BMW 6 series Tuning

"Thanks for reading our BMW 6 series tuning tips."

The 6 series is a good tuning project to try. Take your time and research 6 series tuning to save yourself making the usual costly mistakes we often see.

We review and look at 6 series tuning and outline the best mods that work. BMW 6 seriess are fantastic to work on and with carefully chosen upgrades you can really improve your driving enjoyment.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

 

Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

Following our guidance for tuning your 6 series you will make a practical sporty car that will potentially beat bigger cars.

Sadly with smaller engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.

Power mods.

This list of the stages and uprated modifications are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get going.

Getting the best performance parts for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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Guide to the best 6 Series tuning mods & Upgrades

  1. ECU Map Tuning & Remaps

    Some cars may require a piggyback ECU's or aftermarket ECU's to change the OEM map, but remapping is the most vital step of your tuning project to fully maximise your mods. Expect 10-20% on NASP engines and 30-40% on turbocharged units.

  2. Strengthen Your Engine

    Tuned cars will show up weaknesses, typically in the turbochargers, clutch and internal engine components. Whilst most engines can cope with mild tuning mods, TorqueCars recommend that you upgrade the internal components before these weak spots manifest themselves.

  3. Mods that Remove a Restriction

    A restricted intake or exhaust will have an impact on your performance, so use a better flowing air filter/induction kit and better flowing exhaust (sports cats where legal are a good option) whenever your tuning creates a flow restriction. Turbo engines also benefit from intercooler upgrades as these resist heat soak for longer periods of time.

  4. Mods that Improve Fuelling

    Every tuning project will aim to increase the air supply, but fuel supply is just as vital and will need to match the air the engine can utilise,  a fuel pump and injector upgrade are usual mods, but also in many cases the fuel regulator will need improvement.

  5. Mods to Provide better Airflow

    Increasing the air supply is just as essential as improving fuelling, we suggest you look at head mods (flowing and porting, 5 angle valve jobs), fit bigger valves, fast road cams and forced induction upgrades (adding a better flowing turbo) to improve air intake.

Stage 1 modifications: Remap, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm).

Stage 2 modifications: high flow fuel injector, Power/Sport clutch, Fast road cam, Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades.

Stage 3 modifications: Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Sports gearbox, Engine balancing, Competition cam.

You should keep as much low end power as you can and aim to get a long power band rather than a narrow top end power spike.

The whole point of our guides is to give a starting base of modding mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best uprated mods and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest bhp gains for your money as far as a stand alone uprated mods goes on a NASP engine.

The exhaust and intake flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car impossible to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a remap to fully release the power gain.

When pushing up the power you will need to increase to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

If you find you have flat spots and surges after your uprated upgrades you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. To get sufficient fuel you may need to increase the injectors on your engine.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Contrary to popular belief there is generally very little power gain got by fitting an induction kit, they only help and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for 6 series engines you should just fit a performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow out of the engine but do not go too large or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Getting the cylinder head gas flowed will help get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. When you tune up your 6 series you will reach a point that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch. The best mods we recommend for your 6 series are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Turbo engines are just begging to be Remapped. You will see massive power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and massive modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners playing with twin charging conversions and making some seriously high power gains.

Adding forced induction will see big power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

Superchargers will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is easier to map. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on most peoples lists for the 6 series.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you 6 series substantially enhancing your drive.

We suggest that you fit modified suspension and lower the car by 23mm - 40 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tyres) for your car, a good directional tread pattern tyre can really enhance your cars handling. Large 6 series alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Although some people have gone larger than this without problems we would restrict ourselves to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this BMW 6 series Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss 6 series options in more detail with our 6 series owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased BMW tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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