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mwerks.com Technical Features There is perhaps no better way to get familiar with a car than to take a cross-country road trip. So that’s how we got acquainted with BMW’s newest coupe, the 135i, picking it up in Monterey, California, and driving it back to our base in Chicago. Over the course of four days, we covered more than 2800 miles, and in the process fell in love with our new project vehicle.
We chose a fairly lightly equipped version in the interest of keeping things light and simple. Our Alpine White coupe is fitted only with the sport package (sport seats, essentially, since the sport suspension and sport steering wheel is already standard), a leather interior, the cold weather package and BMW’s iPod/USB integration. We skipped navigation, power seats, and other luxuries to help us focus on the performance aspect of the 135i. Over the next several months, we’ll be exploring options to increase that performance. We’ll not only be adding power, but also improving its agility and, hopefully, reducing some of its weight. But before we get started with all of that, we needed to establish the current state of the car. We lined up an appointment with Genesis Racing & Development to use their Dynapack dyno to get some base power figures, and while we were out we stopped in on Midwest Eurosport to record the weight at each corner. When the Chicago winter eventually breaks, we’ll get it out to the strip for some offical ¼-mile times, but for now we strapped on our Vbox to get some impromptu 0-60 numbers. We know BMW has a habit of underrating its cars’ power figures, so when the dyno showed us 279.4 horsepower at the rear wheel hubs, we weren’t really surprised. Assuming 15% of the engine’s horsepower is absorbed through the driveline, that figure represents about 329 horses at the crank, or roughly ten percent more than the factory quotes. Torque output was even stronger, with a peak of 295 lb-ft twisting the dyno. More impressive than the outright numbers is the manner in which the torque is laid down. Maximum twist comes on around 1900 rpm and holds strong to around 5000 rpm before trailing off. We felt this plateau from the seat of the pants on our drive back, easily passing traffic in sixth gear at any speed. In fact, with that much torque available from such a low engine speed, we’ve taken to skipping third and fifth gear around town to keep fuel economy up. Weight has been a sensitive issue for a car that’s perceived as small by so many critics. The official factory weight is listed at 3373 lbs empty, and ours weighed in at 3413 lbs with a full tank of gas. Since we also corner-weighed the car, we were able to see just how balanced the chassis really is. Empty, the left half of the car is slightly lighter, allowing for the driver’s weight to balance everything just about right. We hope to save a hundred pounds or so by switching to lighter wheels and tires, and we’ll be looking for other opportunities to save weight as well. We’d really happy (and somewhat surprised) if we could hit 3200 pounds without sacrificing modern conveniences and comfort.
There is no doubt the 135i is a fast little car. BMW claims a 0-60 time of 5.1 seconds, but we were able to click off a 5.2 on a damp, 34-degree day. Cracking below five seconds should be no problem at all once the weather improves and we can actually get some traction. We’ll run a full battery of tests in its stock configuration so we can track real improvements. For now, we’re just riding out the last few weeks of this winter and making plans for a busy spring and summer with our 135i.
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