StickMon's S54 Rod Bearings thread?

[StickMon]

Hmmm. Might be time.
It's my DD, so I have to find time to make time.

[tiltmode43]

I have heard nothing but great things about WPC treated parts!

Will you go to Lang Racing for the work? I know I will when the time comes.

[StickMon]

Yes and Yes.
I just read back and see that Vanne went with the WPC, as well.

[XMetal]

Please keep us posted if you decides to use WPC bearings and who you use to do the work. I live just a few miles from Lang and may have them do mine as well in the future. A 14 lead reading is still much better than all of my previous reports! My lead readings have always been high (see attached report), but other metals are normal. Still mulling over when I should pull mine apart as it only got 42K miles on the motor Should have started doing oil analysis much sooner

[Steenos]

StickMon. I'll do an oil analysis on my next oil change in about 4k miles. I'm at about 84k and it's my daily driver as well. I've only ever used Castrol in the car. Did anything give you signs of needing to do rod bearings or just doing a random oil analysis?

[NickyC]

Originally Posted by Steenos

StickMon. I'll do an oil analysis on my next oil change in about 4k miles. I'm at about 84k and it's my daily driver as well. I've only ever used Castrol in the car. Did anything give you signs of needing to do rod bearings or just doing a random oil analysis?

Remember when doing the oil analysis, you won't really know what's going on for at least 3-4 tests. When I did my first report on my "new" Z4M, the lead was insanely high. It gradually went down over the next few tests, with the latest one being perfect. The place I bought it from probably put some additive in the gas/oil or something which led to the high lead count and it took some time to work it's way out.

As far as signs, other than the oil analysis itself, I don't think there are any signs until it's too late.

[StickMon]

Originally Posted by NickyC

... I don't think there are any signs until it's too late.

^This
I have 127k miles, almost as many miles as Vanne. Having seen his, I think mine can't be much better.
I'm erring on the safe side.

[NickyC]

Originally Posted by StickMon

^This
I have 127k miles, almost as many miles as Vanne. Having seen his, I think mine can't be much better.
I'm erring on the safe side.

That's great news, it's nice to hear of more and more high mileage S54's that don't have bearing issues. I routinely hear of M3s with 150k+ miles and no issues, it all seems to boil down to the (un)luck of the draw.

I've always wondered, say you detect a knock in the motor. Shut it down right away, and have it towed. Is it too late at that point to replace the bearings for a fix? In other words, does a knock indicate a full motor rebuild, or can you remedy the problem with just bearings if you detect the knock quickly enough?

[tiltmode43]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Please keep us posted if you decides to use WPC bearings and who you use to do the work. I live just a few miles from Lang and may have them do mine as well in the future. A 14 lead reading is still much better than all of my previous reports! My lead readings have always been high (see attached report), but other metals are normal. Still mulling over when I should pull mine apart as it only got 42K miles on the motor Should have started doing oil analysis much sooner

I spoke earlier this year about rod bearing replacement with Andrew and I would feel confident going to him. Read some of the tech on his site and other services offered and you'll see why he's spoken of so often. He also replied to emails really fast!

Originally Posted by StickMon

^This
I have 127k miles, almost as many miles as Vanne. Having seen his, I think mine can't be much better.
I'm erring on the safe side.

Wow, that's a lot of miles!



General question - Are there any proven cases of Z4M S54 failing due to rod bearings?

[NickyC]

Originally Posted by tiltmode43

IGeneral question - Are there any proven cases of Z4M S54 failing due to rod bearings?

I think I've read of one case on these forums in my years here, somebody had the displeasure of them going out at around 42k miles or so if I remember correctly. I've seen a few other stories from people who have replaced them, and found quite a bit of scoring on the bearings themselves so they were glad they did the replacements.

I'm on the fence myself about the whole thing. I think if you use your car as a street machine, always allow it to warm up before running it hard, and don't live above 7k rpms, you don't have a lot to worry about. Hell there are people on this forum who have had their cars supercharged and run at the track for a good amount of time and haven't had issues. I spoke with the owner of a local indie shop which only works on BMWs about the bearings, and he told me in all of his years working on S54 powered cars he's only seen one rod bearing failure. He basically laughed off the idea of changing the bearings, saying the problem is way overblown. Who knows?

I think it's a lot like everything else in life, it all boils down to luck. I for one, honestly, would worry a bit about changing the bearings in my car without a known issue. Sort of the "if ain't broken don't fix it" mentality. Unless I see extremely high lead/copper counts in my oil analyses, I'm just going to keep on enjoying the car and not worry about the bearings, no matter how many miles the car has. Valve adjustments are something I won't skip, and I think the big thing to worry about with these cars is VANOS related.

[StickMon]

All will be revealed.
I'll be taking it to Lang late next week for rod bearings and a guibo.
And whatever seal is leaking on the trans.

I've already done the Vanos and the chain tensioner myself.
I can do topside stuff, but limited to jackstands for the bottom end.

[Vanne]

Cool, standing by for pics of the shells.. stick, how many miles on yours? I might have missed that. I guess it depends more on usage than miles anyways.. I had really no way of knowing how the PO treated the engine.. And was on the list before I even bought the car.. You gotta have a baseline. Your oil samples give you that.. There was zero noise, nor any indications on mine that showed me that bearings were required, and was running like silk.. Bloody glad I did though. It's cheap enough to do, that with your vanos work and tensioner, you'll be set to enjoy the s54 for a long time to come..

[Steenos]

Thanks guys for all the great info. Having a 2007 weren't they supposed to fix a lot of the issues? Or was that just vanos issues they fixed?

[StickMon]

I think that was just to fix the Vanos bolts where the spline bolts into the end of the camshaft.
The exhaust hub tabs will still break and the chain tensioner will still wear down to a ghost by about 100k miles.
AND, the M5 screws that hold the Vanos to the head are insufficient.
I just noticed my Vanos gasket is still oozing.

Mine had 40k miles when I bought it. No idea what the PO got up to, but I know she bottomed out the nose a lot.
It's at about 127.7k miles right now.

Shells should be interesting, since I rarely take it over 5000 rpm.
Never took it over 7000.
Had it into the high 6000s 4 times. Two of those times I went airborne.
Roads around here just aren't flat enough to prevent launch.

[StickMon]

Dropped it off at Lang last night.
He's got a Clown Shoe there with a V8 mounted in it.
That's gonna be awesome.

[XMetal]

What bearings did you end up going with? Stock, WPC or other?

[StickMon]

WPC by unanimous vote.

I should get the car back Saturday.
I saw that Vanne, in his thread, eluded to break-in.
Should we open a debate on what's a good break-in regimen?

[Finnegan]

Originally Posted by StickMon

WPC by unanimous vote.

I should get the car back Saturday.
I saw that Vanne, in his thread, eluded to break-in.
Should we open a debate on what's a good break-in regimen?

[Shipkiller]

Since the BMW Motorsport bearings are not being manufactured any more (I got one of the last sets in 2013), the WPC treated bearings are the best way to go. IMHO

If you remember, I had mine replaced at 39K with the lead levels around 44ppm.

When I had them replaced, the shop said to keep it under 5K RPM for the first 500 miles.

[StickMon]

Thanks!!
I'm usually under 5k, so that won't be a problem.
But I do tend to get happy feet and go WOT pretty often.

[Shipkiller]

Also remember, I never go above 4K RPM until oil temps are at 180 or above.

[StickMon]

Got the car back Sunday. Things went slightly sideways.
Andrew did a test with rods off another S54 and the ARP bolts.
He found that if he stretched the ARP bolts to the prescribed 0.006" the bore was oval.
He had to stretch them 0.007" to get the bore round, and he wasn't comfortable over stretching them, so he went with stock bolts.

The shells didn't look quite as bad as Vanne's, but a couple tops are down to the bronze in spots. The bottoms look good.
I'll get pics as soon as I can find the good camera.

The cracks in the guibo were deeper than I thought. A few are at least 1/8" deep.
It probably would have lasted for quite a while, but I feel better for having it replaced.
I was hoping to see if the center carrier bearing rubber mount was also cracked, seeing that it's been sitting above the exhaust for 10 years, but when I got home and opened the box of old parts, he didn't put it in there.