carmudgeons.com - View Single Post - Imola Red pics and a few thoughts on the car

JST · 10-22-2006, 10:54 PM

Agree with all of your thoughts on negatives. The throttle response is slow, making rev matching difficult. The clutch engagement point is weird, making it hard to drive smoothly (though a clutch stop fixed most of this for me--I have not done the CDV delete).

It doesn't feel fast, and lemming is right about BMW sixes not being masters of low end torque. That said, the cam profile in the ZHP is definitely edged toward the high end of the rev band, esp. compared to the S52 US, which felt a bit like a V8 in terms of being mostly low end with no high end.

If I were going to keep my car and sink some money into it, I'd probably go with an LSD differential with a shorter final drive (say, 3.6ish) to tighten up the low end. I'd think about a new intake, but only if the various tuners have eliminated the part throttle suck whistle that the ECIS in my old 323 had.

I haven't noticed excessive road noise in the Pilot Sports. Sounds like yours may be close to kicked.

I fricking hate BMW's nav systems, though they are better than Audi's. If you turn it off, you don't lose the clock on the dash (underneath the speedo), do you?

10-22-2006, 10:54 PM	#4
JST 195 Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 24,611	Agree with all of your thoughts on negatives. The throttle response is slow, making rev matching difficult. The clutch engagement point is weird, making it hard to drive smoothly (though a clutch stop fixed most of this for me--I have not done the CDV delete). It doesn't feel fast, and lemming is right about BMW sixes not being masters of low end torque. That said, the cam profile in the ZHP is definitely edged toward the high end of the rev band, esp. compared to the S52 US, which felt a bit like a V8 in terms of being mostly low end with no high end. If I were going to keep my car and sink some money into it, I'd probably go with an LSD differential with a shorter final drive (say, 3.6ish) to tighten up the low end. I'd think about a new intake, but only if the various tuners have eliminated the part throttle suck whistle that the ECIS in my old 323 had. I haven't noticed excessive road noise in the Pilot Sports. Sounds like yours may be close to kicked. I fricking hate BMW's nav systems, though they are better than Audi's. If you turn it off, you don't lose the clock on the dash (underneath the speedo), do you?