Official S65 Bearing Specification/Clearance Wiki

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by HuskerFan85

can we get pics of good cases? Surely there are some 50k that came out for a supercharger upgrade or what not and look completely fine...

Id love to know the % on occurance of this.... especially as a prospective buyer

There are no such pictures of perfectly fine looking bearings ever been posted for any mileage, not even those changed at 4000 or 6000 miles on a fresh engine.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by regular guy

Do you mind sharing the exact emails you sent showing the question you asked and the full response too? Also please include the email address you sent. It would be good to know if the person you emailed is higher level than Kawasaki's technical contacts. Feel free to PM if you don't want it in public.

You are a funny little man...you slag me off in one post then go all suck up the next.
If you think the response from MAHLE Clevite (already shared in full) is fabricated then thats your problem. Post the pictures yourself to MAHLE Clevite technical support and get your own response. I will save you some trouble though, don't link the photos through collins-home.org/photobucket/albums/Car_Porn[....] the Mahle servers block these links most likely due to the keyword "porn".
I may well take the opportunity to email him further pictures from this thread and therefore have no intention of giving up his name/email address (which he kindly supplied to me) so that you can harass him. Neither am I interested in exchanging PMs with you.

[jayzF30]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

You are a funny little man...you slag me off in one post then go all suck up the next.
If you think the response from MAHLE Clevite (already shared in full) is fabricated then thats your problem. Post the pictures yourself to MAHLE Clevite technical support and get your own response. I will save you some trouble though, don't link the photos through collins-home.org/photobucket/albums/Car_Porn[....] the Mahle servers block these links most likely due to the keyword "porn".
I may well take the opportunity to email him further pictures from this thread and therefore have no intention of giving up his name/email address (which he kindly supplied to me) so that you can harass him. Neither am I interested in exchanging PMs with you.

You seem awfully defensive for such a simple request regular_guy made to you. Just share what you have or what is the point of participating? If I told you my S65 made a 1000whp today would I expect you to believe it? Let's get some sense in here.

[Yellow Snow]

Originally Posted by jazze90

You seem awfully defensive for such a simple request regular_guy made to you. Just share what you have or what is the point of participating? If I told you my S65 made a 1000whp today would I expect you to believe it? Let's get some sense in here.

In the same vein, It would be nice to know the Clevite employee that informed Regular Guy that BMW were doing it wrong.

Just a name will do.

[swartzentruber]

Originally Posted by speedaddictM3

Ok I have a question. We all know that plenty of companies like Nissan, Porshe, Audi, MB, Chevrolet, Subaru, Ford, Mitsubishi all make high performance engines that require premium fuel. If our problems are caused by detonation due to crappy fuel, then how come none of the other performance cars from those companies are chewing up their bearings?

Are BMW drivers far more likely than others to cheap out and use crappy gas? Or is there a flaw in the S65 and S85 engines that isn't present in the other engines made by those companies?

Could be lots of reasons. The S65 is somewhat unique in terms of V8 with very high compression, low displacement, high redline. It seems like BMW uses a thinner bearing clearance than general practice (though this doesn't seem especially uniquie the the S65), as well as a thicker oil than you'd expect, plus a fairly long oil change interval (15k). All of these things may make this engine more sensitive to things such as bad gas. I don't think the contention is that BMW drivers are likely to cheap out, but rather given what appears to be a clustering of blown engines in states where only 91 is available, maybe 91 is marginal in terms of a healthy engine.

[SenorFunkyPants]

Originally Posted by jazze90

You seem awfully defensive for such a simple request regular_guy made to you. Just share what you have or what is the point of participating? If I told you my S65 made a 1000whp today would I expect you to believe it? Let's get some sense in here.

The Mahle man gave me his name and email address (which he didn't have to) and it would be a gross invasion of his privacy to share that information. Would you like your full name and email address shared with the world?
In the email I stated that: "the pictures (hopefully) attached are a rod bearing set from a working 2008 BMW M3 with a standard S65 V8 motor at 30,000 miles - dismantled for tuning.
Any idea on the wear presented would be great.
Could using low octane fuel be a factor in what looks like excessive wear...the S65 engine does come with a anti knock ignition system.
I attached the photos.
The response received has already been posted in full.

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

You are a funny little man...you slag me off in one post then go all suck up the next.
If you think the response from MAHLE Clevite (already shared in full) is fabricated then thats your problem. Post the pictures yourself to MAHLE Clevite technical support and get your own response. I will save you some trouble though, don't link the photos through collins-home.org/photobucket/albums/Car_Porn[....] the Mahle servers block these links most likely due to the keyword "porn".
I may well take the opportunity to email him further pictures from this thread and therefore have no intention of giving up his name/email address (which he kindly supplied to me) so that you can harass him. Neither am I interested in exchanging PMs with you.

Originally Posted by jazze90

You seem awfully defensive for such a simple request regular_guy made to you. Just share what you have or what is the point of participating? If I told you my S65 made a 1000whp today would I expect you to believe it? Let's get some sense in here.

I have no doubt he contacted Clevite, and I believe that's the answer he got. What I don't know is what question he asked. Was it a leading question? Did it only include half the data? Did it have a built in bias or assumption? Were any follow up (challenge) questions asked? I think those are very relevant questions to ask when looking at the answer.

For somebody who claims only to be here to get to the truth, then what could there be to hide?

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by Yellow Snow

In the same vein, It would be nice to know the Clevite employee that informed Regular Guy that BMW were doing it wrong.

Just a name will do.

I understand you have a very strong desire to put words into my mouth, and I have an equally strong desire not to let you. Would you be kind enough to answer my earlier questions?

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

The Mahle man gave me his name and email address (which he didn't have to) and it would be a gross invasion of his privacy to share that information. Would you like your full name and email address shared with the world?
In the email I stated that: "the pictures (hopefully) attached are a rod bearing set from a working 2008 BMW M3 with a standard S65 V8 motor at 30,000 miles - dismantled for tuning.
Any idea on the wear presented would be great.
Could using low octane fuel be a factor in what looks like excessive wear...the S65 engine does come with a anti knock ignition system.
I attached the photos.
The response received has already been posted in full.

Bingo. Leading question.

[swartzentruber]

Originally Posted by regular guy

There are no such pictures of perfectly fine looking bearings ever been posted for any mileage, not even those changed at 4000 or 6000 miles on a fresh engine.

And therein lies the rub. If I'm interpreting your pictures correctly, even that last picture from bearings with just 1k miles on them showed decent wear. I'm sure all of us could open up our engines and take pictures of the bearings, and they'd all show wear and we'd think they look bad. If that's what a bearing looks like after after 1k miles, I think it's safe to assume almost all of us are driving around with pretty worn looking bearings. Going by photos alone, you'd think there'd be a lot of engines failing, yet the failure rate still seems pretty low.

I think what most of us are here in this thread for is trying to figure out what makes the engine take the next step from worn bearing to catastrophic engine failure. So far these pictures, while enlightening, don't seem to directly correlate with engine failures. Something seems to be making certain engines blow and not others. So far that "something" has been suggested as being tolerance stack up, octane, winter temps (by me). That "something" does not seem to be bearing age by itself, as we have 100k+ engines still running okay, and low mileage engines blowing. That's the question/relationship I'm far more interested in understanding, and I guess if that makes me (and others) unwelcome in the thread, so be it.

[Yellow Snow]

Originally Posted by regular guy

I understand you have a very strong desire to put words into my mouth, and I have an equally strong desire not to let you. Would you be kind enough to answer my earlier questions?

I don't need to answer anything.

I certainly have no bias towards commercial gain.

I'm simply here to establish wether the S65 has problems or not. Are you?

You seem hell bent on dictating your beliefs on owners who were happy with their cars and are now crapping themselves at the thought of a complete engine failure if they don't get their cranks reduced. Nice work.

You will find that I'm more than capable of measuring a rod bearing. (Please note the clear distinction between rod bearing and rod assembly)

[Yellow Snow]

Originally Posted by swartzentruber

And therein lies the rub. If I'm interpreting your pictures correctly, even that last picture from bearings with just 1k miles on them showed decent wear. I'm sure all of us could open up our engines and take pictures of the bearings, and they'd all show wear and we'd think they look bad. If that's what a bearing looks like after after 1k miles, I think it's safe to assume almost all of us are driving around with pretty worn looking bearings. Going by photos alone, you'd think there'd be a lot of engines failing, yet the failure rate still seems pretty low.

I think what most of us are here in this thread for is trying to figure out what makes the engine take the next step from worn bearing to catastrophic engine failure. So far these pictures, while enlightening, don't seem to directly correlate with engine failures. Something seems to be making certain engines blow and not others. So far that "something" has been suggested as being tolerance stack up, octane, winter temps (by me). That "something" does not seem to be bearing age by itself, as we have 100k+ engines still running okay, and low mileage engines blowing. That's the question/relationship I'm far more interested in understanding, and I guess if that makes me (and others) unwelcome in the thread, so be it.

Very well said.

[speedaddictM3]

Well, there really shouldn't be any bearing wear at all. There shouldn't be metal to metal contact since the oil film should permanently occupy the space between the journal and bearing. I don't have the slightest clue if other engines in other cars also have a "normal" bearing wear rate or if their bearings look pristine and just as good as new. Maybe the more experienced people can chime in on this. But if the bearings on our engines are down to the copper in some cars then it's safe to assume that you can not just do oil changes and expect trouble free driving for 200000 miles like a Corolla or Civic. It seems like the life expectancy of the S65 engine is significantly shorter and there's no way those bearings will be durable enough to last long term. As for why we aren't seeing plenty of engine failures yet, it could be a simple case of most cars not yet accruing enough mileage to experience total bearing failure. Only time will tell if this is a storm in a teacup or if the S65 is just a ticking time bomb waiting to kaboom!

[swartzentruber]

It seems like the interactive bearing failure website is being quoted from somewhat selectively. I've spent some time on that website looking at the photos, and I would agree that to my untrained eye, the pictures seem to most resemble #12. However, that failure type has 7 possible causes, and they do not suggest one of them being the most likely. This is unlike failure #13, where they say 98% of the time, it's cause #1. Cause #7 sounds a little to me like detonation, though I'm no expert.

Also, if you read #14, overlay fatigue, it suggests that detonation can be a cause of a failure that looks like this, not necessarily that it's the only cause of overlay fatigue, or that detonation always exhibits as something that looks like #14. So, the conclusion that detonation will always look like #14, overlay fatigue, isn't supported by my reading of the website.

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by swartzentruber

I think what most of us are here in this thread for is trying to figure out what makes the engine take the next step from worn bearing to catastrophic engine failure. So far these pictures, while enlightening, don't seem to directly correlate with engine failures.

Therein lies the rub here too. This these photos aren't intended to correlate with engine failures. All but one of the sets of photos do NOT correlate to an engine failure. I've tried to make that very clear and apparently didn't succeed.

This thread really is here to present data measurements and findings. There is no agenda or bias. Data is data. There are a few facts we've picked up along the way.

We are having problems in this thread that shouldn't be here. If we all just started with the assumption like I do that we're all here to tell the truth without an agenda, then we would all be doing fine.

Something seems to be making certain engines blow and not others. So far that "something" has been suggested as being tolerance stack up, octane, winter temps (by me). That "something" does not seem to be bearing age by itself, as we have 100k+ engines still running okay, and low mileage engines blowing. That's the question/relationship I'm far more interested in understanding, and I guess if that makes me (and others) unwelcome in the thread, so be it.

IMO, you are more than welcome here. I actually liked your winter temperature theory the best and thought it might have the most legs to help bring a concensus. Apparently not and it got squeezed out by the louder voices. But for what it's worth, I liked it and thought it should be explored further.

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by Yellow Snow

I don't need to answer anything.

I certainly have no bias towards commercial gain.

Let's assume neither of us have a commercial gain in this thread. I know I don't.

If you really believe in the peer review process and that's why you ask such aggressive questions, then we have a right to ask you questions in return about your own theories and your own data. To understand if your measurements with a slip gauge are accurate, it's essential for you to answer that question of proper use. Your methods and data should be no more immune to cross examination than mine.

The accuracy of this measurement at that resolution depends on the needle landing exactly in the zero-degree mark of the bearing. If you miss the zero-degree mark by 1/20th of one degree, then your measurement will be off by 0.0035 mm on a 52mm ID bearing; that's 3.5 times the resolution we're trying to measure. To make this work at 0.001 mm resolution, your angle error can't be more than 3/200ths of a single degree (+/- 0.015 of a single degree). Call me a skeptic, but that doesn't seem possible with the technique shown in those pictures.

I believe I've answered every legitimate question you've asked. Of course I've ignored your accusatory questions. The question above is a legitimate question about your measurement methods. Please consider giving an answer.

I'm simply here to establish wether the S65 has problems or not. Are you?

Of course, we share the same goal. But we differ in what we're willing to do to get there.

You seem hell bent on dictating your beliefs on owners who were happy with their cars and are now crapping themselves at the thought of a complete engine failure if they don't get their cranks reduced. Nice work.

Case in point. I'm not willing to do this to win an argument. If you're here for a noble cause, then let's talk about that data. I guarantee you we won't have any problems if we stick to that.

BTW, the part of this thread about crank resizing has never been written or posted. Instead, I've concentrated on finding much less costly mitigation methods such as WPC treatment and thinner oils. I'm not an oil guy, that's why you never hear me talk about it. But I did measure the WPC treated bearings and posted the findings on the front page. They look very promising. While I personally may opt for a full rebuild on my own motor, it's certainly not what I would expect 99.99% of all readers of this thread to do. Hence the reason I've never spent any time writing the article about crank journal resizing. Maybe some day I will, but I'd rather spend the time getting meaningful data like those eccentricity measurements. So can we please put this to rest once and for all?

You will find that I'm more than capable of measuring a rod bearing. (Please note the clear distinction between rod bearing and rod assembly)

But the theories you present about eccentricity and conclusions you draw can't be supported without measuring the assembly. I'm sure you know that.

[aussiem3]

Originally Posted by SenorFunkyPants

OK so this is interesting.
I sent the photo array from: "S65, 30000 Miles, Bone Stock, 2008." to MAHLE Clevite technical support to get an opinion and received a prompt reply from one of their team leaders.
Direct quote

"Well, generally speaking, when you see heavy, accelerated wear on the upper
rod bearings, the cause is detonation. You can still see the machining
marks on the lower shells and I see no signs of abrasive wear caused by
contaminated oil.

Detonation is an uncontrolled combustion process where the fuel in the
combustion chamber starts to burn in a normal manner which is an expanding
flame front starting at the spark plug and progressing like a grass fire in
an ever expanding front. With detonation, the fuel at the farthest reaches
of the combustion chamber explodes all at once before the flame front
reaches it. This uncontrolled explosion greatly increases the cylinder
pressure causing heavy load on the oil film between the bearing and the
crankshaft, often resulting in wear like you have in your photos. Extreme
detonation can break ring lands on the piston as well. Causes of
detonation: poor quality fuel, too high of compression in the engine and
too much ignition timing. Any of these can cause the problem, sometimes a
combination of them as well. Just as a point of interest, Tetraethyl lead,
when it was developed as a gasoline additive years ago, was referred to as
an "anti-knock" compound. It did a wonderful job preventing detonation,
unfortunately polluting our environment at the same time. When lead was
removed from gasoline, the issues with detonation surfaced

We believe the "knock" an audible noise heard is cause by the conversion of
the two flame fronts in the cylinder and many manufactures have knock
sensors installed in their engines to retard the timing when the condition
exists. Detonation can occur with out an audible knock and knock sensors
sometimes fail to work so you could conceivably have this condition in your
car."

It's good to hear a different perspective to all this bearing issue. While respecting the amount of research that has gone into understanding the engine blow ups, it's food for thought.

Originally Posted by 96LTWM3

Ill bite. Coming from a family thats been in the retail gas station business for nearly 30 years, let me drop some facts.

-Companies like Chevron and 76 add "ounces" of additive (techron) to a 8,000 gallon load. This is a fact. How much techron does your motor see when its diluted by thousands of gallons of fuel?

-Octane levels are not consistent by any means. Each load coming from the same refinery will have slightly more/less water/additives offsetting your claimed 91 octane.

-Each refinery sells fuel to branded and un-branded stations. So your 76 is getting fuel the same place your local Valero does.

-Water contamination is a normal part of filling 10,000 gallons of fuel in underground tanks every other day.

Everything above and more contribute to Californians getting less then 91 octane at the pump on a regular basis. Just saying, 91 is crap, and if you took your M3 to 8500rpm burning 90 octane, well there is your detonation...

This confirms what BMW Australia has been saying all along. There is no issue with the bearings ... it's the quality of fuel. I haven't posted this in the past but they were adamant fuel quality may be a contributing factor in NA.

I am confident 99% of M3 owners in Australia fill BP Ultimate, Shell V-Power or Caltex Vortex - all RON 98. This may be the reason that we're not seeing that many cases in Australia. As far as I know, there is only one case.

When I bought the car new, we get a full tank of fuel and I insisted they filled with BP ultimate and knowing the dearlership, I know that wouldn't have been the case. But since, I have only filled with BP Ultimate until Shell V-Power was available in Western Australia.

The inside of the fuel cap says, RON 95 or 98. I will post pic later but I think BMW recommends RON 98.

Originally Posted by swartzentruber

And therein lies the rub. If I'm interpreting your pictures correctly, even that last picture from bearings with just 1k miles on them showed decent wear. I'm sure all of us could open up our engines and take pictures of the bearings, and they'd all show wear and we'd think they look bad. If that's what a bearing looks like after after 1k miles, I think it's safe to assume almost all of us are driving around with pretty worn looking bearings. Going by photos alone, you'd think there'd be a lot of engines failing, yet the failure rate still seems pretty low.

I think what most of us are here in this thread for is trying to figure out what makes the engine take the next step from worn bearing to catastrophic engine failure. So far these pictures, while enlightening, don't seem to directly correlate with engine failures. Something seems to be making certain engines blow and not others. So far that "something" has been suggested as being tolerance stack up, octane, winter temps (by me). That "something" does not seem to be bearing age by itself, as we have 100k+ engines still running okay, and low mileage engines blowing. That's the question/relationship I'm far more interested in understanding, and I guess if that makes me (and others) unwelcome in the thread, so be it.

Very good obesrvation. Thank you.

[regular guy]

Originally Posted by swartzentruber

It seems like the interactive bearing failure website is being quoted from somewhat selectively. I've spent some time on that website looking at the photos, and I would agree that to my untrained eye, the pictures seem to most resemble #12. However, that failure type has 7 possible causes, and they do not suggest one of them being the most likely. This is unlike failure #13, where they say 98% of the time, it's cause #1. Cause #7 sounds a little to me like detonation, though I'm no expert.

Also, if you read #14, overlay fatigue, it suggests that detonation can be a cause of a failure that looks like this, not necessarily that it's the only cause of overlay fatigue, or that detonation always exhibits as something that looks like #14. So, the conclusion that detonation will always look like #14, overlay fatigue, isn't supported by my reading of the website.

Having had many of these sets of bearings in my hands where I could stare at them, I did the best I could. At first, they all seemed to match #12 and I had excluded #16. But I've seen one or two now that might include #16. In some ways, I think #16 is just a superset or more severe case of #12.

Good catch on #13 giving an actual number. I know it's very subjective and the subjectivity can certainly be debated, but on #12 I considered the top listed reason the most likely for that condition. If they had been listed in alphabetic order, then I would have noted that. And on #13, the 98% cause is the top (#1) listed reason.

BTW, I just noticed if you read a few of the descriptions in that guide, it might help answer your questions about what causes the failure and how long you have.

[Cool Steel]

I made some comments earlier not understanding the research that regular guy had done. So I decided to read this post entirely from page one to the end. Now that I have completed it I conclude this:

1. This thread contains allot of people who don't want to admit that BMW could have made a mistake even though BMW has in the past on multiple occasions.
2. This thread contains allot of speculation including: I think this and I think that, a ton of testosterone and a ton of "I am smarter than you are B.S."
3. However, the main facts that regular guy continues to post and the only real conclusion is this:

"There are three things that you know for a fact:
1.There is a long standing clearance-to-journal ratio best practice rule that factory and racing engine builders alike have followed for 50+ years. This best practice clearance ratio is well documented in dozens of web sites, and recommended by Clevite, the maker of the S65 engine bearings. The S65 engine cuts that clearance ratio in half.
2.The bearing wear patterns we're seeing all match the Clevite online/interactive bearing failure diagnosis web site, example #12 "Oil Starvation / Marginal Oil Film Thickness." The main cause mentioned by Clevite for this type of failure is "too little bearing oil clearance."
3.There is also a long standing rod side clearance best practice rule that factory and racing engine builders alike have followed for quite some time. Best practice clearance ratio is well documented in dozens of web sites. The S65 engine cuts that clearance ratio by two orders of magnitude."

Cause and effect and probability.

I'm under warranty so not too concerned, but I am disappointed, and this has convinced me that the reward to risk ratio on this car is not good. This car is not worth the extra trouble of oil testing, worrying and internal engine repair. I really don't understand the die hard commitment to these cars and why one would deal with it? There are plenty of cars out there that frankly faster and cost less and more importantly don't have these problems.

Higher price does not equal better.... learned that lesson over and over in life. Learned it again...

Thank you regular guy for all your hard work.

[fbm3cab]

Octane booster additive???

[BMRLVR]

I am highly sceptical of detonation being the cause of the bearing wear...... The way that the knock control system works in this car is by measuring resistance across the plug gap and not listening for knock like most engines. If it weren't for this knock control system the 12.0-1 compression ratio, 8400 Redline and 420 HP from 4 litres would not be possible.

[Thebrain]

I have been quietly following from afar but detonation finally makes complete sense and is much more believable in my view. It explains the following that bearing clearance simply did not explain.

1.Often the bearings with the best oil flow (best clearance measured in some posts) had the most wear. Meaning it would not make sense if the clearance was the problem.

2.The complete randomness of the bearings that are effected in any given engine.

3.Look at pictures online and one can decide for themselves but a random smattering of bearing issues looks much much more similar to detonation than clearance issues.

4.I remember a couple of posts regarding the worst bearings, were on cylinders that typically would run the hottest based on location, again speaks to detonation.

I thank the above who emailed the bearing maker as this is the first time things have made sense. Anyone who has logged their car knows that knocking is almost constantly going off and although the ion control system seems to be faster than typical, perhaps it simply could not keep up with the constant knocking and timing pulling that occurs.

Thanks you again for the information above.