7 year review of my SMG (from clunk to no clunk)

[992gnt]

I have a question, when bleeding in INPA, should it ever stop purging air? I've bled mine probably a dozen times in the last 6 months, and it always lets off a squeak of air at the end of a cycle. I'm just curious what is "normal" behavior.

[TramRam]

I will thank you before reading through what you have entered here!! I've come to believe that us SMG lovers must have something in our DNA that makes for a common thread though all us as a subgroup! No doubt we ALL have had to deal with the haters to some degree or other while going back and forth with the issues that we sometimes have with the system. Where I live, almost everyone who has had SMG has converted to the dark side so NO camaraderie here! In an case, Big thanks!

[WOLFN8TR]

Very Interesting, thanks for posting!

[Johnvu]

Great thread! I have learned so many things over the course of 4 years of owning an SMG. I haven't tried INSTA/D to calibrate the SMG system, only INPA. After reading your thread I am so glad I never went that route because I would have been so pissed lol. The bleeding and calibrations were pretty much the only things that went right the first time when I relocated my SMG system into the drug bin LOL.

[Irhase46m3]

Hello Everyone – With the down fall of m3forum.net and a wealth of information lost, I figured I would compile my 7 year experience with my SMG along with some advanced troubleshooting and highlevel discussion about how I fixed my clunk issues.

1. The Clunk- First, its important to understand the SMG is by no means a refined system that you won’t feel it shift. It’s an old RAW system that attempts to operate the clutch based on its limited variables (brake pedal, park brake, engine rpm, abs speed, etc) – This makes a bit unpredictable. Even though it’s a clunky system, clunk is relative. It shouldn’t be making a loud bang or loud clunk when shifting, it should be more of a nudge or thump if the system is operating properly.
2. The right SMG tools – Second, I’ve been using the wrong diagnostic tool to readapt the system. For the longest time I used ISTA/D to initialize and bleed the SMG system. I would think that by following the ISTA/D bleed procedure everything would be fine, yet the clunkyness and hard shifts would continue. I cannot stress enough how important it is to adapt the system with INPA, the bleed and adaptations take only a fraction of the time with INPA and you can feel the transmission/system calibrated way better, specially when launching or flooring it from 0. – Also, reset your engine adaptations via INPA.
3. The rubbers & Joint – Third, I suggest inspecting and changing the transmission mounts, output shaft flex disc, drive shaft bushings and driveshaft CV Joint, these are the main reason for the clunk. While at it, check your tire pressure as well, SMG gets vehicle speed from the ABS sensor.
4. The Air, the VANOS and the valves – Another thing that helped was bleeding my break system, for the longest time I had a tiny air bubble in the break system, bleeding and taking this air out helped with the shifting. My VANOS solenoid was toast which also contributed to hard shifting when at low speeds, replace it with a beefed up beisan solenoid pack. Also, perform a valve adjustment, this keeps the engine running efficiently within spec and this translates into smoother shifting as the output values are within spec for optimal shifting.

The pointers mentioned above helped with my clunk issues and I’ve been clunk free for over a year now. Obviously all of these pointers only work if your SMG pump is operating properly.

The good stuff:
In my venture to try and install an older version of INPA (one that would carry the pump bleed procedure) I started looking at videos online along with downloads that contained older versions of the software. I quickly realized that the new versions carry over the older data, its just more added data for the new chassis/modules. It’s within this concept that I started playing around with the new INPA versions and how its put together (I’m an IT guy) – I quickly figured out that it carries its display GUI menu in a .ini file the file path for the config is located at “C:\EC-APPS\INPA\CFGDAT\” – the .ini we are looking for is inpa.ini (make a copy of the original) – You should be able to double click this file and edit in notepad.

This config file basically gives you a layout of the menu functions of INPA and where the data is located within the folder structure of the OS. At this point you will want to pick and choose which option you want to replace, I replaced E70 for my special tests.

Original inpa.ini file:



Modified inpa.ini file:



Original INPA interactive Menu (you can see its running E70):



New INPA Interactive menu with changed function:



When you hit Shift + F3, special tests pops up and SMG Bleed procedure is now accessible on version 5.0.6 of INPA.



I cannot stress enough that you will need to bleed the system multiple times to get all air out of it, its not a one bleed does it (it never is) – I truly hope this has been informative and helps anyone out there, happy bleeding!