This 486bhp E82 BMW 135i Coupe Is CRAZY!

[@dougbaliko4604]

When I first glanced at the license plate I thought it said “snob” 😂. Nice car! The ultimate BMW sleeper.

[@FelixIsMyName]

Yeah, I didn't notice it until I got home and my mum burst into laughter at the plate. I've never been one to get a private plate, but part of me like the irony of a BMW having the plate "SNOB" , but part of me wants to get something related to Felix on it, as that's what most people from the car clubs etc call me.

[@FelixIsMyName]

Oh to add, I have stunned a couple M3 drivers in it, as the cars debadged, so most assume it's either a 120d or 125i , that's been made to look faster lol.

[@adriana2934]

@BMW1M I like catching people off guard, especially since I’m a girl and for some reason people think girls can’t drive. (The most bad ass drivers I know, all in manuals, are women.) If it’s a clear road and someone is flying up on me, I let them get next to me and then I wave my hand goodbye as I leave their view. My first car was a 318ti and I absolutely love how this is its big brother. Handles just as nice but with a “big boy” engine. 😊

[@S58PSHIFTING]

These cars while yet fragile have so much potential and with just a stage 2 tune with all the right mods in you can get at least 75hp and 100+ torque, i was so shocked how fast my 135 got after that tune and mods, i actually made one of my favorite cars the Pontiac GTO 6.0 with 400hp and 400tq and made it look sad because of its wheel spin but on the roll i killed it by 3 cars and stood there so it was a good race but after killing it i still love the GTO, eventually sold my 135 and got me my 2023 M2 which in stock form is way quicker than the tuned 135i but i don't feel the torque i felt on my 135 in this M2 yet, key word yet as mods and tune stage 2 i always stay at with stock turbos and get it to around 575hp and at least 700tq.

[@weeman1268]

Everything you said is as true of any the E82's I've driven and exactly the reason I bought my 125i even the standard exhaust makes the straight 6 sound a bit naughty. Always thoroughly enjoy a drive in mine any excuse to drive it is taken advantage of. Although the thirst for more power is real. 135i definitely replacing mine soon 😅

[@itsjoel]

135i is awesome

[@weeman1268]

The need for one is unreal atm, its all I look at on autotrader 🤣

[@oliversmith4130]

Loved this vid, can tell just by your face how good it felt 😂 can’t wait for the new daily reveal!

[@Adii135]

Yep the 135i when tuned is literally fucking crazy i love mine

[@robertpurvis6106]

i got a 2011 135i back in Jan. it's a blessing to jump in on the weekends after driving the work van all week. small, nimble, and fast. love my bulldog!

[@kdubspencer3390]

I'm picking up a montego blue convertible N54 135i on Monday . 135s are so fun that I had to pass on a newer on Monday taking it right to the muffler shop once I leave with it 👍🏾. How's yours been?

[@robertpurvis6106]

@@kdubspencer3390 car is great! spent a lot doing all the maintenance. talking all the seals, walnut blast, all new brakes parts minus calipers, new bilstein b14s. car is tip top. i got lucky and it came with a dinan exhaust, intercooler, oil cooler, and charge pipe. only thing left to do is a downpipe but i kinda like the sleeper without it. wanna do new michelins first and they are not cheap. only problem i have is at stop lights all cars want to take a pull at me. lol.

[@Data4664]

Looks good and wow sooo fast wow I love these videos;) thnxs big.

[@jamiepolson]

K&N filters ...surely they just suck in lots of HOT air from the engine bay instead of nice cold air from outside?? Good vid as ever

[@FelixIsMyName]

I thought this is going to be the case also, as it gets so hot under there. There has been a number of tests done with the BMW airbox and this setup and it seems with the bonnet down and airflow, these offer a cooler temp. I am waiting for the BMW airbox to be sent to me, as I might try and get something made up to give me the look of a standard engine.

[@ModMINI]

I concur. No evidence has shown a power loss with this setup. It's on the cold side of the engine. When the car gets moving there is plenty of air to feed cold air.

[@Iplayforfood88]

A good dual oil cooler setup could help negate that pesky engine light on a hot day, mossleman do a good one.

[@ModMINI]

Care to share a guide for converting to quad exhaust? I have 135i and doing the same Fake 1M conversion (other than widebody). Great, great car.

[@GTIracerr]

Does it have an upgraded oil cooler? If not; would highly recommend one to keep the engine temp below 120. Around and after that, the ECU will cut the power. The car doesn't like to be hot.

[@FelixIsMyName]

It's had the oil, rad and intercooler changed for forge racing ones. The temp does stay under 120 pretty easily.

[@wes2473]

And that check engine light is y I’m goin with the 128i

[@sdhfjdgh]

The gearbox is super-nice indeed, especially compared to the Porsche 987 slack stick :) A Cayman is an overall comparable (at least with a 128i) but sharper rougher vehicle. The Porsche gearbox operated with long ropes gives the BMW an advantage making the BMW experience a bit more enjoyable in this regard.

[@marcusyaha]

What was the problem with the engine notification? My 135i show it from time to time. Another problem is the turbo, i replaced mine every 4-5 years.

[@jamesgonzalez9116]

great content man

[@ZERO_Zero0]

Was this filmed in Tonbridge?

[@stevesas632]

The N54 engine is known to be tricky to keep happy, especially when tuned, is this correct?

[@robertpurvis6106]

you have to keep up on maintenance. tons of seals throughout the engine go bad at around every 50k miles. walnut blasts every 50k miles. small turbos can go bad when tuned with more boost. 1 step colder spark plugs (cheapest purchase). i put in $3k in maintenance after i got mine this year before i did a tune to be safe. it's really when you tune first before maintenance when things go wrong. you need an inter cooler, oil coiler, and charge pipe to be safe with a tune.

[@ohcaptainmycaptain3019]

Did you try turning it off and back on again?

[@sourskittlzz9447]

Best place to find a 135i n54 for sale? I’m looking for one

[@fugawiaus]

I'm starting to notice that bmws that are modded including "m"s seem to be a little finicky but standard models are almost bulletproof. Anyone else notice this?

[@FelixIsMyName]

Any M from 2001 to 2013 can give you massive problems modded of not. M cars typically are around 30% more expensive to run than the next model down. The less powerful BMW's "IF" they are serviced and looked after will be fine and even the bigger engines will be fairly reliable if you look after them. The big problem is BMW's like Merc's suffer badly due to the amount of new tech that was introduced in the 2000's. Most modded cars are going to require more attention and will come up with issues. The N54 in my 135i is well known for throwing itself into limp mode if the boosting goes off slightly. Since the fault came up when Joel and I were in my car, it's only done it once on the way home from filming. I stopped the car and restarted it and it's been fine since. I've tried the best I can to get it to trip so I could take a closer look at any error codes, but it's been totally fine. The only variable on that day was the difference in fuel I put in the car (but wouldn't explain the code I found with my BMW scan tool). If you want a fast, reliable BMW, then Alpina is the way to go. Most Alpina's you see for sale will have massive mileage on them and some version of them are very bloody quick. I was almost going to pull the trigger on an amazing E92 Alpina B3 Bi-Turbo , which was such a great alternative to the E92 M3.

[@AKK5I]

M model "S" engines are developed for motorsports, so like a racecar, you'll need to spend lots on maintenance and it's not a motor designed for daily driving really

[@FelixIsMyName]

@@AKK5I There are links, but saying all S engines are developed for motorsports is not true IMO. The S14 obviously was but it's developed from the M10, which was also developed into the F1 engines that powered Brabum to world titles in the early 80's , the S54 while very much like a race engine, actually had to be developed into a race engine. The S54, an evolution of the S50, is in turn just developed from the M50. There is the myth of the S65 is the the V8 the Z4-GT3 and E46 M3-GTR, which is really far removed from the experimental engine. While S engines have been used in motorsport, it was not why they were made. The are road car engines first and foremost. The running costs associated with them is high, which is understandable, but it is not acceptable that there are so many big flaws with BMW S engines between 99 through to the early 2010's. Frankly Alpina put M devision to utter shame with how many miles an Alpina is able to do without needing major rebuild work and usually their power figures are very similar to M cars.

[@MK-tq6zx]

i bought 135i coupe too but for 18 birthday

[@davidponti1101]

Wouldn't a V8 be a better choice for spirited day in day out driving, especially in the long term?

[@FelixIsMyName]

I know in the US there have been people putting in the S65 V8 from the E92 M3, but it's still a high maintenance that's frigging expensive to look after properly. Also from what I understand, all of those conversion have been done with a DCT, which is something I did not want to ever have in one of my own cars. I'm not sure on power and weight figures of going with the S65, but I doubt it really offer anything that I would class as a plus. A high revving V8 is just not something I'm interested in owning. When I was looking at maybe getting an E92, it was the Alpina B3 Bi-Turbo I wanted to get, rather than a M3. To be blunt, I am sick of seeing so many cars get V8's thrown in them online (usually the LS) and I just don't see them as that great of an engine. My first car when I was in my early 20's was a 2 door E30 318i and I owned 3 more E30's with my last being an Alpina C2 2.5 . To me a BMW is a straight six and after having the Z4M's S54, I still wanted that, but not the BS of the S engines of this era. I mean rod end shells as a serviceable item just make my blood boil, as this should not require replacing at 75,000 to 100,000 miles. Finally, my aim from day one has been to turn a 135i into a 1M "clone". The 1M was/is a BMW parts bin special that happens to be one hell of a package. But this also has guided me on things I wanted, like an N54 engine and high 300's hp. Having 100hp more than I planned has been interesting, as I typically like to only get cars that are manageable steps up from my previous car, so I don't get too drunk on the power. Going back to the S65 route, it's a highly strung engine that you can't get much more performance out of without spending big bucks and forced induction. There are N54's out there hitting 700+hp and you're not really having to compromise the chassis to do it. I won't go any higher that it already is, as at the end of the day it's a road car and anything past 500hp is seriously too much for the driving I enjoy doing.

[@FelixIsMyName]

@J B I looked a an M6, but soon realise that it would ruin me faster than being a sugar daddy to hot twins!

[@seansmith3275]

What are the wheels

[@1MCS]

Nice car, 135i is 🔥🔥 I was wondering with these little performance mods how it got to ~480hp? That seems a bit off to me 😅 I've done a few things to mine too with a stage 1 and its about ~390hp

[@Adii135]

Fbo on he has the stock small bi turbo and they said it was tuned so if its a stage 3 then it makes sense if its less then that then its not 480 they might be lying

[@ModMINI]

These may be calculated flywheel performance numbers, and I'd believe it. I have stage 1+ and not even catless downpipes and the car is QUICK.

[@finsmotorradschuppen503]

Looks to me you are struggeling with too many possible cars avaiable at the market for you ;). All your cars are very cheap comparable to other European countries. 75% in other countries are 2x more expensive. I would recommend you trade your Z4 into the 3.0si. Facelift,more power. No tuning to keep it comfortable for you

[@davidviner4932]

In England we have bought huge numbers of German cars, hence the worry in Germany with Brexit, it makes German cars cheap here, I have owned 6 Audis, 1 BMW and a Merc as well as several VWs

[@derekporter66]

the spoiler doesnt go

[@itsjoel]

I personally think it works!

[@Adii135]

He literally got a check engine lmfao when you abuse this car om manual it gets a check engine its normal

[@FelixIsMyName]

LOL opps overboost. Thankfully everything is all ok and codes cleared and nothing wrong, but typical it happened on camera lol. Also eek , you can tell I'm from Oxford when I speak!

[@deanodrives4966]

Lovely car mate 👌 glad there wasn't any problems

[@FelixIsMyName]

@@deanodrives4966 Nope thankfully, I looked through all stored faults and it seems it wasn't happy with the amount of boost. It's got an upgraded charge pipe, as the BMW ones are really weak and made of plastic. I had also used Shell V-Power just before getting down to Guilford when I typically use Momentum, as the previous owner was using it and tbh, it's easier for me to get when going into Hereford as well. (I moved all the way up here just before lockdown from Oxford so don't know my way around too well). I did about half a tanks worth of driving tonight, with a mix of driving and didn't have any issues pop up. It was really warm out 24c and with the evening air typically more dense, I would expect it to get pissed off with boosting more easily. It's now back to shooting flames and cracking like a riffle going off down a shooting range.

[@deanodrives4966]

@@FelixIsMyName that's really good news. Cars can be such a pain sometimes and I bet it was scary seeing a fault code pop up just 2 weeks after buying it. Hopefully it was just because you ran it on a different fuel and it wasn't happy, but normally shell v is pretty decent

[@FelixIsMyName]

​@@deanodrives4966 I knew the N54 vs N55 would be somewhat of a tricky route to take, as the N54 is well known for having issues, which the N55 sorted out, but at the cost of the twin turbo setup. The aftermarket on the N54 however is way better and I knew it could get silly power figures if the right stuff was done. While I didn't want anything over 400bhp originally, as I known the reliability can suffer. I was pretty stunned that if the V-Power can possibly upset things, but I know from experience that when turbo cars are pushed to the max of the turbo's ability (which a TD04 turbo is with this) , they can get a bit peaky when you mix fuels together. Because I had done a lot of driving since getting it two weeks prior to the filming, I was expecting any faults to have happened already. It was a pretty hot day and tbh I think poor Joel was more worried than me, as I have been rather relaxed about him pushing the cars as much as he feels comfortable in doing so. With it throwing up a limp mode screen, I knew if it was stopped and restarted without a fault coming back up, it was more of it being upset about a variable than anything else. My biggest fear was it was a fueling issue and then car was leaning out (hence I asked about engine temps). I blew up my Impreza P1's engine after 6 weeks of ownership due to a faulty fuel pump causing it to detonate and blew a 4" hole is the block, which tore up the engine bay to shred and the turbo then got shattered, causing an engine fire while I was driving pretty frigging "briskly" . Even had to call out the fire brigade etc. So a BMW check engine light was not that bad. I've got a BMW scantool and went through everything, just for peace of mind. The surge pipe/charge pipe is a common area when these throw up this limp mode and even if the boost solenoids needed replacing, I wasn't too bothered as I knew I could do it myself. (which ain't easy with lower spinal damage making it hard to bend over , which is why I didn't like my Z4M in the end, as I was always having to bend over whenever it went into the garage and then thank them afterwards). I hope over the next 12 months to finish the build off and see how Joel likes the changes I've made to it. I've already changed those bloody mirrors over to some proper 1M ones and it's now sitting on 4 new Falken Tyres (I prefer Falkens which I've used on my E30's and my Impreza P1) as I'm a fanboy of the race cars from Gran Turismo!

[@deanodrives4966]

@@FelixIsMyName It is such a shame that the N54 has its flaws as the engine is superb, it's just the bits that are bolted to it aren't the best. I've been in a 335i but never a 135, I can only imagine it is a riot. Would you ever go down the single turbo route with it? Wow that sucks regarding the P1. Just goes to show how simple things can lead to massive failures, did you get it repaired in the end? My sister had a p1 a few years a go running over 400hp, it was pretty rapid to say the least. Falkens are hugely underrated, they're decent on the road and they hold up well on track. They seem to grip incredibly well in the wet as well

[@posniknelb6114]

Fast but not a great looker.

[@FelixIsMyName]

Yeah, it's not got the same presence of stance the 1M has. I actually had a package back at home for me when I got back shooting this with Joel (280 mile round trip FTL) , so I've at least got my 1M wing mirrors on there now. Next step is getting a 1M kit and all the parts to widen the track (I don't want to use spacers) . Getting M92 M3 parts are going to be costly, then getting the kit painted up.

[@jaymac767]

Really good video Joel 👍 Love the car looks rapid

[@FelixIsMyName]

@@jaymac767 When I was telling Joel that I was going to buy this car, I told him it was going to be a "Gigglebox" type of car. It's performance is just beyond what you expect it to be able to do and keep traction. Off the line, the car is not any more impressive that what my tuned Impreza P1 with 323bhp and 330flb , but once this 135i is moving and you have solid enough traction, it goes from 30 to triple digits alarmingly fast. This car in 6th gear, will go from 60 to 140 in the time most quick cars do 0 to 60. It's the way it just pulls under acceleration that makes it so daft. To be able to pull so hard through most of the rev range, makes the car such a bonkers road car.

[@EFRANEED]

I think the same, although the 1M is another story. Also, I think the E87/81 look better than E82

[@FelixIsMyName]

@@EFRANEED The vision for this car has always been to go the 1M route, as it's got the perfect proportions just like the E46 M3 GTR or E30 M3/Alpina B6S. Obviously I owned the E85 Z4M that Joel mentioned and I always hated the fact I had the Roadster and not the Coupe. In Fact I would have gone down the coupe route if it was not for me needing back seats. The reason I got rid of my Z4M was not mentioned, but it was due to me getting a Labrador puppy weeks prior to lockdown and when I took him out for a test drive in the Z4M, he was able to jump into my lap as I was driving! So my dog has already cost me thousands in money lost on the Z4M and the difference I needed to get the 135i lol. Wouldn't change him for the world, but he's totally a right shit at times lol!

[@alexp8288]

✌

[@josephh66]

good but its bought not built.. :(

[@FelixIsMyName]

Indeed, because it had pretty much done to it a good chunk of the mods I would have done anyway. Also this car had way lower miles and a price that was too good for me to pass up. At a guess I will still need about £6000-£8000 to complete it into a 1M clone, which is still no small job to get done, with a E92 M3 rear (typically the whole subframe, which is thankfully a straight bolton) then a aftermarket 1M kit is about £1800 which makes some things easier, but there is still a lot of scuffed knuckles and swearing down the line. Now as someone who's done the whole "built not "bought" " method with an E30 Alpina and with a lot of help with my old Impreza P1. The thing is how many people will genuinely built their own cars totally these days? You would need to understand not only fabrication, mechanics, ECU programming and unlimited dyno access to do things. Also "Street Tuning" is not worth the risk with the speed these cars can hit (trust me when I tell you this thing can get you in court before you even redline 3rd gear!). Normally I would not tough any modded car with a barge pole, as the risk vs reward it too far in the risk area and the abuse cars like this can get is off the charts, but after dealing with the nightmare of two S54 powered cars in the family in the last 9 years, I'd rather put my faith into someone else hands than deal with a mid 2000's M car again.

[@mnoovurvi]

Then why did you not built the whole car yourself from scratch ? What's the difference between buying a stock 500hp car and not doing anything to it and buying something like this and paying professionals to install the (already designed & built) parts for you to make it 500hp ? And you can spend the time enjoying the car, which is the main reason to buy it.

[@FelixIsMyName]

@@mnoovurvi I didn't plan to get a modded car, but this was the best example with the lowest mileage at the time.

[@mnoovurvi]

@@FelixIsMyName Yeah, I was talking to the guy that complained. Much better to get a good condition car, even if it's not stock than a bad example just so you can say you fitted a part yourself.