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Technical Topics B48 4-Cylinder Turbo Engine / Drivetrain / Exhaust Modifications [B46/B48] FTP Aftermarket Charge Pipe Install + Review

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      05-08-2020, 07:07 PM   #1
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Hey guys,

I bought the FTP charge pipes for the G20 last week, surprised to say that the shipping was extremely swift and got to me in Toronto from Taiwan in 3 days flat. The delivery company was DHL and I am astounded my part got here so quick amidst the coronavirus situation.

Anyhow, I opened up the package and installed em the very next day, it was relatively straight forward. It doesn't take a genius or anything to figure out how to assemble the pipes, very easy. The not so straight forward part however was removing the stock pipe from the turbo. The C-clamp is a little tricky to get off but once you manage to disengage it, it comes off very easy. The charge pipe connected to the throttle body is only held in with three torx screws, I believe it's a T27. The boost sensor is probably held in by a T20 screw. The other sensor is just screwed in, so you just unscrew it from the stock pipe and remount it to the new pipe.

You have to do multiple fittings after putting the new aftermarket charge pipes in place, and make adjustments on the clamps on the rubber tube connecting the two pipes, to make sure that the pipe is long enough and turned at just the right angle to be mounted properly.

It takes about two hours. My gf was my helper and she just had to shine a light for me to see what I am working with. I did not need to remove any part of my engine to take out the charge pipe, just had to wiggle it out, there's also a rubber tube connected to the intercooler that gets in the way but it is flexible, so you just have to flex it a little so that the charge pipe can be freed. The FTP pipes fit better than the stock pipes. They are better shaped and there is more room to work with when you install the new pipes.

As for performance there's really not too much to write home about. For normal users, there will be little to no performance gain. If you drive on Sport+ all the time like I do, then you may experience slightly better throttle response. I used the JB+ to increase my boost by +2psi (at the halfway mark which should be about +2.25psi to be exact). I am also on Stage 2 93 Octane. Results of this was 350bhp/400lbft tq. I have since lowered it to +1psi (9 o'clock position on JB+ dial) just to be safe. I think I will be a little under 350bhp now, which is plenty enough for me IMO. I am very happy with the car as limp mode will never be an issue for me now. It is making decent power and most of all it is just fun to drive. Intake will probably give my car a better sound but I don't care much about sound now, just performance.

Thanks for reading and please do let me know if you have any questions.

One last thing, I want to ask the more experienced owners and members on the forum for advice, whether or not it is safe to run JB+ @ +1-2psi on top of Bootmod3 Stage 2, with these aftermarket charge pipes. Will my turbo and my throttle body be able to handle it? Or is it too much?

Attached are photos. The last photo is the original charge pipe and the gap that formed on my OEM charge pipe.
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      05-09-2020, 06:26 PM   #2
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Now I'm starting to get a little nervous because I was curious about the condition of my chargepipe and decided to take a look at it after a short drive. I realized I have a gap too. The only thing I have on my car is the JB+ cranked to 4psi or the 3oclock position. Is this something to worry about or should I be fine? The first photo is my 330i w JB+ chargepipe gap and the second is my 540i w m power and sound kit's chargepipe which has no gap.
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      05-09-2020, 09:23 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hamzag20 View Post
Now I'm starting to get a little nervous because I was curious about the condition of my chargepipe and decided to take a look at it after a short drive. I realized I have a gap too. The only thing I have on my car is the JB+ cranked to 4psi or the 3oclock position. Is this something to worry about or should I be fine? The first photo is my 330i w JB+ chargepipe gap and the second is my 540i w m power and sound kit's chargepipe which has no gap.
Wow so seems like I'm not the only person to have this problem now.

Honestly not much to say except for the fact that the OEM charge pipe is hot trash.

Just replace it and you won't run into an issue, dealership asks about it, you tell them just this: the OEM pipe is trash.
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      05-10-2020, 09:01 AM   #4
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Hi,

This is one of the downsides of turning up the boost 25-30% above stock.

One question is, does that little gap mean it is actually failing, or could it last like this for 50k+ miles?

Another question, does it really mean the stock charge pipe is trash, let’s assume that it will not separate (if that is even really a fault) within a boost increase of 10-15%, but is not designed to tolerate 25%+. Is the manufacturer really expected to have tolerances 25%+ for every fail point on the car?

Finally, if this part is indeed failing, I think some responsibility should be placed on JB and other tuning products that increase boost significantly. They should inform the customer that changing the charge pipe is mandatory if turning up the boost more than x-amount. Shouldn’t these companies have tested their product and the affects on the car more thoroughly? Again, this is assuming that the gap /separation means the charge pipe is indeed failing.

Cheers
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      05-10-2020, 09:08 AM   #5
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Went to check mine and I too have a gap. Am running a jb+ at max setting. Curious to get input from people not running a jb+ or any mods to see if they have a gap.
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      05-10-2020, 09:13 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghozthunter View Post
Went to check mine and I too have a gap. Am running a jb+ at max setting. Curious to get input from people not running a jb+ or any mods to see if they have a gap.
View post on imgur.com
This is my 330i, only 200 miles (brand new), only part throttle and have not exceeded 4,500 rpms. Small gap (looks like there is meant to be a tiny gap, i.e., not meant to sit 100% flush), but no yellow showing at all like the other pics of JB boosted charge pipes.
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      05-10-2020, 09:36 AM   #7
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I have the same gap like all the other tuned cars here. Apparently a brand new 330i doesn’t have the orange bit showing, like Razor2010 has posted?
I did read a while back that the B46/48/58 cars have a better charge pipe than the old N20/26/55 cars and that it needs to be changed only when going stage 2? Looks like that’s not the case?

A photo from my car below. Car has run 4900 miles. Been running JB+/JB4 from around 1500 miles IIRC. I don’t remember the exact mileage.
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      05-10-2020, 09:38 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor2010 View Post
This is my 330i, only 200 miles (brand new), only part throttle and have not exceeded 4,500 rpms. Small gap (looks like there is meant to be a tiny gap, i.e., not meant to sit 100% flush), but no yellow showing at all like the other pics of JB boosted charge pipes.
Thanks for posting that picture. Very informative. Now hopefully we can get some others to post with higher mileage with no mods.

Edit: mine has a little over 10k miles in it.
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      05-10-2020, 10:10 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghozthunter View Post
Thanks for posting that picture. Very informative. Now hopefully we can get some others to post with higher mileage with no mods.

Edit: mine has a little over 10k miles in it.
No problem, and yes, someone posting a picture from a 100% stock 330i with 10k+ miles would be beneficial. I think my car is far too new to judge.
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      05-10-2020, 11:37 AM   #10
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Looking at this closer, I think the gap is exactly the same on mine as the modded cars. Perhaps the yellow/orange shows up in time due to natural wear as the gasket, or whatever it is, ages - and that is completely normal. Maybe it just naturally changes colour. Look at the gap, doesn’t look any different between my basically brand new car and the one with 10,000 miles.
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      05-10-2020, 11:58 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor2010 View Post
Looking at this closer, I think the gap is exactly the same on mine as the modded cars. Perhaps the yellow/orange shows up in time due to natural wear as the gasket, or whatever it is, ages - and that is completely normal. Maybe it just naturally changes colour. Look at the gap, doesn’t look any different between my basically brand new car and the one with 10,000 miles.
This is true but I removed the part and went for aftermarket, the FTP pipe sits flush with no orange/yellow showing in between.

I did some research on where the charge pipe in B48 typically fail in past vehicle generations and it's at the same spot, it usually fails at the connection point between throttle body and charge pipe, as shown in all of our images the stress on the plastic pipe by the throttle body.

Also, there is only 2-3mm of the orange/yellow gap where the OEM charge pipe sits. If you see 1mm already, there is only 2 more mm of that orange/yellow gap before the piping will start to leak. While installing my aftermarket pipes, I wanted to inspect the width of the gap and how much gap there is between what we can see, and how much gap there is without the pipe on.

I'm surprised to say the gap is very small, if the OEM pipe connection morphs or bends just 1-2mm more than it already is, the pipe will spring a leak or just completely fail under hard driving.
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      05-10-2020, 12:06 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VipinLJ View Post
I have the same gap like all the other tuned cars here. Apparently a brand new 330i doesn't have the orange bit showing, like Razor2010 has posted?
I did read a while back that the B46/48/58 cars have a better charge pipe than the old N20/26/55 cars and that it needs to be changed only when going stage 2? Looks like that's not the case?

A photo from my car below. Car has run 4900 miles. Been running JB+/JB4 from around 1500 miles IIRC. I don't remember the exact mileage.
My car is at roughly 35,000km or roughly 15k miles, and the gap on my charge pipe is the same as anyone else that has a JB+ or has done something to their car. I think I drive my car hard 70% of the time and if everyone's gaps look pretty much the same, you guys shouldn't be running into issues before I do. But it's hard to say since there is always a margin of manufacturing error, it's more of a risk than it is a reward for not doing aftermarket charge pipes and just waiting until one day you're driving and it just goes limp mode. There's nothing wrong with fixing it when it happens, but I like to be the guy that prevents it from ever happening.

Razor2010's car has no gap, nothing done to it, and because there is no extra boost, charge/boost pipe is completely unaffected.

Hopefully there is someone with no mods with a decent amount of mileage can post a picture for us.

Thanks a lot guys for all the comments and photos, good to know it wasn't just me that had the charge pipe morphing this early.
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      05-10-2020, 01:42 PM   #13
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g20beam, my car does have a gap.
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      05-10-2020, 02:18 PM   #14
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OK, everyone can calm down. The charge pipe is just fine on all yours cars. I went back out and took another picture, this time with the flash on, result below. The gap on my brand new car with only 200 miles and never been above 1/2 throttle and 4,500 rpms has a gap just like the modded cars and you see the gasket or whatever in the gap. Difference is mine is green as it is probably new and turns yellow / orange over time. You’re welcome

PS: I bet if you went to a dealer and popped the hood of a brand new 330i you would see the exact same thing as in my pics below.
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      05-10-2020, 02:35 PM   #15
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I had a feeling that was how it looked stock, especially considering my car has done only less than 5000 miles of which 3500 was tuned and it was WAYYY too early for the charge pipe to act up. But since a lot of people, especially tuned, posted pics and since BMW charge pipes are known to fail, I was a little scared. Thanks for putting our minds at easy Razor2010.
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      05-10-2020, 02:41 PM   #16
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No problemo my friend
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      05-11-2020, 06:54 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor2010 View Post
g20beam, my car does have a gap.
My mistake. If the gap is present even stock then that means it's a fitment issue, but in theory there shouldn't be a gap there even from factory, everything should be fitted 100% perfectly when you're making a $60,000 investment. That means no gap in the charge pipe, if there is a gap on all of our cars, it should be considered a defect.

I had a mechanic friend look at the gap and he tells me that it is obviously not normal that there is any gap in the fitting of any pipe in the engine. If there is it generally means there is symptoms of wear, and if that's the case only 15k miles into the lifespan of the vehicle, there's a big reliability problem here say when it reaches 100k. When the gap is 1mm and there is only 2-3mm of space between that gap and a leak, you could just be a couple of pounds away when you're full throttle and just the right temperature on a hot summer day for that pipe to crack or fail.

Ultimately, just want to say that chances of failure of a properly installed reputable aftermarket charge pipe has almost no chance of going limp on you as compared to the stock pipe which is a bit of a wildcard.
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      05-11-2020, 07:01 AM   #18
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Also, just to add to that, it is proven by many owners of B48 engines in F-gen that the OEM charge pipe CAN fail even on stock tune, not just on a tuned vehicle. I was honestly just generous in thinking that maybe they have revised the problem in the G20, but even if there are design changes, the bottom line is that it is still a plastic pipe, where there is a chance of flexing and morphing due to high temps. If you swap to an aluminum pipe, the chance of that happening is zero, if installed correctly. The aftermarket charge pipe will survive well after the engine fails, it's a one time investment that will last the car's entire lifespan, for 1/4 of the price of a JB4/BM3 or basically the same price as a JB+.
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      05-11-2020, 09:10 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by g20beam View Post
My mistake. If the gap is present even stock then that means it's a fitment issue, but in theory there shouldn't be a gap there even from factory, everything should be fitted 100% perfectly when you're making a $60,000 investment. That means no gap in the charge pipe, if there is a gap on all of our cars, it should be considered a defect.

I had a mechanic friend look at the gap and he tells me that it is obviously not normal that there is any gap in the fitting of any pipe in the engine. If there is it generally means there is symptoms of wear, and if that's the case only 15k miles into the lifespan of the vehicle, there's a big reliability problem here say when it reaches 100k. When the gap is 1mm and there is only 2-3mm of space between that gap and a leak, you could just be a couple of pounds away when you're full throttle and just the right temperature on a hot summer day for that pipe to crack or fail.

Ultimately, just want to say that chances of failure of a properly installed reputable aftermarket charge pipe has almost no chance of going limp on you as compared to the stock pipe which is a bit of a wildcard.
Brand new cars sitting at dealerships will have this same gap, this is by design from factory.
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      05-11-2020, 02:19 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor2010 View Post
Brand new cars sitting at dealerships will have this same gap, this is by design from factory.


Actually i have seen very few (if even one) CP failures on B58 and B48 engines. As the air to water IC is integrated on the engine manifold and flexes with the engine the CP doesent crack. The N55 and N54 with FMIC had CP fitted to the chassis and didnt flex with the engine, thats why they where prone to blow to pieces.
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      05-11-2020, 02:31 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sspdw View Post
Actually i have seen very few (if even one) CP failures on B58 and B48 engines. As the air to water IC is integrated on the engine manifold and flexes with the engine the CP doesent crack. The N55 and N54 with FMIC had CP fitted to the chassis and didnt flex with the engine, thats why they where prone to blow to pieces.
Yes, I don't think this gap is an issue at all, comes this way from brand new and appears to be by design.
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      05-11-2020, 06:48 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sspdw View Post
Actually i have seen very few (if even one) CP failures on B58 and B48 engines. As the air to water IC is integrated on the engine manifold and flexes with the engine the CP doesent crack. The N55 and N54 with FMIC had CP fitted to the chassis and didnt flex with the engine, thats why they where prone to blow to pieces.
Yes. I remember reading this about the Bxx engines compared to the Nxx ones but I wasn't exactly sure what it meant since I'm not very technically inclined. That's what I meant when I said basically the charge pipes are better in the newer engines. I'm glad the Bxx has better parts than the Nxx ones.
On another note, even our HPFP is the upgraded one (same as in the M340i and Supra and stuff). That's another part we don't need to upgrade
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