BMW E34 535i | M30 Intake Manifold Flip | 4K

This is an experiment I've been wanting to go through for some time. This was for my 1992 BMW 535i 5-speed but this can apply to other M30 powered vehicles. I'm just modeling after Alpina's design because they obviously had a reason for doing it themselves. It just made sense for me. The M30 is a great , reliable engine and this method just seems to make it run even better than it already does. What we have now is an M30 that pulls air from the colder side of the engine bay as BMW designed just about all of their i6 engines.

In addition to the colder intake temps we also have a direct air passage into the cylinders, making the engine not have to work as hard to breathe compared to the original design. Please understand also that my car was already modified beforehand, so I may have experienced amplified gains compared to a stock M30. Also I have been running a Mark D'sylva performance chip for years, which was intended for a stock car, so I'm sure a tuned car would benefit even more, hence why I'm planning on going with a standalone ECU in the future as mentioned in the video.

I cannot give an accurate figure on gains as I have never dyno'd the car. But based on the 10+ years daily driving this car and the modifications I've done during that time, this one was probably the most impactful. I would guess that I'm making at least another 30 foot pounds of torque and horsepower figures probably being a little behind that since we know M30s are naturally torque oriented. These estimates are to the crank and I'm basing them off how the car reacted to other mods I have done in the past such as a bimmerheads 284 camshaft and Ireland engineering headers.

If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them. Thanks!