E30 Zone

Well not a rebuild really, but i'm replacing a no.1 inlet rocker on an m30 i've just got. I'm just wondering why the rocker has broken, it was recently rebuilt and apparently broke due to not being torqued up, does this sound right? I'm hoping it's not a buggered valve, whats the best way to check for this?

I'm doing a few other things on the engine whilst i'm at it, i'm fitting an oil filter housing with oil cooler provision from an e24, i remember reading somewhere that if fitting an early housing, you must plug the small hole on the left which goes through the block. Why is this? What thread is it, looks like m10x1 - anyone know?

I'm also going to do the oil spraybar modification to get more oil to the cam lobes on cyl1 which apparently suffer from low oil pressure, anyone else done this?

Lastly, i'm fitting all new gaskets, any tips for doing the headgasket on the m30, looks pretty straightforward but is there anything i should be looking out for, or tricks to doing it easily?

Sorry for all the questions, basically i'm after any good advice on things to do on an m30 when in this postion (other than to tie it to a chain and use it as a boat anchor!)

Theo

well if its like the m20 system, then yeh the eccentric on the end could have beena bit loose.... and caused shock on ure rocker

with the h/g just keep everything clean

its also worth removing all the valves, changine the stem seals and then lapping in all the valves ureself with a ray mears/toilet plunger style stick with grinding paste

dunno bout the cooler thingy

Cheers dude, I would try the ray mears bodgery but the head has a new cam, valves, seals and followers - not bad for £67 with an engine stand!

Theo, what is the oil spraybar modification you mentioned?

Here you go mate;

http://www.cscoupe.org/tech/spray_bar_fix/70590.html

Thanks Theo, now thinking of a way to do this without removing the OSB. Nice find mate

May as well remove it and fit the newer type banjos which are supplied with threadlock already applied. These along with 4 new washers costs less than £6 from zimmerbimmer.

Good point!!!!!!!

Well I took the head off this morning and thought I would take a few pics of my findings

Both the cam lobes on cyl 1 are completely knackered, despite being a new cam (apparently). The cam is spotless otherwise, so there was obviously oil starvation, which has only reinforced my intention of modifying the spray bar.
You can just about make out the rut that the follower has cut in the cam in this pic, it's over a mm deep.


That wasn't the only interesting discovery though.... No.1 piston seems to have got intimate with an exhaust valve at some point, do you think it will be ok if I just round off the sharp edge, or should I replace the piston with one from my other m30?


Pic of the old and new headgaskets, old one is goetze and new one is bmw (also made by goetze?) I wonder why they are different at the bottom where the oil drain thingy is?


There was loads of manky old oil in the headbolt holes, so I used an old headbolt with a cut in it to clean them out a bit, but there is still some in there, what's the best way to get this out without compressed air? Parafin?

Here's another picture of the piston damage;

Not that i know much Theo but would feel more secure personally if that was replaced.
Why does it rain every bleeding wekend when youve got stuff to do!!!!!!!!

personally, i'd just blend the sharp edges off and leave the piston there. if you swap the whole piston over, you're into balance issues as they're usually done in matched sets. also bedding in rings etc etc. it's only a stinky old M30 so a small lump missing from one piston won't hurt it. my 180bhp pinto ran for ages with no problems despite having the inlet valves battering similar makrs onto my pistons at one stage. i used a dremel to smooth them off and left it at that!

oh, the only time i've ever broken a rocker was on that same pinto, which had bad cam wear on number 1 too.

Cheers Gareth, sounds like your pinto was a cracking engine hahaha! I think I will do as you suggest and live with it.

I really do wish it would stop pissing down so I could get the head off my old M30 and pop that onto this block.

How's you car doing? Got anywhere with your diff mods? I think that will be something i'd be tempted by next year due to excessive expenditure recently

mine's doing relatively ok. it's doing the daily service and so far has not broken once! (touch wood). i've not really got very far with the diff mods or anything on it to be honest. with a combination of my wife ferking off and other shite, i've just not had the time / money / inclination to touch it! i do have the choice of 2 LPG kits for it now though hopefully i'll get to have a bit of time tinkering over christmas

mmmmmm, LPG. I'd like to see how you get on with that, would be great not having to worry about horrendous fuel consumption when you boot it.

Even the new thread locked banjo bolts have been known to come lose, the only 100% method is to drill a small hole in the bolt head and lock wire it to the spray bar.

I wanted to make sure my shrick cam never bit the dust.

If you've not got compressed air then use cotton buds and brake/carb cleaner for the cylinder head bolt holes, the head bolt heads, washers and threads should be lightly oiled.

If you take the small metal cover off the back of the head make sure you take note of where the one bolt that has oil seal washer goes, also don't use any sealer on that gasket.

Do you have a Haynes/Bentley manual ?

Hi Andy, I have the Haynes joke book, but the not the Bentley manual, it's ok for this job but the instructions can be a bit vague at times.

Interesting what you say about the OSB banjo's, perhaps I will give the wire trick a go. Did you do the dual chamber OSB mod on your car?

I thought about cotton buds, but was worried that i would get bits of cotton stuck in the threads, but I suppose if you wash it out with brake cleaner that won't be an issue. I did order a new gasket for the back of the head and that little seal, but i'm now thinking that I will just fit my old head with good cam in, rather than mess around with this head with the knackered cam and rocker arm. I am bloody tempted by a catcam from Ant though, but I really must stop spending

Theo325 wrote:Hi Andy, I have the Haynes joke book, but the not the Bentley manual, it's ok for this job but the instructions can be a bit vague at times.

If you get stuck just shout mate.

Cam timing is easy enough, as is bleading the chain tensioner.

Did you do the dual chamber OSB mod on your car?

No i didn't bother, it might be a good mod though and i'm not knocking it but the following i think are more likely to cause a damaged cam lobe.

Banjo bolts comming lose
Blocked spray bar hole(replace the old one but make sure it's pointing the right way)
Incorrectly set valve clearances

A lack of servicing and excessive ideling don't help either as the oil supply to the head isn't the best at tick over. You can get an under sized sproket for the oil pump which helps improve the volume of oil pumped.

Great info Andy, much appreciated

Well the car is now back in one piece, complete with schrick 284/280 cam The engine sounds a bit tappy now, I set the clearances to .25mm cold when the head was off the car, and then reset them today when the engine was warm to .30mm. Could the noise be down to the schrick cam?

I did the dual chamber oil spray bar mod and it seems to have worked nicely, I started the engine with the rocker cover off and there was a really good flow of oil from the spray bar. I also rebuilt the head in a totally different way to what the Haynes manual suggested. It's much easier to fit the cam and then gradually build up all the rocker shafts and arms, rather than fitting the rocker gear and pissing round with valve spring compressors. I did struggle with fitting the e24 oil cooler though, the pre bent pipes refused to work in an e30 no matter what I tried, so i've had to fit the e34 upright housing for the time being. I went to a Pirtek depot and tried to get them to make up some flexible pipes, but it was hugely expensive to use their hydraulic line adn they suggested I make some lines up from earls/goodridge components, but they dont do the necessary bends in m22x1.5 (the thread on the housing and cooler) so i'm a bit stuck there for the time being, any ideas?

Anyway, really pleased with the result - the car seems to pull stronger in the higher revs as expected, although it's so noisey/bumpy that it's hard to really tell what difference there is because the car has always felt fast. Will try and get some pics up tomorrow

glad its gone ok for you. i had temple8e30 a beardymay round yesterday stripping the head off my m30 a was quite pleased with the condition apart from finding my pistons slightly marked like in your pics. how did you remedy it did you use a dremmel or replace piston??

I just carefully used a file and bit of emery to take the sharp edge off the dent, didn't fancy the associated costs of changing a piston..or 6.

Why did you take your head off?

we found water in sump so rather than it go whilst using it we decided it would be best to change the gaskets a get the head preasure tested a skimmed whilst it was out of car. im also changeing my loom and useing the m20 loom as mines a bit rough lol

sounds good Theo, whats that idleing like than as that sounds quite a lairy cam

Fair enough Jaffro, better safe than sorry I suppose. Keep us updated on your project please

Ian - the idle's not too bad, sounds good but like I said is a bit tappety for some reason.

i will do ive got quite a few pics but havent learnt how to host them yet. hopeing it will be finished around march/april time.

Theo325 wrote:Well the car is now back in one piece, complete with schrick 284/280 cam The engine sounds a bit tappy now, I set the clearances to .25mm cold when the head was off the car, and then reset them today when the engine was warm to .30mm. Could the noise be down to the schrick cam?

I did the dual chamber oil spray bar mod and it seems to have worked nicely, I started the engine with the rocker cover off and there was a really good flow of oil from the spray bar. I also rebuilt the head in a totally different way to what the Haynes manual suggested. It's much easier to fit the cam and then gradually build up all the rocker shafts and arms, rather than fitting the rocker gear and pissing round with valve spring compressors. I did struggle with fitting the e24 oil cooler though, the pre bent pipes refused to work in an e30 no matter what I tried, so i've had to fit the e34 upright housing for the time being. I went to a Pirtek depot and tried to get them to make up some flexible pipes, but it was hugely expensive to use their hydraulic line adn they suggested I make some lines up from earls/goodridge components, but they dont do the necessary bends in m22x1.5 (the thread on the housing and cooler) so i'm a bit stuck there for the time being, any ideas?

Anyway, really pleased with the result - the car seems to pull stronger in the higher revs as expected, although it's so noisey/bumpy that it's hard to really tell what difference there is because the car has always felt fast. Will try and get some pics up tomorrow

It's better to have the valves a little noisey than to tight, you can always have another go at setting them later. I know it's not the schrick specs but i run 0.30mm ex and 0.25mm inl, the reason being the exhaust valves will get hotter and expand more than the inlets.

TBH, it's that long since i fitted my cam i carn't remember if it made it sound more tappety ?

Sounds like you built the head the way i do it, cam in first and jiggle the cam to minimize the pressure exerted on the rockers, i also don't put the rocker circlips(sp?) on till the rocker bar is all the way in so i can slide some of the rockers off the cam lobe.

How did you get on removing and refitting the the rocker bars, they can be a PITA some times, if i do another head job i really must invest in a slide hammer that i can screw in to the ends of the shafts.

How about's an S14 filter housing as they have the take offs for an oil cooler ? Which rad an pipes have you got because depending which mix-n-match of parts you use you might end up with either screw in unions or or the other sort with an O-ring, the ETK will help.

I've got an E34 M30 housing with the take offs for an oil cooler but i'm not sure if i'm going to use it yet till i get my arse in gear and fit an oil temp gauge to see if i need to bother with an oil cooler or not.

What are you doing ECU wise to suit the cam ? Might be worth while sticking it on a rolling road or let Ant have a play with it to check the fueling isn't to weak ?

Hi Andy,

I might try that idea with the clearances and see what happens, certainly sounds logical.

That's exactly how I did the head, it was actually a really easy job in the end. With the rocker shafts I used a 10mm 1/4" drive socket as a drift which was the perfect size. You can also use a 6?mm allen key socket in the plug at the end of the rocker shaft and gently push down on the ratchet whilst untightening it. A slide hammer would have been preferable though.

I'm determined to use the e24 housing, i've fitted my oil temp sensor to the blanked tapping in the housing and i'm not sure the e34 one has that? I have at least learnt something from fiddling with these parts, there's an m10x1.0 hole going through the block into the crankcase on the e32/34 blocks which serves the purpose draining the canister when the centre bolt is removed to change the filter. How cunning! I've just looked on realoem and the s14 old filter housing looks like it won't fit. I'm not quite sure what you mean about the rad pipes though? In reality I rekon an oil cooler is a bit overkill on the car, perhaps it will come in handy on track days and back to back laps of the Ring. The temp guage barely reached the 1/4 mark when I took it for a 15 minute drive earlier this evening, but with my old rad it would go towards the 3/4 mark when I was on the Ring.

ECU wise, ive got a standard 150 and an BBR chipped 179 ECU which quite worryingly has no rev limit. I was at 7k rpm crossing the finishing line at Santa Pod in september Would like to get on the rolling road again and see how it compares to the figures I got last April when the car was in it's infancy.....and a complete turd.

what rad are you useing. thats the 1 thing ive not decided on yet

E28 m535i, which is the same as the 635csi rads (post 1982)

nice 1 are they available still new?

Yeah mate, they are. Euro car prats sell them and I imagine BMW do too allbeit at a much higher price.

il have a shout round 2moz cheers. i can put pics up now so il get sum up 2moz of my progress so far

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the rad pipes though?

Here you go mate, this shows the two different unions, 1st one is M20 and the 2nd is E34 M30

Ahh right, I've got the m20 type fittings - male metric m22x1.5 thread, for which there are virtually no fttings available. I was hoping to get the metal hardline part of the cooler lines chopped out and replaced with flexi, but Pirtek said this would be very costly. Karan had some made up this way, so I guess I will just have to get the people who did his to do mine.