Boost her till she blows
I'd love to. I'm just not sure how to deal with the outrageous amount of blowby coming out of the catch can. The amount of pressure in the crankcase is high enough to make blowby shoot out of the catch can even though it's not full lol. It drips down all over the place.
A windowed block makes more of a mess. Honestly I'd start pulling shit apart.
I bet Perry can get you a set of factory pistons from his stash. I might be able to scrounge some too but I think I threw them away.
Without actually doing any tests, I have to assume the rings or the pistons are fucked. I looked at the block before anything was done to it and the cross-hatching looked to be in all the cylinders. The motor was overheated on the last car it was on, but that resulted in a cracked head which was replaced with a rebuilt one. I'm thinking the pistons/rings got fucked up and no one caught it. Shame on me for cheapin out.
That being said, that would mean that the cylinder is worn down enough to warrant aftermarket pistons, yeah?
Honestly you're going to need to measure it to know. The cross hatching being intact means nothing unfortunately.
That doesn't mean you can't run a dingle hone through it and run some junkyard pistons though.
I'm not particularly happy that I was right... It all depends on your cylinders condition. If hone will do, then it’s just a matter of new rings. Unless… A ring was jammed and damaged a piston. I don’t know what are the prices in US, here a single piston is like $135 (MEHLE), but rings themselves are like $16 per piston so it’s not that bad. It all depends if you do it yourself or pay someone to do that for you.
I almost did it...
I almost gave up on the project.
My compression test and leakdown numbers are below:
1: 120 - 33%
2: 90 - 30%
3: 185 - 18%
4: 185 - 18%
5: 50 - 60%
6: 110 - 45%
As Perry/someguy2800 put it to me, "that's pretty shitty across the board". All of the air was coming out of the crankcase. It certainly explains all of the blowby I've been getting, along with some other running issues.
After spending a day stressing about having to let go of my project, which I hate doing, Perry offered to take a look at it and help me with the piston/ring situation.
I didn't think I'd have to remove the engine again so soon, but alas.
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Last edited by CallMePuff; 11-14-2018 at 11:05 PM.
'95 E34 525i, M50B32 (S52 Crank, K1 Rods, JE 9.0:1 Pistons, S52 Cams, Cutring, Achilles Oil Pump Shaft & Sprocket), GTW3684R 0.82A/R, ZF320
And what are the numbers of a wet test?
If these are only rings/pistons you can do it with the engin on the car (that's what I'm doing at the moment with my daily).
'95 E34 525i, M50B32 (S52 Crank, K1 Rods, JE 9.0:1 Pistons, S52 Cams, Cutring, Achilles Oil Pump Shaft & Sprocket), GTW3684R 0.82A/R, ZF320
Last night me and a buddy strapped my motor down to the truck and drove it over to Perry's. After a nice road trip, we threw the motor on the stand where Perry dismantled my motor before my eyes in record time all while making fun of me for being too young to know what a speed-wrench is.
We put some air into the worst pistons with the oil pan off, and it was clear that they were holding none of it. We took those bad pistons out first to find the culprit, which was rings that butted up against each other cracking the ring lands.
When I bought this block, I knew much less than I do now. I knew the engine had been overheated, which is why it was at the junkyard. I was naive and figured since they kept it, the bottom end must still be good! Absolutely not. Make sure you know what you're buying!
It's been determined that the block is good, the rebuilt head is good (happy that that part was true), and it just needs new pistons and a nice hone.
Also, I'll be selling Someguy2800 autographs at $50 a pop.
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"what a piece of excrement"! However, it's amazing how bulletproof the block is as only hone is needed! On my daily the block has also survived even though it must have had timing belt failure and was still running with 12 bent valves and one bent rod!
Thank you!! When I found out it was making poor compression AFTER I had it all together and running, I was sort of devastated. I'm by no means wealthy, just a kid building a fun car in his parents' garage lol. I thought I'd have to let it go and move on. I think I would have if Perry wasn't around, for what it's worth. I'm so pumped to get it back together again!
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'95 E34 525i, M50B32 (S52 Crank, K1 Rods, JE 9.0:1 Pistons, S52 Cams, Cutring, Achilles Oil Pump Shaft & Sprocket), GTW3684R 0.82A/R, ZF320
This past weekend I went back up to Perry's place to rebuild the motor with some pistons he had sitting around. The rings were gapped for boost, the block was surfaced, the cylinders were honed and the cutring/spacer was installed.
All in all, it went very smoothly. We had the motor rebuilt in a fairly short amount of time (with my not knowing what I was doing completely) drove it back home, slept a bit, then I reassembled the car on Saturday.
We had initially torqued the studs to 75 ft/lbs per ARP's spec, then I retorqued them the next day before running the car. I noticed after a few drives that I was leaking oil and it seemed to be coming from around the head gasket area on the driver's side of the block.
I spoke with John from CES who informed me they should be 85 ft/lbs (the old ARP spec) to allow the gasket to seal. The car had already been run a few times, but I torqued them last night to 85 ft/lbs in hopes it would stop the oil seepage.
I threw a piece of cardboard under the car after going for another drive and checked in the morning to see if any oil had dripped and it had. I'll probably check the torque of the studs again to be sure, but I'm not sure what else could be causing this.
The copper spacer has copper spray on the block side and nothing on the head side, which John said should be alright.
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Are you sure it's a head gasket where it leaks? Perhapse it's the valve cover?
I've noticed some seepage from my setup as well. Which has progressively gotten better the more I drive the car.
Mine appears to be liquid though not oil. And is only visible in one small spot on the rear exhaust side of the block. assuming its either condensation or coolant.
Car doesnt overheat and runs fine. As long as the head and block were decked and gasket was installed correctly I would run and see if it seals (as long as it's not a ton of oil seeping out). Theres pics of the seepage in my thread
I've put about 5,000 miles on mine, about 14 psi
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Last edited by 328iFun; 12-06-2018 at 08:04 AM.
It's starting to seem less like the head gasket and more like the valve cover. I've taken that thing off so many damn times. It doesn't have the RTV on it anymore and I never cleaned off the RTV after I tore it down.
While it's a likely culprit, I don't see where it's leaking from. The edges look...shiny but I don't see any dripping down the side anywhere.
Regardless, it seems to always be ending up, somehow, on the passenger side. I'm wondering if it's a combination of the valve cover gasket and a vanos hose. The Vanos hose seems a bit wet, too
You should be able to tell if you the valve cover is leaking pretty easily by just visually checking. Run your hands around the back of the cover to feel for oil as you can't really get a good look there.
Did you reinstall the crush washers on the Vanos oil line, on both ends?
If it's leaking profusely, I would suspect its the Vanos oil feed, there's a ton of oil pressure there. Have someone give the car a little throttle with oil topped off and see if oil seepage increases with RPM
Holy moly, what a bump this will be...
Since the motor got rebuilt with Perry's pistons, I continued to use the car as a daily driver race car thing.
In the spring of 2019, I got into a collision with a car on the freeway, just a rear-end during rush hour when traffic suddenly stopped. Oops.
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Determined to keep the car going, I assessed the damage and went on the hunt for replacement pieces. The frame rails weren't bent and the important parts of the engine weren't hurt, so it was really just a matter of getting fenders, a hood, a bunch of front end stuff, radiator, etc.
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So I got a black hood locally, scoured junkyards and ended up getting core support pieces in Chicago, and I had the option of buying rust-free fenders here in MN for $250 a pop OR I could drive all the way to Tennessee and get rust-free fenders for like $10 a pop from someone parting one out. I chose the latter and drove the fenderless E34 down to Tennessee on my own and stayed in Nashville. That was fun! I ended up carting out rust-free fenders, along with four doors that I stuffed in the back seat.
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Last edited by CallMePuff; 01-07-2021 at 10:20 PM.
'95 E34 525i, M50B32 (S52 Crank, K1 Rods, JE 9.0:1 Pistons, S52 Cams, Cutring, Achilles Oil Pump Shaft & Sprocket), GTW3684R 0.82A/R, ZF320
With the car back in driveable condition, Perry and I rerouted the charge pipes and put a new intercooler in front of the radiator, requiring an electric fan. This is what I should have done from the jump, as the tiny little front mount intercooler previously on the car wasn't getting any flow and was way undersized.
A few days before I was supposed to go race at BIR for Powercruise, my MS3Pro crapped out on me. I troubleshot that for hours and hours and finally caved and 1-day shipped a Link G4+. I got that installed the night before I had to leave for Brainerd and retuned it well enough to drive.
I took the car up to BIR and raced it around at powercruise for approximately 5 laps before the stock Getrag's 3rd gear turned into a neutral. Perry hauled me and the car back to Minneapolis. Thanks buddy!
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A ZF320 went in shortly thereafter, which was a worthwhile upgrade for sure. I'm surprised the Getrag lasted as long as it did (about a year). The install for that was something. Bell housing bolts seizing and having to be cut out, then I ran out of grease and got impatient, resulting in a seized input shaft to the pilot bearing, requiring removing the pressure plate via the slave cylinder hole... lessons were learned.
I met up with a friend that had a press to take the blown up getrag apart for fun...
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The car served me well for quite some time, and I upgraded all sorts of other things while I could. M5 front sway bar, M5 touring rear, powerflex rear subframe bushings, I got roof racks and a cargo box to haul snowboards and gear in the winter. Life was pretty good, until the 3.15 LSD imploded on me.
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I also ran over my phone with the creeper trying to figure out what was making that noise (it was the diff, an hour before it imploded)
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Last edited by CallMePuff; 01-07-2021 at 10:21 PM.
'95 E34 525i, M50B32 (S52 Crank, K1 Rods, JE 9.0:1 Pistons, S52 Cams, Cutring, Achilles Oil Pump Shaft & Sprocket), GTW3684R 0.82A/R, ZF320
Anyways, determined yet again to keep the car going, I decided to learn how to rebuild the diff. So I tore the blown up one apart...
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Okay, that explained a lot. I bought the "recently rebuilt" LSD from a FB group member, whose friend had rebuilt it. In any case, I'd always noticed how far I could turn the driveshaft with the diff in the car before it actually engage with any teeth, which I always thought was odd but didn't know any better. I now know the backlash was WAY off. I'm surprised that lasted as long as it did.
So the process began of rebuilding the diff properly.
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I also figured since the diff would be out for a while, I'd bite the bullet and refresh the entire rear subframe with M5 RTABs and stock everything else. I bought a press to do the diff and the subframe. What a great tool to have around!
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The E34 trailing arms have a shape to them that requires a special jig be made for the press to press them out. I tried burning the bushings out, what a mess.
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I also put some POR15 on the subframe and trailing arms to hopefully slow down the inevitable rust death from Minnesota salted roads
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The diff went back together easily (No, it took weeks waiting for things and righting my wrongs. I now have every shim size that BMW made and more expensive measuring tools)
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