Bayer Isha Motro in Verkin, or BMW as we all know it, is a brand which maneuvers all close to our hearts. For years it's been one of the most anonymous driver-focused and performance. I think many of us will agree that the engine is an integral part to the motor vehicle and also the driving experience overall. BMW have had many great engines over their time. The M20 straight 6 used across the 1980s and 1990s was a silky smooth unit offering modest performance figures but indeed a great sound. Then came the 2000s and things really stepped up fast. The S54 was introduced for the E46 M3 offering 343 horsepower and 8,000 RPM Reblonet and some of the best induction noise you'll ever hear in a road car. A few years later we saw the mighty S85 appear in the E60 M5, possibly one of the craziest cars to come from that era. A 5.0-litre naturally aspirated V10, making you a 500 horsepower and you've mounted inside the body of a 4-door 5-series BMW. But today I'm not actually going to be talking about M engines at all. I'm going to be talking about the N52B30. You can see here I've got my 2008 BMW Z4 Coupe with the bonnet open showing that N52B30 and some of you may know but this is actually a 3.0-litre naturally aspirated straight 6. One of BMW's kind of last of the line straight 6 petrol engines if you like. As we know BMW have a long history with this type of engine and for me I think it might just be one of their greatest. If you are enjoying the video so far please do consider hitting that subscribe button. If you like it it would help our massively and we hugely appreciate the support. So suppose with this what you've got to consider is what makes a great engine. I think there's many factors to this and ultimately a lot of these are going to be subjective but to me breadth of capability is one of the key features at least for a road car and this N52 certainly delivers on all of those. Amazingly peak torque comes in at just 2,750 rpm and that's 232 foot-pounds. See these are certainly pretty modest figures but what you've got to remember in a car like this which doesn't weigh that much power goes quite a long way. So that torque is available for much of the rev range and then peak power comes in at 6,600 rpm all 265 horsepower of it but again fairly modest figures especially by today's standards. But this versatility this sort of breadth of capability that I talk about is really made possible by the use of double vanus and valve tronic. Okay so what is double vanus then? Well effectively this is variable valve timing and double just means it's on the intake and exhaust camshafts and what this does is it improves the efficiency of the engine by just allowing the engine to breathe better. VAL tronic is essentially a variable valve lift you can think of this a bit more like V-Tech and there's Honda engines and it basically just allows the actual lift of the valve how much it opens and closes to be accentuated so make it open and close more or less depending on the point in the rev range and what you're demanding from the engine. But I just find this power so usable to be honest it's a really nice amount you can deploy it basically everywhere and not really have to worry too much about traction issues and you know whether you're going to be able to get out the corner without going fully sideways but yeah this is what the N52 is about it's a daily engine it's a road engine this isn't a race engine but it just has these sort of two very distinct sides to it below 3000 rpm it's a very subdued engine it's very quiet but it still offers the torque that you need given what I was saying earlier however take it above 3000 rpm and it just totally changes the red line on this car and the rev limiter is at 7000 rpm so it's starting to go into that kind of M engine type territory if you like the way it revs out and it's pulling of course right up to the top with that peak power coming at it 6600 rpm. Now in the Z4 specifically you have a sound generator pipe which essentially just feeds induction noise into the cabin it's a brilliant idea if you asked me and I wish manufacturers would do that today but you know what it does is just fills this cabin with induction noise kind of all the way through the rev range especially when you're at full throttle it's really really great and it just makes it such a rewarding engine as well because the way it sort of develops sound changes dramatically throughout the rev range and having that sound fully in the cabin means you can really appreciate it. So the N52B30 has an 85 millimeter bore and 88 millimeter stroke. Now you don't need to worry too much about those figures but specifically the stroke being a higher measurement than the bore effectively means you have leverage on the crank shaft which helps to develop more torque and that's really what you feel with this engine. What do you've got to think with a lot of these older M engines as they're designed to rev high they don't develop tons of torque down low which kind of affects their usability on a daily basis but they deliver so much more in the high end you know you've got to think of the likes of that S54 revving to 8000 rpm just all the mechanics that need to go right for an engine to be able to do that time and time again it's really pretty astounding but the N52 kind of offers that bit of compromise I suppose it doesn't rev quite as high as the M engines but it offers so much still and also with the absence of these M taxis that we're seeing on the likes of the S54 and S85 with rod bearing issues and vano-s issues the N52 is something that you can really use day after day and not have to worry about a totally emptying your wallet at any given point in time. I'm not trying to throw any shade at those M engines of course I appreciate those just as much as anyone else but it's just nice sometimes to appreciate the lesser engines that BMW came up with and unfortunately we just don't see around too much today. So I think it's fair to say the N52 engine certainly offers everything I would want from a BMW naturally aspirated straight 6 engine. I'd love to know if you've also experienced the N52 and if you have please do let me know your thoughts on it in the comments section below. Anyway that's all from me for this video I'll see you in the next one.