-
Read the WELCOME ALL BMWFANATICS post.
BMW E46 M3 Buyer's and Maintenance Guide
- Thread starter AdiS
- Start date
Ebrahim Mayat
Events Organiser
Great write up Adis
:clapper::clapper:
I think you need to come see mine again....this time it's not for sale.
:clapper::clapper:
I think you need to come see mine again....this time it's not for sale.
maleven-GP
Well-known member
Wow.. thanks for sharing
Great article indeed..
Wish someone out there could do the same for an e36 m3..
Great article indeed..
Wish someone out there could do the same for an e36 m3..
Bernard///M3
BMW Car Club Member
Thank you sir. Great article
Andy1GP
///Member
Give this man a Bells :clapper: Thanks for taking the time to write up such a comprehensive campaign.
In order to keep as much information (and accurate) available to the public I would like to add these 2 bits of info for now...
Valve clearances mentioned earlier won't be affected by valve stems. Valve seats however do wear somewhat during the engines life and this decreases the clearances. I have seen some shimms fall way below spec due to this. Intake range being 0.18mm to 0.23mm I've seen some as low as 0.05mm. This is frightening as once the valve floats it could lead to valve failure (lack of cooling from seating)
Generally speaking though the shimms wear toward the increasing and safer limit. commonly found to be around .35 on exh and .28 on intakes. Which increases fuel consumption and decreases performance. Also makes for a noisy valve train.
Further more some interesting facts about the Bearing issue.
Many have speculated the oil vs warmup vs fuel quality debacle. I personally believe fuel quality to be at fault. Obviously cold engine wear and abuse leads to all kinds of failure so assuming those are equal, fuel is our culprit.
Given the aggressive nature of the MSS54 and MSS54HP Ecu mapping the engine always runs into high ignition advance timing throughout the RPM range and essentially always "looks" for knock and then retards the timing. This increases wear on the top big end bearing shell. As can be seen by all the DIY's posted.
Interestingly I have been to the Middle east and with their superior fuel quality I have seen and driven several S54 S65 S85 engined M3 M5 M6 cars all of which had well over 150k kms. Some even as high as 243k kms.
Thats right Gents, E60M5 V10 with 243k kms on original bearings! I was simply stunned.
Lesson learnt by self is to always ensure at least an actual Ron value of 95 in your car to prolong bearing life. I'm sticking to my recipe of 1/4 NF ultra per tank and enjoying peace of mind.
Hope this adds something to the thread. No offence intended Adriaan. Just wanting to add some value.
In order to keep as much information (and accurate) available to the public I would like to add these 2 bits of info for now...
Valve clearances mentioned earlier won't be affected by valve stems. Valve seats however do wear somewhat during the engines life and this decreases the clearances. I have seen some shimms fall way below spec due to this. Intake range being 0.18mm to 0.23mm I've seen some as low as 0.05mm. This is frightening as once the valve floats it could lead to valve failure (lack of cooling from seating)
Generally speaking though the shimms wear toward the increasing and safer limit. commonly found to be around .35 on exh and .28 on intakes. Which increases fuel consumption and decreases performance. Also makes for a noisy valve train.
Further more some interesting facts about the Bearing issue.
Many have speculated the oil vs warmup vs fuel quality debacle. I personally believe fuel quality to be at fault. Obviously cold engine wear and abuse leads to all kinds of failure so assuming those are equal, fuel is our culprit.
Given the aggressive nature of the MSS54 and MSS54HP Ecu mapping the engine always runs into high ignition advance timing throughout the RPM range and essentially always "looks" for knock and then retards the timing. This increases wear on the top big end bearing shell. As can be seen by all the DIY's posted.
Interestingly I have been to the Middle east and with their superior fuel quality I have seen and driven several S54 S65 S85 engined M3 M5 M6 cars all of which had well over 150k kms. Some even as high as 243k kms.
Thats right Gents, E60M5 V10 with 243k kms on original bearings! I was simply stunned.
Lesson learnt by self is to always ensure at least an actual Ron value of 95 in your car to prolong bearing life. I'm sticking to my recipe of 1/4 NF ultra per tank and enjoying peace of mind.
Hope this adds something to the thread. No offence intended Adriaan. Just wanting to add some value.
Iry-gp said:
ultra only comes in the silver tin. too much of it does foil spark plugs.
Andy1GP
///Member
I hear this a lot and I can't counter argue it completely. However having done 11k kms on my Stahl Grey M3 and changing the plugs they look identical to other M3's I've serviced and worked on.
Bearing in mind I run a diluted mix. I think if one had to continuously run a whole 1L can per tank it could be the case but I am yet to be disproved by experience that NF ultra is bad for O2 sensors and or Plugs...
Bearing in mind I run a diluted mix. I think if one had to continuously run a whole 1L can per tank it could be the case but I am yet to be disproved by experience that NF ultra is bad for O2 sensors and or Plugs...
Thats why i said too much of it 
i use to run strong mixes in my S3, GTI and ST and the plugs would need replacing every 10 000 - 15 000km's .
but what you say about the poor quality fuel makes alot of sense.
i use to run strong mixes in my S3, GTI and ST and the plugs would need replacing every 10 000 - 15 000km's . but what you say about the poor quality fuel makes alot of sense.
michael.joseph
Active member
How did i miss this thread... what an awesome write up!!!
raise:raise:raise:
raise:raise:raise:
