[Coupes33]

I finally got the old girl going today with the fabricated aluminium outlets, standard coolant expansion tank, turbo actuator solenoids back in OEM location and steering adjusted back up to normal height. Initially, I had the Electric Steering Lock ELV icon come up in the instrument panel. Apparently, the 2006 models are the only 335i with the ELV. The reason for the icon coming up was when I swapped the 335 steering shaft for the M3 item, I had to push the shaft in the steering column back towards the cabin and this has no doubt resulted in this icon coming up. As the car would still start and the steering lock disengage, I thought it probably only required resetting which I did with my Schwaben Scanner. This action cleared the icon. Another issue is the steering wheel isn't sitting properly so a wheel alignment is required. I took the car for a maiden run and everything went ok. There is less vibration coming from the engine through the steering now which is good. I still need to give it a boost test to ensure nothing blows apart on the outlets. Not much of the outlets can be seen once installed as the photo below shows. It looks fairly stock.

[Hoper]

Originally Posted by Coupes33

I finally got the old girl going today with the fabricated aluminium outlets, standard coolant expansion tank, turbo actuator solenoids back in OEM location and steering adjusted back up to normal height. Initially, I had the Electric Steering Lock ELV icon come up in the instrument panel. Apparently, the 2006 models are the only 335i with the ELV. The reason for the icon coming up was when I swapped the 335 steering shaft for the M3 item, I had to push the shaft in the steering column back towards the cabin and this has no doubt resulted in this icon coming up. As the car would still start and the steering lock disengage, I thought it probably only required resetting which I did with my Schwaben Scanner. This action cleared the icon. Another issue is the steering wheel isn't sitting properly so a wheel alignment is required. I took the car for a maiden run and everything went ok. There is less vibration coming from the engine through the steering now which is good. I still need to give it a boost test to ensure nothing blows apart on the outlets. Not much of the outlets can be seen once installed as the photo below shows. It looks fairly stock.

Attachment 1900786

Nice coupes

[Coupes33]

Originally Posted by Hoper

Nice coupes

Thanks Hoper. Hopefully, it continues to work. Time will tell.

[Socket]

Originally Posted by Coupes33

I finally got the old girl going today with the fabricated aluminium outlets, standard coolant expansion tank, turbo actuator solenoids back in OEM location and steering adjusted back up to normal height. Initially, I had the Electric Steering Lock ELV icon come up in the instrument panel. Apparently, the 2006 models are the only 335i with the ELV. The reason for the icon coming up was when I swapped the 335 steering shaft for the M3 item, I had to push the shaft in the steering column back towards the cabin and this has no doubt resulted in this icon coming up. As the car would still start and the steering lock disengage, I thought it probably only required resetting which I did with my Schwaben Scanner. This action cleared the icon. Another issue is the steering wheel isn't sitting properly so a wheel alignment is required. I took the car for a maiden run and everything went ok. There is less vibration coming from the engine through the steering now which is good. I still need to give it a boost test to ensure nothing blows apart on the outlets. Not much of the outlets can be seen once installed as the photo below shows. It looks fairly stock.

Attachment 1900786

Def looks the biz mate.... hopefully you will iron out the bugs quickly

[Coupes33]

The 3 runs I had at Willowbank last week were a good test for my custom aluminium outlets. Boost was getting to 27psi on each gear and the outlets didn't leak or blow apart so I am happy with that result.

[MacGuyver]

Hi,

So did anything become of these units?

[N54Trnsfmr]

Originally Posted by MacGuyver

Hi,

So did anything become of these units?

Hi MacGuyver,

I just got the finished product on my car last weekend. Run for a week and all good.

The final revision took ages as the fabricator was too busy to work on my one off.

The guy making these is Dusty from Pinnacle Specialty Performance in the USA.

Now fitment is confirmed on my RHD car these should be good to go as a product. He won't have a RHD outlet listed on his website yet but message him directly and see if you can order one of you want.

Unfortunately an amount of pipe had to be cut away and reshape to get around the steering shaft but this is inevitable taking the route we have, which is Stock route (between engine and steering shaft).

So there will be a degree of restriction on the rear turbo outlet. Dusty is doing the maths on that to establish how much flow is increased over stock. Note the LHD ones he makes flow 86% higher rate than stock.

It's difficult getting pics but I've got a couple from the install. Other pics are in above posts.

These pics mainly show clearance to steering shaft. Will work with m3 shaft as pictured, or stock shaft.

Contact Dusty at PSP directly for prices and ordering.

Cheers.

[Rob@RBTurbo]

Originally Posted by N54Trnsfmr

Hi MacGuyver,

I just got the finished product on my car last weekend. Run for a week and all good.

The final revision took ages as the fabricator was too busy to work on my one off.

The guy making these is Dusty from Pinnacle Specialty Performance in the USA.

Now fitment is confirmed on my RHD car these should be good to go as a product. He won't have a RHD outlet listed on his website yet but message him directly and see if you can order one of you want.

Unfortunately an amount of pipe had to be cut away and reshape to get around the steering shaft but this is inevitable taking the route we have, which is Stock route (between engine and steering shaft).

So there will be a degree of restriction on the rear turbo outlet. Dusty is doing the maths on that to establish how much flow is increased over stock. Note the LHD ones he makes flow 86% higher rate than stock.

It's difficult getting pics but I've got a couple from the install. Other pics are in above posts.

These pics mainly show clearance to steering shaft. Will work with m3 shaft as pictured, or stock shaft.

Contact Dusty at PSP directly for prices and ordering.

Cheers.

Yikes. That indentation is quite brutal.

Really think the best bet is to keep the silicone in the tail end, placing it around the steering column as we have with our full RB Silicone RHD outlets. But after that wrap around, then go full aluminum. Or if 100% firm on full aluminum look into making a rear turbo tail end that takes the same pathway out of aluminum.

This would give full flow potential and avoid that seemingly unavoidable atrocious indentation.

Rob

[Socket]

Originally Posted by Rob@RBTurbo

Yikes. That indentation is quite brutal.

Really think the best bet is to keep the silicone in the tail end, placing it around the steering column as we have with our full RB Silicone RHD outlets. But after that wrap around, then go full aluminum. Or if 100% firm on full aluminum look into making a rear turbo tail end that takes the same pathway out of aluminum.

This would give full flow potential and avoid that seemingly unavoidable atrocious indentation.

Rob

Hey Rob....been a while since you were last in here.... hope you are well

[Rob@RBTurbo]

Originally Posted by Socket

Hey Rob....been a while since you were last in here.... hope you are well

Appreciate the well wishes sir and indeed things have been better than ever, and seem to be getting better and better to boot.

Rob

[N54Trnsfmr]

Originally Posted by Rob@RBTurbo

Yikes. That indentation is quite brutal.

Really think the best bet is to keep the silicone in the tail end, placing it around the steering column as we have with our full RB Silicone RHD outlets. But after that wrap around, then go full aluminum. Or if 100% firm on full aluminum look into making a rear turbo tail end that takes the same pathway out of aluminum.

This would give full flow potential and avoid that seemingly unavoidable atrocious indentation.

Rob

Hi Rob.

Entertaining verbiage.

Yes it's a bit brutal. About 50% reduction in that area, although that is still way better than the stock RHD piping, but not ideal.

I really don't want any silicon down there so for now I'm running with this. There's a very noticeable improvement in flow.

I don't know if there's enough clearance for the diameter of the pipe to go outside the shaft, as the silicon ones can deform a bit and squash around it.

My concern would be that it wouldn't be legal (for one) as the tolerances would be too tight to account for engine movement and therefore contact with the pipe and the body of the car.

Having said that the silicon one wouldn't pass inspection here either. And it just feels funky to cut it up and have more joins and potential leak points or points of contact and wear.

I think the best solution would be to squash the pipe in that area, retaining the overall circumference. As opposed to cutting and filleting the pipe. That would maintain the same internal area, but it's more complicated from a manufacturing point of view.

[Rob@RBTurbo]

Originally Posted by N54Trnsfmr

Hi Rob.

Entertaining verbiage.

Yes it's a bit brutal. About 50% reduction in that area, although that is still way better than the stock RHD piping, but not ideal.

I really don't want any silicon down there so for now I'm running with this. There's a very noticeable improvement in flow.

I don't know if there's enough clearance for the diameter of the pipe to go outside the shaft, as the silicon ones can deform a bit and squash around it.

My concern would be that it wouldn't be legal (for one) as the tolerances would be too tight to account for engine movement and therefore contact with the pipe and the body of the car.

Having said that the silicon one wouldn't pass inspection here either. And it just feels funky to cut it up and have more joins and potential leak points or points of contact and wear.

I think the best solution would be to squash the pipe in that area, retaining the overall circumference. As opposed to cutting and filleting the pipe. That would maintain the same internal area, but it's more complicated from a manufacturing point of view.

You'd have no trouble getting 2" aluminum bends around the steering column, much less the 1.75" aluminum bends (which is a much better choice for these OE style compressor housing N54 turbos).

Keep in mind the 1.75" silicone hosing (such as in our larger EVO style outlets) barely fits around the steering column and this is measured in ID, whereas the actual OD of a high quality 1.75" silicone hosing is closer to 2.10" due to the thickness of the silicone walls. Therefore a nicely plumbed 2" (OD) Aluminum tube would actually fit a bit nicer than a 1.75" (ID) Silicone hose, and a nicely plumbed 1.75" (OD) Aluminum tube would have much greater clearances- even better than 1.5" ID silicone (1.88" OD) such as used in our RB N54 High Flow Silicone outlets for OE style compressor housings. Utilizing anything more than a 1.75" (OD) aluminum tube is largely unnecessary, so this (or even slightly smaller) is where I'd have my focus if I were you. About 1.5" (OD) aluminum tubing would even be perfectly fine IMO, but that would be the smallest I'd suggest to you.

Personally I think the goal of all aluminum is a good one, but the execution on this is just plain unacceptable for what the end goal truly should be here. Making a big tube and literally collapsing it (without any flow engineering involved) simply to "make it fit" is not going to be what is going to be the best for the high performance enthusiast- nor the life of a RHD turbochargers while trying to overcome this obstacle.

Going back to the drawing board a bit on the rear turbo using the tips provided above, would certainly help out the RHD crowd to get a true aluminum free flowing outlet that is being sought after here.

Thanks,
Rob

[N54Trnsfmr]

Originally Posted by Rob@RBTurbo

You'd have no trouble getting 2" aluminum bends around the steering column, much less the 1.75" aluminum bends (which is a much better choice for these OE style compressor housing N54 turbos).

Keep in mind the 1.75" silicone hosing (such as in our larger EVO style outlets) barely fits around the steering column and this is measured in ID, whereas the actual OD of a high quality 1.75" silicone hosing is closer to 2.10" due to the thickness of the silicone walls. Therefore a nicely plumbed 2" (OD) Aluminum tube would actually fit a bit nicer than a 1.75" (ID) Silicone hose, and a nicely plumbed 1.75" (OD) Aluminum tube would have much greater clearances- even better than 1.5" ID silicone (1.88" OD) such as used in our RB N54 High Flow Silicone outlets for OE style compressor housings. Utilizing anything more than a 1.75" (OD) aluminum tube is largely unnecessary, so this (or even slightly smaller) is where I'd have my focus if I were you. About 1.5" (OD) aluminum tubing would even be perfectly fine IMO, but that would be the smallest I'd suggest to you.

Personally I think the goal of all aluminum is a good one, but the execution on this is just plain unacceptable for what the end goal truly should be here. Making a big tube and literally collapsing it (without any flow engineering involved) simply to "make it fit" is not going to be what is going to be the best for the high performance enthusiast- nor the life of a RHD turbochargers while trying to overcome this obstacle.

Going back to the drawing board a bit on the rear turbo using the tips provided above, would certainly help out the RHD crowd to get a true aluminum free flowing outlet that is being sought after here.

Thanks,
Rob

Thanks for the feedback Rob.

I'll have to look more closely at the 'outside' route. The difficulty here is that I can't personally manufacture this so I need to have a manufacturer match my enthusiasm level to get this worked out.

As you know its a lot of messing around doing prototypes and revisions and not very economical for a one off.

If a manufacturer/vendor can do this and amortise the R and D over several batch runs then it becomes more viable.

It would be a good contribution for the RHD crowd. I know there is a reasonable amount of interest in this.

Thanks again for your input.

[Paul190581]

So.... anyone got a solution for RHD?