Photo: BMW
Along with the new BMW 3 Series Facelift and the G11 7 Series, the Bavarian manufacturer launched its latest 3-liter inline 6-cylinder petrol mill in the shape of the B58 engine. Fitted on the new 340i and 740i models, the new ‘heart’ is expected to take over from where the N55 left off but will it be capable of doing so?
Well, apparently not. That’s because a couple of changes were done to it, to make both more efficient, reliable and less expensive to build. The whole point behind the new B-family of engines was to make them as modular as possible, with up to 60% of the parts shared in between engines. As you can imagine, that will take a toll on something.
Since efficiency and power outputs have gone up, other corners had to be cut and it seems like tuners will have their hands full when trying to upgrade the B58 mill.
In stock guise, compared to its predecessor, the B58 will have 326 PS (320 HP) at its disposal and more torque at 450 Nm (332 lb-ft) compared to 400 Nm (295 lb-ft). Those achievements demanded some changes.
First of all, the engine now has shorter tubing with an air-to-water intercooler instead of the old system. The turbines went down in size and, therefore, extra grunt will be harder to squeeze out of them while the compression ratio also went up to 11:1 which is pretty impressive in the first place.
The intercooler will also be harder if not impossible to upgrade due to the fact that it is now integrated in the intake manifold which, in turn, will make meth injection systems a rarity on these cars as they are usually employed before the intercooler and not after it.
All things considered, it feels like BMW is definitely following a trend that is seeking to make engines less and less tunable. If we’re to look at turbocharged 3-liter mills alone you’ll find that the N54 twin-turbo setup was drastically more tunable than the N55 which, in turn, seems better from this point of view than the new B58. This could also be an explanation why the Germans decided to go with an upgraded version of the N55 engine on the M2 and not use the new engine for it, allowing people to tune it to further extremes.
Since efficiency and power outputs have gone up, other corners had to be cut and it seems like tuners will have their hands full when trying to upgrade the B58 mill.
In stock guise, compared to its predecessor, the B58 will have 326 PS (320 HP) at its disposal and more torque at 450 Nm (332 lb-ft) compared to 400 Nm (295 lb-ft). Those achievements demanded some changes.
First of all, the engine now has shorter tubing with an air-to-water intercooler instead of the old system. The turbines went down in size and, therefore, extra grunt will be harder to squeeze out of them while the compression ratio also went up to 11:1 which is pretty impressive in the first place.
The intercooler will also be harder if not impossible to upgrade due to the fact that it is now integrated in the intake manifold which, in turn, will make meth injection systems a rarity on these cars as they are usually employed before the intercooler and not after it.
All things considered, it feels like BMW is definitely following a trend that is seeking to make engines less and less tunable. If we’re to look at turbocharged 3-liter mills alone you’ll find that the N54 twin-turbo setup was drastically more tunable than the N55 which, in turn, seems better from this point of view than the new B58. This could also be an explanation why the Germans decided to go with an upgraded version of the N55 engine on the M2 and not use the new engine for it, allowing people to tune it to further extremes.
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