darren_dallas

Probably some wisdom in your post!

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2011 X5M Carbon Black

JamesInLV

So I started hunting around for Las Vegas dyno shops, and it turns out they can be much more reasonable than I have heard in the past. I'm asking around for referrals from a few sources, so hopefully I'll get my beast on a good dyno by the end of the week for some of my own testing for all of us. I'm also interested just to see what results the pulley kit has had combined with everything on my car.

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James
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Las Vegas, Nevada

Now driving my 1999 Toyota Landcruiser again.
Wife gets the 2007 Honda Odyssey.
Looking forward to my next M5.

2006 ///M5 SOLD :-(
2002 325i SOLD
1987 325i Conv. SOLD

www.LVHomeResource.com
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JamesInLV

After PM'ing something to Darren, I thought I would say something similar that I included to him. We are out here looking for hard, objective data on the performance gains from the intakes. I think K&N did a good job providing them, and this kind of change is definitely environmentally sensitive - there is nothing but a high speed wind tunnel that can give your car the same closed-hood airflow over all of the engine components in operating conditions. A dyno like the one NobleM400 posted pictures of can get close, but that fan is still neither large enough nor fast enough to truly accomodate a closed-hood dyno run for the purpose of evaluating air intakes.

I have nothing to gain by pushing these intakes. K&N gave them to me for free, so I don't even have to justify the price of buying them. I also spent the time to remove them and put the stock airboxes back in when I received an engine malfunction error, to see if the intakes were truly the culprit. They were. And yet after a week of running with the stock boxes, I was very disappointed in the performance difference, not to mention the lack of extra induction sound, and so the K&N's went back in, even with the engine malfunction error ever-looming unless I do my little engine-rev trick in the morning.

I know there are gains there. Are they 21hp? I don't know what that feels like in a 500+ hp car to begin with. The butt-o-dyno, while not always reliable, says they are there. My side-by-side runs got me about a car-length over my friend from 80-110mph (but heck, that could just be my engine naturally producing a little more power than his too). I also found gear-shifts go down with just a little more neck-snapping force too, as if they can get any more brutal in S-6 as it is! I've done the back-and-forth thing, and I encourage anyone here to give themselves a few days with the K&N intakes, and then spend the 30 minutes it takes to swap the stock airboxes back in and go take a run. I didn't notice the difference much going to the intakes, but I definitely noticed it when taking them out.

chiromikey

iirc, darren said he also performed an open hood dyno run so that should have taken care of the air flow problem.

not to invalidate your claims but mods associated with sound should be a red flag to specifically avoid believing butt dyno results. sound is such an integral part of "feel" that new exhaust or intakes OFTEN give the user an impression of improved acceleration even when performance has been lost! this sound/feel connection holds true with almost everything we do. for example, part of the best feelings in the world (to me anyways) are associated with sound...like hitting a golf ball or baseball in the sweet spot on your club or bat. anyone that plays knows EXACTLY what i'm talking about. if you were to remove the sound from a purely struck golf shot you would be missing much of the feedback, enjoyment, and reward you typically get. so when we hear this extremely pleasing sound coming from our cars, it's only natural that it would enhance the "feel" we get driving them.

food for thought...

905RMP32V1x

Darren:
My son has a soccer game in "your neck of the woods" tomorrow. So I'll see if I can work it out. They have a game in the morning and if eliminated then I'm free. Otherwise we'll wait for the meet on the 9th.

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2006 Indy Red/Blk/Alum loaded,
H&R springs w spacers, 167(M6) wheels,
Dinan 3.91, Evo Pulley
CF grills, CF vents, ACS Spoiler
Vorsteiner CF Vented Hood, CF lower steering wheel
905R-driver
MP32-irons
ProV1x-ball

darren_dallas

Ron,

Sounds good. Give me a call. Warrenatc and //Wallstreet might come by for some runs as well.

Regards,

Darren

JamesInLV

I have to only wonder how an open-hood dyno produced absolutely nothing on his car, and yet K&N could run several dynos on my car and a few others and get significant performance gains. Now the question has switched almost entirely between debating open vs. closed hood dyno results, to whether the intakes do a darn thing. I think in this case that the open-hood dyno producing nothing (or slightly negative) brings up some important questions about the particular dyno runs in that day in the first place.

And while I appreciate the "sound effect" on ones perception, please note my call to action: anybody that has these already, swap them back for stock and post your experience. Mine was obvious, and it wasn't just my ears wanting for the sound. Besides...since when was this mod just for sound? That is just a bonus.

darren_dallas

At the risk of losing credibility, I must say the car feels strong at higher speeds (above 60mph). I really think the dyno facility needs to show adequate air flow to probably benchmark this type of modification. Unlike my experience with the Dinan software upgrade where I felt the loss of power immediately, this modification does not feel like a loss of power at all. It feels neutral at lower speeds, but as the speed climbs it feels stronger.

Again, I know it's not proven with a dyno so take it for what it's worth. I will be keeping this modification (for now) and work with my dyno shop to simply buy a new set of higher cfm fans and see what happens.

Regards,

Darren

chiromikey

this is also why i never believe hp claims from a manufacturer...more often than not, their claims can't be reproduced.

i'm guilty of allowing sound to influence my perception of power also so please don't feel like i'm pointing a finger. i've experimented with exhaust systems that sounded so good in the upper rpms that i thought i really found some new power, while in fact the problem was that i lost power in the lower rpms according to the dyno. as much as we want to believe we can feel a 20hp difference in a 500hp car (a 4% gain) our butt dyno's are typically not that reliable (especially with other influences like sound adding to the "feel").

chiromikey

imho, an open airbox with an open hood is as good as you'll get unless the airbox has plumbing that also creates a ram air effect.