m62B44 engine rebuilding

[tptrsn]

Well, I always get a bit confused on who got the Nikasil blocks, when, and who had the Alusil blocks... I'm operating on the theory that all M62b44 and M62b44TU blocks are Alusil, even in the UK and Europe.

My feeling is that mileage doesn't really matter. From what I can glean by reading everything on the internet that I can find about Alusil, it seems that the blocks barely wear at all, absent something breaking like happened to you. If it were me (which it isn't, so I will defer to your feelings on the subject), I would be happy to find a healthy factory bare block, or complete short block assembly, and run that sucker after I gapped out the rings, and probably checked the rod bearings.

As far as utilizing those rods you linked in the build, I do think that is a good, easy approach to M60/M62 Forced Induction builds if they are good quality. I'm just going to guess they are the same quality as all of the Chinese H-beam rods -- Good enough! Have you done the math to figure out what the resulting compression ratio would be?

Actually, those rods really have me thinking... Stock pistons and rings re-gapped, those rods... Maybe re-balance the crank if bobweights change much from the different rods.. VOILA!

Regarding the rings, I haven't really paid attention to the different metallurgy of the rings for the different cylinder materials, but I think Alusil cylinder bores like different rings from cast iron cylinder bores. I'd be relying on the piston manufacturer for that, which might get tricky if you try to use factory pistons in cast iron sleeves.

[Kenny1958]

I do have some wear on the other bores, not real bad but the machine shop pointed it out when i took my block for a quote. I will ask around about what kind of rings i can get to go with my stock pistons, which after looking at them, seem to be in perfect condition.
I will ask MY bmw breaker friend who is Polish to enquire a little more about those rods as they are manufactured in Poland.
If i could find another block or engine it's gonna cost me at least £400 i reckon so the numbers aren't too far away with the reline.

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This is kinda crazy. Last night I was "working" on cleaning up my garage, and I picked up the VANOS gears I scored a couple weeks ago and spent quite a while studying them in preparation for doing my VANOS in the near future. I had the thought that I could machine off the bent over lip to completely remove the internals, instead of doing the "stuff in the seals" thing Biesen came up with. Then, thread the O.D. of the housing, make a threaded cap to replace the lip, and whamo...... totally rebuilt VANOS........
And now...... While I should be continuing to clean my garage, I'm procrastinating again surfing BF.C, I see this video of EXACTLY that process..

This is something I would be very capable of doing, being a machinist with free access to the CNC machinery that could do it very quickly, once the programming and set-up is done. I am going to do this on my spare set of gears and see how it turns out. Would only take a day and we have plenty of material this size to play with. On Monday, I'm going to be building some custom tooling I've been working on out of 3" round 4140 steel, so I'll have the machine set up anyways.

Oh... one more "wild eyed" project that I'll start and probably never finish, though. Hopefully not. I still have my sandblasted style 32's sitting at the shop waiting to get powdercoated and custom machined.

I'm glad all my internet searching is bringing up some neat idea's, i would love to have a set of those vanos units.

[wagons ho]

Factory rings are chrome barrel face. Not that I can find any aftermarket ring listing the barrel face description. Those aftermarket rods look nice, but are factory length, so no compression reduction. Also,cast sleeves will change your heat dissipation, further affecting detonation. Piston deck could be trimmed .020 or .5 mil to lower compression as the top ring is way down, and dome is plenty thick. Also use the .3 mil thicker mls gasket. And only lower it by a half point. But lower compression is going to negatively affect everything but wide open. Have you seen how your rod bearings are holding up? Back to the complete rework of the internals, and building for boost, where this post started. A cleaned up and checked used motor for now and saving up for the big build using less expensive, non bmw parts.

[Kenny1958]

Those decompression rods (here) are 141mm compared to the standard length of 143mm there are a few different items in his shop witch are miss leading though.

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[JimLev]

Thanks Jim that was the plan.

I have been researching stuff and these Russians went the extra mile doing there vanos rebuild i didn't see them use new distribution units though.

Watch from about 8.15

I've seen that before, he had to cut the vanos open then make threads on 2 parts to put it back together.
Nice total rebuild.
Unless we have access to a machine shop all we can do is replace the 2 o-rings we get from Raj.

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Here's the pic of the wall between cylinders. I never measured it as I was testing out the 4.6 cams in the 4.4 motor.
The 4.6 cams have 10.5mm lift where as the 4.4 cams only have 9.0mm lift.

Not much meat between bores to enlarge them, then add liners. You'd be back to almost the same diameter pistons.

Cam_46.JPG

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The distribution unit (2nd pic) from the above 540 '99tu engine.

DistPiece1.JPG

DistPiece2.JPG

[seabass07]

I have been researching stuff and these Russians went the extra mile doing there vanos rebuild i didn't see them use new distribution units though.

Watch from about 8.15

That's awesome. I could also do something like this. Only have access to a pretty tiny lathe, but it can do some simple threading for sure. Good to know when the time comes to tear down my vanos.

[Kenny1958]

Well the decision to use the stock pistons has taken a bit of a nosedive today, after getting home from work i pulled the remaining 7 pistons and started removing the rings to give them a clean. after removing the second ring on this piston it fell apart as you can see, so i have no confidence using these pistons at all.

[philly98540]

How was that engine run to get to that stage of damage? What boost, hp, torque, any detonation, etc. Thanks.

[tptrsn]

Well then, if you're going with the iron liners anyway, then you might as well run some quality forged low compression pistons from Wiseco or someone. And for another 450 GBP some H-beam rods. A bit of an expensive build at that point, but at least you have probably upped your durability for boosting a massive amount.

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Philly, I wish I could see inside of those plugs with my otoscope....

[Kenny1958]

Well then, if you're going with the iron liners anyway, then you might as well run some quality forged low compression pistons from Wiseco or someone. And for another 450 GBP some H-beam rods. A bit of an expensive build at that point, but at least you have probably upped your durability for boosting a massive amount.

I have now ordered the decompression rods i'll be taking the block to the shop as soon as i can but i spend my day delivering parts which means my time is small.
I just need to find a way of getting good pistons over here at a good price lol.
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Philly, I wish I could see inside of those plugs with my otoscope....

My plugs ??

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How was that engine run to get to that stage of damage? What boost, hp, torque, any detonation, etc. Thanks.

Prior to the ring or piston breaking 12psi, on a previous run 360bhp 439ft/lb, no detonation.

[tptrsn]

Yes, your plugs that were in the engine when the damage occurred. If you haven't looked up into them with a lighted magnifier like an otoscope, there can be a lot of evidence hiding up in there.

[Kenny1958]

I'd be happy to help if I can.

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[tptrsn]

This is what I use, it is amazing what a difference it makes when trying to diagnose detonation, and to some extent fueling too:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amazing-Dr-M...QAAOSwNSxVFliN

[Kenny1958]

What would I be looking for ? This piston damage looks like the begining of my first big piston failure could it be tuner related ?

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[tptrsn]

I'll see if I have any good plug reading tutorials bookmarked. That would be much better than me trying to explain my thoughts on it all.

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Here are a couple of good starters:

http://www.dragstuff.com/techarticle...ark-plugs.html

http://www.dragstuff.com/techarticle...ead-plugs.html

There was another one I read once that has some more nice pictures showing the specs you look for with the magnifier to see detonation, but I don't have a link to that one anymore I guess...

[geargrinder]

Late to this thread party but ho-man, did you read all the Ttrim540/Dirt11 threads? He did extensive bare engine build with lots of fancy stuff - coated everyting, etc... which turned out to be a disaster precisely i thunk because of tricky bits that were not as easy as tossing $$$ parts in (ie exact what you and TP are chasing down re boring and sleeving and ring gaps etc.) that motor failed multiple times although somebody has it running now i guess...

my guess is that boring for the tiny cubes improvement isnt worth the risk/cost/hassle but that lowcomp mods are more of interest. Stroking doesnt seem to end well for most F/I applications either so i would focus on strength and lightness mods and comp reduction to allow more boost... Agree the facts on head flow are unclear. The 4.6 and S62 clearly make more power w valvetrain changes so seems like time focused there could be well spent. Id love to find a cost effective head+cam route that really breathed better...

[Kenny1958]

I came across a little more info today while searching for low compression forged pistons for the M62. Here

[wagons ho]

Kenny, excellent digging for info. Now we have specs for S 62 cams that I asked about. Also bears out my choice of piston, with Teflon skirts. The desire to bore and hone was to reuse scored blocks and with no over size factory piston available, that forced the rod change etc. The issue of boost and your difficulties are good to know as I have temporarily gotten off the engine build and have been full steam on mounting the S/C. You must have had some detonation that you were unaware of. Coated Forged pistons are the next thing I'll search for, but first I need to see if we can get ring seal on a N/A motor. On a side note, the old rules from the days of cast iron engines were that you got one point of compression "forgiveness" by having aluminium heads. All aluminium block was good for a little more help against detonation. That's how I thought all the F/I people were getting away with running 10.1 compression. Group question; how much compression and how much boost before problems. And like the article pointed out, is there that much difference between the kinds of boost and problems?

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Also, could an uncontrolled vanos be building extra cylinder pressure at the wrong time?

[Kenny1958]

Heres some snaps of the piston crowns, after looking more closely at the really badly damaged piston that was the start of the problem, i can see some marks looking like detonation but could they be marks from the debris field ?

[Kenny1958]

Here is the first badly damaged piston, i couldn't post this pic as it was too many

[tptrsn]

Do you still have the plugs?

[Kenny1958]

Yes I still have them

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[tptrsn]

Grab a cheap otoscope or something and take a look up in there! Or, cut the threaded portions off and take a look at the porcelain up toward the top with a magnifying glass and good light. I think then you'll be able to see if there is any evidence of detonation. If there isn't, then this is VERY interesting information, and totally changes my perspective on these engines.

Or send them to me if you want, and I'll look'em over! Lol

One more thing though, are you able to check the ring gaps for the top two rings on the cylinders that were not damaged? That would be interesting too. Could be that it's not detonation, and it's just insufficient ring gaps for serious boosting at all without something to suck some serious heat out of the combustion chambers like water injection.

[Kenny1958]

I'll send them over to you if you like ? I don't think I'll be needing plugs for a while.

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[tptrsn]

I'll PM you later!

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But wait, did you have the funky four-strap plugs in there, or what exactly?