[FemmeT]

Hi guys,

My car is no E46 but I have been reading this forum for a long time because it's the best source for information on M52/M54 forced induction. I'm very excited now my Alpina Roadster S is in Norway at ESS for a TS2 treatment and I'd like to share my experience with you.

First some information about the car. The Alpina Roadster S was produced between 2004 and 2006 and is based on the Z4 3.0i. The engine is completely different however, based on the S52B32 which was used in the US E36 M3. Engine displacement was increased to 3,35 litres and Alpina managed to increase the power to 300hp, though most of the cars deliver around 310hp on the dyno (I haven't dynoed my car). It doesn't like to be waked in the morning and the 'laufkultur' is not as perfect as the much newer N52 but is has real character. It is also rev happy up to 7200rpm and doesn't lose much power above 6300rpm where maximum power is achieved.

I bought my Roadster S in april 2006 from a German BMW/Alpina-dealer when it was two years old and had driven only 6000km. The car is number 46 out of about 370 cars made. I soon started to add mods which eventually grew into a long list. Performance mods include a Drexler Motorsport LSD with 3.46:1 final drive ratio (stock 3.23:1), Mov'it 6-piston 380mm brakes, custom made 4-way adjustable shock absorbers and springs by Reiger Racing Suspension, uprated suspension bushings, lightweight Recaro Pole Position seats with Schroth harness belts and a StrongStrut strut tower bar. The car has been repainted and several cosmetic modifications where done: Z4M bonnet, aero side skirts, aero diffuser, quad exhaust, etc. Overall it's a well balanced package that just needs more power.

This is how I bought the car:

And this is what it looked like in March of this year:

One of the downsides of having an Alpina is the non existence of off the shelf engine upgrades. Thanks to its resemblance to the M52 and M54 engines it should e possible to fit a supercharger for this type of engines with only minor physical modifications. I have been wanting the ESS twinscrew the moment I read about its existence. After several attempts to schedule a custom conversion in Norway, which failed because the shop doing all the mods on my car was taking much longer than planned, I was finally ready to deliver the car to ESS on the 6th of October.

Because it was a 1250 km drive to Norway I decided it was the best way to spread the journey over two days and to leave for Puttgarden, where a ferry leaves to Denmark, on saturday evening. I washed the car, packed my stuff and left for the 500km drive at 19.00h. The weather conditions were perfect with no rain so there would be no trouble driving high speeds on the Autobahn. I had a TomTom navigation device at hand as a backup and to accurately measure real speeds. I have driven it many times on top speed before but I never measured the actual speed. The car accelerated easily to 260km/h. After several tries I managed a top speed of exactly 270km/h, which made me happy because the official top speed is 265km/h with soft top and 270km/h with hard top according to Alpina.

Ready to leave:

First pit stop:

That's me with my new toy :

After four hours I arrived at the hotel, averaging a speed of 146km/h. Not bad since about one fifth of the route was off the Autobahn and there were also several lengthy construction works with speed limits of 60-80km/h. Obviously driving this hard was not good for fuel economy, which averaged 16,4l/100km.

The next day it was raining. I only had to wait five minutes to get on the ferry. After 45 minutes I arrived in Denmark at 12.00h and started to drive all way up to Norway through Sweden, which wasn't all that exciting because of the bad weather and low speed limits of 110-120km/h. Eventually I reached the city of Halden at 20.00h. From there on it would be about 30km to ESS the next day.

Queued up for the ferry:

Leaving Germany:

Somewhere in Sweden close to the Norwegian border:

On monday morning the weather had turned around to beautiful blue skies. ESS is located in the rural area of Aremark. I knew finding their shop was going to be a little challenging because the streets had no names in this area. Instead they use the name of the property as the address are something like that. Google Maps, TomTom and the MK4 nav have no idea how to deal with that. I asked for instructions at a nearby petrol station and the guy behind the counter instantly recognized what I was doing there even before I mentioned the name ESS . The scenery and roads where incredibly beautiful with the autumn coloured trees and lakes everywhere. They should consider changing some of the roads into a one way toll road with no speed limits and call it the Aremarkring . Following the map which I bought the petrol station and with the help of Hans I eventually found the ESS site, which was near a big country house. Hans was not there and Asbjorn was in the US. I had a talk with someone who looked like the gardener and had a look around the countryside. After 20 minutes someone arrived who did assembly work. He showed me around and I got to see all the beautiful pieces of the twinscrew kit. There were several interesting cars inside, one of them an E30 with M5 V8 and a new M3 with some missing parts under the hood.

There was also a dog but it was naturally aspirated and the only mod looked like a restrictor on the dog's air intake:

I was given the keys to a VW Caddy so I could catch the train from Halden to the Oslo airport where my flight would leave at 18.00h. It's a strange feeling to leave your beloved car 1200km from home . The Norwegian trains were comfortable and clean and Oslo has a very nice airport. I arrived in Amsterdam, took the train home and got there at 22.30h.

I called Hans yesterday and he had already been working on the car. There was some issue with the fuel rail but he did not expect a lot of trouble getting the other parts to fit on the Alpina engine. When everything turns out well the car should be ready in two weeks.

 

[FemmeT]

Thanks guys.

Norway is a great country to visit. It's very different the Netherlands, which is just as flat as gets and very crowded. Besides the beautiful landscape, Norway has other assets too. When we arrived two years ago in Kristiansand for our vacation it was like all of Scandinavia's female beauty had gathered there . The Danish, Swedish and Norwegian languages are great fun if you can understand Dutch, English and German. There are many similarities, but still it is very difficult to understand full sentences and as soon as the people start talking I have no clue what they are saying. The people are very kind and they speak English very well, even the older people.

 

[FemmeT]

This thread brings back some great memories ( well most of it anyway).......

Stunning car m8!!:drool: I remember that location well ....ESS secret HQ:4ngie: Only thing was that i had to wait for AJ at the train station and he was late...:tsk: Anyway that silver polo caddy was my transporter as well..
AJ was even going on about how great the diesel engine in the polo was....:rofl:

Did you uncover any other future secrets....:excited::4ngie:

Their secret HQ is impossible to find without local intelligence. I actually drove up the hill where it should be according to the guy from the petrol station, but only saw this country house and a building with two horses on it and I couldn't believe it was there. Ofcourse I should have picked up the hint - they are actually breeding ponies inside :idea: .

Usually I hate diesel engines but in this case it was just a utility vehicle and its performance wasn't too shabby. It was also equipped with a faulty wheel bearing to increase the sense of speed :excited: .

The E92 M3 obviously is there for a reason.

I think I have read your story about the short lived TS3. I hope your are doing well.

 

[FemmeT]

Hi Maestroxl, you should post your car here (only real petrol heads, no caravan towers, school kids and other disturbing elements like on the Autoweek forums). I haven't heard about other twinscrews in NL either.

 

[FemmeT]

and the aggressive (but probably fairly comfortably-riding) look of the suspension

The suspension is actually much more comfortable than the stock suspension. I specifically asked for a setup that would be compliant with imperfect road conditions because that is the type of roads where I experience most of the driving thrills. The shock absorbers were made and setup by a company called Reiger Suspension, located just 15km from where I live. It's a no-nonsense company and only supplies to motor sport teams where performance, durability and flexibility are the things that count. Well known clients are the Ford WRC, Suzuki WRC and BMW X-Raid teams. Reiger also supply many privateers in different disciplines from rally-raid trucks down to Group N rally cars, quads and moto cross.

I have been driving on many challenging roads in the Alps, the Eiffel (the area that surrounds the Nurburgring), the 'Ring itself ofcourse and Autobahns (that have greatly varying road conditions) and so far I have been very happy with the setup.

Photos:

The brakes were a story by itself. First we tried a 4-piston 342mm set but it was impossible to fit the Alpina wheels (the wheels would stick out of the fenders). I absolutely wanted to keep the Alpina look and without the Alpina Dynamic wheels that would be unsuccesful. At the end we had to send a wheel to the factory so Mov'it could make accurate measurements. By using 380mm discs (with the caliper further away from the heart of the wheel) they were able to make the brakes fit with minimal clearance between the wheel spokes and caliper. Top job by Mov'it and Dutch importer Dick Hoekendijk.

 

[FemmeT]

It's the new Sony Alpha 900 with Carl Zeiss 24-70 f/2.8.

 

[FemmeT]

Any Updates?!

Stock power was very good at about 320hp. Asbjorn didn't expect any serious fitment issues. That's all I know for now (last update on Tuesday).

 

[FemmeT]

The hardware is done and Asbjorn is working on fine tuning the software. It develops around 370HP at the wheels @ 7 PSI boost up from 270RWHP. That equals to ~435HP at the crank with a 15 percent correction factor for drivetrain losses :str8pimpi .

I will be shooting a video of the car in the Norway.

 

[FemmeT]

Thanks guys for all the comments.

I can't believe it's already almost a week ago I picked up the car in Norway. I decided to travel to Norway by car because I wanted to make a video and I wouldn't be possible to carry the gear back home in the small trunk of the Z4. I though about installing ESS' version of KITT but it was too expensive so I asked my friend Tom and fellow Z4 driver to travel to Norway so he could drive the car while I was handling the camera . We left on Thursday for the 1100km drive to a place called Uddevalla in Sweden, two hours away from Aremark where ESS is located. Everything went well although the speeds were a lot lower this time because most part of the Autobahn between Osnabruck and Hamburg is speed limited during the day. On the boat to Denmark I wanted to eat soup so badly I served myself something which later turned out to be a sauce (my understanding of the German language needs improvement). We arrived in Uddevalla at 21:30.

The next day we headed off to ESS' secret countryside HQ (which actually is not difficult to find if you have been there once). We arrived a bit earlier than expected by Hans. The car was parked outside with some test equipment still attached to it. We had a look at the engine bay, which looked very nice. Two Norwegian guys where there to have a 120d tuned to 215hp and we talked about the outrageous car prices and speeding tickets in Norway (one of the guys once got in jail for speeding). Cars in the Netherlands are expensive but in Norway it is pure theft. It's easily recognizable by the cars people drive that Germany and Sweden have a domestic car industry while countries like the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway don't, so the governments of these countries have no incentive to keep car taxes down to stimulate employment.

Asbjorn's 850i in pristine condition:

After a bit waiting Hans took the car for a final test of the lambda values and I took place in the passenger seat. The cold start was rough, like it has always been due to the aggressive camshafts in the Alpina engine and the need to comply with emission regulations. While Hans was warming up the engine it was obvious the car would run perfectly normal and very smooth at low speeds. The sound of the supercharger was barely noticeable. After the engine was warmed up, Hans launched the car uphill in second gear with very impressive acceleration.

After we returned to the shop we hang around there and talked about all kinds of things. Hans and Asbjorn are really cool guys and it's obvious they know a lot about these things. We hade a ride in a twinscrewed 520i automatic Asbjorn was working on. The performance of the car was very good 'considering there is no engine in it' (Asbjorn's words). Hans checked the fault codes of my Alpina B10 3.2 (there where vague German messages appearing on the display which I couldn't read because of pixel failures) and Asbjorn made use of this opportunity to read out the engine software of the B10. I had a look at the dyno graph for the first time and I was very impressed with the torque curve. I love the way it builds power all the way to the redline at 7200rpm. The torque improvement at lower revs is good but you still have to have to push it to extract maximum power.

It was already getting dark when I had my first test drive with Tom. I didn't push it very hard because of the wet conditions but I was already very impressed. The throttle response is very good and power delivery is just perfect. It's the closest you can get to a high revving engine without having one. We finally left ESS at 17:00 and drove to the hotel in the nearby city of Halden. We used the evening to shoot video at the parking of a shopping mall and the road nearby a very cool looking factory with lots of steam coming out of it. The next day we filmed on the road from Halden to ESS untill sun was set. We visited the Swedish customs where a smart guy pointed out my last name is an English verb and my first name means woman in French... I had some fun on the road to Goteborg, Sweden. The car is so fast, it's like a translocator in a shooting game. You shift down, push the throttle and the next moment you are in a different place. The engine feels powerful yet refined. If Alpina would still be making crazy fast cars like in the eighties this would be part of their lineup.

The next day we travelled home from Goteborg in Sweden. The roads in Sweden were just empty. No one was there, so it was difficult to obey the speed limits of only 110-120km/h. When we arrived in Germany we joined the millions of Germans who decided to drive from Hamburg to Osnabruck on a Sunday evening. I managed to do a few runs to 7000rpm (~280km/h). Tom was behind me pushing the B10. It's not the fastest car on the planet but it's certainly not slow with about 274HP. Everytime I pressed the throttle I opened a gap of several hundred meters in just no time. The car moves so easily between 120 and 180km/h in sixth gear it's just incredible. You need very little space to pass other cars who are driving at higher speeds.

 

[FemmeT]

I haven't driven it a lot since we arrived back home. There is a knocking noise coming from a diff when accelerating, which could be a broken hardy disk. I will have the car seviced next week.

I haven't made a lot of pictures this time. The photos in these posts are made by Tom. I'm still working on the video. It takes a lot of time to get in right. I wasn't able to make all the shots I wanted but still I think it's going to be nice. Here a some screen captures:

 

[FemmeT]

The dealer has inspected the differential. The bad news is that the knocking sound really comes from the rear axle and not from a hardy disk / flexdisk or something else easily replaceable. I will have to send the axle back to Drexler Motorsport for a rebuild. The car has been involved in an accident which happened just before the grand makeover of my car. The left rear suspension was damaged in this incident. All parts have been replaced or upgraded except for the rear axle which passed visual inspection.

The preview video is now available @ http://ilija.nl .

amazing photos, what kind of lense are you using?

These were not my pictures this time. The camera was a Canon 40D with Canon EF-S 10-22mm F/3.5-4.5 USM lense. I don't know what other gear Tom was using.

all that means is he needs to go back and get more boost :eeps:

With current dirty and wet road conditions and temperatures close to 0°C traction is more of a problem than lack of power .

Going back to Norway is not a bad idea.

This a picture from my vacation two years ago in Norway with the car somewhere on top of a 25km tunnel (Norwegians really like building tunnels, if they see rock they want to tunnel through it even it's only to create a shortcut of a few hundred meters ). It was still in original state. You can see how much has changed since then:

 

[FemmeT]

Hi guys,

It's been a while. After many months of hard work I'm finally launching the Alpina Roadster S Supercharged project site. The site contains full descriptions and photo galleries of all mods on my car and features a video we shot on location in Norway after collecting the car at ESS Tuning. Check it out at http://modgarage.net/project/alpina .

Here are some pictures from last year (now with Tekarbon angel eyes):

 

[FemmeT]

Hi FemmeT,

Awesome ride !

i never saw your original post. I got my 325ti boosted last year August, here's my write up.

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=700349&highlight=

I live in Almere, maybe we should hook up some day; i've also met Safar with his 328Ci with a TS2.

I think there are 4 TS2's in holland, i'm sure yours has most horses under the hood though !

There is another supercharged Roadster S in the Netherlands. It was done last year in August or September. There were some difficulties with this car but AFAIK they have been fixed by ESS and Simpson in the UK.

I have only been in contact with the owner through email. I believe it's this car:

http://www.autogespot.com/nl/viewimages.php?id=c214748364809022010193437

You can spot the heat exchanger brackets. This car is also fitted with Moton shock absorbers and AP Racing brakes.

You're right, we should meet up some day .

Great writeup and awesome car. What's your long term review of the blower?

The performance and drivability is just perfect. Be prepared for higher maintenance costs. I've had a failed alternator (not sure if it has anything to do with the increased power), a cracked weld in the exhaust header that ripped out one of the lambda probes and recently one of the pulley mounts broke apart from the oil or water pump or what else it was attached to (I've not seen it yet, they are working on fixing it).