new m3's

[karizma]

>> what do you think of the new m3's? some say theyre overrated but i think theyre one damn nice vehicle...what are some mods out there for em? i wanna know more about my dream car :D!!

[mrazntre]

they look real nice.. but i think they're way overpriced. i think BMW should sell them for 12K out the door.

[wylin]

Exhaust made by super sprint ie Super Sprint, Hamann, AC Snitzer, Racing Dynamics. BB Tri flo is an alternative to super sprint based systems its high quality as w/ SS systems.

Chip to remove speed limiter Hamann came up w/ one tho i'd be leary bouting using it w/ 91 octane cali fuel.

m3 failure summary

Jason asked me to post my professional opinion on the recent rash of M3 engine failures with a tutorial on engine failure in general. Being involved with professional motorsports and engine engineering professionally for many years. I have seen more catastrophic engine failures than most folk and now a BMW owner myself I would like to contribute some knowledge that might help all of you better understand what happens when an engine fails.
Engine failures:
There are only two real types of failures. The engine will either wear out(what we all strive for) and no longer operate or it will break(what we hate to see) and no longer operate.
We are concerned here with breakage and what causes it.
I have read many posts about an over-rev situation so we will start there. As a E36 M3 owner myself and a track junkie I have seen many catastrophic over-revs due to the famous "Death shift" or "Money shift" There are many posts regarding this and how it happens but it is basically downshifting into the wrong gear and forcing the engine into a mechanical over-rev situation. In my opinion some but not all, by any stretch, of the current E46 M3 engine failures are over-revs and here is why. In an over-rev situation the engines bottom end (crankshaft,connecting rods, pistons, and main and rod bearings) are perfectly capable of short bursts of very high RPM, certainly much more than the reported 8500-9000 RPM of these failures. What almost always happens in an over-rev situation is first a valve train failure. In simple terms the valve train cannot keep up with the high RPM of the engine, the valves do not follow the camshaft and due to that a valve will contact a piston at the very least and at the very worst it starts a train wreck that will eventually transmit damage to all of the rotating internal parts of the engine. My conclusion here? If your engine fails and there is no evidence of valvetrain damage? It was not an over-rev. If you do have significant damage concerning mostly the valvetrain the situation then more than likely was an over-rev,taking into account that the engine was a low mileage example and believed to be sound before the failure occured. I will not comment however on if a over-rev can occur with an SMG car as electronic rev-control is usually very reliable if it is used properly. I am not a software guy, but just a grease monkey.
What I think we are seeing much more than we would like to are engines that are failing for no other reason than they have a problem from time of birth. There seems to be a slug of engines that failed and were built around the same time and that lends itself to this theory. I have yet to inspect any of the actual failures or have seen any mearsurements of parts from these but from all of the examples I have read about the good majority seem to be bottom end failures. The reasons for this can be many but from what I can determine what we are seeing is a rod or crankshaft bearing failure. The reason this will happen is faily simple. The connecting rods and crankshaft do not actually ride directly on the bearing material as you might think. They actually ride on a film of oil provided by oil pressure by way of the oil pump and pressurized oil passages in the crankshaft itself. So, we are either have lost lubrication due to a pressure problem or our clearances become too small and we achieve bearing to metal contact, or on the other end, too big and we have lost enough pressure to maintain our cushion. A restriction in the oiling system would also cause the same results. We never want to have bearing to metal contact without lubrication pressure or things break and they break in a hurry!
You can reach your own conclusions on how you think the above relates to your particular problem if any. I very much hope this all comes out well for all of my fellow Bimmer friends. Keep the faith and remember the M in BMW is for motor and they still build the very best I have ever seen.

Thank you for the posting op.




<!--EDIT|wylin|Sep 12 2002, 12:40 PM-->

[wylin]

e46 engine failure database! (http://members.roadfly.com/jason/m3engines.htm)

> Jim if the failures still continue into 2002 productions what would you theorize is the reason? It would seem after that many months plus production changes that it could no longer be assumed as a manufacturing screwup. Are we looking at a poor design problem inherent in the S54 engine? <

Sorry for the late rely. Over the mountains in the high desert for some empty road driving.

As of now, we simply don't have enough information. About the only clear details are spun bearings in the lower end and numerous comments regarding the appearance of the crank looking like one or more bearing had experience prolonged heat due to insufficient lubrication.

I think we can also be somewhat certain that BMW doesn't yet fully understand, or at the very least has not found a solution, for the lower end failure problem. It will take a couple more months of data to really be certain of this, but it doesn't look promising.

Idle speculation:

My guess is that the oil system is working fine, but the running clearances were too tight in some cases for the oil to transfer around the crank effectively. This is particularly likely for the 10/01-12/01 engines. It is curious that the #3 bearing is mentioned frequently, as there is really no reason it should suffer out of proportion to the others. The crank ‘should’ be adequately supported. As is the case with all inline 6’s, it enjoys the advantage of having more main bearings than a V configuration engine with the same number of cylinders would. As a matter of fact, most inline sixes have more mains than most V8 engines. Crank whip seems most unlikely.

Will has been posting all along that the 91mm stroke @ 8000Rpm is beyond what is prudent in a production engine. We have seen nothing to disprove this as of yet. Not often you see an undersquare high Rpm engine. Most designers prefer to go as oversquare as practical to slow the piston speed and reduce lower end loading. BMW clearly had package size to consider, and proceeded with the undersquare design.

Things hard to accept:

Based simply on common industry practice, it is very hard to accept that the lower end failures on the S54 are due to improper manufacturing or assembly. Most of the parts are made using in-process gauging, and are subsequently checked at the completion of each process. The same goes for not checking running clearances during assembly. Bear in mind that a simple cold crank power (power draw on starter motor) will reveal an overly tight lower end after assembly. On one hand it is inconceivable that BMW would not perform most or all of these tests, and yet we have these failures before us.

This last item may offer a clue as to what cause the evaluation of the failed engines to go more slowly than it might. If I have a difficult time imagining that BMW could allow engines with gross flaws into the field, imagine how difficult it is for BMW’s M division to imagine this, then factor in that they are German. As for evidence of this disbelief, we have the company’s initial reaction where they dumped the returned DME modules and attempted to place the blame on abusive owners. At the end of the day however they are in possession of what we guess are well over 200 failed engines from North America alone. Assuming that is roughly 1/3 of the total, they would have in excess of 600 failed motors to evaluate at this point.

My conclusion is that if that is not a sufficient basis to determine the underlying cause and resolve it, we may be facing a situation where the cause is indeed endemic to the design. That would be a very sticky problem indeed for both BMW and owners. This is one reason why BMW’s silence creates a bad situation. The people that comment that BMW’s approach to addressing this is a logical one from a business standpoint miss the point that in the absence of any information from BMW, there is no evidence of corrective action or resolution.

oc


Bun boy arent u glad u didnt get an e46 m3!



<!--EDIT|wylin|Sep 12 2002, 12:57 PM-->

[deez nuts]

wow omg yeah.

Wylin you remember I was comparing the two (M3 and C32AMG)? I just thought the M3 was overpriced. I get more for the money if I went with the AMG. Both around the same price range, both with the same waiting period here in NY.

I'm glad.

Up till now, I've haven't read anything that bad about the C32's performance or problems. <knock on wood>.

What sold me is:
1)It's fast, I remember it's the fastest benz in on the market?
2)V6 3.2 liter 349 horsepower , Automatic speed shift. I like the mercedes engine
3)0-60 in 4.6-5.2sec depends on what u read. I read somewhere it did 0-60 in 4.6sec while doing research
4)quarter mile at 13.71 secs
5)It's a 4 door. While it's not comfortable in the back, It's usable
6)Track times vs M3 were almost identical (M3 0-60 in 5.1-5.3 sec, quarter mile in 13.68)
7)The BMW dealer I went to it was a 6 month wait and charged I think about 14k over the sticker price.
6)I'm not gonna sweat the track times. But for a 4 door sports sedan with those engine specs and performance it's hard to say no. Plus the BMW sales people were assholes. The Benz dealer took the time to assist me were professional and courteous.
7)I drove my friend's M3 and another friend had the C32. I definitely liked the C32's feel more.

And if I'm gonna drop some cash down (in this case the bank's cash). I just wanna milk it to the max.



<!--EDIT|Chasiubao_Boy|Sep 12 2002, 05:03 PM-->

[ren28]

Originally posted by Chasiubao_Boy@Sep 12 2002, 09:06 PM
wow omg yeah.

Wylin you remember I was comparing the two (M3 and C32AMG)? I just thought the M3 was overpriced. I get more for the money if I went with the AMG. Both around the same price range, both with the same waiting period here in NY.

I'm glad.

Up till now, I've haven't read anything that bad about the C32's performance or problems. <knock on wood>.

What sold me is:
1)It's fast, I remember it's the fastest benz in on the market?
2)V6 3.2 liter 349 horsepower , Automatic speed shift. I like the mercedes engine
3)0-60 in 4.6-5.2sec depends on what u read. I read somewhere it did 0-60 in 4.6sec while doing research
4)quarter mile at 13.71 secs
5)It's a 4 door. While it's not comfortable in the back, It's usable
6)Track times vs M3 were almost identical (M3 0-60 in 5.1-5.3 sec, quarter mile in 13.68)
7)The BMW dealer I went to it was a 6 month wait and charged I think about 14k over the sticker price.
6)I'm not gonna sweat the track times. But for a 4 door sports sedan with those engine specs and performance it's hard to say no. Plus the BMW sales people were assholes. The Benz dealer took the time to assist me were professional and courteous.
7)I drove my friend's M3 and another friend had the C32. I definitely liked the C32's feel more.

And if I'm gonna drop some cash down (in this case the bank's cash). I just wanna milk it to the max.
My bro drove the C32 and said it felt like a tin can compared to the other Benz's. The chassis of the C32 gets ragged on by professional drivers.

The new M3 costs too much and it seems like they have to work out the bugs.

[deez nuts]

Originally posted by ren28@Sep 12 2002, 05:28 PM


My bro drove the C32 and said it felt like a tin can compared to the other Benz's. The chassis of the C32 gets ragged on by professional drivers.

The new M3 costs too much and it seems like they have to work out the bugs.

I kinda liked the feel, but I've heard that the feel doesn't come close to the other benz's. But the other Benz's are a little out of my price range or it's just too soon for me to get one at that level.

Yeah I heard about the chassis too, but it's not like I'm a pro driver and I'll be racing it in NYC or anywhere else for that matter. For practical purposes with a little bling, it suits my lifestyle.



<!--EDIT|Chasiubao_Boy|Sep 12 2002, 06:00 PM-->

[wylin]

if i had 60k to drop like bun boy i'd of gotten a ... drum roll c32 amg over the m3 because its a competent car and bun boy lives in new york ie traffic fun.

[karizma]

>> gee thanks for spoiling one of my dream cars man haha...i never thought about getting a benzo...just cause i always thought it was just totally out of my range...clk55 amg...my god thats a beautiful car...same with the sl500...my friend just got a brand new 2003 SL500...and all i can do is drool...but for some reason bimmers seemed more...well me... haha. i could never imagine myself in a mercedes unless when im older i somehow stumble across a great deal of money...all i wanna do is race...mercedes dont really appeal to the racing side of me...more of a care to chill in even though some are fast...bah..im rambling again...but you guys feel me right? haha...

[johnny]

karizma,
I don't know what these foolios are blabbing about but the new E46 M3 is a good choice of car for what it's worth.

Nothing beats its lean design and trackability - it doesn't need a turbo or supercharger to pull off 333HP either. just engine failure
I was just 9K shy of purchasing one of my dream cars. However, I don't understand how a 17, 18 yr old plans on purchasing a $50k car.




<!--EDIT|wylin|Sep 12 2002, 08:26 PM-->

[deez nuts]

woot™ m3 is a good car. It's just that I opted for the benz because I am looking for a 4door sedan more. Cuz you never know when I'll be a daddy soon!

Nah, it's just more practical for me. And I've been itching to get my first benz. And I got a good financing plan from them.

As to the ever popular dickwagging between BMW owners vs Mercedes owners on which is the better car. Haha you should've seen some of the message boards I've seen when doing my research, daaaaaym a brother just wanted some info amongst all that belligerence. I just went by what I wanted and the Benz fit my wants and needs. I'm kinda clueless about cars, that's why it took me forever to decide. Plus I put a lot of faith into wylin and my other car fanatic peeps. I think it just comes down to preference.



<!--EDIT|Chasiubao_Boy|Sep 12 2002, 07:35 PM-->

[karizma]

>> who said *i* was purchasing it haha...did i mention i was a tad spoiled? 0_o...at least ill work for the modifications im gonna do to it.

[johnny]

spoiled is correct.... sheesh if i was spoiled as you I Could pull my earnings to purchase an M5 !

please read above articles carefully needs sum understanding of automobiles and how their engines work



<!--EDIT|wylin|Sep 12 2002, 04:59 PM-->

[karizma]

>> hey wylin...if the g35 and m3 were the same price...which one would you opt for =)...

[wylin]

G35 Coupe! but their not 15k seperates their price.!

[wylin]

Originally posted by johnny@Sep 12 2002, 03:57 PM
karizma,
I don't know what these foolios are blabbing about but the new E46 M3 is a good choice of car for what it's worth.

Nothing beats its lean design and trackability - it doesn't need a turbo or supercharger to pull off 333HP either.

I was just 9K shy of purchasing one of my dream cars. However, I don't understand how a 17, 18 yr old plans on purchasing a $50k car.
well johny if u read the posts and went to the site its simple M3 has sum teeth problems w/ its engines namely oil flow and the bearings seizing at various RPMs meaning the motor dies suddenly w/o warning due to BMW's design defect and also probably due to improper manufactuering.

81 dead m3' motors on that site it'd be intellegent to read those 2 articles and look at sum of the dead motors.