My weekend, in pictures (and some words)!

It started off with a drying track and forecast for 2 perfect days of track time at Palmer Motorsports Park in Palmer, Massachusetts-

A very wide variety of cars were there. This truck is owned by none other than the 'youtube famous' Butch King, a.k.a. the guy who built/raced the S10 nascar truck at a bunch of hillclimbs a while back. Supremely nice guy, and he's forgotten much more about racing than I could ever know I'm sure.

LS6 944? Sure. Absolutely.

Saturday came and went. Fast laps were had. I managed to shave 9 seconds off of my previous personal best at the track and was sniffing respectability out there by the end of the day. Barbecue was had, beers were had, and my Time Trial license was acquired! It was a good day...

Sunday rolls around, which is a 2 session practice followed by 3 hot lap Time Trial. I go and re-tech, generally gather all of my wits and get the car ready. I am in run group 1 for the practice sessions, which means that my woefully overclassed clapped out 236k mile M3 with angry ex-wife hammer damage and street tires will be sharing the track with that Nascar truck, Ariel Atoms, a bunch of cobras and GT-40 replicas, and other hyper-fast stuff on slicks. I set my practice goal of 'Don't be an shiny happy person and get in anyone's way', and shove off for practice #1.

I immediately set a good pace and find myself on a quiet section of track and start focusing on marks and trying to be smooth fast. I actually catch a Terminator Mustang on track, which makes me very happy. We proceed to be completely unable to lose each other, him faster on the brawny bits of track and me faster in the tight stuff. It was probably the most fun I've had in a 'point by' DE, ever. We got pretty aggressive but never reckless. I looked down at my lap timer and realize that I just shaved another 3 seconds off of a 9 second gain yesterday and am about as close to zen as I imagine I could be...

Coming out of turn 5 and entering 6, which is a WOT sweeper for me... the car stumbled. I looked at the gauges and nothing unusual showed up. Braked for 7, get on the gas for track out, and nothing. 0 power, lopey idle, stumbling. I turn the engine off hoping and praying for an electrical gremlin, stop in a relatively safe spot, and wait for the meat wagon to come and tow off my wounded carcass. Bye Mustang, it was fun while it lasted.

No fluid behind me, but the flagger did say copious blue smoke. That's not good. Temp gauges showed normal and I didn't even get a CEL or dummy light... I get dropped off in the paddock and my buddy Jake (who was FTD in his e36 and my mechanic/great friend) is there with gloves and a tool box already opened. Hood goes up and we find this...?

(Note- photo recreated after crying and drinking 2 beers poured in a solo cup inside of a completely closed off trailer out of sight of anyone because it was a hot track but I needed a damn beer anyways)

Wait a minute, where is the wire retainer on my Throttle position sensor?! It was there this morning! Double hey wait a minute, why is my TPS unplugged?!?!?

E36 M3.

Not so little known fact- In most BMW's, there is no default mapping safeguard to prevent erroneous throttle position values. If the harness comes unplugged, the ECU reads throttle position at closed(idle) and feeds fuel as such. If, for example the TPS comes unplugged, but the mechanical throttle cable is still working, and held wide open for extended periods of time, it still lets lots and lots of air into the engine.

Lots and lots of air in the combustion chamber + not much fuel at all = this-

and this-

All aluminum. Not sure which cylinders or how bad just yet. Ironically this was the first track event this year that I decided I didn't want to bring the truck or trailer with me and just drive down. WONK. 4 hours later and my heroic father pulled in, none too pleased that he was missing his beloved Sunday funday, the Patriots game, the Nascar race, or his hottub time. I had shame.

So this thread will be a spot where I document pretty much what happened, what I'm going to do (which will hinge on the extent of the damage), and how I'm going about doing it. I have all winter luckily.

In a way I'm silver lining it- I was on track more this year than any other year before and really made so much progress as a driver that I'm not upset. I have the car dialed to a point of intimate trust. It's like that famous saying- WE WILL REBUILD!

Also, In search of- S52, S54, or LSx motors in good shape and cheap. Will absolutely provide sexual favors to sweeten the deal.

golfduke wrote: Also, In search of- S52, S54, or LSx motors in good shape and cheap. Will absolutely provide sexual favors to sweeten the deal.

Sense of Humour - 10!!!

Well at least you were at the track. I spent 80+ hours at work in 6 days and then flew home yesterday. So, on the plus side I didn't break anything, but I also didn't do much other than work, sleep and travel.

Wow! There's a track in Palmer, MA? I used to work in Three Rivers and lived in Belchertown. There was no track there back in the '80's.

You'll be back on track soon!

trucke wrote: Wow! There's a track in Palmer, MA? I used to work in Three Rivers and lived in Belchertown. There was no track there back in the '80's. You'll be back on track soon!

Yes, opened late 2014. It's a really really amazing track, if a little on the dangerous side though. It's carved out of a granite hillside, so lots of great elevation changes but also lots of short-runoff areas. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable in a wheel-to-wheel race there, just because of the uncontrollability factor.

I'm so sorry, man.

Is an aluminum block lsx a must? Greg has a full 5.3 truck motor in good shape that has been sitting in the garage for as long as I've been wrenching there. He'd be open to letting it go for a decent price to a friend, I already asked about it.

I'd really REALLY like to keep it German. I just don't know how plausable that'll be. I'm on a budget, so... Gonna try and pull spark plugs tonight as well as start prepping the garage for teardown. I have to find a place to temporarily store the lemons car now, so I can free up some garage space.

Was it running long with the TPS unplugged? I would expect it to basically not run at all if it was only giving idle fueling at WOT. In any case, that was only one straight... I'm a little surprised that there appears to be that much damage. Have you tried to restart the engine with the tps plugged in? My experience has been (different cause but same problem) that without combustion pressure on the rings, you get a ton of oil in the combustion chamber coming up around the scraper rings. This lubricates the top end nicely and you end up with a bunch of oil in the exhaust and occasionally in the intake too, which actually helps with any potential scuffing risk.

The cheapest bet is probably just to rebuild the S52. Being so closely related to non-M engines, they're not horrible to deal with.

gearheadE30 wrote: I have no idea how long it ran with the TPS unplugged, but it was no more than the 20 minutes of that session. I remember explicitly checking it that morning because I went through tech again and it's under my normal checklist. Was it running long with the TPS unplugged? I would expect it to basically not run at all if it was only giving idle fueling at WOT. In any case, that was only one straight... I'm a little surprised that there appears to be that much damage. Have you tried to restart the engine with the tps plugged in? My experience has been (different cause but same problem) that without combustion pressure on the rings, you get a ton of oil in the combustion chamber coming up around the scraper rings. This lubricates the top end nicely and you end up with a bunch of oil in the exhaust and occasionally in the intake too, which actually helps with any potential scuffing risk. The cheapest bet is probably just to rebuild the S52. Being so closely related to non-M engines, they're not horrible to deal with.

Yeah it turns over, but definitely struggles. You can tell there is a binding of some sort in there. Who knows what the damage extent is, but judging by witness accounts, there was definitely noticeable oil in both intake and exhaust, along with a pretty decent blue cloud. Filter analysis looks like 100% aluminum, and the magnet test came clean.

I'm going to pull plugs tonight and tear down will begin on Sunday. I'll see what I can salvage from the engine and re-do the cooling/oil cooler setup while I'm in there.

It's possible that the TPS was just a coincidence, but I don't think it was. It has been running as good as ever this whole season, and literally just ran a 3 second PB lap not 6 turns prior...

We'll find out though...

While the exact details elude me, what I have learned from this thread is that wires coming unplugged can cause engine damage. I never even considered that a possibility, pays to know your particular engine and potential failure points. Thanks for the heads-up and good luck with the repairs.

So I got a bit further into it last night. I'm taking the advice of a much smarter person than I- If you have 3 hours, do a 3 hour project. If you have 15 minutes, do a 15 minute project.

I pulled the coils and plugs to see if I could find anything glaring, and this was the result, banks 1-6 in order-

Well thats... something. Upon further analysis... it was nothing and jsut a false alarm. Looks like there was a mud wasp nest in the heater box above bank 6 and it was just some really fine dust.

I pulled the plugs and did a cylinder check with a bore scope that I 'borrowed' from work. All of the plugs looked, smelled, and were gapped perfectly still... all of the piston tops and cylinder walls looked good and there was no sign of detonation or glaring issues...

...except cylinder 5, haha. The spark plug is seized right into the bore and there isn't any way, shape, form, or fashion that it's coming out. I grabbed my torque wrench and set it to 100 ft-lb, said if it wont come out after it clicks off, I'm leaving it. It didn't even budge. The engine has to come out regardless, so there's no need to purposely berkeley any more of the engine up just for the sake of curiosity. I'm going to start disconnecting and labeling tonight in preparation of pulling the motor soon. Maybe Sunday if I'm not too hung over.

PSA- Sorry if this is boring, but it's as much of a resource for me to document the engine removal process so I have less of a chance of screwing the install process up, haha.

My fiancee had a friend's baby shower on Sunday morning, so I had grand plans of having some uninterrupted quality time with the car while she was gone. I set a goal of setting the car up on the high stands (a 2 phase pain in the ass- I need a taller floor jack), pulling the exhaust, driveshaft, and prepping the trans for removal. Not a bad goal for a couple hours of time I thought...

... Then Saturday happened. What started as an impromptu housewarming party in the afternoon turned into us burning stumps still planted in the ground at 3am, haha. Oops!

Needless to say the hangover was strong on Sunday, but I didn't want to be a complete waste of air. I struggled to eat a dry bagel, pounded water and got in the garage. The exhaust came off without much issue- only 2 snapped bolts. Driveshaft came out and the guibo looks brand new, which makes me happy. I'll definitely have to replace the trans output shaft seal though- it's a little weepy.

I undid the shift linkage and got that hung out of the way now, and I'm just waiting on my external torx socket set to come in from Amazon to take the trans out. External torx... berkeleying Germans.

Then I found myself with a little bit more time, so I removed all of the intake bits except the manifold as well as the ignition and fuel harness on the top of the engine. These stay connected and just sit off to the side... then removed the power steering reservoir which made a nice little mess... damnit.

I found myself with a little ambition and like 30 minutes before I had to be done,so I figured since the garage floor was already berkeleyed up, COOLANT SYSTEM REMOVAL TIME. I got the radiator, shroud, and reservoir pulled in like 10 minutes and 2 fasteners. I decided to drain the block while I was at it, just so I made less of a future mess too. What a berkeleying bitch that was. The coolant drain plug on the S52 is between cylinders 3 and 4, and directly in the center of the exhaust manifold. You need to be a contortionist with a swivel and about 16" of extensions to get to the berkeleying thing. The other fun part- once you break it free, hand screw it from ABOVE the engine, not below. Gravity sucks, and that plug is about 1.5 threads long, so once it starts you are going to get a coolant bukkake party if you find yourself under the car... I win/lose.

After that, I was running on fumes and trying not to throw up still, so I cleaned up the floor and tools and called it a day.

Today's totals-

• high stands
• radiator, shroud, and hoses removed
• Driveshaft and exhaust removed
• ignition harness and fuel rail relocated temporarily
• Intake removed
• engine block coolant drained

Casualties- - 1x knuckle skin from slipped wrench - 1 gallon coolant bukkake party - 2 snapped exhaust bolts - 2 worn out rubber exhaust hangers - A bunch of sensors missing their berkeleying wire retaining clips (WTF, mate?) - the stupid plastic wiper cover/shroud that is typical 90's German plastic that disintegrates when you look at it wrong.

Overall, a good haul for being hung the berkeley over on a Sunday...

Note- These pictures are for my internal reference only for when I reassemble... Nothing really noteworthy in them, except for when I assuredly forget where the berkeley every sensor harness plugs into.

I got the intake manifold off last night. It sounded like a rattle. It looked like this-

and out came these little guys-

Ironically, valves all look gorgeous and there is still no physical sign of head or cylinder damage that I can see... except for spark plug #5 seized in the head.

I would love some input. It's got me stumped so far. Engine is almost ready to pull. Just a couple more wires, trans pull, and power steering pump removal is all.

FYI, long tube headers make getting at the block coolant drain really easy...

Small update-

I've found that I'm about 18 million times more productive with this project than others, mostly because I've been better with pre-planning my time. I got out of the gym a little early last night, and found myself with about 30 minutes of free time to spare before I needed to start cooking dinner. Instead of sitting on my ass or playing on my phone, I headed out to the garage.

I got the starter and power steering pump disconnected from the engine, as well as finished separating the rest of the electrical connectors from the engine. only thing really left is drop the trans, unbolt the motor mounts, and yank the pig out, which should happen on Sunday if all goes to plan. I'm sure there will be a harness that I forgot and destroy when I pull it, but oh well. So far I have cut nothing or ruined anything beyond normal repair, and only lost 1 nut. I'm calling this, thus far, a major major victory.

I also had a few minutes to get the replacement motor on the stand. It was free, has unknown miles and is in unknown condition, but the block is confirmed good. I'm gonna pull the head and oil pan and do some exploring later this week. Praying for good things, haha.

So major milestone reached.

First, let's see what holds the transmission to the engine block, as nicely described in this picture-

The one labeled '10mm hex' was the aforementioned bitch of a bolt. It came off without cutting though. I had to use a stubby 1/4" drive and basically turn it 2 ratchet clicks at a time until it came out. It took about 30 minutes and several breaks to rest my arm, which was falling asleep in the position it needed to be.

The second issue is at the top on the starter, labeled 'pin'. berkeley that pin. A little (a lot) PB blaster and 3 screwdrivers later, and the trans was finally free and out of the car. Again, no bolts cut or stripped.

That leaves the engine, theoretically free from everything. I had a few minutes, so what the berkeley. Let's try pulling it. After a few minutes of rotating, jostling, and navigating the steering column that I was too lazy to disconnect, this happened-

Then this happened because I was sort of excited and relieved that I didn't berkeley anything up yet-

Overall, I have probably 10 hours into removal. I'm debating buying another cheapie engine stand so I can have both motors on them and kind of float back and forth between them as I need.

Everything in the engine bay is solid. Mounts are all in excellent shape and I haven't found any underlying damage or surprises. Only 2 wire nuts too, which will cut down on my electrical repairs down the road!

Next step is to strip the replacement motor and get the head cleaned, blasted, baked, repaired if necessary, and ready to put back on. I have about 80 other small projects not engine related that I want to tackle while it's out as well, so those will get done as I find time to fit them in. The head bolt removal tool, a fancy BMW specific tool, should be in this morning's UPS, so maybe that will happen tonight.

How did you get an S52 for free!? I need to find one of those for the E34...

gearheadE30 wrote: How did you get an S52 for free!? I need to find one of those for the E34...

A very good friend of mine runs a BMW shop. He had a customer come in saying that he heard rod knock in the motor and wanted it replaced. Turned out that it wasn't rod knock at all, but driveline play and loose manifold bolts. It didn't matter, as this customer wanted a replacement engine and didn't care about the origin of the issue. So he had an extra S52 around, and I had a bunch of other barter-y things that I could trade for said motor. It wasn't totally free, but definitely was severely discounted. Then again, I'm also on the hook to do a full teardown and make sure that it isn't actually a piece of complete junk. That's the catch- once the customer's issue was found, the motor never got torn down any further. It's a bit of a wildcard in current form.

So the verdict is something other than the TPS sensor not being connected caused this? Sorry if I missed that somewhere. I only ask because I was driving my 93' 325is around for a while and it had a hesitation at dead idle (still does). Had it in the shop and my guy told me the TPS was disconnected (it's reconnected but still hesitating). He told me it would reteach itself after about 20 or 30 miles. Took it to VIR for a couple of days 2 weeks ago and haven't had any problems. Just curious if there could be any currently unknown long term damage from that stoopid thing being disconnected. (Don't get me started on the stoopid TPS sensor that gave me fits for a year on a Dodge diesel pickup. Disguised itself as transmission problem that no one could fix.)

Verdict is- It's still unclear. That was the obvious and only glaring culprit, but the more I dig in the more I'm leaning to a mechanical failure somewhere internally. The reasons being, from everywhere I've read, an unplugged TPS will go into limp mode and offer significant warning signs in the form of performance issues, stumbling, and cel. I got none of those. The lap before it grenaded was the fastest lap I'd ever run at the track I was at, and the motor nor gauges offered no sign of issues- 210 water 250 oil and solid non-idle oil pressure. Those are all normal for my car.

To further confuse the issue, I drained my oil this morning and it's pristine. No shavings, metal chunks, discoloration, or coolant intrusion. If I didn't have metal chunks in the top end and oil filter, the bottom end looks completely normal.

It's weird. I wish I had more time to spend in the garage tearing it down, but I'm having to pick my spots between getting the replacement motor ready and balancing work and family. I'm hoping to get some time freed up this week.

So, small-ish updates-

• The Stickly-built motor I just bought from CMcCrimmon was picked up by UPS freight last night in VA. It should be here on Monday!

• In the meantime, I had some time and decided to get started on the spare motor that I now have a good bit of time to build up. I was a little frustrated and dejected by 2 solid months of 'TEAR EVERYTHING DOWN', that I wanted to actually, you know, build something. So I rebuilt the bottom end of the spare motor with new bearings, welded the oil pump nut to the sprocket, reinstalled the oil pump and windage tray, and buttoned up the bottom end. Copious amounts of assembly lube, loctite, and anti-seize were used. Everything went together nicely and rotates cleanly.

You'll notice some gasket sealer in there. I scoured the internet for a long time about using RTV or not. The BMW manual states to use rtv at the junctions of the front and rear main seal covers only. After finally breaking down and asking my buddy who builds BMW race engines, I followed his advice- Use that E36 M3 all the way around and torque properly.

So that's where I'm at now. It felt good to actually 'install' things instead of 'remove' them. Next phase is to prep the engine bay for the new motor and douche the garage this weekend. Once the motor comes in, it's gonna take top priority in getting installed. Then, once the car is running again I can re-focus on finishing tearing down the destroyed motor and prep it for coffee table duty, rebuild the spare, and ultimately and hopefully relax a little bit, haha.

Also, just reposting the pics that imgur decided to stop hosting. Hosting sites are berkeleying awful.

That's all for now.

Nice! Glad you snagged that motor. It looked like a good deal.

Yeah, I was running the numbers and couldn't pass it up really. I mean, it's a full longblock for the cost of aftermarket head-work. Now I have a safety net too.

What are the specs on the stickley motor. I seem to remember he builds some pretty wild race motors.

It's honestly not all that wild really. I'll know more once I get it but it's 10.7:1, shimmed springs but stock valvetrain, M50 intake/epic tuned, Schrick cams, and some manual timing tweaks. Rebuilt vanos, ARP, blahbityblahblah.

With that setup and supporting system, I'm hoping for 260whp and reliable, which would put me exactly where I want to be in GTS.