Supercharged e90 M3 Failure

[THE TECH]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

Sure,

It's not necessarially "shadow" data in the conventional sense - Shadow memory is a seperate area usually used for fault codes that are either hidden for a specific reason, or codes that the car might set, but havent reached the defined iterations to trigger the CEL.

In this case, what is being read is "freezeframe" data. Freeframe data holds the maximum values for particular situations, two of them being Vmax (maximum velocity or speed) and Nmax (maximum engine RPM).

The car will record "events" - # of seconds in redline past a certain area, along with a number of things. But these are more like counters and don't give you a whole lot of information. As far as exceeding redline, the freeze frame data will have a single snapshop of the highest point achieved. Along with that specific frame will come other information such as throttle position, mileage, speed at gearbox/vanos, mass airflow rate, etc..

So in this particular situation, since we know approximately when his car was supercharged, when he had the AA software before the SC, etc - basically a valid timeline - A readout of that freeframe data will show us when (in mileage) this particular "event" occured, and based on that and the timeline we've constructed, we can infer whether the overrev situation happened while the S/C was installed, or if this was not recorded with the S/C installed.

If, infact it shows that the 8,705 was reached after the installation of the blower, then I think we have a possible case of an over rev situation. It might have been a weak point of the motor that was exacerbated with the shift. 8,700 is not a big deal on these motors in my opinion. If it shows that 8,705 was achieved before the blower install (or a while back in mileage), there is a reasonable assumption that the failure is in line with something other than a moneyshift.

One thing strange to me is that AA's freezeframe data actually shows 8,100 RPM. Most of the cars I've read, even with an increased redline, still show the factory rev limit in those cells. From my recollection, my car shows this as 8,350 even though its closer to 8,700. It shows my top speed limiter as "not raised" even though I've hit over 170mph with the car. The other interesting point is that there are two limits you see, one at 8,350 and one at 8,450. AA had reduced the redline to 8,100, but the intervention point after that according to their freezeframe data was 8,450. A buffer of 350 RPM from the set redline for further intervention seems to be a wide gap.

But again, I would like to read the freezeframe data myself to see what appears. This is just for validation purposes and to make some more sense of this situation.

I hope this helps.

Mike

Thank you Mike. This information should clear a lot of things up in terms of what information we can expect if you get a copy of the data.

[m33]

It sucks when your the best at what you do , your damned if you do and damned if you don't .
ESS rarely if ever comments on these type of threads and people who plan on and are supercharged appreciate their input as it brings ease to our what if's , but at the same token people who don't supercharge nor plan on supercharge come in and take stabs in a childish ways , do everyone a favor and keep those pecker head comments to yourself and stay on topic ...

[BPMSport]

I think this (to an extent) has turned it to an opportunity for ESS to say that their kit is better. While I respect that, it's not the time nor place for this. I understand these are indirect innuendos, but the point made is the same.

We understand that ESS has more kits out there. We understand that the ESS kits maintain a higher redline than the AA kits. We understand that the ESS kits are proven. You can't argue with success.

Hell, to be honest with you - if I were to S/C my car there are only a handful of choices: AA, Gintani, ESS, Gpower, and now VF. My choice would undoubtedly be ESS or GPower, until another product surfaces that in my opinion is fair competition with their setup. I commend ESS for the work on their supercharger kit, but the specifications of it are totally irrelevant in this situation and are simply fueling the fire. Let's get to the bottom of what happened with this "particular” AA car, and not bring company X or Y into this at all - although I think it was a good opportunity for ESS to chime in from a business perspective

I have communicated with the OP over email - I told him that I'm happy to send the cable/flash drive, but he needs to leave a refundable deposit on the cable to cover me in the event that I don't receive it back. So once that's squared away it will be en-route. I am headed to San Diego on business for the weekend, so the earliest I'd be able to ship it out to him is Monday.

[SflBimmer8484]

Originally Posted by Mike Benvo

Sure,

It's not necessarially "shadow" data in the conventional sense - Shadow memory is a seperate area usually used for fault codes that are either hidden for a specific reason, or codes that the car might set, but havent reached the defined iterations to trigger the CEL.

In this case, what is being read is "freezeframe" data. Freeframe data holds the maximum values for particular situations, two of them being Vmax (maximum velocity or speed) and Nmax (maximum engine RPM).

The car will record "events" - # of seconds in redline past a certain area, along with a number of things. But these are more like counters and don't give you a whole lot of information. As far as exceeding redline, the freeze frame data will have a single snapshop of the highest point achieved. Along with that specific frame will come other information such as throttle position, mileage, speed at gearbox/vanos, mass airflow rate, etc..

So in this particular situation, since we know approximately when his car was supercharged, when he had the AA software before the SC, etc - basically a valid timeline - A readout of that freeframe data will show us when (in mileage) this particular "event" occured, and based on that and the timeline we've constructed, we can infer whether the overrev situation happened while the S/C was installed, or if this was not recorded with the S/C installed.

If, infact it shows that the 8,705 was reached after the installation of the blower, then I think we have a possible case of an over rev situation. It might have been a weak point of the motor that was exacerbated with the shift. 8,700 is not a big deal on these motors in my opinion. If it shows that 8,705 was achieved before the blower install (or a while back in mileage), there is a reasonable assumption that the failure is in line with something other than a moneyshift.

One thing strange to me is that AA's freezeframe data actually shows 8,100 RPM. Most of the cars I've read, even with an increased redline, still show the factory rev limit in those cells. From my recollection, my car shows this as 8,350 even though its closer to 8,700. It shows my top speed limiter as "not raised" even though I've hit over 170mph with the car. The other interesting point is that there are two limits you see, one at 8,350 and one at 8,450. AA had reduced the redline to 8,100, but the intervention point after that according to their freezeframe data was 8,450. A buffer of 350 RPM from the set redline for further intervention seems to be a wide gap.

But again, I would like to read the freezeframe data myself to see what appears. This is just for validation purposes and to make some more sense of this situation.

I hope this helps.

Mike

Mike,

All of our Supercharged cars show 8100 Rpm rev limiter we have compared to 4 other supercharged m3's we have on site.


-----

I cannot understand why a car with a 8600 rpm limiter could be any more reliable than our lower more conservative 8100 Rpm limiter regardless of whether the engine can or cannot handle it.

And to say these engines can handle 86XX Rpm is an opinion and very misleading at this point no company has enough miles on a SC car to make this claim.

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by Andrew@ActiveAutowerke

Mike,

All of our Supercharged cars show 8100 Rpm rev limiter we have compared to 4 other supercharged m3's we have on site.


-----

I cannot understand why a car with a 8600 rpm limiter could be any more reliable than our lower more conservative 8100 Rpm limiter regardless of whether the engine can or cannot handle it.

And to say these engines can handle 86XX Rpm is an opinion and very misleading at this point no company has enough miles on a sc car to make this claim.

Hi Andrew,

Not disputing what rev limit you show.. I am not sure why the second buffer for intervention is set 350 RPM over the intended redline, however.

I think everyone here wants a third party read from the OP's car just to be absolutely sure. Being that the kit was from AA, there is an inherent conflict of interest. I am not interested in who's right, but what is right.

I agree with you that stating 8,600 RPM is completely safe on a supercharged car might be premature. For a naturally aspirated car I see no issue. A supercharged car will experience considerably more stress under boost at higher RPM's.

If I had a supercharged M3, I would wan't my redline to be no higher than 8,350. It might be a personal preference to err on the side of saftey.

[BMRLVR]

+1 to the comments about Roman at ESS acting childish.

I have done a lot of posting in the last few days in the engine threads that have been created as a result of the Gintani bearing thread. I have clearly stated that I don't intend to supercharge my M3 and will almost certainly do a stroker instead!

With that being said I think this clears up the fact that I have no vested interests in either of the supercharger kits. It also solidifies the fact that I have nothing to gain by either discrediting or endorsing any one tuner's kit.

If you ask anyone that knows me they will tell you I am an extremely particular person and I am never satisfied with just "good enough". I am a mechanic by trade, it is how I make my living, and although i am blowing my own horn by saying this, I am very good at it. My motivation for posting here simply to provide information regarding engines (all internal combustion piston engine fundamentals are common no matter who the manufacturer is or what the design is) that I have gained from about 10 years of doing this for a living.

I am lucky for the fact that I work for a company that provides me with unlimited opportunity to attend technical training. I am also able to get involved in testing and failure analysis with the biggest names in the heavy equipment industry.

Since the equipment we operate is some of the largest on the planet, we get to see new technologies and commonly have prototype and development units operating in our mine. These prototype and development units are at our mine to durability test, and, on many occasions we see them up to 5 years before they hit the market.

During the testing progress the units are operated at 100% design spec loads and speeds. This is done to see if the systems on the equipment will reach the minimum number of expected hours that will be expected of production versions. As a result of this we get to see lots of failures in the engines and other components on the machines.

After failures occur, the manufacturer sends engineers to inspect the equipment along with their own factory certified technicians. By being able to work with these people we get to see technical info on metallurgy, stress load calculations, operating conditions from the ECM's and finally the engineered fix to correct the problem!

All of the technical info we see is totally universal to the mechanic trade regardless of the size, make, and model of the engine. When you complete the trade to be a mechanic, the technical training is never about one manufacturers product, or one type of equipment. If in the future you end up working for a specific manufacturer or on a specific type of engine, etc, that is when you will get brand specific training.

So to get to the point, I have no amount of specific experience working on the S65 engine. All of my knowledge is general knowledge and when I say, "the S65 bottom end should be able to hold 800-1000 HP with ease", I don't have any specific info or haven't done or seen any testing done that proves this. I made that statement based upon my experience and the construction of the engine and the quality components used within!

When Roman came on here, he was not trying to discredit anyone nor "add fuel to the fire". Roman was adding valuable information that he has gained from ESS's extensive durability testing of this engine, both supercharged and NA.

There are a lot of people on here that need to grow up. People adding factual info to the forum is beneficial to everyone, even competitors. It is not always intended to be hostile.

I for one am really interested in what caused this failure and what the S65 can actually take reliably with regards to HP output and RPM. I am a lot less interested in who makes a better supercharger kit, ESS, AA, Gintani or GPower. Who makes the best kit will always be an opinion. The limits of the engine we have in our cars is more the issue here and that info is valuable to everyone!!!

[MotrsportM3]

Originally Posted by Sal@Evolve

There have been plenty of failures of engines running stock from the very beginning.

The information is there.

The point here is that a stock car can blow... well, so can a tuned one.

People just need someone to blame. Who does everyone blame when a stock motor blows?

There is zero evidence here that AA caused the failure especially given this type of failure has been seen on stock cars.

Melting or destroying just one piston and blowing a hole in the block from tuning ..... doesn't make any sense. Boost is boost no matter how you look at it.

People need to understand there is always a risk even with a stock engine let alone a boosted one. It's pretty much common sense.

+1

[BMRLVR]

Originally Posted by Andrew@ActiveAutowerke

I cannot understand why a car with a 8600 rpm limiter could be any more reliable than our lower more conservative 8100 Rpm limiter regardless of whether the engine can or cannot handle it.

That is not a smart statement, and I am not necessarily relating it to this failure since the facts seem to be skewed from the OP.

To comment on your statement, any engine with bad tuning would be worse at 8100 RPM than an engine with good tuning at 8600.

No detonation at 8600 RPM is much better than detonation at 8100RPM.

[stega]

Originally Posted by Andrew@ActiveAutowerke

Mike,

All of our Supercharged cars show 8100 Rpm rev limiter we have compared to 4 other supercharged m3's we have on site.


-----

I cannot understand why a car with a 8600 rpm limiter could be any more reliable than our lower more conservative 8100 Rpm limiter regardless of whether the engine can or cannot handle it.

And to say these engines can handle 86XX Rpm is an opinion and very misleading at this point no company has enough miles on a SC car to make this claim.

How many miles on a kit would you like before such a claim is made???
There are plenty of ESS kits around with a redline higher that 8100 with many many miles running just fine...

Sure we dont know everything, but it seems we do know that higher than 8100 is relativley safe as proven by all the ess kits out there currently.

[tibra1]

Originally Posted by m33

It sucks when your the best at what you do , your damned if you do and damned if you don't .
ESS rarely if ever comments on these type of threads and people who plan on and are supercharged appreciate their input as it brings ease to our what if's , but at the same token people who don't supercharge nor plan on supercharge come in and take stabs in a childish ways , do everyone a favor and keep those pecker head comments to yourself and stay on topic ...

Yaaaaawnnn///

[MPoweredAuto]

Andrew,

Have any e9x M3's with an AA supercharger kit had any engine issues or failures for any reason besides mine?

Thank you

[SflBimmer8484]

Originally Posted by BMRLVR

That is not a smart statement, and I am not necessarily relating it to this failure since the facts seem to be skewed from the OP.

To comment on your statement, any engine with bad tuning would be worse at 8100 RPM than an engine with good tuning at 8600.

No detonation at 8600 RPM is much better than detonation at 8100RPM.

I agree however our tune is not detonating so i'm not sure what that has to do with it

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have been turbo / supercharging BMW's since 1995 that is longer than any company on the market.

We have ran our kits in some of the hardest races in the USA and all over the world.

So lets get back on topic here.

Active Autowerke has truthfully provided the information it obtained from Jordan at Import Motor Werks and from his ECU that was sent to us immediately after his engine failure. We will no longer feed nor fuel this thread which has now become public spectacle.

The data we pulled from the ecu shows it was over reved 600 rpm from what we set it.

There is absolutely no proof that the engine failed from our s/c and all data suggests this.

Jordan has repeatedly said he does not want to flame or to attack Active, but to only bring the truth to light. We have provided the truth based on the information Jordan provided. He has threatened us with demands, and made public his threats to denigrate Active Autowerke; he has attacked our integrity, and in so doing, has exposed his. This has been a no win situation for Import Motor Werks and Active Autowerke.

Active assisted him with the repurchase of the supercharger system and after a year of business relationships and transactions, he has chosen to destroy a business relationship that was productive to both parties over the past year.

This is our final posting on this thread, Active Autowerke stands in clear conscience on the evidence provided.

[sales@ESSTuning]

Originally Posted by Andrew@ActiveAutowerke

Mike,

All of our Supercharged cars show 8100 Rpm rev limiter we have compared to 4 other supercharged m3's we have on site.


-----

I cannot understand why a car with a 8600 rpm limiter could be any more reliable than our lower more conservative 8100 Rpm limiter regardless of whether the engine can or cannot handle it.

And to say these engines can handle 86XX Rpm is an opinion and very misleading at this point no company has enough miles on a SC car to make this claim.

We have cars with over 100k miles on them that have had our kit installed for 70k miles + including two of our test cars. Many of these cars have spent most of their life at the track. How many miles would you say are needed before a claim can be made? We had a working prototype supercharger testing on the track in europe long before most tuners even owned an M3.

[BMRLVR]

Originally Posted by Andrew@ActiveAutowerke

I agree however our tune is not detonating so i'm not sure what that has to do with it

That is why I said "I am not necessarily relating it to this failure since the facts seem to be skewed from the OP"

I was not trying to suggest that your kit was detonating nor have I made that suggestion anywhere in this thread! I was just trying to show that a lower redline don't always make for a safer and more reliable kit!

I am sure you know there is a whole lot more to a writing a good tune than a conservative redline.

[MPoweredAuto]

To make this public, I did ask a question to AA, and instead of answering it publicly, they sent me a pm:

Your answer
There have been no engine failures Caused by our supercharger kit.

We have seen plenty of engines fail without a supercharger though. Your engine failure has absolutely nothing to do with our tuning or supercharger.

Have a good day.
__________________
Phone: 305-233-9300 Ext 227

Email: Afish@ActiveAutowerke.com

[BPMSport]

Originally Posted by BMRLVR

That is why I said "I am not necessarily relating it to this failure since the facts seem to be skewed from the OP"

I was not trying to suggest that your kit was detonating nor have I made that suggestion anywhere in this thread! I was just trying to show that a lower redline don't always make for a safer and more reliable kit!

I am sure you know there is a whole lot more to a writing a good tune than a conservative redline.

This statement couldn't be more on target.

You could have a dangerous tune at 5000 RPM. So it's not a question of RPM, but more a question of the fueling / ignition strategy.

RPM adds stress, but properly tuned with an engine that can support it, there should be minimal if any issues.

Mpowered: you can reply to my email if you wish and we can continue with reading the data from your car

Thanks

[stega]

Originally Posted by MPoweredAuto

To make this public, I did ask a question to AA, and instead of answering it publicly, they sent me a pm:

Your answer
There have been no engine failures Caused by our supercharger kit.

We have seen plenty of engines fail without a supercharger though. Your engine failure has absolutely nothing to do with our tuning or supercharger.

Ok let me ask this question to AA in another way. Have any engines failed other than this one with an AA supercharger equiped??? Weather or not they were caused by the blower/tuning???

[THE TECH]

Originally Posted by stega

Ok let me ask this question in another way. Have any engines failed other than this one with an AA supercharger equiped??? Weather or not they were caused by the blower/tuning???

Are you asking the OP to tell you if other people's engines have failed that have had the AA kit? Surely you jest.

[alpine335i]

I wish someone would animate some of these threads. I would watch m3post tv all day.

[stega]

Originally Posted by THE TECH

Are you asking the OP to tell you if other people's engines have failed that have had the AA kit? Surely you jest.

No I am asking active...

If any cars with their kit have failed for ANY reason. Even if it had nothing to do w/ their tuning/blower...?

[Jaypod]

Jordan - While this thread has been entertaining and even offered some interesting speculation, you have made some serious allegations with no supporting evidence of your claims. Active have told their side of the story and you made a weak attempt at a rebuttal. If you have this evidence please share, I have an AA kit on my car and if there is some problem with it I would like to know. I have had my kit on for 10K km's (Canadian Car) and the engine is running strong (compression and leak down test was done in November before I put it away for the winter as well).

I hope you do allow Mike to look at your ECU data, but to be honest I am not really sure what that will prove either. I am not a mechanic or tech, just an enthusiast who like to push my cars at the track.

I am sorry that your engine blew and you had to go out of pocket, no one wishes that on anyone, but as the one making the allegations you need to share some info here to prove your side of the story.

[THE TECH]

Originally Posted by stega

No I am asking active...

Well you quoted the OP.

Either way, Active has denied ever having a failure.