535i Cam and chip

[Rory535i]

Hi, i have an '88 535i and i want to put a cam and chip in it. Can anyone suggest the best combination to go with and value for money etc?? what kind of power increases can i expect? the car is always run on at least 95 octane fuel, sometimes 98. Also what's the maximum I can skim off the head because I'd like to increase the compression ratio and where can i get hold of a thinner head gasket? thanks for any help. oh yeah, one more thing. I put 17" wheels on the car not so long ago and i was getting wheel wobble at around 50-60mph. it's also lowered 50mm. i was told to get hubcentric rings and i did but it didn't completely fix the problem. the car has new shocks and brakes and the bushes appear ok. could it be tie rod ends? i'm all out of ideas and it makes the car feel like an old dog when the wobbles start!

[Jon K]

Hi, i have an '88 535i and i want to put a cam and chip in it. Can anyone suggest the best combination to go with and value for money etc?? what kind of power increases can i expect? the car is always run on at least 95 octane fuel, sometimes 98. Also what's the maximum I can skim off the head because I'd like to increase the compression ratio and where can i get hold of a thinner head gasket? thanks for any help. oh yeah, one more thing. I put 17" wheels on the car not so long ago and i was getting wheel wobble at around 50-60mph. it's also lowered 50mm. i was told to get hubcentric rings and i did but it didn't completely fix the problem. the car has new shocks and brakes and the bushes appear ok. could it be tie rod ends? i'm all out of ideas and it makes the car feel like an old dog when the wobbles start!

For chip I think everyone here will recommend EAT, Mark's chip. For cams, you may just want to get a regrind if your cam lobes are in good shape because a new cam is pretty expensive. The wheel wobble at 50 - 60 could be the infamous lower control arm bushings, but it could also be tie rod ends, take it apart and look.

[shogun]

very reputed company among BMW drivers in Germany.
Don't buy the cheap copies which are sometimes sold on the auction houses worldwide.

link to Landzer-Motorsport

[632 Regal]

they have chips for my 3.0 but I cant read anything about them ...lol

[Incantation]

the wobble is caused by the thrust arm bushings.. i have the same problem and am going to be replacing the upper control arms to fix it.

[nsbone_1988_520i]

For chip I think everyone here will recommend EAT, Mark's chip. For cams, you may just want to get a regrind if your cam lobes are in good shape because a new cam is pretty expensive. The wheel wobble at 50 - 60 could be the infamous lower control arm bushings, but it could also be tie rod ends, take it apart and look.

How dow you regrind cam? how to determine the angle and so forth?

[Paul in NZ]

there are guys here who have had cams on the ir 535,jeff martin and quentin to name a few....

[GAM]

Make sure the chip is tuned/programmed for the cam you install. The ones you buy off the shelf are designed for the basic engine configuration.

[Robin-535im]

http://www.bimmer.info/forum/showthread.php?p=44838

FYI: I've got what I think is a 274 regrind, Martin has a 284 regrind, and Jeff has a 294 in his Metric Mechanic head.

I notice the power band is more in the mid range now with my cam (90 535im). I have less oompf above 5k RPM than I used to, but more in the 2k - 4k range.

If you want to upgrade the cam, I would think about a 274 or 284 regrind (meaning they take a stock cam and take some off the small side of the lobe to make the relative rise height higher, instead of starting with a cam with a higher height to begin with - make sense?) Talk to Mark D'Sylva about a custom chip to match the cam. Don't know if he has a "cam-profile-chip" or not but he can burn you more than one chip and his prices are very reasonable considering the quality of his product.

HTH

Robin