Ok. Now I am starting to like BMW. If they only could get the reliability part right.

 

The engine height is probably not an issue, on previous DOHC engines they are tilted in the engine bay. Bigger displacement should also be possible since the old s38 (3.6/3.8L m6/m5) engine fits in any year 3 series.

 

That's true, you can tilt them which I forgot about. The S38 engine at 3.8L was stretched to the absolute extreme though and only had something like tiny little 5 mm walls between cylinders which is unheard of these days. I'm pretty sure it was an iron block though, and probably closed-deck also, so there's more strength in the block and you don't need the cast in iron liners on those like pretty much all aluminum blocks do these days. Most aluminum block engines with cast in iron liners like around 10 mm worth of cylinder wall. Once you get below that you can start to get bore distortion along with all other types of fun stuff especially if it's a high revving motor. You need a really well designed and reinforced block to pull that off. 5mm is crazy thin.

Anyways, yes I'm sure BMW "could" get more displacement than 3.0-3.2L out of their aluminum and magnesium alloy block engines if they wanted to, it's just a question of how far and how extreme they're willing to go on that route, and what they're willing to tradeoff to get that vs going with forced induction at the smaller displacements.

 

As far as I know, the E46 and E39 were pretty reliable (with the exception of the M3... I hear that's a problem child). BMW's never really been BAD with reliability, just not quite up with Honda/Toyota

 

Its not that simple. Simply raising compression ratio one point and .2L of displacement increase doesnt net you 75hp (the IS350 makes a wee bit more than 306 )

Direct injection makes a HUGE difference; even if BMW came out with a 3.5 that made 330hp to compete with the 2GR-FSE, it STILL wouldnt make as much torque or have as much of a fat powerband because it wouldnt have direct injection.

Someone is doing fine with supercharging the 2GR-FSE, because Blitz already has debuted a supercharged IS350 at a show. 11.8:1 compression in a DI motor is much different than 11.8:1 in a PI motor (which I would think would require racegas unless running a cam setup with some rather wicked overlap)

Engine-wise yeah you're right. My friend who is a manager in the Repair shop of the local BMW dealer likes the engine and drivetrain reliability. He says the electronics and build quality of the rest of the car is a whole new can of worms.

 

Okay, thaat is good information to hear. As for Direct Injection you are right, but BMW, Honda, and many others have experience with Direct Injection just like Toyota, only it hasn't made its way down to its production cars. Correct me if Im wrong here, but doesn't BMW use DI in some of their cars that haven't made it to the USA?

Nice to see some manufacfurers attempting to FI the 2GR-FSE engine. Any idea what the specs are on the Blitz system?

 

VW/Audi has been running turbo'd DI engines for a while so I think FI and DI definitely can definitely go hand in hand if tuned right.

 

As far as I know, there are no DI gasoline vehicles made except for just a few (new 4.6L V8 and the 2GR-FSE are two of them) plus a few new ones that came out JUST this year.

BMW and VW have DI vehicles; but they are diesels; kind of a given with that style motor I'm unaware of any gasoline vehicles by either company using direct injection.

Better said: No one has used DI in a mass production gasoline engine geared for N/A performance other than Toyota in North America.

Unsure of the specs on the Blitz system; I swear I want to say 6psi because I saw it somewhere; but I can't confirm it.

 

Isuzu has been using GDI (gasoline direct injection) for years in the 3.2/3.5L V6 engines from the Rodeo and Trooper SUV for nearly a decade probably. They have a lot of experience with DI from their extensive diesel lineup. The VW/Audi 2.0 FSI engine is also GDI (but turboed), but their 3.2L 90* V6 has GDI now which isn't turboed. I'm not sure on their V8 engines, but they probably are as well and if they aren't soon will be. VW/Audi is very aggressive about deploying new technologies, so you'd really need to look at their engine lineup on an almost yearly basis to see what they've done. Nissan has also had GDI VQ engines as early as 1999 or so, but only in Japan. It was the VQ30DD. Tricked out with their VVT system, 11.0:1 compression, and GDI it was making something around 260hp/243tq or something like that. Nissan is known to screw with their ratings though, so who knows. There is much better control over fuel quality in Japan (low sulfur and other particulates) which allowed for deployment of GDI engines. US fuel is relatively dirty, and GDI systems are sensitive to fuel cleanliness. According to Consumer Reports, a lot of those Isuzu GDI engines have fuel system issues, running on high-sulfur US fuel. Go figure... Sorta makes you nervous about buying a car with GDI at this point when low-sulfur fuel will not be widely available in the U.S. until 2007.

As far as BMW, their strategy for continued power and efficiency improvements is their fully variable Valvetronic system, which they can also use for load control, meaning no throttle plate, and drastically reduced throttling losses which are a big source of inefficiency on gasoline gasoline engines. BMW's angle is that they sell in very wide and diverse markets and can't guarantee the consistency of fuel quality which GDI systems are sensitive to. So instead they're using Valvetronic which can give similar efficiency and power gains but without the need for sanitized fuel for GDI. The Valvetronics can run on relatively "dirty" fuel at any octane level, and I don't think there are any GDI BMW engines at this point.

So no, Lexus was not "first to market" with a mass-produced GDI engine either naturally aspirated or turboed, or in or outside of North America.

 

The informataion is incorrect.

The current 330i uses a 3.0L with Valvetronic. There is no 3.3L version in US, in fact the current N52 has no displacement of 3.3L.

The 330i currerntly develops 255HP under the new SAE spec. If BMW stroke it for the us market (which it will become the 335i to start in september), based simple calculation, raising the 335i output to 300HP will be easy.

The european version will get Turbo 3.0L6 with more than 300 HP, while the US will get the stroke version of L6. Both will have 310HP, but with european get more torque than the US 3.5L6. US version will most likely have 310HP and 260 lb-ft or torque (with torque peak at around 2800 RPM or so. Which will be more useful than IS350's 277 at 4800 RPM.

 

No, BMW has made a 3.8L L6 before on the E34 M5. The 3.5L L6 is more than doable.

No BMW turbo gas engine will reach US simply due to states like CA with tight emission regulation.

The new 335i should and probably will come very close to E46 M3's performance in straight line with stick, but BMW will not allow it outgun the M3.

 

The point about 3.8/3.5L Inline-6 was already addressed above, and no it might not be "doable" considering the previous block designs were stretched extreeeemely thin, were iron blocks with much greater strength and not aluminum or magnesium, and probably closed deck designs also. Going from an 88? mm stroke stock to a near 100 mm stroke to get to 3.5L is huge. They would have had to leave a ton of headroom in the bottom end to accommodate that which might not necessarily be there.

And there are plenty of turbocharged gasoline vehicles being sold that have no problems meeting CA emissions laws. It's diesel engines that are the real hold back and are dependent upon the EPA approving urea exhaust aftertreatment systems (which need periodic refilling) in order for a lot of manufacturers to really feel comfortable about marketing their turbodiesel engine lineups here.

 

Stop looking at peak numbers please. peak torque vs peak torque no matter WHERE the peak rpm is doesnt tell the whole story.
The IS350 torque curve is very flat; it makes torque early and throughout the rpm band. Even at 310hp with a turbo, it still wouldnt make as much power as the IS350 TRULY does. 246whp stock on a mustang dyno through an automatic tranny is A LOT more than 306bhp SAE. Also adding .5L of displacement (I was going by what was being said in the thread also) won't add 80hp. Make sure you're reading the rest of the thread before you take potshots at replies that you don't know the origins of.

SteVTEC, thanks for the clarification. But where are the mass market motors? The 2GR is going into the Camry... there's more of those sold than VW/Audi and Isuzu sell yearly combined in their entire lineup.

 

I think i know better than what you are talking about.

The fact of matter is that the current 3.0 with valvetronic on both intake and exhaust on the 330i already made 255HP and 220 lb-ft or torque at 2750 RPM.

As simple math would tell you based on same volumetric prorportion, the 335i's new stroked 3.5L can easily achieve 300HP and 260 lb-ft @ current RPM. BMW is also introducing additional upgrade with the new L6, and the 335i engine per what I know from BMW insider does indeed put out 310HP SAE and around 270 lb-ft (not 260 based on my calculation) with torque peak at low of 2800 RPM.

The IS350 only develops 85% of its peark torque at 2800 RPM, in other words, at 2800 RPM, you are merely looking at 245 or so.

Stop bring in all other totally not realated junk.

The simple fact is that the new 3.5L L6 from BMW is really that powerful.

 

I don't think the camry and Rav4 are getting Direct Injection though. At least at this time. Either way, It would be intersting to see what engine really goes into the E92 Coupe and what the 335 is really like. I like comparing HP on paper because it least gives someting to compare against, but its the actual performance that I want. I'm actually happy with the performance of the 330i and even the 325i right now. Heck the 325i is getting 6.1 0-60s on occation. Anyway, I just would be a little happier if the 335 gets a solid mid to upper 5 second 0-60 no matter how they do it. For cars in that segment and class that is more then what I expect and anything more is just a bonus for me.