Talk me out of Supercharging the 325Ci without mentioning the M3

NVP

NVP

NVP

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Disclaimer: Many will probably hate me for the ideas discussed in this post.


This weekend I've been having a strong, strange urge... I've been fantasising about fitting a supercharger to my sexy black b****.

At an approximate £4k price tag it would pump it up to ~270-280bhp purely from fitting a 6/7psi supercharger and getting a live remap.

And then a couple further improvements to take it 300+ (new performance cam shaft would apparently add up to 20bhp etc.)

I was also looking at upgrading the brakes and possibly the suspension, although it's an M-Sport so I think the suspension should be fine as is.

Then throw on some nice BBS's and get a discrete front splitter and rear diffuser kit to aggy up the looks slightly, add a CSL bootlid with the curved lip spoiler, and nice clean angle eyes... Possibly even chav it up a bit more with a naked carbon fibre bonnet, I think it would go well with the black.


Those are my off the top ideas of what I fancy doing to my baby. The main problem I can see is who can I get to do a reliable install, I can't really find a reviewed supercharger that isn't made in the US, so finding a decent place to fit everything here may become expensive. (But then I think the total cost of all of these things is going to come close to maybe £6/7k anyway)

So... thoughts?
 
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It's not really about buying a better car, it's about making my car my own. If you know what I mean :confused:
 
Worth considering you will spend £6-7k doing this to the car and more than likely you'll lose all of that and the car will be harder to sell.

Selling your car + £6-7k and that £6-7k will hold its value the same as the rest of the cars value.

Might sound like a good idea but you can instantly ruin any sort of chance of selling it on for a sensible price.
 
Have you checked the impact on your insurance? Also realise you will get only a fraction of the money back if you sell the car, and probably make it harder to sell.

Does the 325Ci use the same drivetrain as the the more powerful models, e.g. clutch, gearbox, diff etc? If not you may have reliability problems.

NVP said:
And then a couple further improvements to take it 300+ (new performance crank shaft would apparently add up to 20bhp etc.)
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I presume you mean camshafts? A new crank will be big money, and isn't going to give you any power gains.
 
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Yeah I realise I won't make much back on the resale but I'm not overly fussed as I now plan to keep this car for much longer then I originally intended.

From what I've read, the 325 can handle it although some people mentioned they purchased new diffs. Will have to do much more research.

PMKeates said:
Thread title is impossible. You could have at least said 330i!
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I don't have a 330 :(

Dogbreath said:
I presume you mean camshafts? A new crank will be big money, and isn't going to give you any power gains.
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Oh yes camshaft (my bad) cost about a grand for a performance one.
 
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NVP said:
Disclaimer: Many will probably hate me for the ideas discussed in this post.


This weekend I've been having a strong, strange urge... I've been fantasising about fitting a supercharger to my sexy black b****.

At an approximate £4k price tag it would pump it up to ~270-280bhp purely from fitting a 6/7psi supercharger and getting a live remap.

And then a couple further improvements to take it 300+ (new performance crank shaft would apparently add up to 20bhp etc.)

I was also looking at upgrading the brakes and possibly the suspension, although it's an M-Sport so I think the suspension should be fine as is.

Then throw on some nice BBS's and get a discrete front splitter and rear diffuser kit to aggy up the looks slightly, add a CSL bootlid with the curved lip spoiler, and nice clean angle eyes... Possibly even chav it up a bit more with a naked carbon fibre bonnet, I think it would go well with the black.


Those are my off the top ideas of what I fancy doing to my baby. The main problem I can see is who can I get to do a reliable install, I can't really find a reviewed supercharger that isn't made in the US, so finding a decent place to fit everything here may become expensive. (But then I think the total cost of all of these things is going to come close to maybe £6/7k anyway)

So... thoughts?
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Talk you out of it... ok i'll try.

You're a ****ing idiot if you thinking spending £4000 on mods on a 325ci is a good idea.

Sell your current car, combine the money and buy something faster. This new car will still be your own as it's your name on the V5. :p

Did that work? :p
 
Why is modding a 325 such a bad idea though? I know I could buy something more expensive and leave it stock performance wise and just customise the looks, but I find the idea of tuning what I have more appealing.
 
NVP said:
Why is modding a 325 such a bad idea though? I know I could buy something more expensive and leave it stock performance wise and just customise the looks, but I find the idea of tuning what I have more appealing.
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Same reason supercharging a 1.25 Fiesta is. If you want a Fiesta with pace you buy the 1.6 or ST you don't spend thousands doing it up.

Modding N/A is so expensive, insurance will go up loads, car will be much much harder to sell and be worth less.
 
But I'm not talking about a 318 or the like, the 325 is a very capable engine which is not far off the 330 for pace.
 
NVP said:
But I'm not talking about a 318 or the like, the 325 is a very capable engine which is not far off the 330 for pace.
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General rule of thumb is, if you want to make something faster, buy the stock fastest and if that isn't enough then mod that. It's utter ridiculous buying a lesser powered car and trying to make that fast when there are cheaper solutions available.
 
NVP said:
But I'm not talking about a 318 or the like, the 325 is a very capable engine which is not far off the 330 for pace.
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Okay, you are going to spend £7k, plus say an extra £500-£1000 a year on insurance to make it slower than an M3, and then when you go to sell it it'll be worth 1/3 less what it should be worth and the £7k you spent on it will be worthless.

It's going to cost you more in the long run than an M3 and be a worse car.

It's pointless.
 
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Peerzy said:
Okay, you are going to spend £7k, plus say an extra £500-£1000 a year on insurance to make it slower than an M3, and then when you go to sell it it'll be worth 1/3 less what it should be worth and the £7k you spent on it will be worthless.

It's going to cost you more in the long run than an M3 and we a worse car.

It's pointless.
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This. Buy an M3.
 
I thinkbthis is pretty pointless tbh
it isn't even goin to be a sleeper no one is going to mess with a BMW with a splitter and if they did there not going to be surprised if it kicks there ass

seeing as IMO creating a sleeper of some sort is IMO the only reason to turn a normal ish car into a absolute beast and as above your car is hardly slow but not top of the range IMO you have two sensible options
put money from your car and the mods together plus maybe some extra saving and buy a better BMW i.e m3/330i or keep your car but don't bother modding it

how much is a 325 ci second hand these days
what ever it is plus 6k-7k must buy you a m3 surely? Or near enough ?
 
Will it really be worth that little because of the modifications?

Surely if it's a nice example then it would hold it's value for longer? Considering how much they are dropping in price these days I would have thought a nice performance version could retain some value.

"M3" is banned from this thread :p I understand what you are saying though, and that is always an option, but customising mine is more preferable to me, even with a loss in value.

EDIT: It's not to "turn it into a sleeper"... I don't see the point in sleepers.
 
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Not really as simple as buying an M3 especially if he likes the way his 325Ci looks. He has a facelift E46 Coupe - they never made an E46 M3 in this bodystyle, the E46 M3 carried on with the prefacelift front end.

Supercharging M54's is reasonably common and doesn't massively increase the running costs, either. Servicing etc remains unchanged - M3's bring you into a world of much, much higher cost. Perhaps he doesn't want that?

His car is worth what, £6-7k? Selling it for lets be generous £7k and spending the extra £4k on an M3 gives him a budget of £11k. This doesnt buy a low mileage 04 plate M3 it buys a high mileage 02 plate prefacelift M3. And then you've got the massive extra running costs on top of this, especially if he's happy with the current running costs of his car.

An Inspection II for a 325Ci is £339. An Inspection II for an E46 M3 is £850.

Food for thought.
 
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