For a long time I have been looking at and dreaming of the CSL Intake sound and performance gains of Alpha-N. After modding so many BMWs and doing FI on them for my friends I realized more and more that i wanted to go down the road of NA power!

Well the owner of a ESS SC M3 CSL is a good friend of mine and when he heard the idea and dream of my OEM CSL INTAKE he offered me a great price on his I want to say THANK YOU to HAMED and if it wasn't for this gesture I would still be sitting here dreaming

Any way Here are the pics. I will try my best to document the complete install and show how i'll be doing the Alpha-N custom tune on the dyno. The Tune will be done by SAL at EVOLVE in the UK. Now if you dont know about EVOLVE and SALs work all you need to do is look on m5boards and m3forum and also just ask the community in the UK and Europe! They are a great bunch of guys and SAL and the gang do some awesome tuning.

Ok so lets start with the pics of the Parts that will be used in the install of the OEM CSL Intake....

OEM CSL Intake





Intake hose on the left connects to the bottom of the CSL Intake and the one on the right connects to the flap and intake hole in the bumper




Fresh New BMC OEM Air filter


Intake flap, I have modded it to stay open permanently as in this retrofit the flap will not work with the rpm as I need the CSL DME for that and I CANT BE BOTHERED. I spoke to a few CSL Owners and they say they remove the flap completely most of the times. The Hose connects to the intake hole in the CSL bumper and the other end goes into the flap snorkel



New shorter OEM CSL Dipstick and tube. Many other people who are doing the same mod over on m3f with the REPLICA Intake said they just bend the oem M3 dipstick tube but I hat that kinda ****. You wana do something you do it right!!!



Bracket for bottom of intake


THE CSL Does not run a MAF (instead it uses an air intake temp sensor)as it runs on ALPHA-N SW. In this case SAL @ EVOLVE recommended I use the OEM CSL AIT Sensor. Fits perfectly!

Vacuum Hose as the regular M3's is a different shape and length so it cannot be bent and made to fit


Starter cable bracket, the one on the CSL Intake was broken


As my car is SMG I had to get the OEM CSL SMG Reservoir tank and the bracket for it too



Well fella's one thing I can tell you is that this install was delayed for a few weeks as the cars in the body shop getting a full OEM STYLE respray and should be done by Satruday or latest Sunday. The I take her to the workshop to get the Intake installed along with the headers and EVOLVE tune.

 

Paint job done! Picking it up tomorrow morning from the body shop and taking it directly to the tech shop for the install of the CSL Intake and AP headers. My car is euro spec so we will see what kinda gains I can get from the AP headers SS resonated X-Pipe being installed too to reduce the rasp. All i need now is a nice muffler.

Once i take the car to the tech I will read the DME and send it off to EVOLVE for the ALPHA-N tune on 91. Later on we'll be doing a 93 tune too once I can get hold of some 93 fuel. We only have 91 at pump in Bahrain I was thinking I'll just buy some VP Racing 99 (euro) octane unleaded fuel just for Sal@Evolve to make me a 93 tune. Updates with pics and vids coming soon.

 

Ok Folks here we go:

First of all the micro filter housing needs to be removed, sorry no pics of that but you can find a DIY on the forums....

Two before shots of the engine bay



First thing, remove the SMG salmon relay or disconnect the battery if your car is an SMG. This will prevent the SMG pump priming if you open the door. This can cause SMG fluid to spill out of the pump and then you'll need to do bleeding all over again.


Remove your after market or OEM intake first. Sorry i didn't get more pics as it was hot and I wanted to get as much done as I can today


Remove the two nuts on the manifold bracket



Then Unplug the hoses below the OEM intake manifold




Unclip the battery battery cable bracket


Unclip the clamps on the throttle body boots as well. Then OEM intake manifold can come out easily.



Install small bracket under the OEM CSL Intake and install the battery cable bracket for the CSL on to the intake as well




OEM CSL intake installed same way the OEM manifold was removed. Just requires a little pushing and nudging. That newer BMC air filter was a tight tight fit so im sure no debris is getting past that filter.



New Position of OEM dip stick after bending it. I decided to keep the OEM dipstick on the recommendation of my tech and members on here for ease of use.


Plug in the OEM CSL SMG fluid reservoir. this picture shows the bracket of the smg tank on an OEM CSL that happen to be in the garage at the time


CSL SMG tank positioned on my car


OEM CSL Ducting, this is gona be a tough to get installed but we'll do it. Gona remove the bumper in the morning


The install is far from done and was much tougher than we anticipated. It wasn't tough tough but we had to adjust some things and move things around a bit to accommodate it.

More to come tomorrow. Headers will be installed in the morning and oem DME file has already been emailed to SAL @ EVOLVE. We have poor quality fuel in Bahrain, 91 US so the tunes not going to be that aggressive. I will however have a tune done for 99 octane euro fuel for times when i use VP or TORCCO 99 octane.

 

Here's an update from yesterday and today

Intake installed






All ducting installed







We had to remove the driver side fan shroud as it cannot be installed along with the Intake snorkel and flap housing



Some Water wetter and OEM BMW coolant and distilled water going in to the cooling system as it was flushed out in preparation for the summer heat


The real CSL ESS SCed on the right and my car on the left


Just waiting on the SW from SAL @ EVOLVE now. I still have to install the SS resonated X-Pipe and do the radiator flushing and also ordered new O2 sensors for the headers as one of mine is faulty.

 

Intake installed and tuned by Sal@Evolve! The car feels awesome! I also replaced my oem euro headers with AP ones and my God the sound is gorgeous! WOW! The car just pulls and pulls. Sal will be doing a dyno custom map for me soon. Thank you Sal and everyone here too for the guide! BRILLIANT your gona love the tune and the airbox! I hope i can get some nice cams next! I'm addicted to NA power now.

 

Do u have any videos

 

I'll take some soon

 

nice parts!

 

Thank you

 

Well guys Sal didn't let me leave the dyno (dyno jet) till we finished my tune. With up to 50c/122f intake air temps the car made constant 295 to the wheels! I forgot to remove the engine cover so i'll do that this week and dyno it again next week so i can get rpm and torque readings. In one of the runs the car made 298whp. All of the figures are SAE. These are awesome power figures for our crazy hot temps and $#@!ty fuel! I was using 91 with torco octane booster. I will post results tomorrow with dyno sheets. Thanks to my dear Brother Sal @ Evolve.

Vids...
http://youtu.be/G8DUMs_CHw0
http://youtu.be/2D2aNAkH7eA
http://youtu.be/bm5bqlfLJFQ

Drive by vids coming this weekend.

 

wow nice grab on getting an oem csl intake! did you remove the flapper or leave it on

 

Thanks, Flappers off of course.

 

i figured! any before and after dyno?

 

I have my dyno results but dont know how to post them up. I'll ask my friend to save it as a jpeg. Before dyno on intake only was 286 whp and now 298 whp. BUT the before dyno was done in very cool weather. The after in very very hot weather with a small fan cooling the car, in other words very poor cooling.

I will be dynoing the car again as soon as I can get an appointment with the dyno with 4 powerful fans and 4 AC's, thats the only way I'll get to dyno with minimal heat soak.

 

even with the high temps those are very nice gains!