You’re going to beat me to having your car back on the road. ECS is taking a week to ship anything. Took a week to ship my coolant hoses and now a week to ship my new control arm hardware. Good to see the updates to the hub. I’m also glad to see that I probably have the updated cam trays as I have an 09.
I live an hour from Cleveland and ECS took 2 weeks to deliver me something they had in stock lol. I stick with FCP now and get faster delivery with a lifetime warranty
Vehicular DIY when you say do you mean LCI of the motor or chassis? My May 2009 MY09 (pre-LCI E92) has the 6 bolt crank so would that apply to me? I know the LCI years of E90 vs E92 differ by one I just can’t remember which lol
My 2010 535i has the same steel rings which caused grooved bearing ledges in my N54.. So they really didn’t update to the Teflon seals until 2012 production date I think.
Hi there I have a question, I watched your video on how to change the intake and exhaust cam ledge seals , I assume you changed the trays as well ,being they were compromised? Lastly does the N52 engine have this problem , I know the engine has an exhaust cam tray and where would I find the tool; the name of it ,to reinstall the trays the right way , just for future reference?
Interesting the n54 has cast cams on the early model years. On N52s all the camshafts were hydroformed since production started. I believe the bearing ledge seals were updated late 08 to 09 but I’d have to double check
I just experienced a similar thing with my Helix Overdrive 3x where my HOD vibrated itself to death. Thankfully my timing chain didn’t slip. Are you going to reinstall the helix overdrive? I’m contacting spool performance first before putting out my video of what happened to me.
Vehicular DIY about 10k. When i first received it they didn’t sent me the brace. I installed the reinforced vacuum cover, but no brace. My tuner David Shoup and I notice fuel started dropping around 5k rpm and upon closer inspection the hydraulic fluid and engine oil was leaking from the HOD and getting codes. I replaced my hpfp and everything was fine codes went away. I thought about just putting the OEM hpfp, removing the OEM filter and using the spool micron filter with a 91 tune. The sad part is the only way I can get my e50 tune without the HoD is go port injection or maybe Fuel-it new CP injection with a hob switch. Kinda bummed about it. Thanks for making those videos! We all appreciate you.
What about then strength of the cam, since the new one is hollow is it weaker than the old one. Is it a good alternative if you’re planning on putting a lot of power(600+) in the n54?
How do people become aware of these updates? I dont understand. It's not like they're published anywhere or are they? Either way, thanks for publicizing them in this video.
BMW publishes and distributes these documents through their online web portal (AOS) via a paid subscription. These updates and their associated revised parts can be found in ISTA applications as well.
I think I will be tackling this job soon and can’t decide on crank hubs. I have read good reviews on VTT’s splined crank hub, as it does not require any drilling of the crank. Is there a reason you went with the BMW updated crank hub versus an aftermarket with splines? I don’t plan on pushing crazy power in the car, nothing beyond a stage 2.
I just completed these procedures on my N54 335i, and I opted for the updated BMW parts. I didn’t see any reason to spend the extra money on the VTT keyed hub. The updated BMW sprocket is greatly improved over the original. With additional surface area and higher friction material, I cannot imagine it slipping if torqued correctly. To be extra safe, I also installed the crank hub lock that bolts to the front of the crank pulley and prevents the Jesus bolt from loosening, Note that if replacing with the updated BMW parts, you must replace the hub and the sprocket.
Many thanks for this series. I am dealing with a broken tensioner on my oil pump chain on my 145k mileage 07 e92 335 and these videos have been invaluable. Mine failed while performing other work on the car, due to my error in not realizing the vacuum sprocket bolt was not independent from the sprocket itself and I tried loosening without locking the sprocket down. Lesson learned. In all of my research thus far, I didn’t learn BMW came out with updated sprockets and hub design until this video. After watching, I unbagged the new oil pump chain drive sprocket and test fitted on the original hub, and sure enough, updated sprocket diameter is too small. Therefore I will be purchasing the updated hub through your Ecs affiliate link. Obviously I will need to replace the cam drive sprocket now too. Do you know if it is possible to remove the original sprocket from the chain without removing the entire camshaft timing chain, guides, and vanos gears? My oil pan and cam chain tensioner are removed and my timing is locked at the cams and flywheel. The cam drive sprocket won’t easily come out of the chain though and I don’t want to use any force and accidentally break the plastic chain guides (like I did with the oil pump chain tensioner system). For the sake of time (this is my daily driver), I was not planning to replace the primary timing chain or mess with inspecting the cam ledges/upgrading the split ring style seals. My thinking is that I will be due another valve cover gasket in 60k miles and can tackle both of those jobs at around 200k. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!! Many thanks for creating such an informative channel. Hands down, you have the best n54 diy videos on RU-vid.
@@VehicularDIY Thank you for the speedy reply! Your collection of E9x videos is impressively extensive (especially the trans conversion). Bravo! I decided to go ahead and replace the timing chain and inspect the cam ledges. The car has 145k and my fingernail just slightly catches on the ledges. Never had a VANOS code or any other indication of a problem. Torn on whether I should source replacements or install the updated seals and see if VANOS still functions properly. Leaning towards the latter, considering I'm already >$9k into this "refresh" (new turbos, suspension/front end, all gaskets except RMS & head, dual occ, inlets, outlets, all rubber components, and the list goes on...). In your experience, do you think this is a bad idea? Heard of any more cam trays out there that don't cost over $1k?
@@VehicularDIY One other question that I cannot find a straight answer for. My timing lock tool kit did not include the black chain tensioner "tool" that you used in your videos. Other than removing slack in the chain, does this tool serve any other purpose? Is it necessary, or do you think i could just temporarily use the old tensioner to remove the slack before locking everything back in place?
Do you have a link the technical update or anything for the crank hub? Or what the part numbers are? None of the parts catalogues list a superseded part, unless its the same part number with updates thrown in? Realoem just lists the original parts
@Vehicular DIY what do you think is the max horsepower you could get out of an N52 with stock internals before you start to encounter severe reliability issues? Basically do you think the N52 can handle the ESS supercharger without changing the internals?
Hey I have a quick question, so my crank hub has been slipping and I really don't want to drop the oil pan since I just did the gasket literally 50 miles ago. I was reluctant on buying the latest revision crank hub due to the fact that I assume I'd have to get the new oil pump sprocket and therefore have to drop the oil pan to do it all. Is this a correct assumption? Thoughts? I've already bought the current ones but now that I've seen your video it seems I may want to get the revision shown here.
The teeth on the oil pump gear look the same. What's tricky is you'd need to be able to swap the gear and that would likely involve removing the pan unfortunately.
I think if I had an S55 with a DCT I'd still be going for an aftermarket pinned solution. Considering the N54 doesn't really suffer as much from the issue and factoring in that I got to 200K with the original hub the OEM solution is a good value and a better choice for the N54. From a cost standpoint.
Lol I don't think I would say the words never spin your crank hub. If its not pinned and your making over 800whp its gonna spin out just a matter of time
Would it be feasible to purchase a high mileage N54/N55 and just do everything that you are doing? Or is there other big maintenance stuff that can fail on higher mileage N54/N55 engines? I am wanting to upgrade from my N52 328i.
Does anyone know if there’s a vid of ALL the stuff that should be checked out and/or updated with the e90 & n54? Kind of like this video but with the other stuff like the fuel sensor/tube, and things like that?? I know there are individual vids and lots if not all from this channel. But I was curious if there’s a list of sorts, all in 1 place. The reason I ask is that I read about lots of stuff like this but then I forget about it because there’s so many little things. Some of it is preventative but some of it should be considered mandatory due to the chance of it damaging the engine or other components.
If you binge watch this channel this dude knows this motor inside/out and basically every problem that you might encounter he has addressed at some point.
@@VehicularDIY Hey thanks for responding, I've been watching your videos for a year now and hands down best 335i content, really great work. So you have removed the midcats? I also have daw 775rs turbos and was somewhat concerned about stock exhaust back pressure. Would removing the mid cat's be essential to run safely for 500-550WHP power level? I was thinking it's probably boost related and not just hp for back pressure? and I don't plan to pass 24psi Sorry to derail with unrelated comments like this
Why do you suppose they don’t have a keyed cam sprocket? I don’t know a good reason why you would ever want your cams to be out of phase with the crank. Obviously the engineers are smart and they chose to use a friction surface instead of a keyway. But why?
The only reason I can think of is it makes the parts less expensive to manufacture because a key way does not need to be cut into the hub or sprockets. Machining steps are expensive. Remember, they are making millions of these parts (N54, N55, S55). On most timing chain engines I've seen the crankshaft sprocket is keyed to the crankshaft. The cam sprockets are positioned to the camshaft with keys or dowels and the timing chain has marks which line up with marks on all the sprockets. On the N54 the timing chain has no marks and the cam timing is set using a jig and then locked into place with the bolts that secures the VANOS actuators to the camshafts. The relative position of the crankshaft sprocket and hub are not important because the cam timing is set with a jig and locked with the central bolt through the VANOS actuator and into the camshafts, not with dowels or keys. This may also make it easier to assembly because once the jigs are put into place the engine must be timed properly and then the VANOS to cam bolts can be secured. There are no marks to line up. I would guess the assembly jigs are not bolted to the head like the maintenance ones, but are part of some semi-automated process. Check out this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VMZ4ciW8PxQ.html That is not an N54, but the process shown appears to be the VANOS actuators or cam sprockets being bolted to the camshafts - completely automated. It looks like the humans help position the next parts because we have high dexterity and then the robots do the aligning and tightening because they have repeatability and can do multiple things at once easily and without mistakes.
