FEATURE: BMW 440i B58 Stage 2

FEATURE: BMW 440i B58 Stage 2

At Phantom Tuning, we tend to look after lots of BMW’s and the B58 engine platform is no stranger to us. The B58 can be found in all of the 40i models as well as the Toyota Supra and Morgan Plus Six. This engine was the base for BMW’s new S58 engine, found in the G8X M Models and they share lots of compnents. The B58 is renowned for being very tuner friendly, so much so that Toyota felt that it could be the successor to the famous 2JZ engine. Subsequently, not only can we provide awesome power gains in stock form, we have also spent a lot of time on developing extra solutions.

What Were We Dealing With?

When this customer booked in his 440i online at our Bedford branch, it was safe to say that he had come to the right place. The vehicle came to us already stage 1 tuned, by a local firm who are well reputed as well as them having carried out some beautiful custom exhaust work. The car had an upgraded intake and was pretty much ‘stage 2 ready’.

The customer had booked online and chose the following extras:

Benchmark Dyno Time

Dyno Shot edited

We loaded up and strapped the car to the dyno, which, for most RWD cars, is a quick and easy process. We went through our standard checklist which includes a vehicle health check, fluid check, tyre check and a few other bits. Then we got to work!

The stock dyno run showed strong figures and an overall good tune from the other tuner. Stock figures for this car are 322bhp and 450nm. Their stage 1 tune with stage 2 mods after 3 runs were an average of 408bhp and 568nm. There looked to be a slight flat spot on torque delivery in the early RPM, but the peak figures were good and the datalogs showed that the vehicle was very happy and healthy.

We knew at that point, however, that we could offer the customer an improvement on torque and power delivery as well as larger peak figures. We took a read of the existing tune, in case we ever needed to revert back to it, flashed the vehicle to stock and cracked on with the job.

XHP Stage 3 Gearbox Tune

In the meantime, whilst working on the ECU calibration (we’ll get back to that later), we applied XHP’s stage 3 gearbox software. We’ve covered the benefits of gearbox tuning and went into some detail on XHP’s software for BMW’s in this post here.

Ultimately, without the gearbox tune, in certain gears (3rd and 6th for this gearbox), the TCU (transmission control unit – “brain of the gearbox”) will tell the engine to pull back on torque if it notices certain torque figures are exceeded – these are known as torque limiters.

When this happens, the vehicle will produce less torque and power at the wheels than it COULD put down. The torque limiters from factory on this car are set at 465nm. With a stock torque figure of 450nm, any marginal increase in torque will hit the torque limiters, meaning the car won’t make the desired power and torque in 3rd and 6th gear. For our dyno runs on the day, we used 5th gear, so there were no torque limiters reducing the power on Tuner X’s stage 1 remap or our stage 2 remap, as shown on the graph further down this post.

XHP Install

With XHP’s Stage 3 gearbox tune applied, not only can the customer not have to worry about being down on power and torque in 3rd and 6th, but the vehicle also has the following features:

  • Gear display in D mode
  • Approx. 25% faster shifts in D mode
  • Approx. 50% faster shifts in S mode
  • Rev-matched downshifting (throttle-blip)
  • True Manual Mode (no forced upshift at RPM limiter)
  • Instant paddle response time
  • Raised line pressure for better holding power
  • & more

Vehicle Coding

As well as the various drivetrain work, we carried out some software coding. This enabled the vehicle to offer certain features that were not selected as a factory option as well as enabling options not available at factory:

  • Video display on iDrive in motion – The ability to play films, series and other videos on the iDrive
  • Alarm beep on lock/unlock
  • Automatically fold mirrors when locking
  • MPerformance icons displayed on iDrive and dash cluster on startup
  • Tyre temperature display – From factory, non-M models only display tyre pressure
  • & more

Phantom Tuning’s Stage 2 Engine Software

Once all of the above was done, we flashed on our stage 2 solution for the BMW B58 engine. This software has been developed for all B58 variations.

Stage 1 and stage 2

With our stage 2 solution applied, we saw an increase of 34bhp and 27nm over the existing stage 1 solution with stage 2 mods. We also removed the torque delivery dip and saw stronger power delivery throughout the whole rev range (past 2000rpm).

It is worth noting that we also offer a stage 2+ solution for the gen 1 B58 engines. This is slightly different from our stage 2 solution as it accounts for the same uprated high pressure fuel pump that is found in the Supra (this is known as the TU fuel pump). The fuel pump at stage 2 is the limiting factor, so a stage 2 car with the uprated fuel pump (or a Supra with stage 2 mods) can acheive 470-480bhp on the stock turbo.

Remap Extras

Onto the extras. When we applied our stage 2 solution, we also applied our sports display calibration (above) and pops and bangs on sport mode only (video below). The customer also requested that we delete the cold start procedure as he was aware of how loud his car was since having the exhaust modified and didn’t want to upset the neighbours! Naturally, given the exhaust mods, we also deleted the GPF software and o2 code software.

Job Done! Future Plans…

That was us finished. A beatiful example of what a B58 engine is capable of with some relatively minor modifications. As mentioned, with an upgraded high pressure fuel pump (or if this was the B58 version in the Supra), we’d have seen 470-480bhp.

With that said, we are currently discussing internally, the potential to offer our future customers full-blown packages. It is likely that we will start with the popular engines that we see such as the B58. In short, we’ll be able to offer parts, fitting and tuning for 1 standardised package and price, based on which engine your car has. Stay tuned!

If you’ve a vehicle that you’d like us to remap, you can book it in online in less than 60 seconds! Just type in your reg here and follow the steps to book. Alternatively, if you’d like to discuss your requirements with us, call us here, send us a contact form message here or message us on our socials.

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