Swirl Flap delete done thisevening ( pics )

[kjb1]

Well, we took swirl flaps out this-evening finally!! Relieved to have them out.  They looked in good condition to be fair, as did the whole inlet manifold, nice and clean which was nice to see.  So did a swirl delete, oil filter, air filter and changed oil.  Tomorrow I will be driving egr closed via ecu and remapping. 

Had a good clean of manifold any ways whilst it was off.  Here are couple of pics:



The little blighters out never to grace an engine again!!



Blanks fitted in place

[JimmySpeed]

What mileage is your car? It's nice to see how clean the manifold is. I've been considering whipping mine off for a clean but I keep reading about fairly clean manifolds even at higher mileage on these cars

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[kjb1]

65,000 miles on the car.  Manifold was really good, that pic was as it came out of car.  Really clean to be fair.

[lezmtaylor]

I understood the E53 diesel did NOT have swirl flaps fitted, am I missing something ????

I know my car does not have them (4.4)

Lez

[X5Sport]

It's an E70........and they do. 

Richard

[kjb1]

les, this is the car lol:

[Don Coffey]

Ok,  What are they and what are the pros and cons of taking them out?

Don

[martin33100]

[quote="Don Coffey"]
Ok,  What are they and what are the pros and cons of taking them out?

Don
[/quote]The inlet manifold has 12 ports on the 3 litres, 6 short and 6 long.
For low speed torque and driveability the ecu shuts off 6 ports (I think its the short ones) and then opens them up at higher rpm.
The very first versions introduced around 2003 could fail and the flaps/screws could get sucked into the cylinder and damage the engine.
The E70 I think is on the third generation of swirl flaps and they are much much better but due to the scare mongering on the net people are still removing them, I even have a set of blanks for our E70 when I have the time.
So far I have only removed the blanks on two 2.0d M47 engines but there was no noticeable change to the way the engine drove.

All I can say is if anyone is going to do there flaps first check for glow plug related fault codes as if you have to change glow plugs or the control unit its a manifold off job. The glow plug control module is a common failure as we had one go on our 07 325d and the one on our 57 X5 is also u/s.

[X5Sport]

Later engines like the N57 series we have in the 40d have a different intake manifold system, still with swirl flaps of yet another design, and I've not yet seen any reference to those having issues.

Richard