Supercharging. Should I?

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Vita

Vita

Soldato
Joined
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So it's been a while I have been thinking about doing this to my car. Actually since the last meet at power station but the pod meet made me think even more so. Issue is, I'm not sure if I want to risk it at the moment.

I've always wanted power in my car. I'd have to agree with those that say well you should have bought a more powerful car but my current e46 came up cheap and at a good price.

I've spoken to ess tuning about their vt1 centrifugal supercharger and they've said it's safe to use with my step auto box. I've spoken to others too regarding this and they've said it's fine as long as I don't run crazy power through it. 300bhp is safe and with the charger being centrifugal and not twin screw the power is linear in its delivery.

Now having said that, it would cost £4k all in. I love my car, it's sad to say I actually do enjoy it. I just wish it had More power. It would become a bit of a sleeper in sense. I could sell it and buy another model. But everything I've looked at 335d/Saab turbo x/subarus just seem a risk and most are higher mileage and in somewhat worse condition. My car is mechanically sound, I can work on it myself and just enjoy tinkering with it. I at the moment do think it's worth it but another side of me says what if things break. What if I could go 200k miles if it was left alone. Strap a charger on and it might break within ten.

I need advice and whether some of you think it's worth it or I should just enjoy it for what it is. Really unsure as I've never modded a car to that level.
 
Spending £4k on a supercharger conversion for a £2k 3 Series is ridiculous. Don't do it.

Save up for an E90 335i instead. Same 300bhp, but done right.
 
[TW]Fox;30046301 said:
Spending £4k on a supercharger conversion for a £2k 3 Series is ridiculous. Don't do it.

Save up for an E90 335i instead. Same 300bhp, but done right.
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Appreciate the advice. There are second hand kits around for £1k-2k mark but bits missing and unsure of the life they've had. The problem with the price is the fact it is expensive and £800 of it is import duty. I can purchase a e90, though I feel I can get many more miles out of my current car. Reading up on turbos/hpf worries me. I guess they're also out of the extended warranty period?
 
Don't see why not, nothing wrong with going out and doing something different :)

I'm sure it'll be a great experience and also fun to drive.
 
If your doing it yourself for the fun of it then go for it.

If you just want the extra power and as little work as possible then just buy another car.

Ive thought about doing the same to my mx5 but doing it yourself isn't easy and sticking to a budget is tough unless a good kit is available (and they are expensive for a decent one)

Personally I wouldn't bother.
 
reading what you say, i'd buy something real cheap for Drag racing, keep your BMW for normal driving ...search for an old banger on ebay with an mot and no rust of course, and just shove a bloody big motor in it .........work on it for a year in the garage.
 
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By all means do it if it's a hobby. But to do it because the car was cheap is nuts. Selling the car and buying another more powerful one will be cheaper and result in probably a more rounded car.
 
[TW]Fox;30046301 said:
Spending £4k on a supercharger conversion for a £2k 3 Series is ridiculous. Don't do it.

Save up for an E90 335i instead. Same 300bhp, but done right.
Click to expand...

Spot on.

£4K for the conversion alone I assume? What about up rating the brakes, suspension etc to match the new found power?

The automatic isn't the strongest out there, putting more power through it won't help its lifespan....

As Fox says, the 335i has all this done and properly by experts - BMW with all their know how - do you really think your £4K conversion would even come close?

The 335 will more than feed your power hunger and should you want more you remap it, it'll retain its value too, far better than pouring £4K into a £2k car that will still be a £2k car afterwards, don't kid yourself that this conversion will make your e46 more valuable or desirable to anybody other than a knuckle dragger with no sense.


I fail to understand how dropping say £6k on a high mileage 335 is perceived as a risk yet doing this isn't.....
 
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Scania said:
Spot on.

£4K for the conversion alone I assume? What about up rating the brakes, suspension etc to match the new found power?

The automatic isn't the strongest out there, putting more power through it won't help its lifespan....

As Fox says, the 335i has all this done and properly by experts - BMW with all their know how - do you really think your £4K conversion would even come close?

The 335 will more than feed your power hunger and should you want more you remap it, it'll retain its value too, far better than pouring £4K into a £2k car that will still be a £2k car afterwards, don't kid yourself that this conversion will make your e46 more valuable or desirable to anybody other than a knuckle dragger with no sense.
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I understand the cars value won't go up, it'll still be a cheap car even with a supercharger on. I don't tend to get rid of it anytime soon. I actually plan to keep it until it is no longer working, or financially viable to keep on the road. The charger is bolt on, so if I ever decided to sell the car or scrap it, I would take it off and sell it separately and possibly get half of the value of the charger back.

I can see the points some of you have put across. It would be nice to have the extra power, yet probably cost more in the long run if things break. Using my head, it would be even better to buy a car which was designed to have that much power in the first place. Yet reading reviews etc, just makes me feel that I'm being too cautious and that I'm missing out on this 'whole new experience' of strapping a charger to a 330i which 'transforms' it.
 
If you can do the work yourself then why not? If you can build up the parts list over time, then sure. If that's what you want to do, just do it.

But I did spend a fortune tuning an old motor right up, and with extra power, as said above, comes other things. Such as brakes and suspension. Bigger, more expensive discs, more expensive, grippier pads. Bigger wheels to accommodate the bigger brakes. More expensive tyres for the bigger wheels, and better quality as you need the grip.

Before you know it, you have spent well more than the value of the vehicle, just on the extra bits you need to accommodate the extra power, which itself costs double the vehicles value. You'll easily be £8k into the car, pretty quickly, which will still only be worth £2-3k. Where £8k might get you something with the power you want, and still be worth what you spent on it, at least at the point of purchase.

Once you add up all the costs, and the real costs, not just the cost of the kit, you'll soon find that you're probably not far off higher mileage (say 100k+) E46 M3's, or early E90 335i's that will just be, well, better. Sure, the 330i might be "transformed" after strapping the supercharger to it, but without the supporting mods, that transformation could quickly become rolling into a tree / field at some stupid speed. And even if not, it still wont be as special as an E46 M3. Or as nice as a E90.

I had full intentions of 'charging my V6 4motion when I got it. Then did the sums. Sold it, and bought an S4 with the power I was aiming for with the 4mo, but in a complete package. I am glad I did too.
 
Supercharging makes sense to me when there isn't a more powerful model in the range or the car is a unique model. So, an S2000 or a Mustang 5.0 or an Integra. It doesn't make sense to me when you can buy a more powerful version of the same car for less money and hassle.
 
I bought an MX-5 with the intention of supercharging it from Day 1. I then set about supercharging it and I spent at least the purchase price of the car again doing so and that was doing it "on the cheap" by doing all of the work, including the mapping, by myself.

I sourced many parts through owners club forums and so on and followed a path that has been followed countless times by many people so there was plenty of knowledge out there and a lot of tried-and-tested solutions to common issues.

I suspect that the E46 hasn't been supercharged all that much and so you risk finding yourself in a situation where you've hit an issue and either you're the first or nobody has documented their solution to that particular problem. I had something similar to this in that I was one of the first people to SC a MK2 with ABS, so the "common" intake pipework design just could not possibly fit. Others had been there before me but nobody had written up how they did it - so I wasted a LOT of money on silicone hoses until I found a solution that worked well both on paper and in the car.

Now, Mazda don't make a more powerful MX-5 else it would almost certainly have been cheaper for me to just go and buy one of those. BMW do make a more powerful car - the E46 M3 if you want an E46 or a newer 335i if you want something a bit newer. By the time you've faffed around with the ancilliary mods you will need - tuning/mapping, cooling system upgrades (definitely a concern on the already fragile E46 system), brakes and possibly suspension, you might as well have gone and bought the better car already.

An alternative to spending all that extra cash might just be to spend some of it on some track days and driver tuition. You'll probably be just as fast as if you'd fitted a supercharger and not had tuition - and that is something you can carry with you to every car you buy from then on...
 
You like your car now but by the time you've spent thousands making it more powerful you'll probably find yourself exposing any weak points of the car and hating it - cooling system might need refreshing/upgrading, gearbox, clutch, diff etc.
 
For that car, not worth it and it will probably be difficult.

For something like an MX-5 it's a different story, because it's a very light car and it makes it totally mental. Plus is "easy" to do and MX-5 generally don't go wrong.
 
I can kind of see the appeal, you clearly like you car and more power/performance is always nice, and with it being N/A there is only so much you can do before going FI.

However as suggested above, the remedial work required to uprate the braking, handling, cooling, etc, and then potential problems with reliability just outweigh the pros IMO.

I too would suggest just getting a faster base car.
 
Although I see the pros of getting the faster base car, I also see the fun of supercharging what you have.

It's different and it's fun. I feel that a 330i with a supercharger would be more fun than a standard 335i, but then you could always mod the 335i...

I spent only a little bit of money on my old WRX, the only reason I didn't mod it further was simply because I didn't want to break and then pay to fix it. Hence went up to the STi at the time and spent money on that.

If you could do it for £2k that would be a bit more acceptable, people spend that easily on modifying cars without any performance gain..
 
DRZ said:
I bought an MX-5 with the intention of supercharging it from Day 1. I then set about supercharging it and I spent at least the purchase price of the car again doing so and that was doing it "on the cheap" by doing all of the work, including the mapping, by myself.

I sourced many parts through owners club forums and so on and followed a path that has been followed countless times by many people so there was plenty of knowledge out there and a lot of tried-and-tested solutions to common issues.

I suspect that the E46 hasn't been supercharged all that much and so you risk finding yourself in a situation where you've hit an issue and either you're the first or nobody has documented their solution to that particular problem. I had something similar to this in that I was one of the first people to SC a MK2 with ABS, so the "common" intake pipework design just could not possibly fit. Others had been there before me but nobody had written up how they did it - so I wasted a LOT of money on silicone hoses until I found a solution that worked well both on paper and in the car.

Now, Mazda don't make a more powerful MX-5 else it would almost certainly have been cheaper for me to just go and buy one of those. BMW do make a more powerful car - the E46 M3 if you want an E46 or a newer 335i if you want something a bit newer. By the time you've faffed around with the ancilliary mods you will need - tuning/mapping, cooling system upgrades (definitely a concern on the already fragile E46 system), brakes and possibly suspension, you might as well have gone and bought the better car already.

An alternative to spending all that extra cash might just be to spend some of it on some track days and driver tuition. You'll probably be just as fast as if you'd fitted a supercharger and not had tuition - and that is something you can carry with you to every car you buy from then on...
Click to expand...

I agree with this.

I supercharged my MX5 too but that cost significantly less than £4k and it was quite literally a bolt-on kit which turned it into a great little car, since I'd already uprated other stuff as well.
 
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