They told me E30s were played out

[Fruttolo]

Don't start it with no rocker cover or you're gonna wash your car and face in oil LOL
Flywheel bolts could back out if no locktite is used (happened to me on my freshly rebuilt and torqued to spec mk1 trans) but it would rattle considerably less or at least differently when clutch is depressed, and it's independent from oil drips, that's main seal territory. Does your engine have a separate "rear main seal plate" attached with bolts to the block? If it has, maybe those bolts have backed out slightly causing oil drips and touching the flywheel? Still pretty unusual, just flowing thoughts.

[gnmzl]

I know it'll be an oil bath, but I'll live with that and clean everything really well after that.
As stated, OEM flywheel bolts were used, they come with something that does the loctite job, cannot recall the name right now. But you are correct - engaging or disengaging the clutch has no influence on the rattle.
The m20 does have a separate rear main seal plate and yes I thought about it - stuck a small camera in there and all bolts were where there should be, no marks on the flywheel either.
Guess I'll have to do a round table with all the m20 gurus I can get in touch with. Which are ... maybe two people.
I **** this car.

[Miroteknik]

That is too bad about the rattle. I really hope you do find it... cant stand engines that tick, rattle, or knock. Drives me mad. Can't wait to see what it was when you finally find it.

[gnmzl]

That is too bad about the rattle. I really hope you do find it... cant stand engines that tick, rattle, or knock. Drives me mad. Can't wait to see what it was when you finally find it.

Yes, I am the same! Even if it's an innocent noise, that doesn't threaten to disintegrate the engine, I still chase it down.
Be sure, I will post when/if I find it and also share what revenge was executed over it.

[gnmzl]

Hello everyone still on StanceWorks!

Happy to report finally found the bastard making that annoying clatter in the engine

I got laid off just after my last post on this topic, so working on chasing this down was put off naturally.
After squaring stuff out, last Wednesday evening was the night of truth - I was a crusader set on a mission: either find out what's wrong or don't go home!

Whoever says you need to disconnect the water radiator to remove the cam while head/engine is in the car, send them this pic. E30 specific statement of course.



I resorted to trying this, because I failed to find a suitable container to capture the coolant. Thought we had one in the shop, but it went missing.
What I had to do is, besides the obvious removal of clutch fan, fan shroud, cam sprocket etc. was remove the coolant hose clamp located on the frame rail intake side, remove the inner fender (early models have this protruding into the engine bay lower inner fender) and make sure the jeesus bolt doesn't jam up against the radiator fins. I used a plastic bottle cap, tight enough to stay on there while turning the crank and shallow enough to allow for a 22mm wrench to fit onto the bolt.
In my case, the 16" SPAL was in the way, but thankfully upon initial install, I made my life easy with some simple brackets and these handy wing nuts.




These shot portrait better how much room I had to play with




Just enough, so I went ahead and started removing the rocker shafts.
Intake side one was REALLY hard to remove. Like, so hard, I had to take my time and remove it in a total of 4 hours, being careful not to mar the head casting in any way.
Very much worth mentioning is that it was twisted to the side, resulting in the key allowing it to move forward from it's originally intended position in the head. Keep this in mind for later in that post
It was really difficult at times, given the limited space and leverage I had. In the end, it came off and so did the exhaust side shaft (so much easier), followed by the cam itself.

Needless to say, the culprit was found, I'll let the pictures do the talking for me. Below are the cam lobes and the corresponding rocker arm above them.








Sure, all of the rockers have some sort of weird wear pattern. But that number 3 exhaust rocker ...... never seen anything like that wear patter.

So, now the only thing left not inspected are the shafts.
Previously I stated the following on r3v:

...As stated, they looked legit aside of that length issue. Holes and retaining slots were spot on. Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough, really hope this endeavor will help someone in the future.

This statement is wrong.



Pictures don't really show it well, but the holes are not perfectly matched and neither are the rocker positions. True, the misalignment is small enough to not cause any issues.
Granted they stay in place and not rotate or slide about.

Here is my thoughts on what happened, please feel free to correct me if you think I'm daydreaming and have a more serious problem:

Since the intake valves were kissing the pistons ever so slightly, the pressure from that event goes into the rocker pivot point and that is the rocker shaft. The intake shaft get slightly bent (hence the difficult removal) and also rotated and slid forward. Combined with the slightly misaligned oil holes on the shaft, this leads to not enough oil pressure for the spray bar on top of the cam. Oil starvation occurs and all rockers and cam lobes suffer damage. Exhaust rocker on number 3 suffers the most for some reason, assuming my valve lash adjustment was out of spec on this one, and it causes the clatter.

So ... ok, cause of weird rattle found. Now I need to make sure it never happens again.
By chance, a brand new set of IE HD rocker arms is sitting in my closet. It was a deal you can't say no, so I grabbed them about a year ago.
A set of OEM rocker shafts is also in my closet, ordered one as soon as I saw the comments on r3v they were again available.
Now what i think doing is:

- Polish the pads on the new set of rocker arms.
- Talk to a reputable machinist to see if the cam is salvageable.
- If cam is kaputt, buy a new one and have the lobes polished as well, or polish them myself (I'll have a spear cam to train on lol )

I wonder how to make sure I get oil flow to the correct places before that.
How stupid is the idea of removing the timing belt and spark plug and give it a few revs via starter? In theory shouldn't do harm, but it seems to me like a stupid idea and genius at the same time.

Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Moral of story: walks like a duck, talks like a duck, chances are it is a duck.

[bwwaaaa]

I don't necessarily have anything constructive to add on the cause or solution, other than that checks out to me. Given the circumstances, I could see it being a chain reaction. Either way, glad to hear you've identified the problem!

[Fruttolo]

+1 on what he said

I'll for sure steal the duck thing, love little sayings like that

[gnmzl]

Happy New Year everyone!

I don't necessarily have anything constructive to add on the cause or solution, other than that checks out to me. Given the circumstances, I could see it being a chain reaction. Either way, glad to hear you've identified the problem!

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me.

+1 on what he said

I'll for sure steal the duck thing, love little sayings like that

Feel free to use it, I stole it from a gangster movie anyway

Let's continue this ordeal.
Here are some topics that I think on, your input is welcome on any of those

1. I called around and talked to a reputable guy involved in rally racing teams around here and he says there isn't such a place in our country that can salvage the camshaft or polish the rocker pads.
Polishing the new set of rocker arms would make sense to me and I would do it myself, but I was told that needs to be done square and not to make the finish too smooth.
My question is - what is meant by "don't make the finish too smooth" Is that possible? Pending answer from the person who shared that with me as well.

2. I am contemplating on getting a different cam. Here is the camsheet of the dbilas unit that was in the engine, the one from the above pictures.



It is a bit different than advertised in their catalog, difference being max lift is supposed to be 11.5 and valve lift 2.8 but according to the camsheet it's 11.1 and 2.6 respectively.

https://dbilas-shop.com/motor-ventiltrieb/sportnockenwellen/bmw/2-0-2-7-6-zyl.-12v-m20/neue-nockenwellen/1198/bmw-2-0-2-7-6-zyl.-12v-m20/sportnockenwelle?c=15814

I'd say I trust the camsheet, since the cam was bought through a re-seller and they may have had the older cam version in stock or just misadvertised the one in stock. Not sure, but I would trust the camsheet that came with the cam. Thoughts on that?

The cam I am currently eyeballing is the catcams 291

http://www.catcams.com/products/camshafts/datasheet.aspx?ENGINE_id=111&CAMSETUP_id=2464&Language=english

The way I see it, please correct me if I'm wrong:
The catcams cam will sacrifice a bit lift at TDC, which in turn will reduce the possibility of another valve-piston contact. In the same time it has more max lift, which should compensate for the smaller lift at TDC. The bigger lobe separation will give me a slightly better idle.
What I can't figure out is how it would affect the powercurve. Dynosheet prior to rocker failure, in case you forgot:



3. What about adding an oil additive - currently I'm eyeballing the Liqui Moly Molygen Motor Protect product. It's supposed to create a thin "deformable" layer on the engine rotating surfaces. Anyone have any experience with that and/or comments?

https://www.trodo.com/engine-oil-additive-liqui-moly-molygen-motor-protect

I know this isn't a technical discussion forum, but I like to get all sorts of opinions before making my decision.

[Miroteknik]

Great write-up and photos, glad to see you've found the issue. Hope someone can answer your questions about the polish, camshaft options and oil additive, cause I can't. Looking forward to the next updates.

[gnmzl]

Hello people,

I figured this thread is due for an update.
Here's what has been going on recently:

First thing I wanted to do was to make sure I didn't mess up the P to V clearance measurement the first time around, when I was assembling the engine. That piston to valve contact I had found earlier was bugging me big time.

Slapped a 3.0L crank in a stripped m20b27 block, put in a conrod and the prototype piston we used when plotting out the engine with some clay on top, torqued down a cracked head with valves, slid in my ruined dbilas cam with two brand new IE Rockers, timed it and rotated the crap out of it. Then took the head off again to check P to V clearance.
I did this four times - twice with the cam wheel to zero, twice with 5 degree retardation. Sure enough - Intake 2,2mm clearance with the camwheel on zero, 2.6mm with the cam retarded 5 degrees. Exhaust has the opposite, 2.6mm on zero, 2.2 on 5 degree retarded. That's with 0.25 clearance on the rocker.

Another piece of bad news: my second set of IE rockers is obviously not up to spec. I popped two rockers out the package to measure the cam as someone on r3v explained, but the part where the eccentrics go in is so tight, I could barely make them fit and adjustment was a real pain with the nut and bolt fully loose. And one out of the two has a casting imperfection on it.

Here's the imperfection I am concerned about. That's one of my brand new IE rockers, never used set.




Here's a short video of how tight they are compared to the other set I used up until now in the engine.
Note, that the eccentrics were bought brand new from a BMW dealer, I tried this with a used set too and the result was the same.
In the video, the rocker I take out the eccentric of is one of the ones that got damaged with the cam and I unpack one from the brand new set, just to prove a point it hasn't been messed with.

https://vimeo.com/389922493

As you can see, that's VERY tight, I can barely fit the eccentric in it.
Even if I shoot out an email to IE, I doubt that they would refund or do anything about it. These were purchased back in 2015 by a friend's brother in the States, then shipped over here to another friend, who held on to them until he decided he wasn't building his m20 and sold them off to me in the original unopened package. It was different from the one I received my other ones in, but both sets were bought directly from IE. My original set came in a big plastic bag, which was then hot pressed over each individual rocker, you can see it in the only picture I have from back then



These rockers were all packaged separately in plastic bags which in turn were all thrown together in a big plastic bag.

Another piece of "great news": While doing research on m20 oil starvation in the head, I stumbled upon this topic in a German forum:

https://e30-talk.com/topic/108333-klackern-nach-motor%C3%BCberholung-m20b27-video/

Post number 6 contains the important pictures. Long story short - the Schrick cam the guy used has the oil grooves on the back of it set off to the side about 2.5mm, blocking half of the oil passage for the spray bar as a result.

As panic settled in, I rushed to the workshop the same evening to check if this could be true for aftermarket cams overall.
Guess what?

This is my dbilas 292 (take a good look of the hole in the center of the picture, the groove is only half visible, kinda hard to see)



This is a catcams 304 I have access to.



As you can see, the dbilas is set off towards the front of the car and the catcams is set off in the other direction, both not exactly on spot.
I am yet to hear from Schrick and one of their re-sellers if this issue has been corrected since that German guy and at least one more German guy I found after that reported it to them.

Next, I wanted to get back to the topic of Piston to Valve clearance, as the results I got from the mockup engine were telling me the valve should not kiss the piston, even if the belt is loose, as long as it doesn't skip a tooth (which it hadn't)
So I discovered the great world of a method called solder wire P to V check. Here's what I did
First off, I made several identical pieces of 3mm thick solder wire, using one of the cracked heads laying around.




Then I cut up a ruined old rocker shaft and used the good part of it to make this jig. Clearance



Stuck the solder wires in the spark plug hole and here are the results

Cylinder 3, cam wheel retarded 4 degrees



Cylinder 1, again 4 degrees retarded




Now Cylinder 1 with zero degrees on the cam wheel



Aha! Finally some real results that correspond with reality
Either one or both of the below statements can be true

1. The pistons were not machined 0.25 more as I thought they are, in fact the machinist may have understood to leave 0.25 more.
2. My head and block were skimmed a bit more than I asked

That will make it much more easier to have piston to valve contact when the cam wheel is set to zero (which it was, up until when I started troubleshooting the engine), in the event of a loose timing belt. Which occurred for some reason, I suspect i didn't tighten the tensioner good enough.
Either way - all of the events described previously and in this post plus user error for letting these happen has lead to premature cam and rocker failure.

To remedy this, I will buy a new Schrick 288 camshaft once I get a verification from them that the groove problem was solved.

Let's top it off with another piece of bad news.
Yesterday eve, when I was at the workshop and had nothing further to troubleshoot, I decided to try and mount my mtech 1 sideskirts finally. Turns out they are warped and don't fit on the car even loosely. Not sure what I'll do about that yet, but needless to say I'm soooo pissed off right now.

Till next time.

[Miroteknik]

Holy crap I love the solder wire trick. wow.

[Fruttolo]

Solder trick is...well, trick

I am in disbelief about how poorly those cams are machined, how can they have missed a hole by 2/3mm in a part that's supposed to be super precise to the .00??

[gnmzl]

Holy crap I love the solder wire trick. wow.

Right? I felt so enjiner while doing that

Solder trick is...well, trick

I am in disbelief about how poorly those cams are machined, how can they have missed a hole by 2/3mm in a part that's supposed to be super precise to the .00??

Same here man, and that's obviously with all the reputable brands. For the record, I still don't have a reply by Schrick about this. Their official reseller also hasn't replied yet.
Currently thinking about just ordering one from the cheapest vendor and machining it myself.

[gnmzl]

Hello to everyone still reading forums.

I would like to start with the fulfillment of a promise I made a while back to Miroteknik, post a picture of the whole car once the engine rattle issue is solved.



I know, I know, it still hasn't come out the workshop yet, but hey it's something.

Here's what has been going on:

So in summary: I sent and exchanged a bunch of emails with dBilas, Schrick and Gladen Motorsport (Schrick official retailer). Schrick answered within a week, stating and assuring me the oil passage placement was corrected and no longer an issue. So far so great - sent an email go Gladen Motorsport to ask them if there was any chance for me to get an old stock cam with the issue. No answer up to this day. Emailed dBilas to notify them about the issue. What they did was reply very quickly and remained engaged throughout but they blamed the damage on the cam and rockers on the rockers themselves and offered me to fix the placement of the oil passage and all the lobes for the total price of (shipping included) ..... 240 euro. New, the cam costed me 350 plus 10 euro shipping. Didn't make any sense to me, so risked it and ordered a Schrick 288 from Gladen MS, which arrived last week.
My car had a birthday on March 8th and turned 35 years old. So it was the most appropriate day of all to make it run again.

Started by unboxing the Schrick 288 (very nicely packaged)



Immediately stuffed it in my cracked 885 head



Oil passage looking good enough despite being off ever so slightly:



From here on, I didn't take pictures, since I wanted to get it done. But basically the order of events:
Put the Schrick 288 in the engine, slap on the mockup rocker with the cut shaft and set clearance to zero - do the solder iron test again. Results were 1.4 mm with the cam wheel set to zero and a smidge over 1.9 with 4 degrees retardation. Left it with 4 degrees retardation and started working on making the eccentrics fit in the rockers. Took a deburring tool as per digger's advice and a 400 grit sandpaper - all went smooth and not much was actually needed to make em fit. Installed them and verified timing 3 times. Next on the list was priming the oil pump really good and I made sure oil was coming out of all orifices AND I rotated the engine to see if it would come out the tube as well. It did, so it was time to quickly put everything together, prime the oil pump once more and slap the cover on it, followed by the air box.



It cranked a bit longer than expected but in the end it started and roared into life, did the "break-in procedure" for new camshafts. Was a bit skeptical about it and peeked under the cover afterwards to make sure all went well - it did.
Apart from the casing of the MAP sensor melting due to prolonged heat exposure all went well and by the sound of it, I think the engine will be happier with this camshaft. Melted MAP sensor:



In the past few days I figured out a way to route a vacuum line without drilling the firewall so I can use the Ecumaster's built in MAP sensor and took the opportunity to tidy up the wiring mess and hang the EMU properly. Look at this mess I started with:



Used an old m21 fried ECU to take the bottom part of its casing and also it's hanger style brackets for the original mounting points. You can also see my utilization of the connector locking plate, which I converted to a holder for the vacuum line using the internal MAP sensor of the EMU.



All tidied up and test fitted:



And mounted securely.



Once we do the dyno runs to tune the car, the O2 sensor controller will be moved a bit up and further back to allow for the glove compartment plastic trim to be mounted and everything will look OEM.

Now I need to make it through tech inspection so we can do the dyno tune, granted the tuner has a time window on Saturday.
Excited to see what difference in the powerband it will have with the Schrick 288 vs the dBilas 292. I'm guessing it will make less power but with a better curve.

To finish off, yesterday did a small fender roll and pull to get rid of my front wheel rubbing on the fender lip when I drive over road imperfections.



Mtech skirts still don't fit, thought they'd fix themselves by staring at them angrily but didn't work. Sigh. Guess I'll have to take care of them at some point too.

Till next time.

[Fruttolo]

Yay finally! So happy you solved that issue, big BOO to dbilas for their shit attitude tho, I could have understood if they recognised the issue but told you warranty expired so no refund, but completely negating the problem's existence is a dumb ass move