Have you driven an M5? Performance wise, not close. I wouldn't bother modding your 540i since you talk about supercharging or doing a motor swap, etc. You will no longer be getting that small amount of better gas mileage and you 'd be better off economically buying an M5 instead of adding M5 parts here and there or supercharging your 540i and just getting up to M5 performance.
I have driven a few of them, I was looking at them when shopping for my car, but I couldn't justify the extra $6-8k for a similarly clean '02 or '03.
I have already modded my 540i with the only M5 parts (unless I go with an S62) I plan on using. The engine swap is not likely, if I were to do that I would probably just sell my car and buy an M5, but as far as a supercharging... centrifugal S/C's makes very little boost below 3k RPM at WOT, while cruising they pretty much make none so the times where I want good mileage (cruising) it really won't change much at all MPG-wise.
Lastly, if/when I supercharge I will have still spent less (I do all my own work/installs) than I would have on a similarly clean M5, have a slight performance edge (s/c 540's w/ LSD are capable of high 12 second 1/4 mile times) and have a "rarer" car (1 of 1,265 imported in '03 only) that is much more unassuming than an M5.
Like I said... I love the M5 and could/would own one... but it just wasn't worth it to ME personally for that extra 40-50whp and 20-30 wtq.
lol, I'm not trying to hate on M5's at all... I like them a lot.
I'm just explaining why I bought the car I did.
I know my car isn't an M5, and that an M5 is better in every way from a performance aspect... but I am the wrenching/modding type, I really just cannot leave vehicles alone, despite what I try to convince myself of when purchasing.
I bought this vehicle with the intent of leaving it stock, only do an LSD at some point (open diff with over 300 ft/lbs is just unacceptable IMO) and have a nice driver with decent performance.
I bought an M5 rear sway less than 2 months after purchasing the car and the M5 diff was acquired 7 months after purchase and installed 3 weeks after that. Now I'm shopping for coilovers and budgeting for a supercharger possibly as soon as next spring.
Had I purchased an M5 it would still be stock and I would be bored because messing with cars is a hobby of mine and I currently only have the one car... Not to mention I would have spent my car budget and mod budget on just the car... further modding of the M5 would have had to wait a little while.
I personally would rather buy a cheaper 540i and spend money and put some of my own blood and sweat into it to get it at or beyond stock M5 levels of performance... than just buy an M5. I 100% understand that this is not the route most people have any desire to take, bit those "most other people" should also understand why I chose the route I did.
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you do know that torque is a function of horsepower and RPM and can easily be extrapolated from the hp and RPM. that is why they always cross at 5,252 RPM.
I already got into quite the debate over this on another forum so I'm not going to get into it here, but stock to stock an M62 and S62 have VERY similar (usually within 10-15 hp) output up to about 5k RPMs where the S62's ITB's, higher compression and bigger cams come into play.
There are piles of dyno sheets online for stock S62's... the vast majority make right around 260whp at around 5k RPM... which is the same HP and RPM where the majority of 540i/6's peak.
you do know that torque is a function of horsepower and RPM and can easily be extrapolated from the hp and RPM. that is why they always cross at 5,252 RPM.
+1. (Maybe sor118 was kidding but his smiley clue is rather vague)
I, at one point, did not know of the formula and therefore did not truly understand the relationship between torque and hp. It took a long time for someone to finally explicitly state the mathematical formula but before then I got all sorts of garbage explanations from people who were confident they had it figured out "from experience".
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