Page 3 - BMW

The muscle car is a simple recipe written by Detroit in the 1960s. Start with one heaping cup of fire-breathing power plant. Add two rear wheels slinging the power to the road and a manual transmission to taste, then garnish with a sleek, sexy shell. Simple, yet effective. Like any simple recipe, though, someone always comes along with the artisan take. The result is essentially the same, but with a waft of complexity and pretension, much like the E6X M5 and M6.

BMW isn't the first thing that comes to mind when discussing muscle cars, but the formula fits. One screaming 5.0L V10 at the front, power sent to the rear wheels, and one big grin gleaming through the tire smoke. Like their American cousins, the Deutsche Braun Bimmers need adequate cooling to perform their best. Specifically, they

BMW's M division is renowned for delivering the utmost pinnacle of automotive performance. That's no secret. For decades, the letter M has become synonymous with the perfect distribution of performance and luxury, with the M3 topping the charts in the compact class. It's the benchmark in terms of enthusiast vehicles. Being a driver's car means, though, means that we enthusiasts can't keep our hands out of the engine bay. We need to fiddle and tweak even the likes of the G8X M3/M4 until it perfectly matches our tastes. That tinkering typically starts with the intake system.

BMW designed the S58's intake system to work independently and in perfect harmony within the engine ecosystem. Simply put, both turbos get their own intake. Before we can make our updates to the system, though, we needed

If there's one car that most enthusiasts will never get sick of, it's the M3. Every six years or so, surrounded by excitement and anticipation, BMW bestows upon us the latest benchmark for performance sedans. We all want to know how BMW is going to raise the bar. The 6th generation of the M3 continues that tradition, but this time we here at Mishimoto wanted in on the action. So we bought one.

Everyone, say hello to the latest addition to the Mishimoto fleet, a Portimao Blue Metallic clad 2021 M3 Competition, complete with a Silverstone and black interior. The Competition package equips the M3 with a distinct set of wheels wrapped in Pirelli P-Zeros, more aggressive styling, and most importantly, an additional

It's strange the path that automotive technology takes sometimes. Typically, it's a trickle-down effect. Top-tier race vehicles and techno-packed supercars are first in line for the latest and greatest gadgets. In the case of the dual-clutch transmission, it was a VW Golf (well, technically an R32) that was responsible for the trickle-up of the modern DCT into sports cars, like your F8X M3 or M4. Even with a non-conventional path to the M3, the Getrag paired with the S55 still needs to regulate temperature to operate to its true potential.

Why does the transmission temperature on the F80's DCT matter? Simply put, the excess heat can wear the oil in the transmission prematurely, which diminishes the oil's lubrication properties. The DCT is, in essence, a clever combination of an automatic and manual transmission. However, instead of a torque converter, there is a pair of clutches that split duties between the gear ratios, most commonly split between odd and even gears. These clutches

Oil is the lifeblood of any vehicle. Its lubrication properties keep all the metal bits inside of the engine from shredding each other to dust. While the M3 and M4 rise above just about every other run-of-the-mill commuter car, nothing knocks them down a few pegs quite like overheated oil or oil that finds its way out of the system.

The M3 is all about balance, as we went over in our intro post. For that reason, the engineers at BMW incorporated

When it comes to sports sedans, enthusiasts and automotive muggles alike can easily recognize the pinnacle of the segment"the BMW M3. It's not much of a surprise since the Bavarians have been pouring just about every ounce of their engineering prowess into the M3 since 1988 to become the benchmark. The F80 is the latest iteration of BMW maintaining the bar.

Balancing the Force

Balance is the name of BMW's game. The general premise behind the F80 is being the best all-around, top-tier mid-sized sports sedan. Since it's a BMW, they did most things right, but some compromising took place to bring balance to the force.