#20
I had made the decision to keep the carbon fiber plenum, so it was time to modify the intake, air shut-off valve vacuum line, and the intake elbow.
GruppeM had the only CIA that would fit next to the new plenum. This was the best looking, but also the most expensive. As far as CIAs go, this was the Holy Grail when it came to the M coupe. Actual HP gains were questionable, but they look and sound amazing. Like the M coupe, the GruppeM intake was very rare. I picked up my GruppeM intake from
www.vividracing.com . I worked with Jon Guerra. His customer service was top notch. At the time, he was able to offer the best price and get it to me the fastest.
Turner and Bimmerworld both had the silicone intake elbow I needed. Bimmerworld had a better price, so I went that route. EAS
www.europeanautosource.com also offers a silicone intake able now. The EAS price is the best I have seen.
The e46 M3 air shut-off vacuum line I picked up @ the stealership. I located the part numbers at
www.realoem.com .
PROS:
1. Everything fit well together.
2. The GruppeM intake was high quality and looked amazing.
3. The combination of the cf plenum with the new intake was insane. The sound coming from the engine bay was the stuff dreams are made of. The growl was ridiculously deep. The S54 sounded the strongest I have ever heard in any car. My wife has always thought the M’s sound very mild. She typically prefers the sound of muscle cars. This blew here mind. Her words… “It sound amazing, better than anything I have heard before, I feel it deep in my chest, and I love it!!!”
CONS:
1. Engine codes again……
2. Again, not many tuners understand the computers in our car, and think that they are similar to the E46 M3 when it comes to modifications. They generalize because we share engines, but this has proven to be dead wrong. Our computers are much more difficult to tune, and more in line with the new E9X computers.
3. The vacuum line relocation through a code and was causing the car to burn more fuel.
So now what? If I wanted to keep everything in place, I was looking at a pretty serious tune. I had lost confidence in the knowledge of the shop that sold me the plenum. Feeling stranded, I began researching again. After spending great deal of time talking to different tuners, it seemed only two had actual proven experience with the Z4 M coupes.
I was considering the full CSL style intake and Alpha-N tune from Bimmerworld, or the stage 1 kit from ESS tuning. With a big decision to make, I went into deep recon. I took my time to research the good and bad of all options before I made the next big step.