Manifold

Intake manifold: BMW intake manifolds are made of plastic and are prone to carbon build up. Carbon build-up combined with high-temperatures can lead to the manifold melting/burning out. The carbon build itself is caused by crankcase gases and oil vapour—which is especially bad in diesels that recirculate exhaust gas through the intake manifold (and carbon particles with it.)

Exhaust manifold: We don’t see many issues with exhaust manifolds. Occasionally they do crack—which we assume is caused by age, extreme heat and carbon build up.

Intake manifold: Intake manifold are used to distribute air to the engine’s cylinders. Whilst older engines mixed fuel and air within the manifold, this is a thing of the past—BMW has now shifted completely to direct injection (which means the fuel is mixed in the cylinder.) In diesel vehicles with EGR systems, the exhaust gas is cooled & recirculated through the intake manifolds—back into the engine’s cylinders—which cools the cylinder temperatures in order to reduce the creation of NOx gasses.

Exhaust manifold: The exhaust manifold converges the exhaust gas coming from each of the engine’s cylinders into a single flow, which is then distributed into the EGR valve (in diesels) or a catalytic converter (in petrols.) Some BMWs combine the exhaust manifold and catalytic converter into one part.

There can be multiple version of intake and exhaust manifolds for each engine.

The best way to determine fitment compatibility of an intake or exhaust manifold is to match the BMW part numbers from the catalogue. This can be done by decoding your vehicle’s VIN in a BMW EPC (electronic part catalogue.)

If you don’t have access to an EPC, provide our team with your vehicle’s 17-digit VIN—and we’ll check our stock for a compatible match.

Both intake & exhaust manifolds are interchangeable between models with the same engine type.