Thread: S55 vs. S65
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      12-16-2013, 08:09 PM   #72
A418t81
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ezio View Post
couple things i wanna touch here with you.

first of all. there is nothing like taking a high revving motor with a exhaust through the gears while listening to the engine just scream. ever driven a Ferrari before ? go drive one and get back into your modded 335i with a I6 engine. you will find the car lacks in sound and special feel. i think you shouldn't just brush off the S65 like you do. there is still something special there. as a guy who loves the S65, i can still respect modded M4s and 335is for the power. and you should respect the S65 for the sound and high revving nature. both are "cool" in there own way.

honestly have you been around a lot of cars ? like at meets and stuff? do you find your 335i to be a really good sounding motor ? (honest question)

to me if i was going to mod. i would go grab a corvette. make more power cheaper. not to mention the sound.
Wow, my very own thread

Let's make something very clear: I really like the E9X M3. In fact, I love everything about it short the engine. I have tried to reason it out and basically force myself to buy one, but I just can't get over the relative lack of torque and performance that I'm expecting out of my daily driver. I do think the S65 is cool, but it just doesn't keep me interested in the long run. To me the seat of the pants performance is a let down. Granted, I am used to driving my 700+ hp GT-R, but the 335 with a few mods puts a lot more smiles on my face on the street than the M3 does. The track is a different animal all together, but the 335 and my new M3 are both going to be daily drivers that'll likely never see the track while the GT-R becomes the 1000+ hp race car.

Some of you guys may think that having a high revving V8 is like having a "cheap Ferrari" or maybe puts you closer to owning that dream exotic and I'm glad you like that, but if I wanted a Ferrari or Lambo, I'd get one (actually, I'd get a McLaren 12C, and still might). I prefer all out performance (with some respect to the dollar amount) than I do sound, or cache, etc. The S65 sounds glorious, but I find that gets old when it doesn't have the "bite" to back up the bark (relatively speaking.) Top end performance is ok, but the lack of mid and low range power really kind of sours the deal for me on regular roads. M3s feel more "special" as a whole than any 335 due to a lot of changes other than just the engine. The bushings transmit more road feel, etc. The 335 is boring in this regard, but I put up with it because I'm happy with the car otherwise.

I have been around, tuned, and raced high end performance cars my whole life.
I don't think my 335, or any BMW 6 cylinder is in the same league as the S65 aurally (few engines are, really), but that is of almost no concern for me. I didn't buy my 335 for sound. I bought it for its performance on the street, where it shines. 450+ ft/lbs of torque at the wheels at 3k rpm is quite entertaining. The S55 doesn't sound nearly as nice as the S65 either, but again it is a tradeoff that I have absolutely no problems making for the performance advantages.

My whole point when this got started was not to rag on the S65, but to say that the N54 is a very, very overbuilt engine for 300 hp. The rods, wrist pins, and ring lands are designed to take a LOT more power than 300 crank hp. The S55 will almost certainly be built with much, much higher quality, stronger parts than the N54, and should be good to power levels well above the established 700 whp (800+ crank hp) that the stock internals N54 powered vehicles are seeing now. Additionally, we already know what turbos the S55 has and while they aren't as large as say the Rob Beck setup available for the N54, they are substantially larger than the stock N54 turbos which have been pushed to nearly 500 wtq, and 450 whp themselves. Once the S55 mod scene has a little maturity, I think it'll be fairly straight forward to hit well above 500 hp/tq at the wheels on the stock turbos, but we shall see.

I'm sure a lot of you prev. gen M3 guys will disagree, and that's fine. I'll get off the S65's back to keep the peace. The F8X generation M3 finally fixed my reservations with the drivetrain that I've had and I'm very, very excited to get my car and see if it actually lives up to my admittedly lofty expectations
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