Blown motors, Rod Bearing failure S65 Registry.

[jcolley]

Originally Posted by deansbimmer

I'm not immediately inclined to put much stock into someones claim that their new "upgraded" rod bearings failed, until I inspected the engine and knew the history of exactly how the bearings were installed. As said above, "people suck", and yes they seem to always want free stuff. I really appreciate the way BE is doing business and am only using their bearings for my jobs now.

Case in point as to why I don't trust what owners say about their "rebuilt" engines.... In this (extreme) case, I got this engine in a 2011 with 32600 miles on the clock. It was "rebuilt" per the owner by a "professional" shop and "just stopped working". This engine is by far the worst case of assembly malpractice and downright abuse. The shop that did the work should have no business working on engines at all. Only parts salvageable were the oil pan and the valve covers.

The block was sealed with Indian Gasket Sealer. It looks like the shop installed whatever main and rod bearings were lying around in their bin that probably just looked OK. Mixed tin bearings with lead bearings, one rod had a tin upper bearing and a lead lower bearing in the SAME JOURNAL.





Inside, they had "honed" two cylinders with stones and these were the "finished" bores, as seen on my disassembly (see left cylinder):


They Ground off the skirt of those two pistons for clearance instead of using the correct pistons


The resulting misbalance in the rotating assembly caused severe vibrations and harmonics, breaking the crankshaft and one timing chain. The VANOS bolts were also loose, causing the Recta-Rings to grind the inside of the VANOS bores, sending shavings throughought and ruining the cams and adjusters. Additionally, main bearing 1 failed completely, cracking the block and rendering it un-salvageable.

You can weld that right back together Dean.

Looks like the same shop that did this work:
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e60...ml#post6695457

[minim]

Now I'm not a mechanic but that didn't look like it was caused by the bearings at least

[///M Power-Belgium]

Hope the best of luck for the S65 above ..
But....Christ what a mess !

[deansbimmer]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

Hope the best of luck for the S65 above ..
But....Christ what a mess !

There's no luck left for that S65, it was completely disassembled and scrapped. None of it was usable in a rebuild except for the valve covers and oil pan. The car received a completely different engine from a 2012 M3 donor.

I'm in the process of going through the car to fix other areas of ignorant mechanic work....Like filling the DCT up with ATF....

[deansbimmer]

Originally Posted by jcolley

You can weld that right back together Dean.

Looks like the same shop that did this work:
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e60...ml#post6695457

Well you might be onto something... My car came from the same area!

[minim]

Is there anyone stocking these bearings now? I'm looking for them but on bebearings site it says preorder for november and on fast attack it says july..

And a little sidenote to when mounting these. Is it common to use plastigage on both upper and lower bearing half or do you guys just measure the lower one since it's easier to access/read off? Would be bearings demand a measurement of the upper one also for warranty purpose like mentioned a few pages back?

[POINTBY]

Is the general consensus that BE Bearings are in fact a "fix" to the lack of clearance in the rod bearings? How many of you guys have installed them and had great luck?

Thanks

[4corners]

Originally Posted by POINTBY

Is the general consensus that BE Bearings are in fact a "fix" to the lack of clearance in the rod bearings?

How many of you guys have installed them and had great luck?

Thanks

No there is not consensus. I just did mine with WPC bearings.

There certainly is or could be other contributing factors to bearing failure besides no oil, or clearance, or weak rods and too much flex, detonation, over revving, abuse, poor assembly, lots of things. But definitely it's the bearings that visibly suffer first.

[squartus]

Originally Posted by 4corners

No there is not consensus. I just did mine with WPC bearings.

There certainly is or could be other contributing factors to bearing failure besides no oil, or clearance, or weak rods and too much flex, detonation, over revving, abuse, poor assembly, lots of things. But definitely it's the bearings that visibly suffer first.

How were your stock bearings when you removed them, I just had my WPC bearings fail after 27,000 supercharged miles. My stock ones were fairly worn though so makes since simply replacing them with the same clearance bearing and adding boost would only buy a little time.

[4corners]

Originally Posted by squartus

How were your stock bearings when you removed them, I just had my WPC bearings fail after 27,000 supercharged miles. My stock ones were fairly worn though so makes since simply replacing them with the same clearance bearing and adding boost would only buy a little time.

They looked like this at 147800 miles. A supercharged car obviously will put a lot more stress on them. If I built a new motor I would use Carrilllo rods or something similar. I think this would stop if not eliminate the flex in the rod end and the improve the wear pattern on the upper rod bearing. Seems to me the compression stroke is distorting, spreading out the rod and creating the pattern. But I don't know crapola.

Like I said before it's a combination of things. It's a combination of things that make the engine go like a banshee, and the same goes for the failures.

I have no training or specific knowledge to back up anything I'm saying. Just a hunch from an educated guesser.

[minim]

Will be bearings cause loss of oil pressure due to increased clearing or will the pump compensate for this?

[4corners]

Originally Posted by minim

Will be bearings cause loss of oil pressure due to increased clearing or will the pump compensate for this?

BE clearances are supposed to be closer to "industry standards" so no, there will be no loss of oil pressure. IMO. In fact, some have measured the new bearings and find no measurable difference to the stock or coated or treated sets.

[CHE///MIST3]

Originally Posted by 4corners

BE clearances are supposed to be closer to "industry standards" so no, there will be no loss of oil pressure. IMO. In fact, some have measured the new bearings and find no measurable difference to the stock or coated or treated sets.

Someone has measured the oil pressure while using BE bearings and compared to stock? Bearing clearances that are "closer to industry standards" doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do IF the oil pump doesn't compensate for it somehow. Any thoughts ?

GM

[pbonsalb]

Oil pump is variable flow and will compensate.

[Properstyle]

Originally Posted by squartus

How were your stock bearings when you removed them, I just had my WPC bearings fail after 27,000 supercharged miles. My stock ones were fairly worn though so makes since simply replacing them with the same clearance bearing and adding boost would only buy a little time.

you also were running different oil then recommended as a band fix. should have kept 10w/60 in the car.

[squartus]

Originally Posted by Properstyle

you also were running different oil then recommended as a band fix. should have kept 10w/60 in the car.

Actually most don't recomend running 10w60, my stock bearings were pretty shot on 10w60 and thats what iv run in the car for all but the last 10,000 miles or so. Was not the oil that caused the bearings to spin.
High quality 5w40 at that, many run much lighter weight oil than I did with no issues. 5w40 is also what VAC recomends I run in the engine they are building me and is what they run in their cars.

[Obioban]

VAC?

Eek.

[4corners]

Originally Posted by GMCHEM83

Someone has measured the oil pressure while using BE bearings and compared to stock? Bearing clearances that are "closer to industry standards" doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do IF the oil pump doesn't compensate for it somehow. Any thoughts ?

GM

When I said measured, I'm talking about the bearing clearance, not the pressure.

[kb9uwu]

Originally Posted by Obioban

VAC?

Eek.

VAC "engineers" > BMW engineers, duh

[admranger]

Originally Posted by kb9uwu

VAC "engineers" > BMW engineers, duh

I get a kick out of how you think the mighty BMW engineering group is the end all be all in everything. This notion needs to die a quick death. It's blindingly ignorant at best, and malicious at worst.

FWIW I'm not defending VAC (or bebearings or anyone). I'm defending common sense...

Lemme tell you a little story that's completely true, but the things have been fictionalized.

There once was a jr. engineer who worked for a minor aerospace company. This aerospace company was tiny compared to the main contractor building a gadget. A major feature of the gadget was failing in testing. It just couldn't meet the requirements, putting the multi-billion $ project in jeopardy. Said jr. engineer spent 18 straight hours experimenting with the features involved in the the key problem the gadget was having. Said jr. engineer had an "a ha" moment and found a fix. The next day the fix was implemented and the gadget was saved.

Happened on two separate occasions during my career in aerospace. Project in deep doo-doo until a solution by the tiny company saved the huge company and their astonishingly bright (and good looking, just ask them) engineers from peril.

So tell me again why you think BMW engineers know best and are infallible? The major aerospace company thought their engineers knew best too. Trust me, an S65 (or an M3) is stupidly simple compared to what I was working on... I'm sure this has happened countless times in countless projects.

[Sneaky Pete]

I'm surprised my car even starts with BMW being so stupid.

[Doc Oc]

Yeah, it's not as if BMW has a track record of bearing issues/recalls or anything...give em a break.