Jump to content
WI BIMMERS - Wisconsin's BMW Community

Tkuhn

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    302

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    13

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Tkuhn

  2. Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!

    in General Technical

    Posted

    27 minutes ago, jc43089 said:

    I read that wrong sorry. Seems like it is hooked up right. Maybe pull the line off the valve cover with the engine running and see if it is sucking a decent volume. Maybe something is plugged up in the hoses or can itself?

    Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

    Pulled the valve cover line and tested the vacuum on the VC - zero in.hg. and tested the vacuum on the hose going into the VC (so measuring through the can and into the intake manifold) got a reading of 18in.hg. Which to my knowledge is good vacuum. There's none of the white gunk or buildup in the hoses or the can. The can didn't have much in it (definatly not enough to be sucked back into the manifold by the vacuum). 

  3. Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!

    in General Technical

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Jeff said:

    How are you pulling ccv gases??

     

    2 hours ago, jc43089 said:

    You shouldn't have a dead end system, it needs to vent somewhere. Preferably into the intake. A quart per tank of gas is a lot. The crankcase should ideally have a vacuum when idling from the intake sucking from it. At minimum it should vent through a catch can to atmosphere.

    Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

    The system was described in the original post. The valve cover goes to the catch can. Then the other input on the catch can runs to the 2 ports on the intake. The oil drain is plugged.

     

    Also JC,that's what I was saying. The amount of smoke coming from the exhaust is not by any means a "natural" amount. I'm not new to engines or building them even, just made this post incase I was missing something I may not know about with all the accessories on these engines.

     

    17 minutes ago, KaiserRolls said:

    Quick hook up a vac gauge and see what it pulls at idle

    I planned to once I can get down to the garage

  6. Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!

    in General Technical

    Posted

    7 hours ago, jc43089 said:

    I know it is a different engine but just for comparison.  My m50 smokes a little, Pretty sure it is ring blowby in my case because it smokes most under WOT.  The m50 has no catch can/ oil separator, it just goes from the valve cover to the intake manifold (stock) and the baffling in the valve cover is not good enough to keep oil from going with the air.  It has 275k on it so I don't feel it's abnormal.  It doesn't hang in the air like a diesel but it is a visible smoke on startup and when romping on it.  I don't keep great records but I think I add a quart every 1000-1500 miles, some is due to leaks though.  

     

    Compare to a 2 stroke engine.  Assuming 25mpg, 1k miles is 40 gallons of fuel, mixed 50:1 that is 3.2 quarts of oil per 1k miles.  You aren't near that much so I wouldn't think it would cause plug fouling problems.  A little lube for the cylinders is good anyway.  

     

    How's that for redneck engineering?

    Hahaha I don't disagree there, but to me it's abnormal for alot hanging smoke to be in the air after start up and at idle and when blipping the throttle. I went through a quart in one tank of gas, so something has to be wrong. After a good compression test result im leaning toward valve seals.

     

  9. Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!

    in General Technical

    Posted

    10 hours ago, ThatRatRodProject said:

    As far as I'm aware Oil consumption is mostly caused by burning oil where else is it going to go.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    I believe you took that wrong. Yes oil consumption is caused by burning oil, I think we all can understand that. But when it comes to excessive smoke out the exhaust it's more than a standard "oil consumption" issue and all I was looking for was some people with experience beyond knowing that there are oil consumption issues with the m54. I appreciate the specs but this issue is more than reading the manual. 

  13. Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!

    in General Technical

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, GunMetalGrey said:

    Oh, I stopped reading that sentence early lol.
    I know that they tend to burn oil, and my dad has a 330 that has been burning oil for quite some time so it seems to be consistent across the board. 

    Does his smoke pretty bad on start up? After looking at a few videos my symptoms seem to be that of valve seals. But i also see that the rings tend to get gunked up and are not able to fully expand. A few people used fuel injector cleaner and poured it into the spark plug holes and let it sit for a day and it raised the compression from almost nothing to 120 psi. Once i get down to the garage and do a comp test i may have more insight into this

  14. Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!

    in General Technical

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, GunMetalGrey said:

    From what I know the m54b30 uses a low tension piston ring (sadly) and is very prone to blow by due to this. 
    Removing the CCV system makes this even worse as there is no longer vacuum being drawn from the crank case. 

    Other than hooking up some sort of CCV you may have to just live with it. 

    Interesting, so even though the catch can is keeping the system sealed and not venting to atmosphere it could still effect it?

  15. Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!

    in General Technical

    Posted

    Hey guys so this my become a bit lengthy but I will keep it as short and detailed as possible. I am fairly new to the BMW world and struggling to diagnose an excessive white smoke on start up along with slight smoking at idle.

    For starters the car is a streetable drift car. I drive it on the street and abuse it on the track.

    Engine:

    M54b30, around 120xx miles on the engine. I swapped this engine into my 330i because when i bought the car it had a junk head and it was easier just to replace the whole engine based on my time constraints. While the engine was out I replaced the oil pan gasket, installed a turner motorsport saftey wired oil pump nut, replaced the oil housing gasket, spark plugs (gapped to what my tuner recommended) Rebuilt the DISA valve with the German Auto Solutions billet rebuild kit and did a few other o rings and gaskets. I did not open the engine besides taking off the valve cover. The car has an RK-Tunes m54 performance flash on it with the burble option, rear o2 delete, sap delete and evap delete. The car has headers and an intake cone filter. 

    The immediate problem:

    After about half the day at the track last weekend we noticed that when i started the car there was quite a bit of smoke that floats up and into the air. It is fairly thick and stays visible for quite awhile as it floats away.

    Now I am no newbie to what the colors of exhaust smoke can mean, BUT this smoke is mostly white but does have a slightly blue tint (more white than blue). It has a hard smell to determine becuase it seems to be a mixture of oil and possibly fuel.

     

    There is no signs of oil in the coolant (water and water wetter) and vise versa. Fluid levels are the same as they have always been (last checked 2 days ago now) besides having to add a quart after i drove the car proably 1500 miles if i had to guess which was prior to the day at the track.

     

    As stated before the car smokes ALOT on start up (cold or warm), there is some smoke coming from the exhaust at idle (looked blue-er than on start up) and when accelerating in first and second I can see a small could behind me (assuming that after that I am moving too fast to see an immediate cloud)

    CCV system:

    Now the CCV system is no longer installed. The previous owner added a cheaper catch can in place of the system. The outlet on the valve cover goes to the catch can and the outher inlet on the catch can is linked to the 2 CCV ports on the intake manifold. When i checked the catch can at the track there was minimal oil in it. The catch can system does NOT have a one way valve in between the intake and the can (I read a few forums that said it should?) Lastly when it comes to the CCV i had to change valve covers because the original one was cracked. The other valve cover I had was not (although it was not new) The over inside of the valve cover that seems to be a baffle before the outlet on the valve cover for the CCV has been removed. (was thinking this may be allowing crank case gasses to pass quicker through the system and into the intake to be burned possibly?) 

     

    After doing a bit more research I found that the valve seals seem to be another possible cause to the smoking a bit at idle. SO without doing a compression test (which i planned to do tonight) would it be a fair assumption that the next possible issue would be worn valve seals? (assuming that the excessive smoke on start up is caused by the seals allowing oil to seep into the combustion chamber.)

     

    Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed light on this!

     

  16. e46 headlight question

    in General Technical

    Posted

    13 hours ago, wasnt m3 said:

    Not sure on swapping internal parts but you can swap in the halogen lights, no problem. They have the same main plug. 

    Thanks for the reply! I actually just found a entire bi-xenon assembly for the side I needed on eBay for $125 shipped!

  17. e46 headlight question

    in General Technical

    Posted

    I have a 2001 e46 330i with bi-xenon headlights. Im aware that almost all of the headlights are different between coupe and sedan as well as pre and post facelift, but my question is can i take my broken bi-xenon headlight internals and install them into a halogen housing from the same year car? Or can i get a set of halogen headlights and install them into my car? Thanks in advance!

  19. New Guy

    in New Member Introduction

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Jdesign said:

    Welcome!! Your Honda looks like it was very clean and very familiar. I have had a few Hondas in my day so Im sure I have seen you at one point or another. 

    Thanks! And the e30 in your photo definatly looks familiar but I'm not sure from where

  20. New Guy

    in New Member Introduction

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Earl said:

    That's a hilarious video. A must see for all guys

     

    Hi Troy🖐

    Hey Earl 🤘

     

     

    10 hours ago, HipMF said:

    20170614_211009.jpg.bc26ecea232056e430df

    All I know is that I don't want to get to low on The "HOT" scale, because that's a "NO GO".

    And I can't believe anyone saw that haha. It's the hot crazy matrix, just type it in on YouTube for a good laugh!

  22. M54b30 from 530i into a 330i

    in General Technical

    Posted

    Im failry new to the bmw scene and i just purchased a 2001 330i with an engine that decided to eat a cam. Intake cam on cyl 4,5 and 6 was completely dry and cracked the rear 2 cam caps. I picked up another m54b30 that was from a 530i. 

    I know that I will need to swap over the oil pan from the 330i engine along with the engine mount brackets. Is there anything else that will need to be swapped over that I may have missed in my research? The intake manifold on the 530i engine has a positive battery post on it whereas the 330i does not and im guessing thats because its mounted on the passenger side of the engine bay. Will i need to swap the manifolds as well?

     

    Thanks in advance for any info!

  23. New Guy

    in New Member Introduction

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, Snap said:

    Welcome race fan!

     


    Protip: if the crank out of the old m54b30
    is in good condition you can probably sell it fairly easily for $250-300

     

    Thanks for the tip! was planning to do some investigating once the car is back up and running. Im pretty good friends with Earl (i believe thats his user name here) and we were talking about the bottom end being worth more than a paper weight possibly depending on what it looks like once we open it up haha

  24. New Guy

    in New Member Introduction

    Posted

    Hello everyone! My name is Troy and i just bought my first bimmer. I live in Kewaskum Wi and have a few friends that have been into BMWs for quite some time. I personally am coming from the honda scene, I had my 95 hatch for 7 years and I just recently partially parted out that car to take on this e46 drift car build. I purchased this 2001 330i which has been already partially modded for drifting, but we already have plans in the work to build on this original purchase. The car actually had a bad engine when i bought it which the owner did not figure out, long story short from my brief research I know that the m54s have oiling issues and this one decided it had enough with 188xxx on the clock and ate a cam (the intake cam on cyl 4, 5 and 6 was completely dry and full of aluminum shavings) along with cracking 2 of the cam caps. So that being said the car is on stands getting the engine pulled. I was able to pick up another m54b30 with 116k on it and that will be getting a few gaskets and then be thrown in for the remainder of the summer. Im super excited to tr something new after being in the honda scene for 7 years. Im sure I will have some questions along the way but regardless I am excited.

     

    I attached some photos of the civic that I was building for 7 years and recently made into a rolling shell along with a few photos of the e46 i picked up. Hoping to make a build thread to keep track of the progress as well!

     

     

     

    35003490922_92383844d8_o.jpg

    35168543025_c1cbd38d56_o.jpg

    20170614_211009.jpg

    20170614_175704.jpg

    20170621_180930.jpg

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.

  I accept