1998 E36 Engine Vibration After Urethane Tranny Mounts Install?

[RIT90sE36]

Just installed some ECS Polyurethane Transmission mounts in my 323is and I've noticed a lot of vibration (no duh right?). However The vibration appears localized to the engine based one what I believe I am experiencing.

Things to note:
VEMS ECU with seat of the pants tune
RHD ITB kit
Revshift Durometer 95A engine mounts
All solid bushings except for the diff (coming soon)
Small amount of play in driveshaft, more noise than feel when moving by hand (190K miles, has not presented an issue yet and will be replaced soon)
Lot of potential goofs given this car has almost entirely fixed/modded by me and I'm no professional mechanic.

Engine has always felt a little buzzy since the hard motor mounts were installed, but on the drive back home after installing the transmission mounts it is noticeably different. When revving up the vibration is specific to RPM 2-3k, settles down, then more pronounced at 4-5k. It is most intense in 1st and loses intensity with each upshift.

Is it possible I upset something in the engine bay by pushing the transmission up with a jack to clear the mounts? Heck is it possible this is normal for hard all around mounts and just my life from now on? I'll be honest, it's a off-putting and strange feeling/sound. It's a similar feeling to a misfire if that makes sense but no loss in power etc. Kind of at a loss for ideas of what it could be.

I'll be test driving it some more with the computer hooked up to see if anything is up. I figured throwing up the issue on here may help narrow it down. Thank y'all in advance for any help you can provide.

[pbonsalb]

Hard trans mounts are well known to be miserable on E36 street cars. Don’t go over 80A hardness. Engine mounts can be much harder like 95A or 75D and subframe mounts can also be 95A or 75D. Diff mounts should probably be 95A max to avoid whine, but it’s been a long time since I had a stock driveshaft or diff so let’s see what others say on the diff bushings.

[samy01]

Heck is it possible this is normal for hard all around mounts and just my life from now on?

yes

[RIT90sE36]

Gotcha, makes sense. Thank you for the reply. Just finished a test drive and what a couple of finds that got me lol.

Car was running lean across the board for some reason. Heat? Idk I have very little idea how environmentals effect standalone MAP tuning. That definitely smoothened things out a little and made the car feel less misfire-ish. But yeah, an engine issue I think it is not. At a stop, clutch in, nothing. Clutch out, vibration and some quiet clunking. The clutch may be the cause. No slip, despite the 100s of clutch kicks I've done. However, I haven't replaced it since buying it at 100something thousand miles 12 years ago. The original owner may have.

[rwdcoop]

Sorry if this is posted somewhere but I've searched all over this forum and a couple others and can't find an answer -

@RIT90sE36 or @samy01 have either of you replaced your VANOS units yet?

I have a '99 323is (US spec) and I want to order a Beisan vanos kit, but am getting conflicting information everywhere I look. I don't even trust RealOEM at this point.

Do our cars have single or dual VANOS? And have either of you replaced them yourself just to be sure?

[XnWarden]

Rwdcoop, 1999 was a bastard year. It could be either one depending on your engine. Post a pic of your engine and I can tell you right away

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[pbonsalb]

I thought all E36 323i were single vanos and E46 323i were dual vanos.

[spyderg0d]

If USA, e36 had m52 single vanos, e46 had m52tu double vanos.

Replacing whole vanos unit with new one is much better. Or one of those rebuild services is what I'd recommend. Takes a while to break new ones in, but man is the engine so much smoother when it's like brand new.