Official S65 Rod Bearing Condition Example Thread

[doogee]

Originally Posted by tdott

Iyzmi

If a bearing has no impact on how smooth an engine runs or the sound it makes, where do you think rod knock comes from?

When a rod is actually knocking, the bearing is physically destroyed. Far beyond anything that being posted in here.

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by strokemycocktus

Here are mine. Replaced at 61k kms. They look pretty bad for the mileage imo. Torn motor mounts gave a lot of clunking and shifting problems. Some info about the car
Registered oil changes (BMW dealership):
1500 km Castrol TWS
20000 km Castrol TWS
27500 km Castrol TWS
38000 km BMW M TwinPower Turbo 10W60
47000 km BMW M TwinPower Turbo 10W60

52000 km Liqui Moly 10W60 (independent shop)

ESS VT2-625 kit between ~44000 km and 50500 km. After that the engine was back to stock.
As far as I know the car was not tracked. I bought it at 54000 km and took very good care since then, always proper warmup, no WOT until oil temp was around 100 C, etc. Added MoS2 at around 57000 km.

I noticed the difference immediately after having the new bearings installed. Not that something alarmed me before, but the the sound engine makes on startup is night and day. It is now so smooth I can't even describe it. Before I would get an unpleasant grind (?) for less than 1s after the startup, the engine was shaking on cold start and was noisier ovarall. The starter motor sound is completely different, high pitched clean tone, before it sounded like it was struggling much more.

Went with Castrol FST 10W60 and OEM bearings. Just to note why: any aftermarket bearings need to be imported form USA, which makes the price about 40% higher due to taxes and customs fees, not to mention the shipping cost. In my country, noone has even heard about any aftermarket bearings, and no reputable shop would install them for me. Besides, I believe these OEM will be good for at least 70-80k kms when maintained properly. That's about 7 years of my ownership, so no big deal if I need to replace them after that time. Assuming I will still own the car

[don't mind the scratches on bearings surface - they showed up due to throwing the bearings around after disassembly, transport, etc.]

Stroke, curious, what country is this? I'm in Sweden and plan to do RBs after Summer time frame. Currently at 58k km, babied and hasn't been expecting major wear really but lets see. Your at similair mileage, 10k km or less oil change, running on Europen (=proper..) gas, interesting.
Aiming for a reputable indy who doesn't have an issue with aftermarket shells, in fact recommend it.

Edit: Will also check out the mounts. Can't understand why they would be trashed at 60k km, assuming regular road driving but apparently possible.
Btw what year is tha car Stroke?

[strokemycocktus]

Originally Posted by Helmsman

Stroke, curious, what country is this? I'm in Sweden and plan to do RBs after Summer time frame. Currently at 58k km, babied and hasn't been expecting major wear really but lets see. Your at similair mileage, 10k km or less oil change, running on Europen (=proper..) gas, interesting.
Aiming for a reputable indy who doesn't have an issue with aftermarket shells, in fact recommend it.

Edit: Will also check out the mounts. Can't understand why they would be trashed at 60k km, assuming regular road driving but apparently possible.
Btw what year is tha car Stroke?

Poland. M3 isn't that popular here so it's pretty hard to find a shop that knows how to deal with these cars, not mention that is up to date with all the solutions introduced overseas. Nevertheless, I am happy the job is done and I'll have a piece of mind for a few years anyway.
My car was imported from USA with 50k kms, so unitl that it drove on US fuel. Also remember it had some miles with the 625 ESS kit. Production 2010.5, model 2011 (LCI ZCP).
The stock mounts don't seem to be good for this motor, that's why I chose to change to aftermarket ones. If you look it up, they were primarly designed for E36 M3, then used in E46 M3 and some 325xi, and then they chose to use them for E92 M3 as well. Quite weird because a V8 is not as smooth as an in line 6, so my guess is it should be using stronger mounts

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by strokemycocktus

Poland. M3 isn't that popular here so it's pretty hard to find a shop that knows how to deal with these cars, not mention that is up to date with all the solutions introduced overseas. Nevertheless, I am happy the job is done and I'll have a piece of mind for a few years anyway.
My car was imported from USA with 50k kms, so unitl that it drove on US fuel. Also remember it had some miles with the 625 ESS kit. Production 2010.5, model 2011 (LCI ZCP).
The stock mounts don't seem to be good for this motor, that's why I chose to change to aftermarket ones. If you look it up, they were primarly designed for E36 M3, then used in E46 M3 and some 325xi, and then they chose to use them for E92 M3 as well. Quite weird because a V8 is not as smooth as an in line 6, so my guess is it should be using stronger mounts

Thanks Stroke. Seen its popular to upgrade the mounts, had no clue it was the same as previously used. Good input!

[tdott]

Originally Posted by doogee

When an rod is actually knocking, the bearing is physically destroyed. Far beyond anything that being posted in here.

So a bearing goes from good to physically destroyed with nothing in between?

[Scharbag]

Originally Posted by tdott

So a bearing goes from good to physically destroyed with nothing in between?

If they are lead/copper, there may be some warning signs...

All the engines that I have blown up at the track went from running fine to making very angry noises very quickly... That said, I have never done oil analysis on my cheap race engines ($300 gets me a new one from a wrecker).

Cheers,

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by Malek@MRF

Non-stretch. OEM bolts are TTY (Torque to Yield) stretch.

I have 2 S65B40's sitting on stands here. The engine with the VAC+ARP hardware with heads removed easily turns over by hand. The engine with all stock hardware and bearings turns over with more difficulty by hand (heads removed). Both engines are just assembled with crank, rods and pistons. I know this is not a scientific way of measuring or coming to any sort of conclusion, it is simply an observation.

Both engines are at 39,xxx miles.

Originally Posted by strokemycocktus

Of course this isn't a comparison between an engine with worn bearings and a one with new bearings, but I guess this find may be extrapolated to such case, resulting in some (very minor of course) changes in how engine starts up/operates.

Not trying to argue or prove my point, just want to understand how all this works.

Agree with Stroke, Maleks above statement certainly indicate difference in "smoothness" between bearings. Curious on the engine guys view of this.

[anerbe]

Originally Posted by Helmsman

Agree with Stroke, Maleks above statement certainly indicate difference in "smoothness" between bearings. Curious on the engine guys view of this.

It makes some sense that with an improper oil layer between a poor condition bearing and journal, there would be some more friction vs. a proper layer of oil with a good bearing. This would definitely be more blatant moving by hand - you probably won't see it when driving.

[Scharbag]

Spring may actually have arrived. Everyone should be out burning their "fair" share of dead dinosaurs and lightening their un-sprung mass by removing "excess" rubber from their rear tires through the expert application of the loud pedal.

Happy motoring!

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by Scharbag

Spring may actually have arrived. Everyone should be out burning their "fair" share of dead dinosaurs and lightening their un-sprung mass by removing "excess" rubber from their rear tires through the expert application of the loud pedal.

Happy motoring!

Way to go mate... tried my best to contribute by burning off 250 lovely miles during the weekend.

[slowm3sedan]

Looks like this will be the first major thing I'll be doing to my car, as much as I want to start modding my car I think tackling this issue first will leave me much less paranoid. I find myself always listening to the engine after I park to hear for odd noise.

[Bartledoo]

Originally Posted by Scharbag

Spring may actually have arrived. Everyone should be out burning their "fair" share of dead dinosaurs and lightening their un-sprung mass by removing "excess" rubber from their rear tires through the expert application of the loud pedal.

Happy motoring!

Put my summer tires back on yesterday...I forgot how much better they are!!! went straight to work lightening them though.

[Iyzmi]

Here's my contribution, complete with blackstone trends. As you can see my oil reports were not bad but I decided to put some BE bearings in anyway. The car is an 09 with 66k mi on it, with the last 20k being supercharged. I use TwinPower 10w60 in summer and M1 0w40 in winter. There was no meaningful difference in wear between the two oils based on my reports.



These are in no particular order. You can see the wear is pretty even across them all:



And this was the worst with the widest wear patch and little bit of copper showing at the edge:

[BigDenton]

Finally changed the RB. 40k km (25k miles), 2012.
Used BE with ARP (BE) bolts. Switched to Mobil1 0W40.
The engine feels much smoother now all the way to 8000 rpm, with no ticking sounds at idle so far (as it used to).
Given the weird condition of the stock RB, I believe it was the right time for this job.

[Helmsman]

Originally Posted by BigDenton

A piece of non-political news from Moscow

Finally changed the RB. 40k km (25k miles), 2012.
Used BE with ARP (BE) bolts. Switched to Mobil1 0W40.
The engine feels much smoother now all the way to 8000 rpm, with no ticking sounds at idle so far (as it used to).
Given the weird condition of the stock RB, I believe it was the right time for this job.

p.s.
Thanks to all m3post members for tons of extremely valuable information!)

40k km is young, seems not too bad thought with a fair bit of the grooves intact?
PS. You plan to stick to 0W40 even with increased clearance Denton?

Thanks

[BigDenton]

Originally Posted by Helmsman

40k km is young, seems not too bad thought with a fair bit of the grooves intact?
PS. You plan to stick to 0W40 even with increased clearance Denton?
Thanks

To me this uneven (ribbed) wear looks strange, and not normal.
Plan to stick to 0w40, right. The engine sounds smoother when accelerating, heats up much faster, keeps the working temperature just as well as it used to with 10w60. There are many members of the m3 community in our area that run 0w40 with BE with no issues so far.

[aswy6]

Gotta keep in mind that in Russia cars like this see much more abuse than in US

[notouching]

Originally Posted by BigDenton

A piece of non-political news from Moscow

Finally changed the RB. 40k km (25k miles), 2012.
Used BE with ARP (BE) bolts. Switched to Mobil1 0W40.
The engine feels much smoother now all the way to 8000 rpm, with no ticking sounds at idle so far (as it used to).
Given the weird condition of the stock RB, I believe it was the right time for this job.

p.s.
Thanks to all m3post members for tons of extremely valuable information!)

The ribbed wear is normal - all cars with late model bearings have this.
These are in pretty good shape except for the pitting.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Originally Posted by Iyzmi

Here's my contribution, complete with blackstone trends. As you can see my oil reports were not bad but I decided to put some BE bearings in anyway. The car is an 09 with 66k mi on it, with the last 20k being supercharged. I use TwinPower 10w60 in summer and M1 0w40 in winter. There was no meaningful difference in wear between the two oils based on my reports.



These are in no particular order. You can see the wear is pretty even across them all:



And this was the worst with the widest wear patch and little bit of copper showing at the edge:

It's interesting to see your pretty good Blackstone report , while your bearings show serious wear .
I never trusted Blackstone anyway .

Thanks for sharing

[Iyzmi]

Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium

It's interesting to see your pretty good Blackstone report , while your bearings show serious wear .
I never trusted Blackstone anyway .

Thanks for sharing

I spent hours trying to find examples of people who replaced bearings after establishing Blackstone trends with very little luck. Closest thing I was able to find were people who had one report done before swapping, which is next to meaningless. Hopefully my post will help people corroborate Blackstone trends with actual bearing wear.

[Richbot]

Oil report history, you can see the lead spike and now the lead levels are 0, for the first time in the car's history (always read at least 4, was averaging 8 before the 20-21 spike and 2/0 after the bearings.

BE rod bearings w/BE/ARP bolts (I told Blackstone they're not AL bearings, heh). Changed at 102,400, changed that oil after 400 miles for religious reasons to get any remaining "engine open" crap out quickly, doesn't really make sense just did it because I had a nervous twitch. Running the 5w50 Redline because I think it's a good compromise oil for my use of the car and isn't all that much lighter than TWS, but checked wear after 3300 miles anyway, again, nervous twitch. YMMV but this seems like it looks ok.

Happy my mains are not shedding lead (or they've already shed all their lead and are about to seize...yolo :shrug: )



Oil used from oldest to newest report:

0w40 M1 (oldest, these wear metals are roughly in line with that the engine was doing on TWS and 0w40 after that, only change on the 0w40 was a little more iron and little lower lead, and more makeup oil additions)
0w40 M1
0w40 M1 with 5w40 Redline makeup oil
5w40 Redline w/5w50 Redline makeup oil (switched to RL to try to make my M1 consumption better, was burning too much for my personal comfort)
10w60 TWS shop used after bearing change
5w50 Redline (most recent)

Here's how they looked when they were changed back in November:

[NoHedge]

Originally Posted by Richbot

Oil report history, you can see the lead spike and now the lead levels are 0, for the first time in the car's history (always read at least 4, was averaging 8 before the 20-21 spike and 2/0 after the bearings.

BE rod bearings w/BE/ARP bolts (I told Blackstone they're not AL bearings, heh). Changed at 102,400, changed that oil after 400 miles for religious reasons to get any remaining "engine open" crap out quickly, doesn't really make sense just did it because I had a nervous twitch. Running the 5w50 Redline because I think it's a good compromise oil for my use of the car and isn't all that much lighter than TWS, but checked wear after 3300 miles anyway, again, nervous twitch. YMMV but this seems like it looks ok.

Happy my mains are not shedding lead (or they've already shed all their lead and are about to seize...yolo :shrug: )



Oil used from oldest to newest report:

0w40 M1 (oldest, these wear metals are roughly in line with that the engine was doing on TWS and 0w40 after that, only change on the 0w40 was a little more iron and little lower lead, and more makeup oil additions)
0w40 M1
0w40 M1 with 5w40 Redline makeup oil
5w40 Redline w/5w50 Redline makeup oil (switched to RL to try to make my M1 consumption better, was burning too much for my personal comfort)
10w60 TWS shop used after bearing change
5w50 Redline (most recent)

Here's how they looked when they were changed back in November:

Thanks for sharing. They don't look as bad as I would've expected.

What year is yours?