Thank you to all the guys who have given me their support, be it here or via PM. I appreciate it... as for Fordkoppie, you're an asshole.
Anyway, the car is at new engine builder. She's being prepped. Tomorrow I go in and watch them take the head off.
Some things I wish to make clear before this build begins.
This car had issues after the rebuild last year. Issues that were never documented on here. I now realize that maybe I should have posted theses issues, but at the time I did not wish to bring bad light onto this thread. Also, I respected Peter too much, and did not wish to spoil the relationship I had with him. You will notice that around this time last year I stopped updating this thread. That marks the time were things started to take a turn for the worst.
I only post the following information because I have had a few members ask me to be factual and clear on what happened to this build, so that anyone else who wishes to go and do a similar build can see what they are in for. Also, I think it is fair that before this build takes place, that I set the record straight. I have kept quiet for far too long and it is about time that the details of what happened to this car are brought to light.
It is easy for someone to call me biased after reading the following, but please trust me that I am honestly being unbiased and factual. These are the events that have led up to now. I have my beliefs on what I think has happened to this car, which I will elaborate later on in this post. Bare with me, it is a lengthy one.
1.) The car went to Peter in November of 2013 to have gaskets replaced due to an oil leak. Other than an oil leak, the car was incredibly strong for an engine put together with gasket sealer and Toyota bolts. It is now 1 year and 7 months after completion of the engine build documented in this thread. The car still has an oil leak. Peter has had many opportunities to fix this leak. I have reminded him every time the car went back to him to fix the leak. I now sit and ask myself why did I rebuild this engine again if I still have an oil leak.
2.)A month after completion of the rebuild documented on this thread, and after the car had done it's 2000km run in period, I discovered that the car was down on power. The car did not make the same power it made before the rebuild. In fact, it was down 40nm of torque compared to a dyno reading done just before the build. We then ran diagnostics on the car and discovered Vanos adaptation errors as well as 02 sensor errors. Peter advised that it was my Vanos and that my solenoid was the issue. With Peter's help, I imported a complete Vanos from the UK, and my original Vanos unit and Solenoid pack were replaced. This sadly, did not solve the issue, which I will talk more about later in the post. By now the supercharger was installed on the car and we were dealing with a new issue. Getting the Bosch Green Giant fuel injectors to work with the original e46 fuel system. Burgy was originally tasked to install the fuel system, but the installation of the injectors was incorrect and fuel leaks were present. Burgy opted to install a braided hose system which I was not happy with. I wanted the stock look. It turns out that the injector rail was damaged during installation. Burgy was honest and admitted his wrong doing and replaced my fuel line and injector rail with new parts and refunded me the money for the install. I then asked Peter to install the fuel system and he happily took on the job. The car was put on a flat bed and sent to Peter. He successfully installed the fuel system and got the injectors working, but he also did a full re-installation of the supercharger, which I never agreed to in the first place. He also charged me for this re installation of the supercharger. Taken a little aback by this, I paid him the full amount, even though it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Peter's reasons for reinstalling the supercharger were because he did not trust Burgy's installation of the supercharger. Peter never gave me a quote on the work being done. In other words, he failed to mention that he would be charging me to reinstall my already installed supercharger. If I knew he was going to charge me R11k for reinstalling something I can do myself, I honestly would have gone elsewhere. I would have actually done it for him. Why would I pay for a supercharger to be reinstalled? I've removed the charger myself no less than three times and successfully mounted it as many times during maintenance and cleaning. But, I paid the man, and took the car back.
The car died a few days later as one of the injectors popped out and fuel sprayed everywhere. Peter fetched the car and fixed this issue.
During this time, Peter also replaced my power steering lines and power steering pump. A day later, whilst driving my car, the serpentine belt came off and cut the water pipes, causing the car to go into the red and slightly overheat for a few seconds. Peter came out to fetch me and brought the car back to his place. We replaced the water pipe and belt, but no more than 2 km away from his place, the belt came off again and cut another water pipe. The car did not overheat this time. a few weeks went by with no solution. I bought new pullies for the supercharger, I bought tighter serpentine belts, I even bought an upgraded tensioner pulley and installed it myself. It is during this install, that I noticed the power steering pump pulley sat a little skew. I immediately phoned Peter to tell him I found the problem. His exact words to me were "your eyes are skew." Peter refused to believe that he had installed the power steering pump incorrectly. No, instead he insulted me and said I do not know what I am talking about.
I called up Nikhil, a fellow forum member here, and asked him to come take a look. Upon inspecting the car, he agreed, the pump looked skew. We lifted the car and lo and behold, the power steering pump was loose. The bolt used to secure the pump was loose. Nikhil got under the car, secured the pump and tightened the bolt. We reinstalled the pulleys, fan, water pipes and engine shrouds and started up the car. We took her for a drive and she didn't throw the belt. To this day, the car has not thrown a belt. Peter still refuses to apologies to me for this "mistake". A mistake that caused my car to overheat and could very well be a contributing factor to why we have low compression now.
So, enter the tune file. The car was loaded with an alpha-N tune file from a tuner in the UK. This is the exact same tune file that was loaded onto Alain's supercharged e46 M3, and since I last checked, that car hasn't lost compression. The tune file is designed to run a little rich, but not enough to cause damage to an engine, as some would have you believe. We did AFR readings and recorded some logs of the car. These AFR numbers and recorded log files were then sent to the tuner overseas. A revised file was then sent back to us and loaded on the car. But the car was still down on power and over fueling a little. The tuner asked us to check for error codes and ensure all sensors were working as he noticed the log files did not record lambda values. We read the codes again and guess what codes were still there. Vanos adaptation and 02 sensor errors. The errors that Peter said he fixed when he replaced my Vanos and Solenoid pack. The tuner told us he could not write a new file for us until we got this issue sorted.
This was late September last year. I was hired to go film a movie in Cape Town for 5 weeks, so the car sat until I returned in November. Upon returning from my shoot, I wanted to figure out this vanos adaptaion and 02 sensor issue so that I could get my tune file. The car still had compression at this stage and was feeling strong, but we couldn't get the cars fueling right and the tuner was convinced it was to do with the errors on the car.
Peter wanted to change out the vanos again, saying it was my solenoid pack. If you recall, we had replaced the solenoid pack in July. I then took the car to a BMW technician to have a vanos test done. The car failed this vanos test in 5 seconds. The BMW technician told me that my cam timing was incorrect. I immediately called Peter to tell him the diagnosis. He told me that was impossible and that he "would put his cock on a block, it was not cam timing."
That night, I met many of the forum members at the November midnight run. There, I met Spiro, who asked about the car. I proceeded to tell him about my Vanos test and cam timing. Spiro's eyes lit up and he informed me that he had the exact same issue after getting his car back from Peter. He introduced me to Alex, another forum member who offered to redo my cam timing. I dropped the car off with Alex in the first week of December and he redid my cam timing. During this exercise, it was brought to my attention that Peter did not install a timing chain tensioner on my engine, as is required. Also, it appears that Peter has installed another forum members pump disc on my car. I am led to believe it belongs to tehwallet's car, as his is the only car that actually had his hub tabs sheered off and his pump disc was visibly scored in the process. The pump disc that is on my car shows clear signs that it broke off hub tabs, which my original pump disc did not.
Upon completing the cam timing, I returned my car to the BMW technician who did the vanos test for me with his GT1 tool. The car passed the vanos test with no problems. Also, the Vanos adaptation errors and 02 Sensor errors were gone. I could finally get my tune file. or so I thought. 3 weeks later, the car lost compression. January 2015, not even a year after my engine was rebuilt, we found out that Jezebel had lost compression in two cylinders.
Peter offered to rebuild the car for free, but I wasn't prepared to go through another rebuild so soon. I drove the car for another month, taking it to other mechanics for 2nd and 3rd opinions, for more compression tests, hoping it was just a mistake on Peters behalf. February came and the car started to make a ticking noise. I then elected to put the car away and wait until I was finished shooting my next film, which took place in May.
June arrived, my film done and myself, now free to look into fixing this car, started to weigh in my options. Rebuild with Peter for Free, or take it to someone else? Yes, Peter did offer to rebuild the car for free, but only when he had the time, which he advised me would be later in the year. He also advised me to sell the car, to rather give up than rebuild her. That, was the last straw. After all the money and time I invested in him, he so easily cast me aside. So no, I really do not feel inclined to take him up on the offer to build my engine for free.
As much as the build on this thread was "well documented", you guys will be amazed at what some good edit skills can make of mediocre footage. The fact is, the engine build did look great. The videos immortalized Peter and if I had to charge him my daily rates for filming and editing I think he would have a heart attack. The point I am trying to make here is, that what happened after the engine build, was not documented, nor was it brought forward to the attention of the users of this forum. As some of you may have seen, the last update about the car was from a year ago. The car was going through so many issues at the time, that I was too embarrassed to post anything on this thread. And so here it is guys, the truth of what has happened with this car. Peter is welcome to come and post his version, but the facts are the facts. The cams were not timed correctly, the power steering pump was not installed correctly, the car still has an oil leak, Peter forgot to install a chain tensioner guide in my engine and he installed someone elses pump disc on my car.
I haven't mentioned how much I had to pay for the Vanos unit from the UK. A unit I actually never needed in the first place. Peter, all I have to say to you is that you cost me a lot of money that did not have to be spent. If only you got off your high horse, and maybe listened to my reasons, we maybe would not be here right now.
By the way... do any of you guys know what happens when an S54 engine's exhaust cam is so badly out of timing? Answer: It runs rich. Why? Because the DME doesn't know where the cam is. Incidentally, this then forced the 02 sensors to throw errors. Why is this significant?
First let me explain the reason we have O2 sensors. The pre cat 02 sensor measures exhaust gases for proper combustion & controls air fuel mix during closed Loop. With no reading from 02 sensors, the car has no idea what needs to be done to get proper combustion and Air fuel mix, so it remains in open loop. When in open loop, the car runs rich. Why? Because open loop is used for cold starts and runs the car rich to warm it up faster and bring all sensors into operating temperature. --
Source
When the car does not know where the cams are because of the cams being so badly out of time, the car ignores the cam sensor and once again, runs open loop. The simple fact is, my car had incorrect cam timing which forced it to throw codes that made it overfuel. I'll say it again, my car had been running in open loop since the day she left Peter's house after the rebuild. That is over 10 months that my car was running rich. 10 months that Peter sent me on a wild goose chase and made me spend money on things that he simply just kept guessing would fix the issue. A naturally aspirated M3 can run in open loop without causing damage to the engine, you will just burn more fuel. But what happens when we combine a car that is running open loop (rich) with an Alpha-N base supercharger tune file for a number of months? Do you guys understand my thought process here?
As much as Peter blames the compression issues on a tune file that caused overfueling, I am led to believe the same can be said about the car having been forced to run in open loop for such a long period of time. If the car is proven to have bore wash, this is my bet as to why, a combination of a base tune file and a cam timing issue which forced the cars DME to not be able to read air fuel ratios correctly.
Also, if I may bring one last piece of evidence to this matter. A fact that leads me to believe that it was impossible for the tune file to cause bore wash. Some of you may know Alain's e46 M3 which is supercharged. His car runs the same Green Giant Injectors that my car ran. He also ran the exact same (IDENTICAL) alpha n base file from the same Tuner in the UK. Identical because the base file is an off the shelf file. It is not customized for any car. Alain's car has never overfueled. But Alain's car has also never had cams that were not timed correctly.
So... tomorrow the engine gets opened. Lets see what damage is done.
PS. I will be uploading a video with proof of the cam timing being incorrect as well as the error codes the car was seeing. Fordkoppie, you will see that Peter was not so thorough when he installed these crucial parts of my car.
I trust Nikhil will be able to confirm his findings of the power steering pump being skew. I also urge other members who have had cams set by Peter to get get their timing checked. I know recently he has changed his ways as this issue was brought to his attention, but anyone who had their cams set by him last year, should go get them checked. I already know of 4 other members who had their cams set wrong by Peter. I am not making this up.
PS.S - Burgy, who organised me the tune file from the UK, has refunded me the full amount of the tune file, and has also offered to pay for the rebuild if it is proven that the tune file is at fault.
Goodnight.
