Quote:
Originally Posted by CanAutM3
Actually there is. A specialized plant with dedicated resources can have a much more focused approach and can pay more attention to details such as tighter tolerances. There is more to it than just romance.
That being said, I am not implying that the S55 will be less of an engine because of it.
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I know how a special plant works when we are talking about a small dedicated number of engines. I have been at the Cosworth facility in the UK and seen the assembly process of their F1 engines and road going engines (Like some Aston Martin and Ford Cosworth Duratec engines). However those are fairly small numbers, like a few hundreds or maybe low thousands a year, the S65 was made in 60.000 so it's hardly hand built.
To me, that indicates that the S65 and other M engines are mass produced on a assembly line, not hand built. Then the Munich assembly line has to be better than the one at the Steyr plant to make a difference.
The Munich engine facility makes 300.000 engines per year and the Steyr plant makes just over 1.000.000 engines per year, but with "only" 300.000 of those engines being petrol engines, the rest being diesels.
Overvierw over BMW plants:
http://www.bmwgroup.com/e/0_0_www_bm...rte/index.html
BMW Munich plant:
http://www.bmw-plant-munich.com/lowb.../en/index.html
Quote:
The engine production has three different assembly lines: one each for the six and eight-cylinder engines plus one for the special engines. On this latter line, highly flexible processes produce straight six and V10 cylinder highperformance engines for the M3, M5 and the M6 as well as twelve-cylinder engines for the 760i and Rolls-Royce.
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The above plant info hasn't been updated for some time it seems... And, looks like it's only the V12 of the above engines still being produced on the "Special assmbly line" at Munich.
BMW Steyr plant:
http://www.bmw-plant-steyr.com/
So far I haven't found any indications of such a low volume manufacturing process at Munich to compare with a true dedicated plant such as I witnessed at Cosworth's facility and assembly of Aston Martin engines etc. In fact it seems more like the special plant is there to assemble the "odd" engines that doesn't fit in the mainstream lines than it exists for higher tolerances etc.
This thread also shows that the S65 "sticks out like a sore thumb" compared to other BMW engines when it comes to clearances...
http://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=892838