BeemerFanatic
Events Organiser
Hectic about Bmw. Well done fixing all the issues yourself
Car looks hot
Car looks hot
-
Read the WELCOME ALL BMWFANATICS post.
2009 Z4 35i Let the DIY and slight cosmetic modding begin.
- Thread starter osiris
- Start date
General.Massacre
///Member
Damn dude, hectic about BMW being the liars int hat situation, typical Dealership responses to make the most oney they can, with the least effort.
Great work on the Charge pipe, and nothing but the best.
I too have my Charge pipe with Forge DVs, plus the JB4 unit
. just need fitting, need to do an oil change service soon before i do Durban end of Dec.
Great work as always Nick :thumbs:
Great work on the Charge pipe, and nothing but the best.
I too have my Charge pipe with Forge DVs, plus the JB4 unit
. just need fitting, need to do an oil change service soon before i do Durban end of Dec.Great work as always Nick :thumbs:
that_guy_Ettiene
///Member
Nice job buds!
I like SHELL oils, HX7 for the wife's daily and Ultra for the rest.
I'd use that oil ( Ultra) again or BMW branded oil if I were you.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
I like SHELL oils, HX7 for the wife's daily and Ultra for the rest.
I'd use that oil ( Ultra) again or BMW branded oil if I were you.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
car_fanatic
Member
Wow what a journey you've had with the car up to now. But she's just getting better and better. Well done. She must be a pleasure to drive around now.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
osiris
///Member
Some things have been happening on the car as of late.
Firstly I wanted a more permanent solution to the MHD monitoring app so I bought this little nifty cable.
I then started stripping panels off to start running this from the obd II port up to the vent where I can have the otg cable stick out right where the phone mounts.
Here was the procedure:
Screws to be removed:
screws out for under dash panel:
Next up bonnet lever removal so that I can remove this entire panel:
Panels all removed:
Panels that were taken ou, some funky cotton stuff that bmw puts in there:
OBD II extender cable connected and ready to route up to the vent:
Need to remove this panel:
Very easily removed by hand:
Panel off and light switch plug needs to be unplugged, Just pull the grey lever back and it comes right out.
Like so:
K-DCan Cable connected and coiled ready to pack into some small nifty space:
Air Vent removed and hole made using a dremel:
OTG cable pulled through and sealed nicely with 1 sided foam.
Cable where it needs to be:
Air vent put back and cable installed the way I want it.
All put back together and the outcome is a nice clean install, no more ugly K-DCan cable hanging all over the footwell and almost breaking the OBD II port cover each time you get in and out of the car.
Right next challenge:
While my car was at BMW two or three weeks ago dealing with the oring they damaged, they managed to break my coolant reservoir sensor, or at least that's what I thought they did so I went out and bought a new sensor and it still didn't work so last night I decided to find the problem after the OBD II port install.
It turned out that in all there awesomeness they managed to break the wire.
so here was my process of fixing it all.
Firstly due to the expansion tank being relocated to the other side of the car when I originally got the car the cable was extended and here it was:
Due to it being cable tied to the damn oil lines like an idiot the fekking plastic conduit protecting the wires started perishing.
So I removed all of this and found where bmw managed to break the wire:
I removed all the insulation tape and found one of these wires ripped.
Not much space to work here but I managed to cut off the bad ends and resolder them, it didn't look to great here of a soldering job but when I connected the wires I fixed that
New plug! stripping the ends and getting ready for nice neat soldering and heat shrink wrap.
Had to remove the expansion tank to have space to get to where the wires were broken.
Soldered and insulated and then further insulated with a large heat shrink wrap:
The old plug in all its glory :skit:
Everything was put back together and the system bled and new coolant added and low and behold I no longer get a low coolant warning :smilebounce: Aaaaand the engine bay looks that much neater again as I don't have funky conduit wrapped around my main oil lines.
Alright so back to the deep oil flush:
So I bought another 12L of shell helix ultra, I have decided to stay with this oil due to it having good ratings all round and since I will be changing the oil quite regularly going with an oil that costs a grand a bottle almost is pointless, but lets see how this goes after a few months.
So I am not sure what the story is here but the results of 4 oil changes in the space of 4 weeks has somewhat annoyed me as I kept thinking the next change is going to be clean as how it comes out the bottle only to drain dirty oil each time.
So here goes:
I went and bought a liter of diesel to add to the oil to flush the system as allot of forums and vids I have watched have suggested this to help remove as much gunk from the engine as possible. Here is what the oil looked like. This is one week old oil!
I then filled the car up with 6.5L fresh shell helix ultra 5w-40 and went for a drive for around an hour or so and then drained that:
Looks black still!
But look at the screwdriver, so this is how it would look on a dipstick if our cars had one:
Notice how clean that look on the screwdriver but what the actual oil looks like: :skit:
I changed oil filters all 4 times!
I then filled up the 4th batch of oil and will now stick with this for the next 3000 - 4000km and then change again and I will stick to those intervals. I have an issue with dirty oil...I am OCD with oil. I think the oil is now very much clean as the oil draining out the car on the 3rd drain looked quite transparent as it was pouring unlike the last 3 times.
Car is feeling smoother and smoother after these changes.
Here is a nice comparison side by side, notice the sides of the container:
Firstly I wanted a more permanent solution to the MHD monitoring app so I bought this little nifty cable.
I then started stripping panels off to start running this from the obd II port up to the vent where I can have the otg cable stick out right where the phone mounts.
Here was the procedure:
Screws to be removed:
screws out for under dash panel:
Next up bonnet lever removal so that I can remove this entire panel:
Panels all removed:
Panels that were taken ou, some funky cotton stuff that bmw puts in there:
OBD II extender cable connected and ready to route up to the vent:
Need to remove this panel:
Very easily removed by hand:
Panel off and light switch plug needs to be unplugged, Just pull the grey lever back and it comes right out.
Like so:
K-DCan Cable connected and coiled ready to pack into some small nifty space:
Air Vent removed and hole made using a dremel:
OTG cable pulled through and sealed nicely with 1 sided foam.
Cable where it needs to be:
Air vent put back and cable installed the way I want it.
All put back together and the outcome is a nice clean install, no more ugly K-DCan cable hanging all over the footwell and almost breaking the OBD II port cover each time you get in and out of the car.
Right next challenge:
While my car was at BMW two or three weeks ago dealing with the oring they damaged, they managed to break my coolant reservoir sensor, or at least that's what I thought they did so I went out and bought a new sensor and it still didn't work so last night I decided to find the problem after the OBD II port install.
It turned out that in all there awesomeness they managed to break the wire.
so here was my process of fixing it all.
Firstly due to the expansion tank being relocated to the other side of the car when I originally got the car the cable was extended and here it was:
Due to it being cable tied to the damn oil lines like an idiot the fekking plastic conduit protecting the wires started perishing.
So I removed all of this and found where bmw managed to break the wire:
I removed all the insulation tape and found one of these wires ripped.
Not much space to work here but I managed to cut off the bad ends and resolder them, it didn't look to great here of a soldering job but when I connected the wires I fixed that
New plug! stripping the ends and getting ready for nice neat soldering and heat shrink wrap.
Had to remove the expansion tank to have space to get to where the wires were broken.
Soldered and insulated and then further insulated with a large heat shrink wrap:
The old plug in all its glory :skit:
Everything was put back together and the system bled and new coolant added and low and behold I no longer get a low coolant warning :smilebounce: Aaaaand the engine bay looks that much neater again as I don't have funky conduit wrapped around my main oil lines.
Alright so back to the deep oil flush:
So I bought another 12L of shell helix ultra, I have decided to stay with this oil due to it having good ratings all round and since I will be changing the oil quite regularly going with an oil that costs a grand a bottle almost is pointless, but lets see how this goes after a few months.
So I am not sure what the story is here but the results of 4 oil changes in the space of 4 weeks has somewhat annoyed me as I kept thinking the next change is going to be clean as how it comes out the bottle only to drain dirty oil each time.
So here goes:
I went and bought a liter of diesel to add to the oil to flush the system as allot of forums and vids I have watched have suggested this to help remove as much gunk from the engine as possible. Here is what the oil looked like. This is one week old oil!
I then filled the car up with 6.5L fresh shell helix ultra 5w-40 and went for a drive for around an hour or so and then drained that:
Looks black still!
But look at the screwdriver, so this is how it would look on a dipstick if our cars had one:
Notice how clean that look on the screwdriver but what the actual oil looks like: :skit:
I changed oil filters all 4 times!
I then filled up the 4th batch of oil and will now stick with this for the next 3000 - 4000km and then change again and I will stick to those intervals. I have an issue with dirty oil...I am OCD with oil. I think the oil is now very much clean as the oil draining out the car on the 3rd drain looked quite transparent as it was pouring unlike the last 3 times.
Car is feeling smoother and smoother after these changes.
Here is a nice comparison side by side, notice the sides of the container:
osiris
///Member
Thanks guys.
So upon doing some further research I found out why the oil gets dirty so quickly.
"The blackness is due to tubocharging. When the engine has high levels of boost there is more blow-by of mixture past the rings which makes the oil dirty (turbocharging is equivalent to raising the compression ratio). Also the Gamma engine has low friction rings which means more blow-by. This is why oil should be changed more often in turbocharged engines because the oil gets contaminated with fuel."
Also found this comment on the N54 forum:
"Oil gets broken down fast in hot climates. And add an engine like the n54 with a tune it really does tear up the oil quickly. Your typical 40wt oil will get to 30wt really quick and so on. More fuel dilution equals smaller TBN number and a less weight oil. Smaller film of oil equals less proection. Next thing you know you have a low TBN and your oil does not protect anymore. 15k miles is just a disaster waiting to happen in any engine especially in the n54. Do a google search how many BMW engines have sludged up under 100k with the 15k bmw synthetic oil which is Castrol 5w-30. So if you are planning to keep your car and actually care about the health of your engine do a minimum of 7500 miles or less. I personally do 3000-3500 oil changes just because oil is cheap and because pushing to 440whp really does tear oil up. Mobil 1 0w-40 is less than $5 a quart at Walmart. Cheap insurance to keep your engine going strong."
Interesting stuff and it makes sense.
I will definitely be changing the oil very regularly. 3000 - 4000KM intervals and if it takes too long to do that mileage then 2000km.
So upon doing some further research I found out why the oil gets dirty so quickly.
"The blackness is due to tubocharging. When the engine has high levels of boost there is more blow-by of mixture past the rings which makes the oil dirty (turbocharging is equivalent to raising the compression ratio). Also the Gamma engine has low friction rings which means more blow-by. This is why oil should be changed more often in turbocharged engines because the oil gets contaminated with fuel."
Also found this comment on the N54 forum:
"Oil gets broken down fast in hot climates. And add an engine like the n54 with a tune it really does tear up the oil quickly. Your typical 40wt oil will get to 30wt really quick and so on. More fuel dilution equals smaller TBN number and a less weight oil. Smaller film of oil equals less proection. Next thing you know you have a low TBN and your oil does not protect anymore. 15k miles is just a disaster waiting to happen in any engine especially in the n54. Do a google search how many BMW engines have sludged up under 100k with the 15k bmw synthetic oil which is Castrol 5w-30. So if you are planning to keep your car and actually care about the health of your engine do a minimum of 7500 miles or less. I personally do 3000-3500 oil changes just because oil is cheap and because pushing to 440whp really does tear oil up. Mobil 1 0w-40 is less than $5 a quart at Walmart. Cheap insurance to keep your engine going strong."
Interesting stuff and it makes sense.
I will definitely be changing the oil very regularly. 3000 - 4000KM intervals and if it takes too long to do that mileage then 2000km.
