05 330i ZHP very rough idle, SES, expert help requested before I go to the dealership

[aesora]

The car is a 2005 330i ZHP so it’s the M54b30, build date 08/2004 according to www.realoem.com

When I bought the car, it felt a bit sluggish and lacked some power. There was also a fair amount of milky residue in the vent hose off the front right of the valve cover, and the car was absolutely drinking oil.

Performed VANOS seal replacement with Besian seals
Replaced CCV and associated hoses with cold weather kit and the new design oil dipstick tube

Ran great, torque was up as the seals were breaking in. Ran seemingly flawlessly for (I’m guessing) 40 miles or so. Then, when I came to a stop at a stoplight, a rough idle started, and the SES light came on. The car never stalled, but the RPM variances when idling were fairly drastic. I can take a video, but I’m guessing 2-300 RPM variance from the bottom of the bog to the top of the surge, with the bottom being at or below 500 RPMs at times.

I pulled the codes with BMWLogger and a K+DCAN cable onto a spare laptop I have and got the following:
Code--Type---Definition
3C1E--8------Unknown
283F--4------Oil-pressure switch: signal implausible
2974--4------Oxygen sensor before cat. Conv., bank 2: lines
28BC--1------Exhaust camshaft: stiff
28B8--1------Exhaust camshaft: mechanical

At this point it’s probably worth noting that my brother owned the car for 4 years before me and has had a very intermittent SES for O2 sensor related codes for a while, but they always seem to take several months to a year or more to come back on after being cleared.

I cleared all codes with BMWLogger and cleared long term adaptations. The rough idle and SES came back within a few minutes. The 28B8 code is the one that came back instantly, and 28BC cameback on not long after that. Along with the oil pressure switch at some point as well. The car is no longer drinking any oil, it is holding steady right at the full mark on the dipstick. This is when I start throwing parts at it.

Parts I’ve replaced other than VANOS seals and CCV and associated hoses:
MAF cleaned out, replaced, cleaned out new one again.
It has had injector cleaner run through it
Fuel pump and fuel filter were both replaced ~ 2k miles ago
Both intake and exhaust VANOS solenoid pistons
Exhaust VANOS solenoid
Exhaust Cam position sensor (supposedly it is an OEM part from oembimmerparts.com)

I just replaced the cam position sensor last night after the solenoid and pistons didn’t resolve the issue. But the issue persisted after that too, having only run smoothly for a minute or two before the rough idle came back. The codes that were back were 28B8 and 283F before I cleared them, and 28B8 AFTER I cleared them and ran the car for a few minutes. I’ve read every single forum post I’ve seen on any issue even possibly related to this, and I’ve come up with nothing. It doesn’t seem to care if the engine is warm or cold, or if the A/C is on w/ snowflake button lit up and set on 65 or if the heat is cranked up at 80.

I haven’t had the codes read anywhere other than on my own laptop, and I don’t have INPA/EDIABAS/NCSExpert/DIS/GT1 set up correctly, but from my searching it seems like my current code correlates to P0014. I can get this read somewhere to double check if that would prove beneficial, though.

I may be leaving out some information, or other steps I’ve tried, but I’m so tired of thinking about it for now. I’ve been reading forum post after forum post trying to get any new ideas. Any help at all, recommendations or otherwise, would be very much appreciated. Thank you all for your time. (I'm going to cross-post this to a few forums)

[daytonatrbo]

Don't go to the dealership.

Go to an independant shop.


When you had the VANOS off did you notice any timing chain or chain guide wear?

You may have your cams out of sync because something wasn't tightened properly after the VANOS job.

[aesora]

The chain looked to be in great shape and the chain guide looked like it had plenty of life left in it. A buddy of mine has an e39 540i and complains all the time about how he needs to replace his chain guide and tensioners, so I took note of how mine looked when it was all apart. As for the cams being out of sync, that thought had occurred to me, but with them being attached to each other with that chain, I didn't think that was possible. I did try to follow the Besian guide to the letter when performing the work.

And for the dealer/indy thing, I probably was going to go to an indy shop instead of the dealership. I have an autocross event this Sunday, and I was going to see if anyone there recommended one. I admittedly used the word dealership as a bit of clickbait to raise attention to my thread...

[daytonatrbo]

The chain looked to be in great shape and the chain guide looked like it had plenty of life left in it. A buddy of mine has an e39 540i and complains all the time about how he needs to replace his chain guide and tensioners, so I took note of how mine looked when it was all apart. As for the cams being out of sync, that thought had occurred to me, but with them being attached to each other with that chain, I didn't think that was possible. I did try to follow the Besian guide to the letter when performing the work.

And for the dealer/indy thing, I probably was going to go to an indy shop instead of the dealership. I have an autocross event this Sunday, and I was going to see if anyone there recommended one. I admittedly used the word dealership as a bit of clickbait to raise attention to my thread...

Yeah, the m62 is a timing guide eater. And the cam sprockets are not keyed into the cam on those, so you can have minute came misalignment. I'm trying to remember if the m54 are similar in that way.

[aesora]

I'm open to any and all suggestions. My plan for tomorrow is to tear the engine back open again if I haven't gotten any solid suggestions by then.

[MarcoZandrini]

Here's my suggestion:
Download either Torque (android) or OBDFusion (iOS) and buy the appropriate interface unit. It'll plug into the obd2 port. Then, log engine temperature, pre-cat O2 sensors for a range of speeds including a several mile run at 40-60 mph. Post the CSV files here and at E46 Fanatics.

[aesora]

Here's my suggestion:
Download either Torque (android) or OBDFusion (iOS) and buy the appropriate interface unit. It'll plug into the obd2 port. Then, log engine temperature, pre-cat O2 sensors for a range of speeds including a several mile run at 40-60 mph. Post the CSV files here and at E46 Fanatics.

My buddy had Torque on his Samsung phone, I'm going to see if I can borrow him today to get the data.

[aesora]

New update - ish.
tl;dr - read the first paragraph and the last paragraph, I guess.

My buddy has the ELM327 bluetooth adapter running torqe pro, and we couldn't get it to connect to my car. I now have a half-way functioning laptop with DIS on it, if anyone can walk me through the steps to get the information requested through there.

The second part is the car is back in the garage, torn apart, and I pulled the VANOS back out to inspect it. The exhaust side didn't seem to leak as much oil as it did the first time I removed it, but that may be in my head. The seal on the larger end of the VANOS piston for the exhaust side did feel pretty similar to the factory seal I just replaced as far as how easy it was to slide in and out. My question on this is, if I messed up the installation and fried the new seal on the exhaust side, could that cause my issue if the intake side is functioning as intended?

Another thing I noticed, and I don't know this for sure, but it looks like the two squares on the back of the cams are not at the exact same level with each other. I'm going to put my phone on them to measure them with the level as soon as I have the valve cover off again. Since these cams are connected by a chain which I have not touched and the car ran fine prior to the work, how could this be possible?

While I had the VANOS off, I swapped the exhaust and intake solenoids just to see if that changed anything. After the car sat idling fine for a few minutes when I put it back together, the rough, lopey idle started again and SES came back with the same 28B8 code.

I called GTO Services which is a local indy shop I found through www.bimmershops.com, and the guy said he could probably get me in sometime mid-next week and charges $100 an hour for labor to diagnose it. At this point, I'm thinking that may be my best option. I've replaced everything I could find that could cause this SES code. My only remaining options seem to be if my new cam position sensor was also faulty, the new exhaust vanos piston seal being faulty or otherwise broken due to me, or the two cams connected together via chain somehow came out of time with each other when I didn't even touch them during any of the work. Or I guess if the issue was there before but replacing the VANOS seals and/or CCV and hoses caused it to surface.

Any last minute words of wisdom with not being able to get my buddy's OBD connector to work?

Thank you all for your time. If no one has anything else, I'll follow up with what the shop says and what ends up fixing it as I can't tell you how many threads like this I found where no answer was ever posted.

[aesora]

New update - ish.
tl;dr - read the first paragraph and the last paragraph, I guess.

My buddy has the ELM327 bluetooth adapter running torqe pro, and we couldn't get it to connect to my car. I now have a half-way functioning laptop with DIS on it, if anyone can walk me through the steps to get the information requested through there.

The second part is the car is back in the garage, torn apart, and I pulled the VANOS back out to inspect it. The exhaust side didn't seem to leak as much oil as it did the first time I removed it, but that may be in my head. The seal on the larger end of the VANOS piston for the exhaust side did feel pretty similar to the factory seal I just replaced as far as how easy it was to slide in and out. My question on this is, if I messed up the installation and fried the new seal on the exhaust side, could that cause my issue if the intake side is functioning as intended?

Another thing I noticed, and I don't know this for sure, but it looks like the two squares on the back of the cams are not at the exact same level with each other. I'm going to put my phone on them to measure them with the level as soon as I have the valve cover off again. Since these cams are connected by a chain which I have not touched and the car ran fine prior to the work, how could this be possible?

While I had the VANOS off, I swapped the exhaust and intake solenoids just to see if that changed anything. After the car sat idling fine for a few minutes when I put it back together, the rough, lopey idle started again and SES came back with the same 28B8 code.

I called GTO Services which is a local indy shop I found through www.bimmershops.com, and the guy said he could probably get me in sometime mid-next week and charges $100 an hour for labor to diagnose it. At this point, I'm thinking that may be my best option. I've replaced everything I could find that could cause this SES code. My only remaining options seem to be if my new cam position sensor was also faulty, the new exhaust vanos piston seal being faulty or otherwise broken due to me, or the two cams connected together via chain somehow came out of time with each other when I didn't even touch them during any of the work. Or I guess if the issue was there before but replacing the VANOS seals and/or CCV and hoses caused it to surface.

Any last minute words of wisdom with not being able to get my buddy's OBD connector to work?

Thank you all for your time. If no one has anything else, I'll follow up with what the shop says and what ends up fixing it as I can't tell you how many threads like this I found where no answer was ever posted.

[Segue]

I just found this thread and have similar problem. Was there eventually a fix or was it a combination of many problems?

[91e34M5]

I just found this thread and have similar problem. Was there eventually a fix or was it a combination of many problems?

Take a look at this...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/bmw-3...28b8-code.html