S54 Build Decisions: Turbo vs. High-Revving NA – Seeking Experienced Opinions

[bigjae46]

Known issue and documented now in new manufacturing process. Gone is the usual old school black nitrided coated lobes. All new cams now come polished, forcing your hand on buying the new dlc rockers (the correct way to install but was not always the case, members here with older engines around 200kms fitted 288/280 cams on oem followers with no issues). This happened to me in 2023 when I installed 280/272 cams.

If you get a newer set of cams, can't you have them nitrided yourself?

[Mike RT4]

There was probably nothing wrong with the Schrick cams, it was most likely the BMW followers. There was a period a few years ago where BMW changed supplier and the new ones were made of chocolate and destroyed cams. You will remember when this happened, as the followers were on back-order from Schrick for a very long time (as they just DLC the OEM ones) as once Schrick realised there was an issue with them, they rejected them and made BMW remanufacture them.

I was personally also on the receiving end of a bad batch of followers that took out a brand new set of (OEM CSL) cams within a few thousand miles. Luckily the warranty picked up the costs or I would have been hugely pissed. It was bad enough being without the car for another few weeks while it was repaired (again).

[digger]

One option if new rockers aren’t available is to reuse by getting them refinished by credible cam shop. They may be able to get them DLC coated to.