THE M3 IS GETTING THE ANRI BUILD TREATMENT - Blown headgasket to build thread

[ChapterM3]

August 7, 2024 - UPDATE 7 - First oil change after driving 5,000 miles: no oil lost

Page 17 has the full update - Oil change, 70C Degree thermostat install
- The 70C degree thermostat is wild: totally changed the torque curve of the car: no more heat soak!
- Also did the front brake lines again with the same Bimmerworld braided lines that I installed in 2019 after the driver's side one was rubbing on the shock tower, glad I did it as my pedal came back!

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Thread Legend -
Page 1 - Original symptoms/thinking it's not the head gasket
Page 2 - The realization - diagnosis leak down/compression test from "The M Shop" in Los Angeles
Page 3 - Community input on the situation
Page 4-5 - Short update after getting the car back from the M Shop / Trying to think of every other possibility of it not being a head gasket
Page 6 - Begin of the Anri build documentation. Leak down test results. Discovery of leaking OEM fan clutch which was replaced 15k ago.
Page 7 - Vanos discovery and Head gasket proof of failure: between 5 and 6
Page 8 - Headgasket discovery: was leaking coolant for who knows how long. Cylinders cleaned and added Moly Dry film. Rod bearings replaced also added Moly Dry film.
Page 9 - ARP bolts to rod bearings caused excessive wear
Page 10 - Aftermarket Geba water pump comparison with OEM unit.
Page 11 - Head cleaned, found 2 M10x1 allen screws were missing
Page 12 - Rocker arm found to have strange damage, replaced, cleaning various components / Silicone discussion on valve cover
Page 13 - Head is cleaned / Vanos back in / o2 sensors replaced / Cleaning the intake manifold
Page 14 - Motor build is complete / Leakdown numbers
Page 15 - Got the car back!
Page 16 - Full review of my experience so far: finding/vetting shops, how I decided to go with Anri, review of Anri and his work
Page 17 - 5,000 miles on the engine: no oil lost. Oil change + 70C thermostat install

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March 22, 2024 - UPDATE 6 - Put 1,000 miles on it, 500 after the first oil change, this motor is bananas

Page 16 is a full review of my experience thus far - from searching for a shop to finding Anri to reviewing Anri and his work.
Other fun insights -
- A fully refreshed S54 feels and daily drives beautifully, on full throttle it's a whole different car
- I have never felt so much low-end torque before
- The car is getting 19-20mpg constantly
- Not burning any oil

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March 2, 2024 - UPDATE 5 - Got the car back, put 500 miles on it, feels incredible

Initial findings -
- Got the car back on Feb. 23, 2024. Could not drive over 5500rpm, and had to keep it maximum at half throttle until the engine was broken in around 500 miles
- Once it hit around 500 miles (465) we did the oil change on it, 03.01.2024
- First pull on the car to 8000rpm was a full-throttle pull from 2nd, 3rd to 4th gear. It was the craziest feeling I've ever felt in the car. Incredible sound, way more torque from stock, no idea what Anri did but the thing feels insane.

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January 30, 2024 - UPDATE 4 - All findings, learnings: documenting my mistakes so you don't make the same ones

Summary: 2004 BMW M3 - 155,505 miles - Happily been driving the car daily, on the weekends sometimes in the canyons, not hard, no track days, and servicing was always ahead of schedule to make sure something like this never happened. Then after I heard a random misfire one day in august while starting the car warm, I started to realize (through this thread) that this misfire was much more than just a coil pack or a spark plug.

As you scroll through this thread, it has been preserved exactly how this entire story unfolded. I will continue to document all findings, learnings, and other discoveries for you to learn from so you hopefully don't make the same mistakes I did, prolong the life of your head gasket, and or learn about who to trust with your car before you decide to just hand it over to a reputable shop without researching or learning about the issue that you're experiencing. I tried to research and learn the best I could about it all, and clearly I made some mistakes along the way. I hope this thread is helpful to you and saves you time, and money and ultimately keeps you smiling behind the wheel of your healthy, running M3.

- Jonathan

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Findings -

• OEM Fan clutch that was 15k old was leaking and was coming on way too late (around 100 degrees C) causing excess heat to kill the head gasket (Page 6)
• Leak down test yielded the following results (Page 6)
  • Cyl 1 - 3%
  • Cyl 2 - 14.5%
  • Cyl 3 - 11%
  • Cyl 4 - 5%
  • Cyl 5 - 72%
  • Cyl 6 - 73%
• The head gasket was blown between Cyl 5 and 6 (Page 7)
• Vanos exhaust hub is a discontinued Dr.Vanos TurboToy exhaust hub that has been welded together (Page 7)
• 8.8 cam flange bolts were not replaced when the Vanos kit was installed (Page 7)
• The oil pump disc remained with oem size holes. The welded drive pins are lose in the hole which is resulting rattle at around 2000-2200rpm range from both camshaft back/torque operation. (Page 7)
• Coolant was at some point in the engine past the head gasket and at some point got into the cylinders (Page 7, 8)
• Cylinders removed and found to be OK, cleaned and recoated with Moly Dry coating (Page 8)
• Rod bearings showed excess wear (Were done 20k ago) from ARP bolts being installed and not having the rods resized (page 9)
• Rod bearings were replaced and Moly Dry coating added (Page 8)
• Brand new (15k) Geba water pump taken apart and compared side by side with an OEM unit. Clearly shows lack of flow/efficiency from the Geba unit although it's a metal impeller which is typically regarded as better. OEM water pump will be installed.
• Found 2 M10x1 allen screws were missing from the head
• Rocker arm had strange damage and was replaced

Learnings -

• The OEM fan clutch, when replaced, needs to be replaced with an E36 unit that has a lower threshold to turn on, keeping the engine in optimum temperature
• Beisan hub + redrilled disc for replacement of the Vanos exhaust hub is the best OEM+ replacement you can do
• Do not put in ARP bolts for your rod bearings unless you intend to resize the rods out of the car. If not, just get the same bolts that were in there to begin with.
• Geba water pumps, although they have metal impellers, are not adequate for the cooling required in the S54. The OEM water pump is the best replacement and the plastic impeller is worth 100k before having to be serviced. The old worry of the plastic impeller breaking early was solved years ago, and the OEM unit has been updated since.
• A combination of the fan clutch not engaging at the right time (typical of the OEM e46 fan clutch) + a replacement of a "better" metal impeller Geba water pump was ultimately the down fall of my head gasket.

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October 19, 2023 - UPDATE 3 - THE M3 IS GETTING THE Anri BUILD TREATMENT

I'm very pleased to announce that Anri, our M3 wizard of this forum, will be building my motor fresh to OEM spec - We both will be documenting as much as possible throughout the process to show what happened to my motor, and the build process.

The car is going to be picked up to start the build this upcoming week of 10.23 - I'll be adding photos and updates all along the way

The plan is to resurface the head, do the head gasket, give the cylinders a total refresh, new rings, and whatever else Anri might find. All OEM, no aftermarket anything, I just want the car to run another 150k without this ever being an issue again.

I also want to give a shoutout to Halftim3 heinzboehmer WestBankM4 Slideways sapote Epoustouflant Arith2 Ryan_R bigjae46 bmwfnatic George Hill for the input in this thread, the private messages, consulting and feedback I've received all along the way now since August when I first posted this. This was a hard pill to swallow when finding out it was blown, but this community has had my back the entire way. Thank you guys so much for the continued help and support, let's see how it goes from here. Really excited to see the results from Anri and can't wait to have that first rip once it's done!

Stay tuned!

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August 23, 2023 - Update - F***ing Head gasket is blown cyl 5-6, see page 2 for the full report.

Below is my original post where I still had hope it was just a plug or a coil.

If you have experience with a blown head gasket, and or rebuilding the S54 in this scenario, please read page 2.

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August 13, 2023 - Original post - "Weird misfire, Cyl 4 and 5, only at startup warm or cold"

Below is my original post which started when I got 3 misfire codes, although the car ran totally normal. This is where this whole thing began –

Here are the symptoms and other things about the car that I think you should know about -

• CEL - Misfire codes P0300, P0304, P0305 (multiple cylinder misfire, Cyl 4 and Cyl 5 misfire) when I started my car after it was only sitting for about 15 minutes, so the engine was still warm.
• Audibly heard both in cold and warm start scenarios, CEL only on the warm start
• Cleared the codes, and at my next quick stop today, I got back in the car and could audibly hear the car misfiring again. No CEL this time
• Car idles at 1k when this happens and only does this idle when first started
• Car does not misfire while driving, and once driven, idle goes back down to its normal 500rpm
• A/C has not been on while this has occurred
• 400 miles ago I noted in my service log that I thought I heard misfires at startup, but no CEL until now
• Car was run with an e85 kit for about 15k on this set of plugs

Car is at 155,400 miles - service records show -

• "6 Coil packs and 6 spark plugs were done at 128,900" - Verified with previous owner today that he did in fact buy and replace 6 new Bosch coil packs
• Injectors are all new, I did them myself about 10k ago
• I just replaced 3 coil pack locking mechanisms as they cracked badly (looked original) when I was doing the VCG 5k ago. The other 3 locking mechanisms look new.

My suspicion of what this is and the next step –

• Maybe the 6 coils the original owner did buy in 2017 were mismatched from Amazon? He sent me a screenshot showing he ordered 6 new Bosch coils, but then why the 3 badly aged and cracked locking mechanisms?
• Updated next steps:
  • Run fuel injector cleaner to see if it clears it up
  • Swap Cyl 4 and 5 coil packs to see if the misfire moves
  • Leak-down test of cylinders to hopefully rule out it's not a HG (Michael Scott gif: please god no)

I wanted to run this by you all before I bought a new set of coils, what do you think? Anything else to diagnose before pulling the trigger?
Bonus: If you think I should buy new coils, Bosch the way to go? Or any good reason to buy Dinan? The car is OEM+ and not pushing any major power adders.

[Slideways]

Swap coils between cylinders and see if the misfire follows. Bosch updated the design at some point, so he might have gotten three older and three newer design. The newer design that is all black rubber coated should not have broken clips at that mileage.

[ChapterM3]

Thanks for the input, great insight - I really think that there are three newer and three older if I'm not mistaken from memory of looking at them when they were out of the car during the VCG install

[Halftim3]

Do you hear pinging in the 2k - 3k rpm range when driving? I would do a leakdown test to confirm the headgasket isn't blown between those cylinders.
i had those same codes at idle a few years ago with fresh ngk plugs and updated bosch coils, but it was the headgasket. Got it fixed and those codes never returned.

-Mike

[ChapterM3]

Do you hear pinging in the 2k - 3k rpm range when driving? I would do a leakdown test to confirm the headgasket isn't blown between those cylinders.
i had those same codes at idle a few years ago with fresh ngk plugs and updated bosch coils, but it was the headgasket. Got it fixed and those codes never returned.

-Mike

You know, I did notice a ping, a singular ping, a couple of separate times in that range - it was very faint, and more like a typical vanos-type sound (Vanos has been all replaced 20k ago, still get the normal noises), but now that you mention it I did notice something. Only a singular ping though.

Can you describe more of what I should listen for? I listen for every little sound and notice every little sound, so the more you describe the better I can listen if that makes sense - What other symptoms could I look for before doing a leak-down test?

[Halftim3]

With those 3 codes I don't recommend you drive it at all and go directly to doing the leak down test.
Most people call pinging knocking and sometimes describe it as marbles rattling in the engine.

[ChapterM3]

With those 3 codes I don't recommend you drive it at all and go directly to doing the leak down test.
Most people call pinging knocking and sometimes describe it as marbles rattling in the engine.

Got it thank you for this rec - Definitely don't hear marbles rattling, so that's a good sign - but still want to make sure with a leak down. One note I forgot to add is that the car did run e85 for about 15k miles, and I'm wondering if that might have fowled the plugs pre-maturely. Worth taking a look at for sure when they're doing the leak down. Will report back next week when I get the results (car won't be driven until leak down is performed)

[Arith2]

Got it thank you for this rec - Definitely don't hear marbles rattling, so that's a good sign - but still want to make sure with a leak down. One note I forgot to add is that the car did run e85 for about 15k miles, and I'm wondering if that might have fowled the plugs pre-maturely. Worth taking a look at for sure when they're doing the leak down. Will report back next week when I get the results (car won't be driven until leak down is performed)

What tune were you or the previous owner using for the E85? What injectors? E85 will quickly lean out and damage an engine on stock injectors. The S54 is tough but that’s a huge red flag. Not trying to discourage but rather prepare you for more than a simple coil change.

[ChapterM3]

What tune were you or the previous owner using for the E85? What injectors? E85 will quickly lean out and damage an engine on stock injectors. The S54 is tough but that’s a huge red flag. Not trying to discourage but rather prepare you for more than a simple coil change.

ProFlex Commander kit - https://www.advancedfueldynamics.com...bmw-e46-m3-s54
Edit: Stock injectors :-/, then when kit was taken out, stock injectors were replaced with new ones

Car has not run e85 for about 20k now and has had zero miss-fire issues besides this

[sapote]

1. CEL - Misfire codes P0300, P0304,P0305 (multiple cylinder misfire, Cyl 4 and Cyl 5 misfire) when I started my car after it was only sitting for about 15 minutes, so the engine was still warm.
2. Car does not misfire while driving, and once driven, idle goes back down to its normal 500rpm

1. I don't think it's the bad coils, as bad coils issue should not disappear a few minutes later. Yes, I would do a leak down test.
2. It must be a mistake as these cars idle at around 850rpm. 500 rpm is too low.

[ChapterM3]

1. I don't think it's the bad coils, as bad coils issue should not disappear a few minutes later. Yes, I would do a leak down test.
2. It must be a mistake as these cars idle at around 850rpm. 500 rpm is too low.

Thank you for your input - so considering what you're saying, would a bad HG disappear after the engine warmed back up again?

[sapote]

Thank you for your input - so considering what you're saying, would a bad HG disappear after the engine warmed back up again?

The leak could seal itself with the warm/hot head expanded. Not necessarily it's your case but it's a possibility based on the symptom.

[ChapterM3]

Update - Brought it over to the M Shop - a local, well-known M-focused shop in the LA area - And brought it in for a leak down. While going through the car they noted that the car had added a cylinder to the misfire: Cyl 3, 4 and 5 were miss firing and it was cutting fuel to those cylinders. They recommended pulling the plugs to see what was happening and then futerh assessing if the car would need a leak-down test. Turns out all 6 plugs were fouled - I'm assuming prematurely worn from the e85 used while these plugs were in. So they are replacing the plugs with new OEM ones I brought with the car that I had bought a few months back from FCP.

They're going to check to make sure that the plugs did the trick and the cylinder misfires are gone - and I think if that comes back then I would not perform the leak-down test now. I would however learn more about doing said test myself, so that I can do it at my own leisure and not have to worry if I'm damaging the motor.

Any further thoughts, feel free to share y'all, thank you!

[heinzboehmer]

Why not have them do the leak down while the plugs are out? Getting to that point is like 75% of the work

[ChapterM3]

Why not have them do the leak down while the plugs are out? Getting to that point is like 75% of the work

It's a good point, but I decided otherwise as I'd like to learn the process and then do it myself when I have the time, so I can continue maintaining it on my own terms