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Old 07-27-2016, 06:31 PM   #1 (permalink)
TimK
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Join Date: Jul 2016
Location: Near Newcastle, UK
Posts: 19

330i Rag Top - '05 BMW 330i M Sport
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DIY upper & lower partial grill blocks - 2005 330Ci convertible

Hi all,

New to the site but thought I'd share my progress on my 330i soft top - I've just made partial upper and lower grill blocks today and fitted them. It seems to me that the size of the grills and amount of air going through the grills is much more than needed for the climate here and heat generated by the engine.

I live in the North of England and have owned the 330i for about a year, I do sometimes get the roof down despite the British weather! It's a sweet car to drive, and having owned Diesels before it I love the 3 litre 6 cylinder straight 6 engine, hardly too eco friendly but it is fairly economical for the type of engine - 30+ mpg US on a highway trip.

It's a sound car, I have done lots of preventative maintenance to keep it running well, replacing the MAF sensor, eliminating air leaks (famous E46 BMW problem), new vanos seals, using premium tyres (Continental), premium fuel, it's been remapped to gain a few bhp and advance the timing slightly for mpg.

Being a facelift 330 it has a 6 speed gearbox and turns 2500rpm at 70mph, not too bad.

I recently tweaked the wheel alignment and changed the front and rear toe to close to zero, I have not done enough miles before doing the grill block to know how much difference changing the toe made, maybe 1mpg at highway (motorway) speeds - it was about 0.5 degrees toe in on the front and 0.7 on the rear, now close to zero at both ends but slightly toe in at the rear for stability.

Sadly I can't see much more low hanging fruit to mod the aero on the car - the underside seems well optimised, I don't want to change the looks or driving experience, and I don't want to block the brake ducts for insurance reasons/safety.

Anyhow, here are some pictures of the car and grill blocks:

Pose shot of the car, freshly waxed:



Upper grill block (about 65% block, with air duct added for intake)



Lower (about 70% block)



I made the upper block and duct from hardboard covered in Gorilla tape (fancy duck tape), and the lower block from cardboard covered in agricultural black film. Oh and some cable ties to hold them in place and more Gorilla tape to fix the blocks and round off the air vent for the intake.

For the upper block I made an air channel to feed the air intake at the top of the kidney grills. I had noticed when the engine had only been driven a few miles, the throttle response was better than if driven a bit longer. I also noticed inlet air temps a bit high after driving for a while - 110F when cruising at 65mph on a 70F day, along with some pinging from the engine. Since pinging will cause the car to pull timing I figure cooler air is best for my engine to optimise econony.

I wanted to keep some airflow to the radiator and aircon condensor, which sits right in front of the radiator, and into the engine bay to avoid plastic and rubber parts deteriorating too much, the exhaust manifolds sit to the side of the engine and give out quite some heat.

If I drive in a relaxed manner on the highway at 65-70mph using cruise control (in gear/ no coasting), with the occasional blast to overtake, I can NEVER hit 33mpg US, typically it is 30-31mpg US. The OBC is very accurate it seems for mpg. If I can achieve 33mpg US with these mods with my typical highway driving style then I will be happy - this is a milestone for me as it is 40mpg in UK measurements, so to achieve this from a 3 litre gasoline will make me very happy.

I have an Andoid head unit with a bluetooth OBD dongle, running torque, so can keep an eye on coolant temps and intake temps. I have also set an alarm on Torque, so if the coolant ever goes over 212F it will shout at me through the stereo - normal max. temperature is 205F and the car won't let it rise more than a couple of degrees before the fans coming on slowly.

A quick drive after fitting the grill blocks at highway speeds gave a couple more mpg more than I would normally expect to get, driving at 65-70mph, in two directions. I will know more about how well the grill blocks help with mpg in the next week as I drive some more on the highway.

I did some steady speed mpg testing at 40-55mph before the grill block, so I will repeat this to see if I can measure an improvement - at higher highway speeds of 60-75mph the benefit should be more of course.

Hope you find this interesting, be good to know what you think of this.

Tim


Last edited by TimK; 07-28-2016 at 07:31 AM..
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