Rod knock after 500 miles

[Obioban]

Had you driven this engine prior to the rod bearing job, or is this the first time?

[FBloggs]

This may sound silly, but pull the cam cover and check with feeler gauges to make sure all the valve clearance shims are present.
little to lose at this point.

[Arith2]

This may sound silly, but pull the cam cover and check with feeler gauges to make sure all the valve clearance shims are present.
little to lose at this point.

This was the first thing I did.

Turns out its not rod knock. All my bearings look great. What a waste of bolts...

[kaiv]

This was the first thing I did.

Turns out its not rod knock. All my bearings look great. What a waste of bolts...

Granted my laptop speakers are in pretty bad shape I was gonna say I'm not sure I'm hearing a rod knock.

May sound stupid but have you double checked things like pulleys?

Also, assuming you used new OE M10 bolts and torqued them only 3 times and kept them in order, you could technically reuse them (TIS specifies no more than 5 times).

[Arith2]

Granted my laptop speakers are in pretty bad shape I was gonna say I'm not sure I'm hearing a rod knock.

May sound stupid but have you double checked things like pulleys?

Also, assuming you used new OE M10 bolts and torqued them only 3 times and kept them in order, you could technically reuse them (TIS specifies no more than 5 times).

I bought rod bearings so since I was expecting to find one bad, I changed them all. It's no big deal at this point because I know I didn't spin a bearing. If there was bad clearance, the coating would at least be worn off but that wasn't even gone. I missed that it said 5 times so I could've saved $160 but whatever. Bolts are torqued and in with the old on At this point I'm going to say that's what an 11lb flywheel sounds like in an S54. One day I'll go to my dad's and do a proper leak down just for verification it's not a valve seating properly. At least I don't have to worry about a failed hydraulic lifter.

[HassanEido]

Congrats op. At least you dodged that bullet 👍

[Arith2]

So the knocking disappeared twice at first dot on oil temp guage. I drove past walls, pulled up right next to where I could hear the echo of the engine and nothing. Rod bearings didn't resolve the knocking of course. Maybe there's piston slap? Rods looked OEM so pistons probably are too. I'm not sure at this point. It sounded completely normal warmed up. I drove it for about 15 minutes after warming up the oil.

My hat goes off to those who do rod bearings on jack stands. It wasn't easy or fun.

[beefaroni]

So your current thought is: maybe it’s piston slap or maybe its just the lightweight flywheel? Are you going to pull it back apart or just let ‘er rip tater chip?

I know I have some “normal” sounds from the bottom end that are louder when i listen from the wheel arch area. It seems to change. Sometimes its there other times it isnt, as far as im concerned the noises I have are normal

[Dash1]

What’s preventing you from taking your car to a credible shop for diagnostics?

[Arith2]

What’s preventing you from taking your car to a credible shop for diagnostics?

This is my rant on why I do take my car to shops and this is barely half the story(skip to the end if you just want to see my car update):
I don't like relying on others when I should be self sufficient. It's a man's skill to fix cars which sadly has been lost. My dad didn't know enough to teach me so I learned.

I worked at a reputable shop about 10 minutes from me and I won't send any of my cars to a shop unless it's a last resort. We worked every European car and it wasn't a shady place or anything. I just know the mentality. Your car is at the shop and it's your car, not the technicians. He's going to get in his working car, and drive home. Your car is just the job, his car is his means of getting everywhere to do anything, including eat. In a perfect world, every part that should be replaced and installed properly at a shop but that's not usually the case. I'm not saying this will screw the car up immediately but technicians generally don't care about the longevity of you one vehicle out of the thousands. The job will get done and the car will run. You have no idea if that oil leak or that split hose came from the job or normal wear. I had to take my Mini in for an alignment. When I got the car back, grease was slung all over the inside of my hub from and BRAND NEW axle. I knew the kid that did it the alignment because he goes to my school. He isn't an idiot and has been working on diesels for years. I have no idea if he screwed it up or if the axle boot just failed. Before that I had my front tire balanced and rears replaced. Both my wheel hubs were trashed costing me $355 for overnight at a shop down the road. This tire place had flawless reviews and I knew many people that took their cars there. That's why I went. When I confronted them, the guy got shady and said I no proof and said it's only my word against his.

If you can do it yourself, do it. Sometimes things don't always work out perfectly but if I had any of these problems with a shop, they'd just charged me thousands more on top of the hypothetical thousands I would've been charged. We gave a discount to a family who needed an engine on a 2014 Q7 and lost money while charging them around $10k.

I'm sorry for such a long winded response and it's meant to be hostile or anything. It's something that I'm passionate about because as a 26 year old, I'm in a weird spot culturally. There is a world wide push for relying on the government or others because of convenience that we become soft as a people and it will be our undoing. I love what Elon Musk is doing trying to get us to Mars but if you buy a Tesla, they still control it. It's not completely your car. This is my opinion and it's fine if your disagree. I'm not looking to debate or anything, I just felt I would do the question injustice by not giving a complete answer.

Car update:

So my car didn't knock at all today and I drove for about an hour. Half that was stuck in traffic trying to see the rocket go up, and the other bit was around town driving. No knocking whatsoever. It just disappeared. I know previously the knocking wasn't present all the time and I thought I had heard it sometimes. Cold start today was normal. Starting it warmed up completely was normal. The knock is gone for now. I'm not sure what conditions cause it but I'm thankful it's not there. I'm sick of driving that stupid R53.

[Arith2]

Had you driven this engine prior to the rod bearing job, or is this the first time?

I hadn't prior to putting it in. The initial startup didn't have the knock though. It wasn't there when I had started it the day I towed it due to the knock either. Mind you I had driven 200 miles a couple days before no problem. I was kind of expecting it because Murphy's Law, so everytime I'd get read to go somewhere or get somewhere, I'd just listen and try to smell anything burning.