Does the E46 suffer from an oil starvation problem?

[MAB Badgerbimmer]

I was at the track yesterday, warm day low 90s. Oil temp was running 250 during run session, never went higher. After one of the sessions an observer told me my car was making an unusual noise, definitely from the engine compartment. The person is a former Skip Barber instructor, he knows his stuff. He said it sounded like it was coming from the valves or the rod bearings and was particularly pronounced in hard corners. He also said he was at events recently were two E46 lost their engines and that the sound coming from my car was not the same as that from the E46s that blew their engines. No engine noise problems that I noticed on the drive home from the track.

I know that the E36 has a oil starvation problem. In fact I have put the E36 LTW oil pan in my E36 to resolve that issue. I was, however, under the impression that this problem was engineered out of the E46 engine. Am I wrong? Is this a continuing problem? Any fixes? Could it be a different problem?

[Kevlar]

I think it's a different problem... E46 M3 shouldn't suffer from an oil starvation issue. If it is oil starvation, this would be the first time I hear of it.

The S54 oil pump is two stage, supply and scavenge. The pump is driven by the crankshaft with a single row chain. The oil pump has two separate chambers, the scavenge chamber draws oil from the pickup at the front of the oil pan. The oil is transfered from the pump through a small pipe to the main sump at the rear of the oil pan.

The supply chamber draws oil from the main sump through a large pipe to supply oil to the main gallery. The main gallery circuit returns to the pump housing which contains the oil pressure control piston.

[BMWguy206]

How many miles do you have on your M3? Does it only happen after you track the vehcile?

I dont think its the oil starvation because the valvetrain doesnt use hydraulic lifters.

The noise could still be coming from the valvetrain indication valve adjustment.

[MAB Badgerbimmer]

Jon,

The car has 4800 miles. After break-in the primary use has been transportation to the golf course and to/from and use on the track. There was no unusual noises after the track session nor on the trip home. Also I did not notice any unusual noise on the track nor did the car perform oddly.

By the way the car continues to be awesome on the track. Ran in a PCA event with Group III which is mostly race cars and the E46 was not outclassed. There was also an E36 LTW, fully race preped, running in our group with a Euro engine, that car is very fast! For those of you in the Chicago area the repaved Blackhawk is a great track.