theCARhack

The beautiful alpine white E92 M3 came to us directly from the dealer with only a few test miles on it. The owner researched the market for months before ordering up a pretty basic M3-- with only the DCT option box ticked. His vision was to tailor the car to his specifications with help from the aftermarket, and your friends at VRPerformance.

Before the car even hit these shores we met with the customer to feel out what he wanted from the end product. It took weeks of research, phone calls, emails and face time to formulate a plan.

Power was definitely on the top of his wish list and so we tackled it first. There are several options to free up horsepower without resorting to forced induction, and we went for all of them. Think of an engine as a giant air pump-- sucking air in through the induction and pumping it into the internals and out the back through the exhaust. Power comes from squeezing and then combusting as much air and fuel as possible. More air in and out, more power.

We used our trusted source for cold air intakes, Advanced FLOW Engineering (aFe), to open the inward air flow up for us.

According to their website, "In recent testing this intake produced an astounding 15hp and 13lbs. x ft. of torque while outflowing the factory intake by 85%. age engineers also tested the on-road intake temperature of this intake compared to the factory intake. The age intake had a lower intake temperature than stock."

Here are a couple of graphs to back up their claims, first the power curves:

And the flow chart:

Here the unit is installed in the customer's car-- it's a tight fit, but well worth the effort.

And can't forget the little air scoops behind the kidney grill:

Next up, we need to get the extra air out...