Quote:
Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow
I think the sample is skewed. At this point, pretty much everyone who tracks has increased tolerance rod bearings.
|
You can say that if you want, but of all of the E9x M3s we've had come into our shop with a blown motor (the ones I have been referring to in this thread), only one was a track car.
That car did have oversized rod
and main bearings, a baffled oil pan, fairly significant aero, and Sport Cup 2s.
He saw no change in datalogged oil pressures from switching to the baffled oil pan, and saw as low as 14 PSI in corners. But that wasn't actually what killed that motor. He had another shop refresh a junkyard motor for him, and within 2,000 track miles, a hole had been torched through a piston.
The rest have been street cars that have either had extremely limited track time or none at all. Most of the rest come from eBay or private sellers as "good running" cores. Of all of those, to our knowledge, only one came from a track car. It had ~60k miles on it, and of all the S65s we have ever received, it was far and away the cleanest and in the best shape internally. That is not to say it was perfect- it had moderate main bearing wear, and as ever, the BEs in its rods looked brand new, and it had a few other small issues like a cracked timing cover on the alternator mounting boss (I imagine this is why it was pulled. A careless prybar can crack this thin section of aluminum while trying to remove a seized alternator.) I think that the excellent service schedules that track enthusiasts typically put their motors on significantly reduce the risks of rod and main bearing failures.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow
I instruct a lot of e9x cars at the track, and I always ask if they have stock bearings. The last driver that told me they had stock bearings and the rod bearing topic was overblown was a few years ago, and they blew their engine that same weekend.
|
We have NEVER said that you should not do anything to your rod bearings. My bearings were replaced with WPC-treated OEM bearings 130k miles ago. My car sees 8,000+ RPM at least once a day, and she's still going strong.
The guy who said "rod bearing failure is overblown" is probably the same type of guy who says "BMW says 10,000 miles between oil changes, any more is a waste of time," and then proceeds to take his car to Walmart and buy whatever type of oil they're running a special on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SYT_Shadow
My BE bearing S65 has been running around for 50k miles. This is not something I'm worried about.
|
Call us when you need us, broski. We make significantly more money from motor sales than we will from this oil pump.
