Professional Monster Energy Athlete Steve Baggsy Biagioni signed a partnership with “Goodwood Motor Circuit” to offer a drift experience as a part of their corporate experiences. He decided to go with the E92 M3. We fit the E92 M3 with the CSF cooling package which includes engine oil cooler, the engine water radiator, DCT cooler and the power steering cooler.
The upgrades discussed apply to E90 M3, E92 M3 & E93 M3.
Power steering cooler
One of the biggest love of enthustiasts on the E9X M3 platform is one of its biggest Achilles heel. Whilst the The M3’s hydraulic steering provides incredible feedback, as its used, the fluid heats up and a common complaint is that the power steering fluid will overheat, leading to poor steering feel and in extreme situations leak out of the reservoir, leaving a mess in the engine bay and potentially leading to a serious accident to you, or whoever drives over the fluid.
When you look at the stock power steering cooler, you can see why it struggles. The factory cooler uses a really old style, and adequate for road driving mechanically bonded core. This has a comparatively small surface area for heat transfer to the find, from the tubes that the power steering fluid travels through, greatly limiting efficiency. The cooler is also very small, under utilizing the space available.
To help prevent this issue, CSF power steering cooler improves in every area of the original design. The CSF power steering cooler used a CAB brazed core which dramatically increases the surface area for heat transfer from the tubes to the fins vs. the OE power steering cooler. The CSF power steering cooler has a dual pass design, and adds additional cooling rows with a super high-pressure wide 4-channel microtube core. All of this works together to deliver a lab tested 40% increase in efficiency vs. stock, resulting in a power steering system that will continue to deliver the incredible steering feel, lap after lap.
Engine Oil Cooler
The S65 V8 ///M engine at the heart of the E9x M3 is renowned for having bearing and vanos problems, and critical to their performance longevity is not only the design of the parts, but the oil quality too. It’s not uncommon for the powerful, high-revving S65 engine oil to get very hot on track, especially on modified builds with more grip and power. The problem is, when oil gets too hot, it uses the oils additives sooner, reduces lubrication and can lead to deposits being made around the engine. All things to avoid if you want longevity.
The factory cooler has several features that leave a lot of performance on the table, it doesn’t utilise all of the space available, limiting cooling performance and has an unreliable design whereby the end-tanks are mechanically crimped onto the core, resulting in a common failure rate on higher mileage, and age vehicles, which these are all now! Not to mention the fins being well beyond their best after being battered by debris across the years.
The CSF engine oil cooler utilizes all of the space behind the bumper, whilst still being an OE fit, requiring no modifications. The core is then TIG welded onto the end-tanks, meaning it won’t fail in the same way. During independent testing by MOTO IQ, the CSF oil cooler has been proven to reduce the engine oil temperature from a toasty 127 degrees Celsius to 105 degrees.
Gearbox Cooler
With a lot of these cars specc’d with M-DCT, and the same cooler being used on the M-DCT gearbox, as the Manual, it’s no surprise that the M-DCT struggles. Common complaints of M-DCT owners are poor gear selection, stuck in gears, the gear box control unit controller can start to extend out the shift times to help prevent the gearbox from heating up anymore. The CSF gearbox cooler uses a much larger, efficient core which has been tested to have up to 30% more efficiency than stock, keeping the M-DCT gearbox in its optimum operating window, for longer.. During independent testing by MOTO IQ, they measured a temperature reduction from 118 degrees celsius to 90 degrees!s. Manual owners can also enjoy this cooling boost!
Water radiators
With such a colossal improvement available from the CSF power steering cooler, CSF engine oil cooler and CSF gearbox cooler, its no surprise there is cooling benefits left on the table with the water radiator too!
When on track, and pushing your M3 hard, if you logged the temperatures, rather than relying on the inaccurate dash display, you would immediately learn that the coolant temperatures are way too hot. It’s common to see temperatures in excess of 120c, way above the reccomended 100-105c maximum. These radiators are also well over 10 years old now, and failures of the crimped on core to plastic end-tank is becoming very common.
To solve these two issues, the CSF radiator uses a much larger, efficient core that still fits within the same space constraints. Effieincy is improved by around 15% vs. the factory factory, delivering consistently cooler water temperatures, which will also improve the oil temperature too! The CSF core uses a B-tube core, rather than a conventional o-tube, the B-tube has more surface area, dual laminar flow and is much stronger, allowing for less material to be used. All of this together means you get a big cooling performance boost, without a colossal weight penalty of other O-tube radiators.
During independent testing by MOTO IQ tested a drop in engine water temperatures from 23 degrees celsius to 100 degrees according to CSF.
If you want to ensure your E90, E92 or E93 M3 has optiomum cooling this track, or tour season - you’ll want to upgrade to the CSF cooling package.