[scaryharry19]

Late March of this year I picked up my dream M3 that I believed would be a good purchase @ $27k. Previous owner ensured the rod bearing and throttle actuators had been replaced and upgraded. Previous owner seemed very knowledgeable and I felt good about it.

2008 (jan build) e92 m3
70k miles
Space Grey/Palladium Silver
VF620 supercharger (installed at around 50k mi)
BPM Tuning on motor, trans, steering
BE rod bearings
ARP bolts
positive Blackstone labs oil analysis report from 68k mi
19"in Forgestar SDC wheels
squared 275/30 continental extreme contact
quad resonated Topspeed performance x-pipe, no muffler, no cats

I owned the car for about 2k miles when the engine blew. I was traveling into town @ about 65 mph and out of nowhere BOOM. (it now sits covered in storage at 72k mi)

So let's rewind.. I drove 10 hrs to pick the car up and make a road trip to see some old college buddies on my trip back. I made it from AL to IA and checked the car out at the dealer where said previous owner had traded it in for a corvette. It was in alright condition but I still considered it a good value given the piece of mind on the motor's condition. They also assure me that the CEL is due to the catless exhaust (this is also what the previous owner told me, he said he had a Carly and that it was just a code that is common with catless setups) (Man, I will never show up to buy a BMW without my Carly every again). Short story shorter, I buy it.

Now is a good time to state, in hindsight I believe there are A LOT of mistakes I made in purchasing and in owning this M3 but at this point, it is what it is.

Problem #1: ON MY WAY TO KC, MO FROM THE DEALER. About 30 minutes outside of KCMO after a 3ish hour car ride in my new-to-me 558 whp beast, I did a pull entering an interstate when the car fell flat on it's face. Limp mode. Everything wreaked of fuel and the car would sputter out when i would try to restart. A good Samaritan came buy and we had a look see as we talked on the phone with the previous owner who tried to help us diagnose the issue. We determined that since I was below a quarter tank and IA has shit gas, by my standard at least, I may just need to run a cleaner through and refill.. 20 minutes of sitting and the car restarted and ran in limp mode to a gas station where i did a fuel treatment and refilled with ethanol free. Car began to run fine.

I ran nothing but ethanol free 91 or 93 for the next and last 2k miles that this motor existed.

Fast forward and the car did great for the weekend in KC and I headed back to AL, doing another fuel treatment on the way (probably should not have done this idk, who knows).. When Problem #2: LIMP MODE AS SOON AS I PULL OFF THE INTERSTATE, right when I made it back into Huntsville (home). I mean as soon as I cancelled cruise control, it went into limp mode, after driving for 10 hrs. I was like really??

After doing some research i determined that given it being an early model 2008, i needed to replace the fuel pump modulator and all my problems would go away. Did that, things seemed better, but I couldnt get over how RICH the exhaust was smelling. I mean it was like burn your lungs rich. Everyone attributed it to being catless but i thought no way, something is wrong.

I take it to a BMW specialty shop (shop #1) and he changes O2's and a coil pack and says i should be good. I take off and the CEL comes back on almost immediately.

Over the course of the coming few weeks the car is in that shop (shop #1) where the guy cant figure out what's going on.

Until, PROBLEM #3: HE SEES THAT SPARKPLUG #1 IS LITERALLY CLOSED SHUT. yep, AND that was due to the fact the the air intake/inlet boot on the supercharger was not on all the way, so the supercharger sucked up some shit and flung it into the 1st piston. i presume THAT is what actually happened in KC (problem #1) which also means I almost definitely just drove the son of a bitch 1k miles on a down f*cking cylinder.

So we fix that and now I'm freaking out thinking I fuel soaked it and I'm f*cked. the mechanic and basically everyone is his shop (and some of my buddies) says not to worry, I'm being paranoid, i should be good to go, just go enjoy the car man, and that "the fuel injector will shut off if the spark plug is unable to fire" (still don't think that's true but idk). I'm like OK, but demand they bore scope it and run a leak down. Leak down showed about even pressure across all 8 (cant remember the #s right now) and the bore scope showed very clean injectors, pistons and smooth cyl walls. The piston #1 did however show tiny little marks where whatever debris came in had pinged around for a second. I agreed that it did appear very insignificant, there were no indentations, only scoring (or markings) on the piston.

1 week passes - CEL again. I take it to another European specialist (shop #2). He says their's "something wrong with the tune".

I get a diagnostic session with Mike Benvo and he immediately sees an issue with the signal on the bank 1 O2 sensor and tells me to check that first.

I take it back to shop #2 discovers a boost leak, shitty O2 sensors that shop 1 installed, and exhaust leaks in every shit X-Pipe connection. I say great, fix it, change the oil because i'm scared I could have diluted oil, and fill up this here Blackstone labs oil sample kit and send it off (and i hand him the Blackstone labs oil sample kit).

Get the car back, guy is like go enjoy it! I'm like F*CK FINALLY! $2.5k later, 3 diagnostics, a bunch of incompetence (including my own) and I'm back on road and it ran like I had not yet experiences. I was like WOW this is definitely how it was supposed to feel all along. I enjoy the car for a drive or 2 around town when I look back and notice the Blackstone labs oil sample kit is still in the F*cking bag in the back floor board. Really? I call, it's late on a Friday, the shop guy says man i'm headed to the beach for a week but that's my bad, bring it back the Monday after next and ill take care of it. at this point I'm feeling positively about the car due to how much better it felt running and decide hell whatever, and I proceed to drive on it 2 or 3 times over the course of the next week. The car still had 3k more miles till the next oil change. I just wanted more piece of mind.

Sunday night, run an errand, Monday morning it goes back for the oil change and oil sample gets sent..

and...BOOM.

Smoke, Oil drained immediately, Metal debris in exhaust, coolant filled oil pan

Maybe me and a few others in the story are total idiots, maybe I'm an unlucky SOB who also can't find good work on cars. IDK maybe all the above.

Like mentioned earlier, it sits covered in storage as I evaluate options. I have not confirmed exactly the cause was or what damage is yet. Maybe main bearing failure due to uneven load when cyl 1 was misfiring? But it looks like a definite thrown rod with hole(s) in the block. I hope that I can tell if there is (or is not) BE rod bearings in it once I have it apart........

I do not believe uneven load from misfire would have effected the rod bearings at all, only the mains.. any speculations you guys?

Thank you if you have read this far. My question for those who have, what should I do??

- someone has expressed interest in buying everything minus powertrain and wheels (for an LS Swap racecar build).. what would the body and chassis be worth?

- if I decide to go all in and fix it to ultimately run it until the next CEF, what kind of options and money am I looking at? What is the best way to go about this? I do have a mechanic buddy who is willing to do the swap for a friendship discount.

ANY AND ALL input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.