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I haven't lifted the fuel rail to check the spray but I'm getting random misfire codes to random cylinders, not the same cylinder each time so I don't think it is just one coil or injector. I plan to check the spray patterns of the injectors tomorrow.
The idle does seem too low, I keep forgetting to check the real time reading with my code reader but it does appear to be between 500-600 on the cluster. It doesn't feel any smoother with throttle applied. I thought that the idle speed was controlled by the idle control valve.
My daily driver is also a 328 so I can swap any sensor I need to. I may just try that whole fuel rail and injectors on it.
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Its beginning to sound more and more like a misfire or ignition issue. Maybe post a video when you get some time.Originally Posted by gdavid
Please complete the entire disconnect test, before swopping any sensors from your other car Since you built this engine, you know where they all are and you can do the whole range of tests for all 7 sensors within 10 minutes. Before you start that, check the rail's injector pattern - something that must always be done when new injectors are installed.
I'm assuming all your ground straps are in good shape, including the ones on the valve cover to the two coils, and the one going from the fuel rail (?) to the front of the engine at the top. I once failed to tighten that and it caused a misfire at speed.
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Have you cleared adaptations?
I hope your injectors turn out to be good. I have a new set arriving Monday, fingers crossed.
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No, I haven't cleared them. Can it be done without INPA?, I need to get it and cables first.
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The software is here:
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...xperimentation
I got my injectors today (a day early, sunday delivery!) but... the pintle caps are too small, they block the nozzles around the perimeter, they do not match the photos from the ebay listing. I think I'm going to be stuck with refurbing my originals. I can at least ultrasonic clean them, back flush, forward flush, test for leak down, but I cannot flow match them. New pintles, o-rings, spacers, filters (proper pintles!) will cost ~17$ for 6 injectors.
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INPA cable:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/For-BMW-INP...S/312270700210
ADS cable adapter and B800 SRS reset tool:
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/B800-Diagnostic-Airbag-Scanner-SRS-Reset-Tool-For-BMW-ODB2-OBD-1994-2003-20Pin/202463823392
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USA sellers
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Thanks, I just ordered the usb cable in the first link and I do have the same srs tool already, thanks for the links.
I messed around a little bit today. The intake manifold was wet at the #4 injector. I think it was leaking between the rail and the injector. I went ahead and swapped one of the old ones back in with new orings as well as a different coil on that cylinder. Made no difference. When I disconnected the rail, there easy bits of white crude that came out. Some had been caught by the basket filters in the injectors. It may have been from the grease I used on the orings during assembly. I checked the spray pattern of the new injector I removed and using spray sea foam and it looked good. For what it's worth I have not seen another misfire from this cylinder but it may just be chance. I have new parts coming for my old injectors. Also of note, according to my code reader it is idling around 750 even though it looks like 600 on the dash.
Part of me suspects a old fashion Italian tune up is what it needs.
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Eric, why don't you remove those pintle caps and check for leaks by fixing them on the rail directly and exposing them to rail pressure overnight. If there are no leaks, then run the engine without the pintle caps for a few days and see if your fuel economy is normal. The engine will run perfectly fine and you're not going to get any varnish buildup in a few days. If the economy is fine and you don't notice any unusual problems, then just get better pintle caps for this set and be done with it.
I'm pretty sure what you bought are alright - just some idiot in the production line put in the wrong caps. Right now we don't have a reliable way of diy refurbishing injectors and you've been through too much crap on this issue already time to get the car fixed. You can refurbish your old set a few weeks later when its fun to do so.
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And that would be the best part of you good sir !
btw a quick way to clear codes is to unplug the dme and key2 your ignition for a minute. Or remove the dme relay and key2 for 1 minute. Or unplug one of the battery terminals for a minute (no need to touch terminals together).
Last edited by alang1990; 10-28-2018 at 08:56 PM.
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A silly afterthought is that I never compression checked the m52b28 that I pulled out of this car. I was told by the father of the kid who owned it that it had no compression on cylinder 5. When I got it running it seemed to run pretty good for a car with no compression on one cylinder but that may not have even been the case. On one hand that leaves me with more things to chase, but on the other hand the m52b28 may be in better shape than I thought.
I hope to get some plates on it tomorrow. I am tagging it as historic since for now at least I won't be driving it regularly.
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You cannot clear adaptations that way, that only works on older e36's. I'm not going to run my car without pintles, it would be a nightmare trying to get six injectors simultaneously into the manifold with loose o-rings, I can only imagine them falling off and bouncing into the depths.
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O rings on your injectors can't be loose if so they are the wrong size. I have run injectors with no pintels before for months no issues even when removing them from the rail.
If you want to be extra sure just wrap some pvc tape around each o ring and the injector probe. Anyway its up to you.
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I see.
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I got the tags for it today and the cable for INPA won't be here till next Tuesday so I'll probably take it for a spin and see if the dme can relearn the adaptations on it's on in the mean time. I think I'll go ahead and put the hood on, it has been very convenient to work on the car with the hood off but I don't need to draw any extra attention to myself. I went with historic plates since I won't be driving it much, it is really just a test mule for this engine. I'm planning on fixing up the interior, either with used seats in better shape for trying out the lseat.com replacement leather and putting it up for sale. If I can get $4,500 for it with the 3 liter, I'd break even which is fine but perhaps optimistic. If it doesn't sell, I'll get it thoroughly broken it and put the whole drive train into my automatic sedan.
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dme adaptations will not be responsible for rough running.
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I'm going to check the timing position. I may not have tensioned the slack out of the chain enough when setting it up. I am all over the place with this.
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You tensioned the chain fine. In fact you can't tension it manually - it is auto tensioned by the spring tensioner and the chain guides. The spring chain tensioner, if damaged, will lead to a constant chainy noise rather than anything else. It won't screw with the timing. Are you getting that noise?
And timing cannot be adjusted by hand on these engines. Did you mess with the cams ? If you did, even then if you line up the marks correctly the timing is factory. If you didn't then the timing has no change. Did you retune the chip ? I don't think so either.
You are overthinking something that is probably very straightforward. Please just do the disconnect test on your driveability sensors as I suggested many posts ago. It will take you ten minutes in total and you have a 95% chance of that identifying the problem in that 10 minutes.
Last edited by alang1990; 10-29-2018 at 09:16 PM.
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I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. I failed to provide an update that I had performed the drivability sensor disconnect tests but there was no difference.
I messed with the cams. The intake cam is from a m54b30 which provides a longer duration and higher lift than the m52 cam, it is somewhere between the m52 and s52 cam in terms of profile. You can change the timing, depending on the position of the cams and crankshaft when you tighten up the four bolts on the exhaust cam, with a flywheel pin and cam blocks it is pretty tough to screw it up but that is where I thought I possible made an error.
I did find a problem last night, I don't know whether it is the problem but it may very well be, either way I need to fix it. The vanos was stuck in the advanced position, I need to confirm but believe the intake cam sprocket is jamming between the two stop disks. When I pulled off the valve cover, the vanos was fully extended and when I backed off the 4 exhaust sprocket bolts and used the vanos wrench to rotate the sprocket with the timing blocks on, the vanos was very stiff and difficult to remove. Hopefully I just mixed up the parts and put the wrong combination of studs, stop disks and diaphragm spring together. If not it may be a problem with the shortened helix gear on the end of the intake cam. I quit for the night once I got the vanos unit off. I have the m52b28 that came out of this car on an engine stand to compare and will go through everything carefully tonight to tomorrow but was getting too tired and didn't want to make another clumsy mistake.
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A strong indication that this is not a device fault.
Ding ding ding !!
You gave into temptation and are now stuck in purgatory. Do your penance on the engine and let us know after Sunday night.
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I really don't know what I was thinking with those cheap Chinese injectors but they were my problem. I got the new filter baskets in my original ones and put them back in. She purrs at idle now and I finally took her out for a spin and it runs great. Feels great.
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How did you determine this ?
And great news that your cams were not the issue.
This problem also basically shows the value of simple and basic tests on the car. The injectors you probably could check by lifting it up of the intake, suspending it, and cranking to see injector spray pattern. Leaks can be detected by lifting the rail then then wedging paper towels over the intake ports and putting the injectors on it without tightening down, and leaving for a few hours.
I wonder if the code reader would have detected the issue with the Chinese injectors.
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I just swapped them out for cylinders 5 and 6 (I had already changed 4 after it was leaking). I had tested to confirm they weren't leaking through but couldn't check the spray pattern alone. I was getting a P0173 code for bank 2 being lean and there just didn't seem to be any other likely cause. The pre-cat o2 sensor was pretty new and threw codes when disconnected so changing the injectors seemed like an easy attempt. The vanos mechanism feels smoother, i changed out the spring plate from the other motor but it was probably fine.
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I got the hood back on and took it for a short ride yesterday on some backroads. Saturday night, in addition to having no hood, I didn't have the air box on so it was really loud and distracting when judging engine response. With the hood and air box on yesterday, I was able to listen to the exhaust note. This is the first manual transmission e36 I have driven and really feels nice but does make engine comparison to my m52b28 automatic sedan a bit like apples and oranges. The motor mounts, transmission mounts, clutch and shifter bushings are all new so shifting was nice and crisp, as expected. I spend a lot of time driving my automatic sedan (about 30k miles/year) but the manual felt natural and shifting was second nature. I'm getting some smoke out of the exhaust which I'm pretty certain is residual oil in the mid pipe that the old motor was blowing downstream. The piston rings are all new and still breaking in but I very much doubt the smoke coming out the exhaust is blow by.
Aside from putting some miles on the car to break in the engine but project is now going to turn to fixing up the interior, repairing the rust in the floor and resealing the differential.
Last edited by gdavid; 11-05-2018 at 10:59 AM.
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Great job Gravid, hope you enjoy it!
That's crazy that you put 30k your auto each year!
What was the last straw on the alang guy? I was getting tired of his ill-informed advice, I don't think he owns an e36!
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I'm pretty sure he got bounced from comments on another thread, I didn't complain to anyone but did get curious and had to look at his last post. There was some warning by a moderator on that thread. I really didn't mind anything he had to post on this thread, everyone has an opinion on the internet. It comes with the territory and the amount of knowledge you gain far outweighs anything else.
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I drove it to work today, 40 miles without incident. It runs smoothly but isn't as strong as it should be, there is a lag above about 2200 rpms but it is not giving any engine codes. I'm still running 3 of the 6 Chinese injectors, I'll replace these with the originals tonight. I got my INPA cable but didn't get the software up and running yet. I suspect my power issue is either adaptations, plugged up exhaust or bad injectors. It is also running warmer than I would like. It is showing 12 o'clock on the worthless dash gauge but running between 210 and 215 on my code reader. It was cool this morning and there is no reason it should be running warm. The sending unit may be bad or I need to replace the thermostat. I'll probably do both. My obc isn't working, it did before I pulled the engine and but now I have nothing. My windshield washer fluid is empty so I know I'm getting a notice about that and the dash light goes off when I press the check button but I can't read the clock or any messages. Fuses 23 and 45 are good, probably a loose connection somewhere. A pleasant thing I noticed this morning is my climate control is set up to display in Fahrenheit unlike the Celsius display in my sedan. There is a linkage for the tonneau I can't get connected, it is probably bent and I can't get the top to operate till this is fixed but I'm just leaving it up for now.
Plenty of stuff to keep me busy but nothing insurmountable. Once I get these sorted out, I'll focus on the interior.
It has an aftermarket radio with Bluetooth, somehow my Spotify was repeating "Calle Ocho" for 15 minutes but I couldn't be bothered to turn it off. Grinning anyway.
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I'm wondering if the ECM sensing knock and pulling timing. The gas in the tank is probably 5-6 months old and I have no idea what octane.
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