[g20beam]

Hello all! Haven't really posted at all for a while now on here but it's long overdue for an update on my car. I have been driving a prod. 02/2019 day 0 delivery G20 330i xDrive for almost 4 years now.

The car has approx. 120,000kms on it currently. Since 110,000kms, or ~4 months ago, I purchased and installed the IPOS Motorsports IM450 turbocharger upgrade on my 330i, and since then have been dialing in the custom tuning aspect with a couple of tuners (Will get more into that later), and finally after months of adjustments, the car is running how it is supposed to after struggling with some serious issues over the last few months.

I will be breaking down the review into several sections and it will be long, but I will try to keep it as concise as possible.

The majority of this post will be a review of my experience with upgrading the turbocharger on this car, as well as clearing up some of the drama that has been circulating some Facebook groups recently regarding these turbos. Under no circumstance am I going to bash anyone in this post, I will try to be as neutral as I can and shed light on what the experience may be like for some of you that plan to go this route for the B48.

Purchase & Installation

I was approached by a fellow G20 owner I've known on Instagram for a little while back in December 2022, which referred me to IPOS at the time, telling me that they are looking for testers for their newly developed turbos. After receiving a worthy discount on the IM450 turbo upgrade, through thorough consideration, I decided to go for this option as it was advertised by IPOS as a simple plug & play, all parts included for straightforward, easy installation. Little did I know at the time that it would be a rather painful process later on. After the turbo arrived sometime in February, I was able to book with my mechanic to finally install the turbo sometime in March. IPOS had all the parts ready for me, or so I thought, and I did not think there was much more to it.. Until the day of the installation.

The turbo was in no way shape or form a direct plug & play, if anything there was a lot my mechanic and I needed to sort out to get the turbo on the car.

Problems after problems came up. Part of the exhaust manifold that mounts onto the engine needed to be cut in order to fit as it was designed for gen1 B48's, not B48TU. There is also a difference in the turbo gasket that was included between gen1 and TU, which I had to purchase myself. The OEM oil and coolant lines had a very hard time fitting onto the new turbo, as the compressor housing was much bigger than OEM, which had clearance issues. This required me to source and find new AN4 oil and coolant lines within a very short time frame that would work with the car, thus leaving me stranded for more than I initially prepared for while waiting for parts to come in.

Another problem was the turbo intake inlet was of poor quality and is prone to bending due to high temp. The owner said they would send me a new one since May which I have been waiting for to this very day, and still have not received.

It was a major inconvenience for both me and my mechanic. The only thing I was glad about was that the support from IPOS was instant, the owner did a good job of supporting us through all the issues and giving us potential solutions. However, the false advertising was the part that I was most frustrated with as it was supposed to be a simple plug & play but turned out to be a DIY, figure-it-out-along-the-way install process. In this aspect, I would say it was definitely not a plug & play process, it is more similar to that of the BigBoost turbo upgrade, with lots of figuring out in the process of installation.

In conclusion, despite the issues with the installation, my mechanic and I were able to complete the installation and from a mechanical standpoint, the car is running properly to this day with no issues thus far.

As far as sound goes, I did not opt for any compressor housing mods, there is no T51R or compressor holes. It is very, very loud for my standards. I paired this turbo with the armaspeed alloy intake and the sounds this car makes, it's borderline on how much I can handle for a daily driver.

Tuning

While looking for options and considering a number of different tuners to figure out the custom tune for the car, it was heavily emphasized to me both through my personal research and IPOS that Navardi Tuned would be without a doubt, my one & only option to complete the process with this turbo upgrade. I was told that Navardi has tuned various G20's before me, and I should have a worry-free process tuning with him.

As such, I decided it was best to go with them for the tune. Little did I know.. This also turned out to be a huge mistake. I initially did not want to mention and throw names but lately, there has been a lot of misinformation out there coming from Navardi as he only shares the cars and customers that he is able to tune successfully, but never did he share with anyone or admits to the Facebook groups on the cars that he has failed to tune and resolve. I have gone through over 10-20+ revisions and logs with Harry over at Navardi, and each time since the 2nd revision, the logs and tunes have had serious problems. I have triple-checked the mechanical aspect and there are definitely no issues there. So it had to have been the tune. From torque limitations to insane amounts of timing corrections even under only 18psi of boost, this problem has plagued my car for months since April until recently. I will share here the logs with you below, see for yourself.

The time it took for the tuner to get back to me was also insane, sometimes I would not get a response back for days while going through these issues, and I would not get another revision for days to a week at a time. It took forever, and even past the 10th revision, the only option I had was to take my tuning elsewhere as they kept insisting that it was a mechanical issue, or there is a software limitation somewhere which is causing the issue. I was definitely not letting my car take any more of the abuse in timing correction over timing corrections.. Any more of that and perhaps the engine would start running into serious issues. Enough is enough.

So I looked for other options, and a couple of other fellow G20 owners recommended me to LCP Tuning about a month ago. Within this short month, after 6-7 very smooth revisions, the car is finally driving how it should without issues. Making power and very smooth at the same time. Amazing support from them, I received map revisions instantly, not having to wait more than 15-20 minutes. I could go log and stop somewhere, send over the log and be up and running with the next revision within 20 minutes. All in all there is not much to say here besides the fact that I was now making power and tuned properly without major issues. It was a huge success with LCP. Highly recommended. Logs of his tunes are also shared below, the difference is night and day.

Conclusion

There were so many problems with this upgrade that I simply did not have the time to even come on here to write a review sooner, and after a few months of struggling, now it finally runs how it should. Do I recommend the turbo upgrade? Definitely, if all the issues I ran into are rounded out for new buyers, if all the parts included actually help make the install a breeze. Do I recommend Navardi Tuned which was recommended to me by IPOS? Definitely not. My car was abused more than 10-20 times 3rd gear 2000rpm to redline, and it still was not running properly. They simply cannot tune B48TU. He does not know how to get past the 10D000 torque limitation active fault code, and the torque limiter itself. Other tuners can get it done instantly and blow past it, they simply cannot.

When others bring this to light, the tuner simply refuses to acknowledge any of this, and can only defend himself with many excuses. I like to believe that everyone should back all of their work, regardless if it was successful or not. It would feel much better if he admitted that due to his lack of knowledge of the new B48TU platform and differences in ECU with gen1 B48, he was unable to get past these issues and seek help from others so he can improve it. But from my end, it just felt like he had no idea what he was doing. None of his revisions fixed this issue I experienced.

All in all, if you're in to do this turbo upgrade from IPOS, I would brace for and be prepared for problems to come up whilst installing the upgrade and while tuning it. It is definitely not as easy as they say. Don't be fooled!

So far the car is driving fast and although I cannot say how much power it is making, it is definitely much quicker than with the OEM turbo on Stage 2 OTS. The way the power is delivered is phenomenal. LCP really did an outstanding job with this tune, and not much can be said about it. It is simply so much fun to drive this car. I will share more down the line if there are other problems or updates.

Again, I did not want to bash anyone in this review, I am simply sharing my experience. I am not angry or frustrated as I've moved past it, the car is running perfectly now and that is all I care for. But I have to clear up the misinformation and false advertising out there, not everything the brand owners and tuners tell you is always true. There is simply not enough information and buyers out there to share this information. I want to do what I can to give this information to anyone else interested in making this purchase.

I will answer any and all questions, thanks to everyone for reading through this review!

PS - Images 1,2 are Navardi's. Images 3,4 are from LCP.

[mike@x-ph.com]

Thank you for the review

[TorBimmer]

Awesome review man. Really insightful on what it takes to push the B48 beyond stage 2 - not for the wary it seems...

How much boost are you running with the new Turbo? Any concerns about the durability of the engine internals? I think the rods are cast, and there's been information floating around about needing forged internals for big boost.

[g20beam]

Originally Posted by TorBimmer

Awesome review man. Really insightful on what it takes to push the B48 beyond stage 2 - not for the wary it seems...

How much boost are you running with the new Turbo? Any concerns about the durability of the engine internals? I think the rods are cast, and there's been information floating around about needing forged internals for big boost.

Currently making around ~26psi, with about 7-8oz of octane booster (Boostane) per fill of 94 Octane gas.

Tuner says any more and I’m in dangerous territory.

Originally with Navardi and IPOS, I was promised 27psi but that is definitely not possible with what I know at the moment.

Without octane booster, you’re looking at 24psi max.

[BLK.G20]

Nice review. Log's look really solid. Any plans to dyno the car?

[g20beam]

Originally Posted by ryann

Nice review. Log's look really solid. Any plans to dyno the car?

Maybe but not anytime soon, so far just plan on enjoying it 😎

[Glashutte]

IPOS Motorsports

I also have the IM450 installed on my car and I'm also tuning via Navardi. I have to agree with a lot of your points.

I had the turbo installed at a local shop. Fortunately, these guys were very experienced and theyre used to working around fitment issues. That being said, they did not experience as many issues as you did, although there were problems with the oil line being too close to some moving parts which required the line to be bent a bit. The kit also did not come with a turbo inlet, which I was made well aware of before the order due to a parts shortage. It wasn't a major deal because Kev had advised me to use a reduction coupler, which worked out in the end.

In all fairness, I wonder if the wrong turbo was sent or if some of those issues are a result of being early production/prototype. Or if there are differences between b48 gen1 and b48tu that the kit did not account for. I have a b46tu and gaskets/manifolds weren't an issue.

I agree with the noise aspect, one issue is that the resonator from the oem inlet is not there so the turbo is quite loud. Especially since the armaspeed intake is very noisy. Personally I don't mind but it would definitely get annoying for a long family drive

Navardi Tuning

As far as this goes, I have to agree that his response time is less than great. Unfortunately he's tuning a lot of cars, holding live dyno sessions, and doing a bunch of other stuff. Frankly I think he's taken on too much work, and should hire more people to help with tunes or take on less customers to give a more focused experience. Its usually 1-3 days for a revision when others get back to you in 1 day, occasionally 2 at most.

That being said, I haven't seen issues with his tunes but i am running a b46tu so your experience may vary between engines. Each revision has removed torque/fueling limits and I expect that the next one is going to be the first to actually add some power. When I look at the logs, the boost is usually dialed pretty low when its being dialed in so I doubt that datalogging would do any harm to your engine if the fuelling/torque limits are being adjusted.

[ztech]

Originally Posted by g20beam

Hello all! Haven't really posted at all for a while now on here but it's long overdue for an update on my car. I have been driving a prod. 02/2019 day 0 delivery G20 330i xDrive for almost 4 years now.

The car has approx. 120,000kms on it currently. Since 110,000kms, or ~4 months ago, I purchased and installed the IPOS Motorsports IM450 turbocharger upgrade on my 330i, and since then have been dialing in the custom tuning aspect with a couple of tuners (Will get more into that later), and finally after months of adjustments, the car is running how it is supposed to after struggling with some serious issues over the last few months.

I will be breaking down the review into several sections and it will be long, but I will try to keep it as concise as possible.

The majority of this post will be a review of my experience with upgrading the turbocharger on this car, as well as clearing up some of the drama that has been circulating some Facebook groups recently regarding these turbos. Under no circumstance am I going to bash anyone in this post, I will try to be as neutral as I can and shed light on what the experience may be like for some of you that plan to go this route for the B48.

Purchase & Installation

I was approached by a fellow G20 owner I've known on Instagram for a little while back in December 2022, which referred me to IPOS at the time, telling me that they are looking for testers for their newly developed turbos. After receiving a worthy discount on the IM450 turbo upgrade, through thorough consideration, I decided to go for this option as it was advertised by IPOS as a simple plug & play, all parts included for straightforward, easy installation. Little did I know at the time that it would be a rather painful process later on. After the turbo arrived sometime in February, I was able to book with my mechanic to finally install the turbo sometime in March. IPOS had all the parts ready for me, or so I thought, and I did not think there was much more to it.. Until the day of the installation.

The turbo was in no way shape or form a direct plug & play, if anything there was a lot my mechanic and I needed to sort out to get the turbo on the car.

Problems after problems came up. Part of the exhaust manifold that mounts onto the engine needed to be cut in order to fit as it was designed for gen1 B48's, not B48TU. There is also a difference in the turbo gasket that was included between gen1 and TU, which I had to purchase myself. The OEM oil and coolant lines had a very hard time fitting onto the new turbo, as the compressor housing was much bigger than OEM, which had clearance issues. This required me to source and find new AN4 oil and coolant lines within a very short time frame that would work with the car, thus leaving me stranded for more than I initially prepared for while waiting for parts to come in.

Another problem was the turbo intake inlet was of poor quality and is prone to bending due to high temp. The owner said they would send me a new one since May which I have been waiting for to this very day, and still have not received.

It was a major inconvenience for both me and my mechanic. The only thing I was glad about was that the support from IPOS was instant, the owner did a good job of supporting us through all the issues and giving us potential solutions. However, the false advertising was the part that I was most frustrated with as it was supposed to be a simple plug & play but turned out to be a DIY, figure-it-out-along-the-way install process. In this aspect, I would say it was definitely not a plug & play process, it is more similar to that of the BigBoost turbo upgrade, with lots of figuring out in the process of installation.

In conclusion, despite the issues with the installation, my mechanic and I were able to complete the installation and from a mechanical standpoint, the car is running properly to this day with no issues thus far.

As far as sound goes, I did not opt for any compressor housing mods, there is no T51R or compressor holes. It is very, very loud for my standards. I paired this turbo with the armaspeed alloy intake and the sounds this car makes, it's borderline on how much I can handle for a daily driver.

Tuning

While looking for options and considering a number of different tuners to figure out the custom tune for the car, it was heavily emphasized to me both through my personal research and IPOS that Navardi Tuned would be without a doubt, my one & only option to complete the process with this turbo upgrade. I was told that Navardi has tuned various G20's before me, and I should have a worry-free process tuning with him.

As such, I decided it was best to go with them for the tune. Little did I know.. This also turned out to be a huge mistake. I initially did not want to mention and throw names but lately, there has been a lot of misinformation out there coming from Navardi as he only shares the cars and customers that he is able to tune successfully, but never did he share with anyone or admits to the Facebook groups on the cars that he has failed to tune and resolve. I have gone through over 10-20+ revisions and logs with Harry over at Navardi, and each time since the 2nd revision, the logs and tunes have had serious problems. I have triple-checked the mechanical aspect and there are definitely no issues there. So it had to have been the tune. From torque limitations to insane amounts of timing corrections even under only 18psi of boost, this problem has plagued my car for months since April until recently. I will share here the logs with you below, see for yourself.

The time it took for the tuner to get back to me was also insane, sometimes I would not get a response back for days while going through these issues, and I would not get another revision for days to a week at a time. It took forever, and even past the 10th revision, the only option I had was to take my tuning elsewhere as they kept insisting that it was a mechanical issue, or there is a software limitation somewhere which is causing the issue. I was definitely not letting my car take any more of the abuse in timing correction over timing corrections.. Any more of that and perhaps the engine would start running into serious issues. Enough is enough.

So I looked for other options, and a couple of other fellow G20 owners recommended me to LCP Tuning about a month ago. Within this short month, after 6-7 very smooth revisions, the car is finally driving how it should without issues. Making power and very smooth at the same time. Amazing support from them, I received map revisions instantly, not having to wait more than 15-20 minutes. I could go log and stop somewhere, send over the log and be up and running with the next revision within 20 minutes. All in all there is not much to say here besides the fact that I was now making power and tuned properly without major issues. It was a huge success with LCP. Highly recommended. Logs of his tunes are also shared below, the difference is night and day.

Conclusion

There were so many problems with this upgrade that I simply did not have the time to even come on here to write a review sooner, and after a few months of struggling, now it finally runs how it should. Do I recommend the turbo upgrade? Definitely, if all the issues I ran into are rounded out for new buyers, if all the parts included actually help make the install a breeze. Do I recommend Navardi Tuned which was recommended to me by IPOS? Definitely not. My car was abused more than 10-20 times 3rd gear 2000rpm to redline, and it still was not running properly. They simply cannot tune B48TU. He does not know how to get past the 10D000 torque limitation active fault code, and the torque limiter itself. Other tuners can get it done instantly and blow past it, they simply cannot.

When others bring this to light, the tuner simply refuses to acknowledge any of this, and can only defend himself with many excuses. I like to believe that everyone should back all of their work, regardless if it was successful or not. It would feel much better if he admitted that due to his lack of knowledge of the new B48TU platform and differences in ECU with gen1 B48, he was unable to get past these issues and seek help from others so he can improve it. But from my end, it just felt like he had no idea what he was doing. None of his revisions fixed this issue I experienced.

All in all, if you're in to do this turbo upgrade from IPOS, I would brace for and be prepared for problems to come up whilst installing the upgrade and while tuning it. It is definitely not as easy as they say. Don't be fooled!

So far the car is driving fast and although I cannot say how much power it is making, it is definitely much quicker than with the OEM turbo on Stage 2 OTS. The way the power is delivered is phenomenal. LCP really did an outstanding job with this tune, and not much can be said about it. It is simply so much fun to drive this car. I will share more down the line if there are other problems or updates.

Again, I did not want to bash anyone in this review, I am simply sharing my experience. I am not angry or frustrated as I've moved past it, the car is running perfectly now and that is all I care for. But I have to clear up the misinformation and false advertising out there, not everything the brand owners and tuners tell you is always true. There is simply not enough information and buyers out there to share this information. I want to do what I can to give this information to anyone else interested in making this purchase.

I will answer any and all questions, thanks to everyone for reading through this review!

PS - Images 1,2 are Navardi's. Images 3,4 are from LCP.

I was told 10d000 was suppressed, so it wasn't actually affecting torque limits. And even if it did my xhp tune would get rid of it. Now your making me think the torque limit is actually restricting torque.

[g20beam]

Originally Posted by Glashutte

IPOS Motorsports

I also have the IM450 installed on my car and I'm also tuning via Navardi. I have to agree with a lot of your points.

I had the turbo installed at a local shop. Fortunately, these guys were very experienced and theyre used to working around fitment issues. That being said, they did not experience as many issues as you did, although there were problems with the oil line being too close to some moving parts which required the line to be bent a bit. The kit also did not come with a turbo inlet, which I was made well aware of before the order due to a parts shortage. It wasn't a major deal because Kev had advised me to use a reduction coupler, which worked out in the end.

In all fairness, I wonder if the wrong turbo was sent or if some of those issues are a result of being early production/prototype. Or if there are differences between b48 gen1 and b48tu that the kit did not account for. I have a b46tu and gaskets/manifolds weren't an issue.

I agree with the noise aspect, one issue is that the resonator from the oem inlet is not there so the turbo is quite loud. Especially since the armaspeed intake is very noisy. Personally I don't mind but it would definitely get annoying for a long family drive

Navardi Tuning

As far as this goes, I have to agree that his response time is less than great. Unfortunately he's tuning a lot of cars, holding live dyno sessions, and doing a bunch of other stuff. Frankly I think he's taken on too much work, and should hire more people to help [...]

Hey, appreciate your response, and glad there is others out here with the same turbo. I have to disagree that the tuner’s inability to find a solution for the rough tune would not cause harm to the car, as the turbo stutters consistently anywhere from 5000rpm to redline, causing the car to jerk back and forth when WOT.. Adding to that, taking on too many customers is not an excuse to neglect to work on them or to admit to the public that these issues are indeed very real, and if he’s really working on as many cars as he is saying, then he’d have ample experience on the issues and how to fix them.. Of which he has failed to do either, and instead me and many others wasted our money on what is thought to be a smooth experience.

The turbo exhaust manifold problem was not sent out by mistake, it is simply a miscalculation in manufacturing as the B46/B48TU have a timing chain component that blocks the manifold from fitting correctly, which is absent in Gen1 B46/48’s. Which is why us “test” cars were needed, to see what problems should occur while installing one of these on a B46/48TU.

I would be fine with it if knowing about it ahead of time, but all I was told was “install would be a breeze” and “it can be done by yourself on the driveway” or “everything will fit properly, it’s literally a plug and play”

There’s just many problems that being promised “Everything will be smooth” is just such a huge scam and a lie. If I could know from the start and prepare myself for this, it would’ve been fine to be completely honest.

[g20beam]

Originally Posted by ztech

I was told 10d000 was suppressed, so it wasn't actually affecting torque limits. And even if it did my xhp tune would get rid of it. Now your making me think the torque limit is actually restricting torque.

I was told by them that it was xHP causing this issue, but I ran into 0 issues with the LCP tune while on the same xHP flash. For them the 10D000 still appears as a ghost code but does not affect performance at all.

Tbh now I have no clue what it is, but Navardi was unable to fix the problem in my car and I had to look elsewhere, which fixed my issue.

FYI, LCP Tuned currently holds the world record B48 fully built, it goes from 0-60mph in 2.9s and makes over 600whp.. And as far as I’m aware he’s tuned over 150+ BMW’s at least. At least 5 or more of his customers used to be tuned by Navardi but with a variety of problems, hence why they went to LCP for the tune and has been satisfied since.

In no way am I pushing for LCP, but their rapid support and lack of issues is all it takes for me to really recommend them, as my experience with them was absolutely seamless in every way.

[Kraklz]

I am the owner of IPOS Motorsport for those who don't know and I'll gladly address this extremely dishonest review.

You bought the turbocharger from us with a hefty discount fully knowing you would be the VERY FIRST B4xTU engine to be fitted with an IM450. We were looking for candidates that would be interested. In exchange to be the test car, you would be compensated in the form of a discount. The purpose of this was to figure out exactly what was different in a real-world installation, there's only so much you can determine through diagrams and technical documents. We helped you throughout the entire installation process and we asked you numerous questions and measurements to make the appropriate changes. The manifolds are cast with both provisions of the 4th cylinder bolt hole for both generations of the B4x engines. At the time we didn't know it would interfere with the casting of the cylinder head. As of TODAY we officially sell B4xTU direct bolt-on fitments. Ask yourself, is it appropriate to take a discount to be a prototype car and complain about fitment issues? Especially after we offered you active support?

For those who are spectators in this debacle, we sincerely apologize for the drama. It's simply a rivalry between NavardiTuned and LCP. You want competition? Fine, but the dishonest smear attack having other bad actors tell you what to write and respond to turn away people from us is the lowest of the lows.

I'll let NavardiTuned address the points you brought up regarding him.

IF ANYONE IS SKEPTICAL ABOUT OUR PRODUCTS AND THE WORK WE DO, YOU CAN REACH OUT TO US WE'RE FULLY TRANSPARENT.
https://iposmotorsport.com/pages/contact

I encourage EVERYONE reading this to simply watch this video of an installation, it refutes everything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yigaG2PFB0&t=2s

[navardi]

Navardi Tuned Reply:

First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to share your detailed experience. We deeply value feedback as it provides insights into how we can further improve our service and processes. We'd like to address some of the concerns you've raised:

Turnaround Time: Our aim is always to offer the best service in a timely manner. A 1-3 business day turnaround is our standard, and we take pride in maintaining that for all our customers. With this timeframe our individual time spent on each client has not and will not change. Since the beginning we have continued to work on improving and automating tasks where possible As such this spawned the creation of tools such as TuneFlow Dynamics to help assist in not only improving our turnaround times but also ensuring repeatability in the services we offer. You can find more details on our website regarding the process, including information regarding booking remote dyno sessions and remote back 2 back revision sessions.

Revisions & Communication: We apologize for any miscommunication. Our records show 9 revisions, during which we worked closely with you to troubleshoot and refine the tuning. It's crucial for our clients to communicate any concerns or issues they encounter so we can promptly address them. Many of what you have described in your review were never notified to us even at the time of the prescribed issue. Infact after our last revision and comments we simply did not hear from you as a follow up.

Transparency: We take pride in our transparency. While we celebrate our successes, we also learn from our challenges. Every car is unique, and the state of the vehicle when presented to us can indeed affect our ability to tune it perfectly. We always try our best to ensure our clients are satisfied. All platform developments whether from ourselves or others we work with are consistently updated in the wiki (I encourage you to find a more detailed and up to date source of information): https://bwmenginewiki.com

Your Datalogs: Thank you for sharing examples of our logs, its important that when you are discussing data you understand it correctly, the logs whilst clearly being inhibited by a limiter logic within the DME which creates a less than desirable outcome of which we were committed to resolving. It did have some minor timing corrections but were within acceptable variance for your chosen fuel. Again throughout the tuning process it is our goal to get this as clean as possible. But on Gasoline based fuels, a timing variance of up to 3 degrees is acceptable. Its also important to note we start off all revisions with low Load/Torque/Boost targets to ensure we can get a good scope of the car before we begin slowly ramping it up, this way we can ensure throughout every step of the revision process we can catch any issues if present early and before we start leaning on the engine and its output.

Expertise: We are well-acquainted with the TU motor amongst others and have had success in tuning them, as showcased on our social media. The unique nature of each car sometimes calls for more intricate tuning, but rest assured, our primary goal is to ensure the optimal engine performance. We even have TU examples in the 400 - 540WHP range.

LCP and B4x World Records: We respect everyone in our industry, including LCP. It's essential to maintain healthy competition and mutual respect. However we had no intention to smear LCP online or otherwise our initial comment on the facebook post that appears to have started this drama was merely an intention of stating the facts of the outcome of the results. We sit here today throwing this community through drama that no one needs, especially myself as this is taking time away from more important tasks however I feel it is important to address the elephant in the room.

It is clear to me, LCP's marketing campaign to ensure the world knows who the best B4x tuner and recorder holder is, is by smearing any competition that challenges their records. We have not done this, whilst we have had reserves about other turbo products and their quality standards our hope was that those companies would improve their product so we could see benefit added to the community. That has and always will be our objective to continually push this community to be better whether it be from a part/tune perspective or just from a community perspective.

It's worth noting, we own N20 and B4x Gen 1, B4xTU, and B48E internally for all our research and development purposes.

Conclusion: We apologise that the community has had to deal with this unprofessional drama, unfortunately this industry is full of similar behavior. We wish we could all get along and have a good time together as fellow car enthusiasts.

[Jimdd117]

I bought the im450 from iposmotorsport.com. I have a 2019 BMW 330 msport package. Turbo fit perfectly no modifications needed. My mechanic said turbo looked great and was easy to install. All parts where present. Ipos has always been great and quick to respond messages even about other modifications. super knowledgeable, always helpful. I highly recommend iposmotorsport. Navardi has been awesome as well, quick to respond to my messages and did a awesome first tune round. Their wiki pages has been really helpful. Waiting to Log some data for adjustments on my tune. Using MGflasher for my Navardi tune.
Here is a list of all my mods
1 Im450 turbo- iposmotorsport.com
2 Eisenmann Quad exhaust system
3 Arma speed cold air intake
4 Active Autowerke catted downpipe
5 Racewerks Chargepipe
6 Dinan springs
7 Dinan ignition coils
8 Bilstein B6 Shocks and struts

[g20beam]

Originally Posted by Kraklz

I am the owner of IPOS Motorsport for those who don't know and I'll gladly address this extremely dishonest review.

You bought the turbocharger from us with a hefty discount fully knowing you would be the VERY FIRST B4xTU engine to be fitted with an IM450. We were looking for candidates that would be interested. In exchange to be the test car, you would be compensated in the form of a discount. The purpose of this was to figure out exactly what was different in a real-world installation, there's only so much you can determine through diagrams and technical documents. We helped you throughout the entire installation process and we asked you numerous questions and measurements to make the appropriate changes. The manifolds are cast with both provisions of the 4th cylinder bolt hole for both generations of the B4x engines. At the time we didn't know it would interfere with the casting of the cylinder head. As of TODAY we officially sell B4xTU direct bolt-on fitments. Ask yourself, is it appropriate to take a discount to be a prototype car and complain about fitment issues? Especially after we offered you active support?

For those who are spectators in this debacle, we sincerely apologize for the drama. It's simply a rivalry between NavardiTuned and LCP. You want competition? Fine, but the dishonest smear attack having other bad actors tell you what to write and respond to turn away people from us is the lowest of the lows.

I'll let NavardiTuned address the points you brought up regarding him.

IF ANYONE IS SKEPTICAL ABOUT OUR PRODUCTS AND THE WORK WE DO, YOU CAN [...]

I’d pull the screenshots from our Instagram chat log but that would be too much drama that I’m not really looking forward to. In more than one instance I was told “you can do it yourself”, and for the last 3 months I was told I’d be receiving a new turbo inlet but nothing has come. Ample time to make it happen already, but still, nothing even though the original part is of poor quality. I just keep getting ghosted by you with a “it will come soon, will keep you posted” on many occasions.

I understand that I am a tester for this turbo and in no way am I saying that the pricing, nor the quality of the turbo suffers any issues. But you did NOT mention anywhere that your turbo would require some trial and error to install, and that you do not know if it may work. I was always told by your end that it will be a smooth install based on the sufficient “data” you and your team have gathered on this platform.

Either own up to it or don’t come here telling your unsatisfied customer that they are at fault for purchasing and installing your product, testing waters with your highly recommended tuner and then furthermore achieving absolutely no success. If it weren’t for my mechanic figuring out half the issues we ran into with your kit, the turbo would not be on the car.

Wrong manifold gasket sent out, poor quality turbo inlet that warps with barely any temperature, oil and coolant lines that are inadequate in replacing OEM lines, are just scratching the surface. None of this was mentioned to me that the parts may not fit and it would be a trial and error process, I was not told this. I was not told that if I were to install the turbo myself (as suggested by yourself) that I would need to get a compressor and a grinder to cut off part of the exhaust manifold on the turbocharger. I had to secure the coolant and oil lines with a washer cut in a D shape and a philips screw in between because the OEM screw wouldn’t even fit.

I understand you responded quickly and offered solutions and was there for support when all of this unfolded, but this all came after the fact, not while I was waiting 3 months for the turbo to arrive.

[Glashutte]

Originally Posted by g20beam

Hey, appreciate your response, and glad there is others out here with the same turbo. I have to disagree that the tuner’s inability to find a solution for the rough tune would not cause harm to the car, as the turbo stutters consistently anywhere from 5000rpm to redline, causing the car to jerk back and forth when WOT.. Adding to that, taking on too many customers is not an excuse to neglect to work on them or to admit to the public that these issues are indeed very real, and if he’s really working on as many cars as he is saying, then he’d have ample experience on the issues and how to fix them.. Of which he has failed to do either, and instead me and many others wasted our money on what is thought to be a smooth experience.

The turbo exhaust manifold problem was not sent out by mistake, it is simply a miscalculation in manufacturing as the B46/B48TU have a timing chain component that blocks the manifold from fitting correctly, which is absent in Gen1 B46/48’s. Which is why us “test” cars were needed, to see what problems should occur while installing one of these on a B46/48TU.

I would be fine with it if knowing about it ahead of time, but all I was told was “install would be a breeze” and “it can be done by yourself on the driveway” or “everything will fit properly, it’s literally a plug and play”

There’s just many problems that being promised “Everything will be smooth” is just such a huge scam and a lie. If I could know from the start and prepare myself for this, it would’ve been fine to be completely honest.

So it sounds like the intended design was for this to be an easy install, but the manufacturer was honest about the fact that this was an early production run where manufacturing defects or design flaws can happen.

Not trying to say that no one else has ran into issues, but mine was purchased a few months ago and it seems like many of those issues were ironed out in later iterations. I do agree that for current production batches it is still not a 100% smooth operation at all. However, it isn't beyond the reach of a DIY job and the issues were fairly minor. Renting a shop + mechanic and bringing a savvy friend does make it much less intimidating though (which is what I did)

Generally I tend to treat tuning as a hit or miss thing. For some reason every tuner has duds and they just take forever to make some cars work while someone else does it in a few revisions. Every car is different . Personally I've had some not so great experiences with Cary Jordan but a lot of other guys have perfect tunes. It happens even with the biggest names and Navardi is no exception. At the end of the day, there's no issue with seeking out another tuner if things dont seem to work. That being said, I am still skeptical that a datalog could harm your engine, even if its causing inconsistent boost.

[g20beam]

More pictures of the install, none of what I’m saying is to try and slander the product.

I am currently running this turbo with success from:

1) My mechanic that’s worked on countless BMWs, stock or modded over years of experience.

and

2) LCP Tuned to get it all running smoothly and making power.

None of this success came from IPOS or Navardi Tuned. The turbo is of quality, I can admit this. The accessories to support it is simply non-existent. The knowledge to tune it properly without issues is also not there at all.

Adding to the coolant line problem: The OEM coolant line, in order to fit on the new turbo, has to be bent more than 5° to fit. It is fully aluminum, every last inch of it. I was strongly urged by my mechanic which sees and fixes 50+ cars a week at a renowned shop locally that this would be a terrible idea, and truthfully an extra AN4 line should’ve been included so this didn’t have to be done. We also had to grind down the head of the OEM line by basically half a cm so it would fit in the new compressor housing.

[Kraklz]

Originally Posted by g20beam

I’d pull the screenshots from our Instagram chat log but that would be too much drama that I’m not really looking forward to. In more than one instance I was told “you can do it yourself”, and for the last 3 months I was told I’d be receiving a new turbo inlet but nothing has come. Ample time to make it happen already, but still, nothing even though the original part is of poor quality. I just keep getting ghosted by you with a “it will come soon, will keep you posted” on many occasions.

I understand that I am a tester for this turbo and in no way am I saying that the pricing, nor the quality of the turbo suffers any issues. But you did NOT mention anywhere that your turbo would require some trial and error to install, and that you do not know if it may work. I was always told by your end that it will be a smooth install based on the sufficient “data” you and your team have gathered on this platform.

Either own up to it or don’t come here telling your unsatisfied customer that they are at fault for purchasing and installing your product, testing waters with your highly recommended tuner and then furthermore achieving absolutely no success. If it weren’t for my mechanic figuring out half the issues we ran into with your kit, the turbo would not be on the car.

Wrong manifold gasket sent out, poor quality turbo inlet that warps with barely any temperature, oil and coolant lines that are inadequate in replacing OEM lines, are just scratching the surface. None of this was mentioned to me that the parts may not fit and it would be a trial and error process, I was not told this. I was not told that if I were to install the turbo myself (as suggested by yourself) that I would need to get a compressor and a grinder to cut off part of the exhaust manifold on the turbocharger. I had to secure the coolant and oil lines with a washer cut in a D shape and a philips screw in between because the OEM screw wouldn’t even fit.

I understand you responded quickly and offered solutions and was there for support when all of this unfolded, but this all came after the fact, not while I was waiting 3 months for the turbo to arrive.

We can go back and forth all day but that just ensues extra drama that doesn't help anyone. In hindsight maybe we should have looked for alternatives to test fit the turbo and make the appropriate changes. After all we do now own a shop B48TU vehicle for development. I am truly sorry you've had a bad experience it's never our intention regardless of whose fault it is.

This post is not a reflection of the current kits sold for the TU motors as evident by Vehicular DIY's excellent video, and I would say the BIGGEST reason it is that way today is because of your collaboration with us. That's always going to be appreciated.

I am going to reach out to you in private messaging regarding some options, maybe we can solve this amicably.

[dhock_holiday]

Great write up OP

[330i_B48]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune with IPOS and Navardi tuned.

1st off the IPOS turbos are made in China which is replicating what others have done with a hybrid style turbo using a g25-550 or g25-660 internals. You can get the identical turbo for $1600 USD - Speedtune, GT500 turbo, HDP550 and numerous other companies from China. Speedtune have dyno charts showing 445whp and others around that for a hybrid turbo (g25-660 version).

Competition is good but brand bashing to sell your own products are very poor qualities. Both IPOS and Navardi bashes all the turbo kits and tuners to sell their own products. The China turbos made 445+whp and IPOS nor Navardi made these with their turbos as yet.

They insulted LCP and LCP replied with the facts that they bashed China products and now they selling the same China turbos and products for a mark up (double the price). LCP also included logs of what they did VS Navardi which you can clearly see LCP being the better tuner.

Navardi is known by many as the "goto" b48,n20 tuner but the reality is many of their fans/customers don't know better. Even a n20 customer posted a log from Navardi claiming its good but it had tons of throttle closure and overboost. This goes to show how much people support crap and don't know any better.

On the discord they also have numerous people complain about the turbo manifold fitment from IPOS. Yet they don't disclose all the details.

[g20beam]

For anyone interested, this is my previous revision from LCP, it is not the current one on my vehicle at the moment. Did a full pull from 3rd @2000rpm to 5th. The tune is very, very smooth.

Take a look at the timing corrections, the boost targets, the knock sensor all throughout, the load..

Running on ~100RON or 97+ Octane with the help of Boostane:

https://bootmod3.net/log?id=64c08e85d10b43d99c9ab4d3

It is some very impressive stuff. All the other logs are somewhat like this.

[sqwinny]

Originally Posted by 330i_B48

1st off the IPOS turbos are made in China which is replicating what others have done with a hybrid style turbo using a g25-550 or g25-660 internals. You can get the identical turbo for $1600 USD - Speedtune, GT500 turbo, HDP550 and numerous other companies from China. Speedtune have dyno charts showing 445whp and others around that for a hybrid turbo (g25-660 version).

These are made in China, no doubt about it, however have a different exhaust manifold. It was asked to be developed and designed. The speedtune, gt500 turbo and others use the stock manifold to make a standard “hybrid turbo setup.”

Competition is good but brand bashing to sell your own products are very poor qualities. Both IPOS and Navardi bashes all the turbo kits and tuners to sell their own products. The China turbos made 445+whp and IPOS nor Navardi made these with their turbos as yet.

This is actually false. Unfortunately for the b46+b46tu motors the only turbo kits around for quite some time was a “pure turbo upgrade” which for the price doesn’t make 370whp on full e85. Other options at the time were hybrid turbo setups and the big boost turbo kit before IPOS had these made. Big Boost Turbo kit for the b46 was the biggest crap show I’ve ever seen (I come from the sr20 world). You can watch that install video series from Shah’s machine shop YouTube channel. “Shane’s BMW B48 BigBoost600 Turbo Upgrade Kit Installation DIY”. You start to see all the little install and fitment issues at 2:53 and throughout the rest of the video. If stating this kit has issues is bashing another company, I would be very upset. Let the video speak for itself.

One of the biggest issues is the BBT kit claimed and showed 500whp on a b46 f36 car, however no one could replicate their social media claims. Shane did make many videos in this, however was not happy with when you take and ask the data to be realistic. When you take the dyno videos shared from the famous Shane b48e 330i into consideration, this is where this many years of drama was started.

B48 330e turbo makes 600whp. Cool.
Found to have a 125whp shot of nitrous. Cool.
So you remove 125whp from the overall number. That puts us at 475 whp without nitrous.
However as the car is a 330e meaning hybrid, you have to take the hybrid motor into account. It’s estimated this is around 80-85whp with various tests as you cannot turn off the system at all.
Adding to the napkin match is 475-80= 395whp.

All of this BBT install kit issues + fitment + $$$$ spent to not even break 400whp. That’s where the drama started and for quite some time and it was misleading to the BMW i4 community. Shane has changed his setup quite a bit now and no longer has the BBT kit. I wish him luck in his goals for more power.

Take a look for yourself BBT install video

https://youtu.be/FpTvtpCl5Jo?si=stnnXeni2_8uMIIE

Compare fitment to the install of the im450 by Vehicular DIY
https://youtu.be/1yigaG2PFB0?si=sWGI5cJGnpThQCD3

As of last year, outside of Pure or BBT, some folks retrofitted a b48e turbo onto their b46 as it fit with minor modification. Otherwise your only options were those or go custom. This was a great option as on 93 you would make more power than the PURE or BBT and the cost to make it work was peanuts in comparison.

A handful of people in China went custom and cut the stock turbo manifold + set it up for a V Band flange to mount the turbo of their choice. I believe it was a genuine g25-660 in this case. These setups make power, but they are laggy compared to a hybrid turbo setup. The only way to avoid lag is to make a custom tubular manifold and pair it to the turbo. Today we have quite a bit more options and Spool out of Houston is in progress of making top mount full frame turbos for the b46/b46tu motors. They bought a shop car to develop the kit.

Power

Navardi has made over 450whp on the im500 however data has not been shared with the general public as the goal was to show the final result, not in-process results. Thus with a forged bottom end + ported and upgraded cylinder head + proper fueling the limits will be shared shortly.

Yes a preliminary dyno was shown peaking 30psi but only holding 26psi to redline. The dyno graph shared didn’t have any dyno smoothing on it. Without smoothing you see all these jagged edges from anyone’s dyno due to interference of how a wheel dyno works. From the public dynos shared, im450 and im500 peak power around 6800-7000 rpm. Thus 26psi in an im500 at 7000rpm making 400whp shows there is a lot of power still on the table for this turbo. As these are hybrid turbos, more boost is the way to generate the most power to a certain limit.

Im450 is good to 27-29 psi and it stops flowing more air. Its been repeated to make around 370-400whp on pump 93 with boostane or a gallon or two of e85 in the tank as pump 93 octane fuel is very inconsistent. Im500 has shown to do at least 37psi with more to go and flow more air. Imagine what 10 more psi can do for you. Rule of thumb is 1 psi is 10-14 crank hp.

They insulted LCP and LCP replied with the facts that they bashed China products and now they selling the same China turbos and products for a mark up (double the price).

To be fair, LCP was VERY upset about a comment of a car running 11s. However, that car was known to have hardware issues before and after they stopped their tuning with Navardi and went with LCP. I’m not going to discuss those hardware issues. That's their choice. There was some discussion about the turbo being from China or something taken out of context in a Facebook group being very upset that China is no good or something along those lines. Thus in a spur of China nationalism, LCP started this campaign to smear others and try to discredit Navardi tuned. IPOS vs the Chinese market Turbos are physically different, then again if you get your hands on one with the changes made more power to you. Don't expect support from IPOS. Without a US-based company (if you are US-based) to provide support other than ordering this from a Chinese marketplace, you are on your own outside of that vendor. Many people won’t want to take that risk, some will. That’s up to the buyer. If it wasn’t for IPOS to ask for certain changes to be made, these im450-im500 turbos wouldn’t exist outside of China. We would still only have access to pure turbos, as many of the b46/b48 companies who have developed parts refuse to sell to the USA due to nationalism and have “the top b46/b48” as their claim to fame.

Historically on the n20/n26/n54/n55 chinese turbo upgrades were a hit or miss, however, things have changed in the last 3-4 years. Hence drifting and other communities using Pulsar turbos vs genuine Garett turbos depending on power and motorsport goals.

Pricing

God forbid someone get something developed + ask for some margin for profit after development + research + data testing. This doesn’t include taxes or import fees into the USA. This applies to other companies and industries as well (Pure/DAW/Vargas/Big Boost Turbo, etc). Nothing is made in-house anymore unless you are willing to spend $$$$ for USA developed systems + turbo setups. Afe, FTP, Turner Motorsport/ECS Tuning, and Valvetronic is known for this deeply only to name a few big names. 99% of Downpipes and other things are made in China as well. If we want to point fingers point at Apple and Samsung as their phones are arguably made for sub $300 but thry charge $1100-1200 for their product. Soda costs cents to make a cup but we pay $3-4 for 20oz at a restaurant. Bar is marked up 300% vs if you bought a can/glass bottle at home. This list can go on and on.

as an example the pure turbo which struggles to make 360whp on full e85 is $2500. the IM450 which makes 370whp+ on 93 pump gas is $2500. the IM500 which has been shown to make high 400s and cross the 500 mark is $3000. BBT is $3600 or so but used to be $4000+. Sounds to me like the im450 + im500 is a damn good deal for what it is + fitment and the ability to reuse your factory bolt-ons. For perspective a efr6758 is around 2800 + you need a manifold made + do all the custom pieces to fit. You are over $4000 easily for a turbo setup.



LCP also included logs of what they did VS Navardi which you can clearly see LCP being the better tuner.

This is subjective. Unfortunately you can’t compare a tune which is in-progress to one that is near completion. Doesn’t matter who did what, that’s facts. A photo of a “log” doesn’t really tell a story without looking at all the channels to build a story of how the car is working/if the DME is pulling fail-safes on things.

One insider thing I can say is MG Flasher is easier to tune with vs BM3 as MG Flasher will implement a feature and leave it alone. BM3 will add things/make changes on the back end and not let it’s tuners know of an added failsafe. You can imagine how this causes issues in the middle of tuning a car.

Navardi is known by many as the "goto" b48,n20 tuner but the reality is many of their fans/customers don't know better. Even a n20 customer posted a log from Navardi claiming its good but it had tons of throttle closure and overboost. This goes to show how much people support crap and don't know any better.

I don’t know anything about that one or others you speak of, however every car is different and it takes time to get things dialed in + optimal to make power reliably. Some tuners will start to lean and push on the motor first, some will do some testing before increasing load and power, some will start leaning on the motor right away. All in all it depends how much risk you are willing to take while tuning. Navardi is very conservative at first to ensure the motor is healthy hardware wise and doesn’t have issues before slowly immigrating pushing “power” through it. That's the approach Navardi has taken as for most folks, as this is their only car and their daily driver. If something is actually over boosting due to a bigger turbo install, you reduce load until you find that fine line limit until the engine can consume the air + fuel properly. This is common with upgraded turbos with motors that have forged bottom ends. You can ask for boost all day, but if the car can’t consume the air, you have overboost. Due to many variables this can take a little time to figure out due to fuel quality, elevation, efficiency of all parts on the motor (air into the engine, air removed by the engine). Some folks also believe that the "boost target 22psi line" within a log is the actual boost target however that’s not the case.

Throttle closure can be caused by many different variables. Sometimes depending on a car's DME version you have to implement different strategies to make things operate in the way you want. This is common with load-based tuning

On the discord they also have numerous people complain about the turbo manifold fitment from IPOS. Yet they don't disclose all the details.

I have yet to see this one outside of a manufacturing defect (you included photos of it) however it was taken care of, but that’s all I’m aware of. That customer has gotten dyno tuned and is very happy with the outcome. The mini made 370 whp on crappy 93 gas with a conservative tune as this was a gift to their daughter to college or something similar.

Response in bold above to clear some things up from a neutral standpoint. Yes I am tuned by Navardi and have worked with him for years with prototyping parts and tunes and things, but these are the facts and is a subjective response. Cheers.

edit- fixed some spelling and grammar.

[sqwinny]

Originally Posted by g20beam

For anyone interested, this is my previous revision from LCP, it is not the current one on my vehicle at the moment. Did a full pull from 3rd @2000rpm to 5th. The tune is very, very smooth.

Take a look at the timing corrections, the boost targets, the knock sensor all throughout, the load..

Running on ~100RON or 97+ Octane with the help of Boostane:

https://bootmod3.net/log?id=64c08e85d10b43d99c9ab4d3

It is some very impressive stuff. All the other logs are somewhat like this.

Glad you are happy and found a tuner you like. It’s not a bad looking log at all. Only concern I have is you aren’t reving to 7000rpm as that’s where this im500 turbo historically makes the most power.
Good luck !