[e46m3lol]

Originally Posted by bou707

How did the car feel when it happened? did it go into limp mode?
Also, did your car feel any different the few days before it happened?

Best of luck on your next steps

The car felt great! I had just driven it to bimmerfest 3 days before and everything was great. When the incident happened... the engine started shaking violently, went into limp mode, had a drive train malfunction and blinking check engine light.

[alz0rz]

were you at WOT or did it just happen while light throttle cruising? scenario?

[e46m3lol]

Originally Posted by alz0rz

were you at WOT or did it just happen while light throttle cruising? scenario?

I was at WOT on the fwy driving spiritedly.

[configt]

Originally Posted by Charlie@McKennaBMWService

Yes and no, gotta take the good with the bad if you will... By trade I was a former certified technician and turned wrenches since I was 17 and have since then moved up the ranks in the automotive industry and I actually do provide whatever source of information I can when it's needed or requested. Me being "mod friendly" dealer is still entirely true, the proof is all in my instagram if you have a moment to take a gander. As I've been saying, at this point I have a somewhat better grasp of when these turbocharged vehicles come in that I can safely assume that it's not so much "bolt on" related but more so "tune/r" related. Back to when I was saying that the clients that have programmers have a high tendency to have irregular concerns that it starts to form a pattern, a pattern that I want to confidently say I figured out... Aside from that I'll take any vehicle in and do what I can and when I can to help.

How mod friendly are you when it comes to aftermarket springs? I had DINAN springs in my car for about 2000 miles before my strut mount bearings started making a clicking sound when turning and had to be replaced. The dealer (BMW of North Scottsdale) refused to replace them under warranty due to the DINAN springs. This sort of pissed me off. I had my friend who runs an exotic performance shop just replace them for me instead. Whats the deal with that? I thought DINAN was somewhat safe for BMW.

[CalCarNut]

Originally Posted by e46m3lol

I was at WOT on the fwy driving spiritedly.

To quote/paraphrase Topgun:


Flying at Mach 2 with his hair on fire.......

[ocN55]

Originally Posted by 2msport

Then why do they show a stage 1 dyno with race gas? The results show an increase in the hp and torque.

Wondering that myself.

I didn't see any dyno charts of the 100 octane you mentioned. The site only seems to show pump gas.

[Dattebayo]

Originally Posted by configt

How mod friendly are you when it comes to aftermarket springs? I had DINAN springs in my car for about 2000 miles before my strut mount bearings started making a clicking sound when turning and had to be replaced. The dealer (BMW of North Scottsdale) refused to replace them under warranty due to the DINAN springs. This sort of pissed me off. I had my friend who runs an exotic performance shop just replace them for me instead. Whats the deal with that? I thought DINAN was somewhat safe for BMW.

You would have to take it to a Dinan certified shop. Some dealers are so they can make the warranty repairs for you.

[Thescout13]

Originally Posted by e46m3lol

I was at WOT on the fwy driving spiritedly.

Any updates on the engine tear down? Like what actually "blew"?

Not to sound like an idiot but how do you know you "blew it"? I'm assuming your shop guys took a look at it? Obviously haha

The reason I ask is because Your experience reminds me of my old N54 days and almost always it was every 17-20k miles and almost always had to do with a spark plug or a coil being too far gone. Once it was an injector. But same exact experience at full bolt on. Wishful thinking I guess

Also didn't you run ALOT OF CORN? your Instagram is literally like every other picture you putting corn in your car haha.

On a serious note, sad to hear it man, but I would love to hear what the culprit was. I think you may be the first 228 with a blown N20 but not the first N20.

Also were you running the newest JB4 firmware with the additive maps?

[2msport]

Originally Posted by ocN55

I didn't see any dyno charts of the 100 octane you mentioned. The site only seems to show pump gas.

http://burgertuning.com/N20_BMW_performance_Tuner.html

[e46m3lol]

Originally Posted by Thescout13

Any updates on the engine tear down? Like what actually "blew"?

Not to sound like an idiot but how do you know you "blew it"? I'm assuming your shop guys took a look at it? Obviously haha

The reason I ask is because Your experience reminds me of my old N54 days and almost always it was every 17-20k miles and almost always had to do with a spark plug or a coil being too far gone. Once it was an injector. But same exact experience at full bolt on. Wishful thinking I guess

Also didn't you run ALOT OF CORN? your Instagram is literally like every other picture you putting corn in your car haha.

On a serious note, sad to hear it man, but I would love to hear what the culprit was. I think you may be the first 228 with a blown N20 but not the first N20.

Also were you running the newest JB4 firmware with the additive maps?

The reason I'm saying the motor blew is because cylinder 1 is dead and only has 90psi of compression where as cylinders 3-4 have 210psi. The dealership swapped out new injectors, spark plugs and coils and the problem was still the same...so that throws those things out of the equation. I would pump various amounts of e85 to do logging for Terry from BMS but I was never able to get the car to drive well without the car acting up while on e85. Yes I was running the latest JB4 firmware before it even got released to the public.

I'll tell you this much... I am not the only one with a blown N20 in a 228i but I won't go into details about that.

[CalCarNut]

Can you just re-ring #1 or do you have to do a complete rebuild?

[Silvermike]

Originally Posted by e46m3lol

I'll tell you this much... I am not the only one with a blown N20 in a 228i but I won't go into details about that.

were there any common factors between the blown motors?

parts/tunes/etc?

[ocN55]

Originally Posted by 2msport

Attachment 1221031

http://burgertuning.com/N20_BMW_performance_Tuner.html

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

Didn't know a stage 1 was also available for the n20. On the n55 stage 1, it doesn't look like race gas is beneficial since it doesn't say anything about it

[Thescout13]

Originally Posted by e46m3lol

The reason I'm saying the motor blew is because cylinder 1 is dead and only has 90psi of compression where as cylinders 3-4 have 210psi. The dealership swapped out new injectors, spark plugs and coils and the problem was still the same...so that throws those things out of the equation. I would pump various amounts of e85 to do logging for Terry from BMS but I was never able to get the car to drive well without the car acting up while on e85. Yes I was running the latest JB4 firmware before it even got released to the public.

I'll tell you this much... I am not the only one with a blown N20 in a 228i but I won't go into details about that.

Got you. Now it's all coming together haha. Well please keep us updating man. Would love to know if it's at least salvageable. I'm assuming no whole through the block you can see? Didn't spill oil everywhere either?

[2msport]

Originally Posted by ocN55

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

Didn't know a stage 1 was also available for the n20. On the n55 stage 1, it doesn't look like race gas is beneficial since it doesn't say anything about it

np

[e46m3lol]

Originally Posted by SoCalDave

Can you just re-ring #1 or do you have to do a complete rebuild?

I've only taken off the valve cover as of last night, been at work all day so I'll start wrenching on it when I get home tonight. From what I observed last night... the valve springs visually look fine, however that doesn't mean that one of the valve springs in cylinder 1 isn't weak. I'll know more this weekend when I pull the head off.

Originally Posted by Silvermike

were there any common factors between the blown motors?

parts/tunes/etc?

I wouldn't be able to answer that at the moment as they haven't started to tear apart the motor but the tunes were different some had bolt ons and others were stock for the most part for the exception of the tune.

Originally Posted by Thescout13

Got you. Now it's all coming together haha. Well please keep us updating man. Would love to know if it's at least salvageable. I'm assuming no whole through the block you can see? Didn't spill oil everywhere either?

Correct... no holes on the block, no oil spills and no smoking out of the exhaust pipe which means that more than likely it is not related to the pistons or rings.

[2msport]

Originally Posted by e46m3lol

I wouldn't be able to answer that at the moment as they haven't started to tear apart the motor but the tunes were different some had bolt ons and others were stock for the most part for the exception of the tune.

Stage 1 or 2? both? Thanks for the info. Any info you can give to the community is, I believe, essential so we can learn from it. What not to do. We very much appreciate it. If tunes that are supposed to be simple and safe, which in fact are not. I'd certainly like to know about it

[Charlie@McKennaBMWService]

Originally Posted by configt

How mod friendly are you when it comes to aftermarket springs? I had DINAN springs in my car for about 2000 miles before my strut mount bearings started making a clicking sound when turning and had to be replaced. The dealer (BMW of North Scottsdale) refused to replace them under warranty due to the DINAN springs. This sort of pissed me off. I had my friend who runs an exotic performance shop just replace them for me instead. Whats the deal with that? I thought DINAN was somewhat safe for BMW.

Depends on the dealer you take it to, and not all dealers are Dinan authorized.

[Thescout13]

Originally Posted by e46m3lol

I've only taken off the valve cover as of last night, been at work all day so I'll start wrenching on it when I get home tonight. From what I observed last night... the valve springs visually look fine, however that doesn't mean that one of the valve springs in cylinder 1 isn't weak. I'll know more this weekend when I pull the head off.

I wouldn't be able to answer that at the moment as they haven't started to tear apart the motor but the tunes were different some had bolt ons and others were stock for the most part for the exception of the tune.

Correct... no holes on the block, no oil spills and no smoking out of the exhaust pipe which means that more than likely it is not related to the pistons or rings.

Well then you didn't really "blow" up the engine haha. In all seriousness, a minor problem in the cylinder is better and much cheaper than a whole new block. Hopefully that's all it is

[Thescout13]

"Not surprised. 91 octane is bad enough for the stock turbo. Trying to run a larger turbo on it just isn't going to work. The main weakness in the motor has been the rods, but I'm sure pistons would be close behind. A good set of forged rods and pistons with maybe 1pt lower CR would be the basis for a strong motor going forward."

That's from Terry's mouth. Or keyboard.

Exactly what I thought. This is why I always throw in a little octane booster in CA.

[2msport]

Originally Posted by Thescout13

That's from Terry's mouth. Or keyboard.

Exactly what I thought. This is why I always throw in a little octane booster in CA.

Which octane booster do you use? There had been some questions as to if they work. Are harmful or helpful in our BMWs. I would definitely spring for a case of it and always dump some in if it's helpful. I'd love to be running 93 everyday.

[GSR Technik]

Hey guys, sorry Gilbert for your loss. Dancin' with the devil man. Some of you may not know GSR but we are developing the 228 for Pirelli World Challenge TCA class and are also the homologating team so we are submitting all the paperwork along with requested changes to the rules. As part of this we are doing a lot of testing to back up our justification for changes because the rules are pretty limited as far as allowable changes to keep costs down. We expect the development of the first car including testing will cost about $250,000 all in with probably $50k spent on the motor alone.

We have been beating the hell out of our little 228, testing cooling, oiling, brakes, suspension, and of course drivetrain. One day we saw 117 degrees out at Chuckwalla last summer. The car as proven to be pretty durable, more than we expected given what we have done to it. Of course, since this is a race car development program the idea of warranty was never even a consideration when we were abusing our little beast. The reason we go to this level of testing is our gentlemen driver customers not only want to win, they REALLY don't want to go home early - they are paying North of $15,000 per weekend and they value their time even higher so if something breaks they are not very happy and if it happens more than once or twice we don't have a customer anymore that is typically spending $100,000 or more a year to go racing.

So with that said we have discovered two primary flaws with the motor. There are oiling issues with heavy right lateral loads especially under braking. In some instances oil pressure will drop to zero. Next are the rod bolts. Under heavy load they stretch leading to rod failure. We had been bumping up the hp/torque on our car... North of 400wtq we finally saw this - literally - here's a piece of our case to prove it. This was the failure some of you saw at Bimmerfest. Coming out of Turn 9, short shifting into third to reduce wheel spin, at 3,500 RPM (peak torque) boom.



Now we will never be running this much torque/hp in PWC but we will have to deal with some of our customers missing a few shifts which puts similar loads on the motor.

We'll be documenting the failure on multiple threads/sites once we have finished the analysis and taken all the supporting pictures. More on the positive side, we'll be publishing the build of the new race motor - the S20 we all wish BMW built for the M2.

Obviously we are not selling a Stage 3 kit for the N20/N26 without bottom end upgrades that are part of the race engine build we are doing now, hopefully getting back to testing soon. We've also tuned down the initial torque peak on both Stage 2 and Stage 1 tunes for these motors.

On a positive not, although the gearing is whacked, the manual transmission has held up through all this which we thought would be one of the first things to go.

Follow our main 228 thread for updates on our #BMW228Racing program.

http://www.2addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1117222

After taking a break, I'll tackle the ECU tuning topics. Phew.

Nick...