Overheating M50

[craigieeb]

Right, all avenues are pointing towards the gasket being at fault,

anyone know of any good companys that do de-comp plates
or MLS gaskets

not cometic, if this one has developed a fault after not so many miles,
their just shite

[craigieeb]

could this be the better way of ensuring a guaranteed seal
1 of these with a standard gasket on either side of it...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-M50-M52-T ... 4ac555c58a

[balilu91]

but is a standard gasket good enough for boost?

[craigieeb]

That's the question

[Andeep]

http://store.vacmotorsports.com/vac---m ... p2548.aspx

[craigieeb]

it still includes a cometic mls gasket,
havnt got much faith in them tbh

[Andeep]

Have a lot of people have problems with cometic gaskets?

Thing is I don't know if you can blame cometic as a brand as there could have been a number of external reasons to why the headgasket might have failed.

I think if VAC motorsport are including it in their turbo package, I would assume that it will be fine going by VAC's reputation.

Did you inspect the headgasket when you fitted it to this new engine? Also did you check if the block was straight? With these MLS gaskets, the mating surfaces have to be mint for them to seal.

[balilu91]

Have a lot of people have problems with cometic gaskets?

Thing is I don't know if you can blame cometic as a brand as there could have been a number of external reasons to why the headgasket might have failed.

I think if VAC motorsport are including it in their turbo package, I would assume that it will be fine going by VAC's reputation.

Did you inspect the headgasket when you fitted it to this new engine? Also did you check if the block was straight? With these MLS gaskets, the mating surfaces have to be mint for them to seal.

altough i havent got around to install & finish mine yet i told the engineer to skim the head to a certain degree of perfect finish which was stated even on the cometic gasket package.

[craigieeb]

The block and the head are perfect,

The heads coming back off, again, and i'm going to drill out the rivets holding all the layers together on the gasket and spray them thinly with copper/hylomar spray,
put it back together, again, and see what happens,

I know it's not leaking from the top or the bottom, so it must be via one of the layers.

[Andeep]

Yeah that might be a good idea. It could be possible that something got between the multiple layers of the MLS and have caused it to not seal correctly.

[craigieeb]

Well the heads off,
and there's no obvious signs on the block or the head, so it must be one of the layers leaking,
i'm going to drill the rivets tomorrow, clean the hell out of it then spray it and hope for the best

[magpie]

is it running again yet ?

you've had enough character building exercises me thinks ............

[Andeep]

Any luck then mate?

[craigieeb]

Well, yes and no
I eventually managed to get it all back together yesterday,
Let it run up to temp twice,and it all looked good,
Bled up lovely,
So I took it out for 15 mins or so, I just kept it off boost so the engine could settle in
Came back and it was still spot on, no ballooning pipes, just water coming out the bleed nipple,

So I thought... mint! It's fixed,
Let it cool right down for a couple of hours then went back out to give it some hell.

It seems a lot smoother and faster for some reason,
But as I glanced down at the laptop, I could see the temp rising again, it was only sitting at half way on the dash clocks,
But the vems was reading upwards of 100 degrees,
Weird I thought as it usually doesn't go past 86 ish,

Then it just sunk in what was going on
So came home popes the bonnet, and the top hose was HUGE cracked open the bleed nipple to ease off the pressure and iv just left it


So at the moment it looks like im going to break it for parts and move on to something else.

[craigieeb]

So at the moment it looks like im going to break it for parts and move on to something else.

Arrr man, I dont know what to do, i'm at a cross road and dont know which direction to go,
my heart is saying, fix it,
but
my head is saying, rip it apart and sell the lot

[Rav335uk]

Sell it Craig, and move onto an M30 Turbo....

[craigieeb]

Sell it Craig, and move onto an Evo 6

well thats that then, cheers Rav

[Rav335uk]

Ha ha Craig.
Seriously though, why not the M30 turbo, 450BHP and I bet it would be more reliable then the fragile thing you have now.

[craigieeb]

I'm getting a bit sick of working on the bm tbh,

if i decide to do another turbo conversion on a different engine,
i'd just be back to square 1, where I was a year and a half ago,

you dont understand how much it's killing me not being able to drive anything apart from the family wagon

I just want to jump into something that moves quick,

and with this thing, i'm just going round and round chasing my tail and getting nowhere.

[Rav335uk]

I can understand Craig.
I've followed tyour build thread, and can see how it can get you down after all the time and effort you've put into it.

But, if that's the way you feel you need to go, then it's you're decision mate, no one elses's.

[Andeep]

Ah thats a shame mate

[leeparkes]

Bad news, its obvious the boost is killing the engines, not one but two!

It would grieve you to break it after all the expence and time thats gone into it, before you give up id pull the head off one last time to see whats what.

M50 turbo was the route i was going down next, this has put me off a bit.

[DanThe]

Does the vems use a different temp sender Craig? I think its about time you used a different headgasket TBH, have you done a combustion leak test yet?

[magpie]

FFS not again...Dig in craig.

[craigieeb]

Bad news, its obvious the boost is killing the engines, not one but two!

It would grieve you to break it after all the expence and time thats gone into it, before you give up id pull the head off one last time to see whats what.

M50 turbo was the route i was going down next, this has put me off a bit.

I think your right, it's the boost thats making the gasket leak, like i say, it was fine when i was driving it off boost, but as soon as i gave it a boot full,
it just failed again,

I sat earlier, writing a list of parts and what to sell them for, and I felt sick lol it's just a car for fuk sake!!

dont let my bad luck put you off

Does the vems use a different temp sender Craig? I think its about time you used a different headgasket TBH, have you done a combustion leak test yet?

No the vems just hooks up to the existing senor,
I'm going down the route of taking the head off yet again and replacing the gasket,
the one thats in now,
I drilled the rivets that hold the 5 layers together and i could see where it had been leaking exhaust gasses through one of the layers into the cooling port,
so gave all the layers the clean of their life and sprayed them with a coat of hylomar,

but there must be something wrong with it if its still the same,
Haven't had the time to do a test yet, it only happened yesterday,
and i just walked away from it, and hardly looked at it today

I'v found a company here who have stock of the cometic gaskets so i'll get one on order tomorrow, it's a little bit thinner,
and shouldnt mess up the compression that much


but this IS the last time.

[craigieeb]

Well its off
There's no obvious signs of any carbon deposit from the cylinder into the cooling side,
I think that's because it hasn't been running for long enough to make any carbon marks,


But.... When I took the wastegate off, a little trickle of water came out and taking apart the layers of the gasket I can defiantly see wetness and also a bit of oil


So it's defiantly looking like the gasket has lost all sealing ability
Iv already got a new one on order and it should be here soon, so hopefully this last roll of the dice will go in my favor

[Andeep]

Did you go for the same thickness of gasket or thinner?

[craigieeb]

The only one I could get in this country was a .120
So just went for that,
cant be arsed waiting around for 2 weeks for the .140 to come from across the pond.

[Andeep]

Hmmm I would think it would need a remap then if you're increasing the compression?

[craigieeb]

Yeah It might need some slight adjustments on the vems

[Motorhole]

Bear with me, this might be a bit of a noob comment....

...but is it possible that the head bolts are the issue? Stretching under boost? I'd assume you've fitted uprated head bolts.

[craigieeb]

Im using arp's so hope their not stretching and allowing the head to lift,

Thinking back....
This is how I see it happening....

the injectors running lean, causing the cylinder to crack, forcing the water through the gasket,
And pressuring the cooling system,
So the water might have made a slight groove/warped one of the layers on the gasket...?

[Andeep]

Why is it running lean?

[craigieeb]

It was running lean on the 440 injectors from injectortune because, they just couldnt cope,
and kept breaking down

and also

they are made of cheap Chinese crap


but now i'm running the Siemens 630's

[Andeep]

Surely the mapper would have tuned it so that the injector duty wasn't so high if they were leaning out?

I just hope this new headgasket solves it! Do you think it could be anything else? Headstuds stretching? Problems with the map?