2008 M3 Bearings

[erik w. treves]

I am the 3rd owner of this car and it had been a CPO car. The car has right at 100k on the clock. I bought it with about 95k on it. I was getting ready to purchase a supercharger for it when the ESS Tuning mentioned something about the bearings..... this brings me to you all and new to this forum.... lots of searches and a few calls and ended up with BE Bearings and new ARP 2000 bolts.

I bought the car back in Dec and have been pretty much going through the entire car just to make sure it will last another 100k... Changed every fluid - tranny fluid actually seemed pretty good coming out... Diff fluid... wasn't great - noticed a difference in sound after the change, so that was good. Replaced the water pump... went back to BMW OE on that. Then did an overall inspection... all in all not a bad car. the paint on the nose and hood needs to be redone... lots of little chips. I t was a NJ car so I can imagine a lot of highway sand and salt rock impacts.

Anyway - with all that done I decided to pull the bearings... I had 2500 since my last oil change, so I took a sample to baseline the bearings.. I had a track day (SCCA Solo 2) in there so it should be a good baseline.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I decided not to drop the entire suspension, but rather do the "hang" method. It took me right a 3 hours to get to the bearings... about 8.5 hours to get to engine start and oil level checks. The car still needs to have under car panels put back on..but I wasn't going to be able to sleep if I didn't at least hear the car run. I started right up...warmed up, no noises, rev'd it up and back to 7500 RPM... nothing..but no load, so we will see what today brings but I would have expected it blow up already if I messed something up.

The rod side bearings or tops were pretty much toast. The cap side looked fine. Crank was fine. The wear looked pretty typical to all the pictures here on the forum. I had no indication that there was an issue.

anyway here are some pictures... I will post some more after I clean up and test drive later today.

[BrewRifle]

Good thing you did them. Might also want to replace those motor mounts if they are worn.

[///M Power-Belgium]

Congrats and welcome .
Looks like caught on time ...Good job

[erik w. treves]

yeah I took them out...they look worse than they are... threw them back in. THey were really just really dirty.

[quicktwinturbo]

Awesome! Good to see another AL M3 member here on board.

[Helmsman]

First time and 8.5h, sounds impressive mate!

[IIAp3x]

Good save... Nice garage as well!

[D1ESEL]

Nice looking garage. I am glad you caught it before it became a major issue!

[Efini]

good job! your car is gonna be running super well!

[erik w. treves]

well.. got it out there and let it settle in ... went to the car wash to get the under carriage done... killed it on the way home to 8000 RPM... no issues... nice and smooth...I wanna say it is smoother than before... but seems like it is all good. here are the rest of the bearings...

[pbonsalb]

Good job on the time. Do it a few times and I think under 8 hours is no problem, especially with ARP bolts.

[erik w. treves]

ok well first really day driving around, back and forth to work, out to lunch and generally driving the living dog crap out of it...I have to say the engine is noticeably smoother and MPG is up. It is running a little warmer on oil temp, but I added MOA and the oil is brand new... so I suppose that is expected... it does seems to cycle a lot more now from just at 210 then go back down...so more movement on the gauge than before....

what are you all using to measure oil pressure with. Do they make an OBD II oil pressure gauge?

[serranot]

Originally Posted by erik w. treves

ok well first really day driving around, back and forth to work, out to lunch and generally driving the living dog crap out of it...I have to say the engine is noticeably smoother and MPG is up. It is running a little warmer on oil temp, but I added MOA and the oil is brand new... so I suppose that is expected... it does seems to cycle a lot more now from just at 210 then go back down...so more movement on the gauge than before....

what are you all using to measure oil pressure with. Do they make an OBD II oil pressure gauge?

I noticed the same thing. Since I had my bearings done (BE Bearings with OEM bolts) the oil temps are higher and fluctuate more. But it runs fine, no funny noises.

[admranger]

Originally Posted by serranot

I noticed the same thing. Since I had my bearings done (BE Bearings with OEM bolts) the oil temps are higher and fluctuate more. But it runs fine, no funny noises.

Interesting info on the temps.

[kb9uwu]

I hope my 95k mile bearings look as good as yours!

[pbonsalb]

Are you running the same oil as before? Did you replace the oil pump pickup orings if you disturbed them (not sure replacement needed but I replaced).

[decimation1]

Originally Posted by erik w. treves

yeah I took them out...they look worse than they are... threw them back in. THey were really just really dirty.

Did you do all this work and not swap the bearings?!?!?

[erik w. treves]

umm... NO! That comment was about the motor mounts not the bearings! I reused the O-rings on the oil supply tubes - they were super tight coming out and going back in (surprisingly)

The BE Bearings are apparently engineered to use the same 10W60 oil... as I understand it... so I am running the same oil.... I sent the oil I pulled out of the car to the lab, and will run it for about 2000 miles, dump the oil ... hopefully all the crap and contaminates from the old bearings is in the filter.... Then I will run a good 2500 miles on that and resample....

Hopefully be ready to add supercharger by the end of the summer.... if all goes as planned

[decimation1]

Originally Posted by erik w. treves

umm... NO! That comment was about the motor mounts not the bearings! I reused the O-rings on the oil supply tubes - they were super tight coming out and going back in (surprisingly)

The BE Bearings are apparently engineered to use the same 10W60 oil... as I understand it... so I am running the same oil.... I sent the oil I pulled out of the car to the lab, and will run it for about 2000 miles, dump the oil ... hopefully all the crap and contaminates from the old bearings is in the filter.... Then I will run a good 2500 miles on that and resample....

Hopefully be ready to add supercharger by the end of the summer.... if all goes as planned

Awesome, I was hoping I misunderstood that.... Did you use the BE ARP bolts as well? I spun a bearing in my 08 and dropped an engine in with 46k and WPC treated OEM bearings, thinking about a SC as well this summer....

[decimation1]

And that is one hell of a garage, by the way!!! Simply awesome!!

[erik w. treves]

Yeah. Thanks...I like it I went with ARP 2000 bolts..can't go wrong with those... I also use 3 torque wrenches... 1st one to do 2 passes at 30 and 40 lbs...second one for 50 lbs final ... 3rd wrench set at 50 as a validation check...over kill....but my OCD won't leave it alone....lol

[decimation1]

Originally Posted by erik w. treves

Yeah. Thanks...I like it I went with ARP 2000 bolts..can't go wrong with those... I also use 3 torque wrenches... 1st one to do 2 passes at 30 and 40 lbs...second one for 50 lbs final ... 3rd wrench set at 50 as a validation check...over kill....but my OCD won't leave it alone....lol

Where'd you get the ARP 2000s? Only place I have seen them available is with the VAC bearing kit.