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In Reply to: Re: sorry for my ignorance,. but,.. can someone pl posted by Stephen on April 06, 2000 at 09:18:25:
Very true and a good point. The CSi's were built at M-works, vin numbered as other M's, and engined serialed as S, just like other M's. But let's be clear, BMW chose not to designate it an M8, it was in the end a CSi. BMW made this the one and only exception to their hand-built models.
Many theories exist as to why they made the 850CSi the only exception. About a year ago a BMW tech. returned from training in Munich and told me he drove a four valve per cylinder DOHC V12 850. Could it be that BMW was saving the M8 designation for this engine or even did apply it to a few prototypes? When you consider other M-cars, the M5's and M3's, the one stand-out difference from their non-M siblings is the presence of a four valve per cylinder DOHC head. The differences between the 850CSi S70 engine and the 850i/Ci M70 engine are very minor (increased displacement of .2L, increased compression, reprogrammed ECU, cam profile, increased intake, increased exhaust). I'd wager that had BMW equipped the 850 with its DOHC 4-valve head, the 850CSi would have been the 500 hp M8. Has anyone ever seen one of these prototypes?
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