Another timing issue thread (S54)

[BL92]

The setting bridge has the pins at an 88-89 degree angle, not a true 90. I think the purpose for this was to adjust for chain slack.

I recently obtained a bunch of special tools for the S54, S62, S65, S85 and more from a retired BMW engineer, and he told me in early S54 testing they were actually putting a valve shim under the bridge to play with chain slack and timing. I have a prototype S50/S54 timing tool of which the angle seems to be adjustable.

You are meant to set the timing with the tool you have, and after turning the engine over check the timing with special tool 83300493750 which is actually a true 90. In my personal experience if the pin didn’t go in on the setting tool, the checking tool would mostly send up sitting perfectly.

Brilliant Find my man, Absolute Gold Mine info there, Wonder why we are having trouble after turning the engine

here it is the camshaft checking tool in TIS and ECS

[sapote]

Instead of buying $160 checking tool, we can verify the 90 degree angle with a $10 carpenter square with a pin.

instead of using the special cam setting tool to set the cam +1 or 2 degrees advance, we can just set them at 90 degrees with carpenter square, and set the crank at 2 or 4 degrees BTDC to compensate for chain slack.