BMW E39 ALPINA B10 V8 turns 20 years old this year. This series production began in January 1997 and was continued with a total of two model revisions until 2002, including an enlarged 4.8 liters displacement.
The BMW 540i was produced with Steptronic and ALPINA-specific preparations at the plant Dingolfing, and later the vehicles came to Buchloe to get there the transformation to the B10 V8. The vehicle was fundamentally modified and a new car was created in many respects. At the core is the drive: the BMW M62 engine received a stroke elevation increase to 4,619 ccm by adapting the bore (93 mm) and stroke (85 mm), under the code F3 at ALPINA.
At the cylinder head, the valve seats are changed, ducts are machined and the inlet cross-section is increased by three percent as is the case with sports engine construction. The camshafts have an opening angle of 241 degrees at the inlet and 236 degrees at the outlet. At the crankshaft, weight-optimized sintered connecting rods and light aluminum pistons from Mahle are used. The compression is increased to 10.5: 1. The engine control unit comes from Bosch and is of the Motronic M5.2.1 type. The maximum engine speed can be increased by the hardware to 6,700 rpm. The effectively reduced emissions are dissipated via the two-burner exhaust system from Boysen with a total of six metal catalysts from Emitec.
For this B10 V8 BMW, it was the first series for the tuner. ALPINA received 490 orders for the sedan and 82 units for the touring. With the use of the engine base M62TU (variable camshaft control VANOS), the engine output of the F4 engine increased by 7 hp and the torque by 10 Nm. The differential also received an adjustment to 3.08: 1. The top speed improved slightly to 279 km/h. On the outside the revised 5 Series can be recognized by slightly altered exterior mirrors.
Only a small handful arrived in Malaysia over the years and they are hard to find these days. The used market will not carry original units as owners will have buyers already waiting outside their homes with a fist full of cash to take ownership of on of these rare cars. Be prepared to pay a high RM65,000 for a mint original unit.
