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Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!


Tkuhn

Question

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!

 

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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). 

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Ok boys.. I believe I solved the problem today. I was thinking last night about when the issue occurred. This started happening about halfway though the first day of a 2 day event. Now, Friday night when I arrived we swapped the valve cover that was on the car to a spare that I had that was uncracked, the existing one was cracked. So the uncracked one was on the car for the entire event.

 

Now when i was cleaning the uncracked one the previous week I removed the baffle that is under the outlet on the VC that goes to the catch can. I didnt think anything of it considering the system had a catch can in it rather than the CCV.

With that being said my logic thought that maybe the large open gap now allowed oil being thrown around in the head to be sucked into the catch can tubes easier due to the engine vacuum being drawn through the catch can.

I made one last attempt to solve this today and re-installed the cracked valve cover that still had a baffle in it.

 

Started the car and instantly it smoked less. Drove the car a few miles and once I was back home blipped the throttle a few times and nowhere near as much smoke came out.

 

Let the car sit for 20ish minuates and started it and almost no smoke came out, and I did this multiple times throughout the night and the smoking on start up has ceased and same with when the throttle is blipped.

 

I will attach a photo of the valve cover with the baffle that I removed.

 

So for anyone that was interested in the outcome, I saved myself alot of time by not having to do valve seals. lol

 

 

 

 

20170827_171330.jpg

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