go to Japan and kind of talk about some of the stuff that I notice as you can hear we have the exhaust miked up and you'll soon hear the engine bays actually backed up as well so we'll be able to hear the sweet turbos cool noises the clutch is different it kind of reminds me the clutch that we happen to close to 40 because it's very soft but it grabs very hard its motives twin disc clutch it hasn't slipped on me yet and I don't think it ever will because it holds like 1200 foot-pounds of torque but unlike some of the clutches I've driven on drift cars it's very soft and it's very drivable you just kind of have to get used to the touchiness of how hard some people said I'd see better gas mileage with a single turbo kit as opposed to the stock twin turbos I can tell you that my gas mileage is about the same however I'm also an 85 and I know 85 requires a lot more fuel so probably when I go back to 93 my guess is I'll see maybe like three or four miles to the gallon increase but I think that has more or less to do with when I'm on the highway I'm Way less enthused and I will resistible solo yes so nervous every time I start from the stop that I'm gonna like stole the car feature right now probably the only thing I'd say I'm not super crazy about with this car is the school so right now we're at around 3000 rpms and I'll step on it and it kind of starts reaching like full spool around 4,500 rpms however I talked to motive Jake from motive thinks that he'll be able to tune this car a little bit differently with timing and something to do with the cams and he truly believes that he can get the turbo to reach full spool by 3,500 rpm and I'm sure he can I've seen a lot of their dyno curves and I've seen their dyno videos he just lives pretty far away and it would have been difficult to do a remote tune last minute before I left for Japan so I believe I mean psi are gonna get together and try to like tweak the car and just kind of fine-tune it a little bit while I'm gone and I should see a lot quicker school I know it's gonna school way faster but like even now if this is how the car was forever I still a lot of fun with it kind of having that power range shifted up Todd makes the car a lot more exciting to drive and a lot more reckless all right I'm gonna hop on the highway just so I can get a good like second to third gear pull because I don't really feel comfortable doing it anywhere on like non highway roads because this car is quick it's scary I don't have an LSD yet I ordered one before I even got the single turbo kit but it just hasn't come yet so I'm sorry once it straightens out I'll drop it in a second we'll get on it I get so like excited every time to go hole in the sky oh my god every time I'm like you guys could probably sit in my face I go on to like it's so fun I need to balance my wheels they're really vibrating it's really fun to drive I don't have very much traction the no lift shifting is really fun it's really really weird getting out a habit of taking my foot off the gas while I shift I know and I I know it's not the best thing to do all the time but it does keep the car in boost which is really important otherwise it would kind of fall out of boost in between shifts is my guess I think they said it hold somewhere around 10 psi boosts it's so fun I love it I hope that I hope the exhaust sounds do it justice because it sounds so lovely I wonder if it spit flames I probably I didn't bring it to read limiter rev limiter I have to bring it to rev limiter if I want to make a flame I also notice after the switch to the single turbo my oil temps dropped around probably like 30 degrees just with normal driving and I think from what I've been explained to that has something to do with not having all that oil just kind of being like held up in the twin turbos because it is such kind of like a place where the oil just circulates and gets very hot where the single it flows much more freely and I'm not constantly in boost like I am with the twins I may sound like an idiot explaining these things but like this is what was explained to me and it makes sense but I'm not always the best at articulating things so there are a lot of comments on the last video asking if this engine was still stock internals and yes this engine is still bone stock like not even opened up still stock head gasket stock head studs stock bottom end people make 800 horsepower on these things like reliably so I'm pretty confident that we can make like 700 750 horsepower on stock engine stock everything and just be fine so this was actually BMWs first real journey into like a production car with a forced induction setup and they definitely over built the crap out of it which is why people can push so much power out of these things without really building and taking apart and swapping out stuff the verbal setting on the MHD thing is kind of fun too a lotta burbles the fuel system still needs some tweaking right now the port injection kit that I have I was told I need a return setup for it and will be able to hold pressure a little bit better allowing us to add more fuel allowing us to make more power why do you need more power in this well it grips pretty well and I don't have an LSD yet or grippy tires so I think it'll actually be able to put the power to the ground somehow which I didn't think like I thought I'd like 500 I'd be spinning all over the place like the car actually cooks pretty well while we're waiting to find the next spot where I can safely do a pull I'd like to give a huge shout out to movement watchers for sponsoring this video they've been the longest outstanding sponsor on this channel and a lot of stuff that we do could not be possible without them they have a large collection of really stylish watches that are simple affordable and have also started making a lot of nice sunglasses as well Nicole really likes their women's stuff definitely a good gift for a significant other if you you're slacking for Christmas season I guess it's a little too early for that but I do have a code that will get you a fat discount as well as free shipping and free returns I'll put that code on the screen right now and you'll also find it in the description I'd like to give another massive thank you to movement for sponsoring this video go check their watches out join the movement and don't forget to use that code it's right here do you notice how much this car sounds like a jay-z I don't know why sometimes my bluff out just doesn't work and it kind of has a little bit of a turbo flutter and I like it I don't know if it's supposed to do that but I like it it makes me happy it goes I'd smile a lot driving this car that's a testament it's hard to make me smile a cynical oh I guess I could be a second complain about this car is that now it's so fast I have a hard time finding somewhere where I can get on it if that's a complaint Florida you need more wide open roads come on governor can't remember if I mentioned it or not but there's still like a few mechanical things that need to be buttoned out with the car so while I'm gone I'm actually dropping off the car at psi right now in Winter Park and they're going to kind of go over everything make sure everything's okay and there's a few things that need to be replaced like I said the fuel system needs to be tweaked I think my throttle body is going bad because it keeps getting stuck and doing weird stuff I need a kill switch so I can turn off the port injection when I'm not on the 85 right now I just have to go under there and disconnect the ground not the biggest deal but just like you know the little luxuries of life like air conditioning the system is not charged right now it's a little warm not gonna lie overall in terms of throttle response I do notice that with this single it feels a lot more responsive with the twins I used to take my foot off the gas and the car would still kind of keep going and I guess the factory like wastegates did a bunch of weird stuff that kind of like held boost in and just made the car feel really funky where it feels a lot like I wouldn't say a lot like but more like an older car now where you actually feel more connected to the car so I do really enjoy that hey Chris come up in real quick I wanna do one more pull for the video see what I mean a distraction by 60 I got 60 a little before I said that radagast really could get me to that all right everybody's I hope you guys enjoyed this little video on the back into good hands at psi make sure you hit the like button for mad loud noises because the car sounds rad and let me know if there's any other stuff they let me talk about because I'll probably make a video once the car gets tuned again and feels a bit different again yeah cool thank you Thanks that when you say\n"