www.WindingRoad.com is a free online magazine. This month's issue has a detailed discussion with BMW Mgineers about the design and performance of the engine.
Here are a few excerpts:
BMW lovers worldwide await nothing quite like they await an M3. Recently seen at the Geneva motor show, the fourth-generation M3 is at a base 420 horsepower at 8300 rpm by European standards, while North American calculations project a 414-horsepower rating according to M engineers in Munich. That’s up from 333 horsepower at the peak of the thirdgeneration North American M3 (343 brake horsepower in Europe). Torque gets pumped to 295 pound-feet at 3900 rpm, at least 251 pound-feet of that (85 percent) available from 2100 rpm up to the 8400-rpm rev limiter.
Head of M engine control units Herbert Bayerl points out that while the MS S65 ECU for the V-10 and new MS S60 ECU for the S65B40 (both created with Siemens) may look similar, the V-8’s brain gets
an upgrade that allows more than 200 million calculations per second via the three motherboard chips. Compare this to the former S54’s ECU, capable of up to twenty-five million calculations per second via the two motherboard chips, and you can already sense how much farther the new engine wishes to take the M3. Another piece of electrical wizardry is the new individual spark coil (one per cylinder) with integrated knock/misfire sensors.
Due to its shorter length, the weight of the engine is borne farther back in the engine bay, rear of the front axle, and actual chassis mounting points are two. Rather than switch to a dry-sump system, a wet-sump scheme—with one small sump forward of the front axle subframe and the larger sump farther back—is used, and there are just two oil pumps versus the three (two for the cylinders) on the S85 V-10. Oil from the factory is 11.1 quarts of Castrol 10W60, while each real-world oil/filter change requires 9.3 quarts of black gold.
Here are a few excerpts:
BMW lovers worldwide await nothing quite like they await an M3. Recently seen at the Geneva motor show, the fourth-generation M3 is at a base 420 horsepower at 8300 rpm by European standards, while North American calculations project a 414-horsepower rating according to M engineers in Munich. That’s up from 333 horsepower at the peak of the thirdgeneration North American M3 (343 brake horsepower in Europe). Torque gets pumped to 295 pound-feet at 3900 rpm, at least 251 pound-feet of that (85 percent) available from 2100 rpm up to the 8400-rpm rev limiter.
Head of M engine control units Herbert Bayerl points out that while the MS S65 ECU for the V-10 and new MS S60 ECU for the S65B40 (both created with Siemens) may look similar, the V-8’s brain gets
an upgrade that allows more than 200 million calculations per second via the three motherboard chips. Compare this to the former S54’s ECU, capable of up to twenty-five million calculations per second via the two motherboard chips, and you can already sense how much farther the new engine wishes to take the M3. Another piece of electrical wizardry is the new individual spark coil (one per cylinder) with integrated knock/misfire sensors.
Due to its shorter length, the weight of the engine is borne farther back in the engine bay, rear of the front axle, and actual chassis mounting points are two. Rather than switch to a dry-sump system, a wet-sump scheme—with one small sump forward of the front axle subframe and the larger sump farther back—is used, and there are just two oil pumps versus the three (two for the cylinders) on the S85 V-10. Oil from the factory is 11.1 quarts of Castrol 10W60, while each real-world oil/filter change requires 9.3 quarts of black gold.
