M3 155mph limiter, is it really there?

M3 155mph limiter, is it really there?

Author
Discussion

rob05

Original Poster:

1,194 posts

234 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
Are'nt these cars ment to be limited to 155mph?
My M3 has touched an indicated 180 mph so when and where is the limiter?
A friend of mine who has had five previous M3's told me none of his cars were limited to 155,or does this so call limiter apply to 5th gear only? In which case i dont see the point.
Interestingly i drove a super chipped 04 plate M3 cab it it was slower than mine right through the rev range,the owner agreed and was gutted which makes me question the validity of many of these companys that make these 30bhp increase claims with a chip upgrade.
Ps My car is standard and no i was'nt in a 30 zone or even in this country.

dick dastardly

8,316 posts

269 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
I got 158 out of an M3 CSL and the owner got 159 on a track last year so the limiters are quite generous. There was another CSL there which was standard apart from having no limiter and that got to 170.

ettore

4,289 posts

258 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
rob05 said:
Are'nt these cars ment to be limited to 155mph?
My M3 has touched an indicated 180 mph so when and where is the limiter?
A friend of mine who has had five previous M3's told me none of his cars were limited to 155,or does this so call limiter apply to 5th gear only? In which case i dont see the point.
Interestingly i drove a super chipped 04 plate M3 cab it it was slower than mine right through the rev range,the owner agreed and was gutted which makes me question the validity of many of these companys that make these 30bhp increase claims with a chip upgrade.
Ps My car is standard and no i was'nt in a 30 zone or even in this country.


I thought the limiter applied to 6th and not to 5th (wink,wink).

M3 Cabby`s are extremely heavy so not really surprised at the performance gap.

dcb

5,896 posts

271 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
rob05 said:

My M3 has touched an indicated 180 mph so when and where is the
limiter?


Standard wheels & tyres ?

There is a legal requirement to over-read.
I would expect to see 160-165 on the speedo.

rob05

Original Poster:

1,194 posts

234 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
No over reading on my part,ok maybe 178 but thats what it did,i was quite suprised myself to be honest,true mph would have been near the 168-170 mark.Funny thing was i ran out of road and the car had a bit left.Unlike my 911 that felt very scarey this did'nt at all,anyway it was a one off just to see what it could do.
So is the limiter ment to cut in at 155mph in any gear?

Edited by rob05 on Monday 10th July 16:41

Andrew D

968 posts

246 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
Word on the street is the M-Cars are limited as standard. A number of M3 drivers have been done by the pigs doing 156.25mph (250kph exactly) when they've been VMaxing them on public roads.

You can get them de-limited though. IIRC it was a factory option on the CSL.

m3psm

988 posts

227 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
The limiter is there but most chips remove it

Paul

r5gttgaz

7,897 posts

226 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
I think if you had a race licence they would allow you to purchase the CSL unrestricted.

Edited by r5gttgaz on Monday 10th July 16:51

m3john

5,974 posts

225 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all

Well my little e36 will do an indicated 167 in 5th. Never had enough tarmack to take it all the way thou!!

When these were new, if you had a track/race licence BMW would remove this. My car on the otherhand belonged to a BMW director so i guess he had it dissabled.

Edited by m3john on Monday 10th July 17:11

elliot330

17 posts

223 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
They were both there on my CSL and CS. Both at the same speed as well, 159mph as indicated by Road Angel, either in 5th or 6th Gear. The speedo's read just over 170mph on both cars. I spoke to a Super Chip dealer and he said they normally remove the speed limiter when chipping the car..

rob05

Original Poster:

1,194 posts

234 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
It just seems to contradict what my mate says and he's had five,all of his cars went well beyond the 155 limit in 6th and i know for a fact his cars are all standard, he now runs a 996 turbo 450BHP model which i hve been sat in at 195 mph(scarey).I cant be sure my car has'nt been chipped but i would be well suprised if it was.Can we really be both wrong or are the dials just very optistic?

Edited by rob05 on Monday 10th July 17:14

m12_nathan

5,138 posts

265 months

Monday 10th July 2006
quotequote all
dcb said:

There is a legal requirement to over-read.


Are you sure? I thought the speedo could be up to 10% over but never under, nothing too say the speedo can't be bang on though.

dcb

5,896 posts

271 months

Tuesday 11th July 2006
quotequote all
m12_nathan said:

dcb said:

There is a legal requirement to over-read.


Are you sure? I thought the speedo could be up to 10% over but never
under, nothing too say the speedo can't be bang on though.


I phrased that badly. What I should have said was
that a speedo isn't allowed to underread at all.

It is allowed to overread by a few per cent.

In practice, most manufacturers aim for the middle of the band
to prevent normal manufacturing variations making the speedo
illegal.

Nothing to prevent a speedo being bang on, but that would
be at the very edge of the permitted band.

nutcase

1,145 posts

258 months

Tuesday 11th July 2006
quotequote all
I've seen 170 indicated on the speedo (E46 M3), held onto 5th until almost redline then changed and I didn't feel a limiter at all. If anything, it might have crept a bit higher. Bloody impressive stuff really from a 3 series.

brucest170

30 posts

229 months

Tuesday 11th July 2006
quotequote all
seen 170 on my speedo (e46 M3)before backing off , just redline it in 5th then into 6th .

rob05

Original Poster:

1,194 posts

234 months

Tuesday 11th July 2006
quotequote all
So there is no limiter?Regardless i think nutcase sums it up quite well.
Ps a few years ago i touched an indicated 191 mph on my then R1 on the same road,now that was a real rush!

AnthonyR

73 posts

264 months

Tuesday 11th July 2006
quotequote all
In the original Auotcar road test the M3 hit the limiter at 163, the speedo was indicating 170+

brendonj

729 posts

245 months

Thursday 13th July 2006
quotequote all
Yep they definetly over-read.

I had my E36 M3 up to 164 on the roadangel on the way down to Le Mans last month but it was reading approx 175 on the speedo.
Wasnt v happy than a 911 TT was pulling away from me at that speed thou...

bluesandtwos

357 posts

266 months

Friday 14th July 2006
quotequote all
Limiters are slowly going up IMHO and IIRC Evo tested the latest R32 using GPS gear and the 155 limiter did not cut in till 165...

DoctorD

1,542 posts

262 months

Friday 14th July 2006
quotequote all
My factory unlimited CSL reached a speed that resulted in the needle leaving the marked speedo. The rev counter at the time read 7400 rpm in 6th. Prior to that I had reached the rev limiter in 5th (which equated to an indicated 178mph) and once into 6th it pulled another 700rpm. Calculating it from the rev counter that 7400rpm in 6th would have equated to 193 mph, but was probably nearer a true 180mph.