Tuned! 332whp! My Engine Build - Cams, Airbox, LTW Flyhweel & more :)

[Thoglan]

digger I would be really curious to see a proper write up of engines built exactly the same but run in differently, would be really interesting if there was a measurable difference in them. Thanks for the reference to the total seal guys, I'll take a look.

With regards to experience, you are right in that just doing something for a long time does not mean you are knowledgeable. However, I would protest that building engines in a competitive environment and maintaining the reputation as probably the most knowledgeable and qualified in NZ to touch these engines/gearboxes/diffs would suggest otherwise. Not to mention at various points in time being contracted by BMW Motorsport to work on these. Not many people involved in BMW Motorsport in NZ don't know who Kayne Barrie is. For those reasons I have a hard time believing the recommendation to run the normal oil was unfounded and misinformed.

[Thoglan]

STAATS Sorry I didn't mean to imply you were questioning his credentials. Only that I trust his experience and that's what I'm basing everything off. I myself am not overly well versed in this as I'm sure it can be endlessly complex.

From the start I've maintained that regardless of what you read on the forums, you should probably just follow whatever your engine builder says.

[STAATS]

STAATS I must admit that I am 100% talking outside of my knowledge and largely appealing to an authority, but all of us on here are. And obviously FA protection is an exaggeration but the fundamental point is that under any significant load or RPM it will not provide the necessary lubrication these need. At what point does 'controlled' wear just become wrecking your fresh hone and putting premature wear on the bearings. Whether or not it was simplified for my sake, probably. But his credentials are unquestionable as he's built BMW engines for 30 years and has a direct line with BMW. He was commissioned by BMW in the early 2000's to develop tooling to service the Getrag 420G and is one of the few in the world who is able to rebuild them. Anyone else who is rebuilding them is likely doing so using his tools.

In addition to knowing him personally, it's hard to to argue. The impression I got when talking to him honestly, was that the process you follow is not that significant to the final outcome but synthetic is the safer bet.

Yer I was never questioning your engine builders credentials... just saying his statement was OTT... But what digger says is also correct, he can be an expert in engine building... doesn't strictly mean he is an expert in lubrication... but I'm not really here to argue that either... again most of this stuff is superstition... there many many "correct" ways to run in an engine but basically any oil that can work in your given engine, run through a break-in process for ~1000km, will do some amount of seating the engine without destroying it... which is best is a source for discussion but without hard data like blow-by rates, cylinder pressures, oil temperatures and oil analysis we are all just pissing in the breeze at each other.

[digger]

STAATS I must admit that I am 100% talking outside of my knowledge and largely appealing to an authority, but all of us on here are. And obviously FA protection is an exaggeration but the fundamental point is that under any significant load or RPM it will not provide the necessary lubrication these need. At what point does 'controlled' wear just become wrecking your fresh hone and putting premature wear on the bearings. Whether or not it was simplified for my sake, probably. But his credentials are unquestionable as he's built BMW engines for 30 years and has a direct line with BMW. He was commissioned by BMW in the early 2000's to develop tooling to service the Getrag 420G and is one of the few in the world who is able to rebuild them. Anyone else who is rebuilding them is likely doing so using his tools.

In addition to knowing him personally, it's hard to to argue. The impression I got when talking to him honestly, was that the process you follow is not that significant to the final outcome but synthetic is the safer bet.

mineral oil is fine for almost all street cars if a sensible oil is chosen and OCI are adjusted , the only time it isn't is in the extremity's of normal operating environment which is not relevant to break-in. I would use a dedicated breakin oil which is typical mineral based rather than random mineral oil from walmart as thats not very smart as you would never know whats in it.

controlled wear stops wrecking your hone when you take it out after monitoring the blowby numbers and crankcase pressure and stability is reached. What this means in practice is following the guidelines of oil change interval from the manufacturer of the oil/system.

read some of the seminars on this from the guys at total seal (Keith Jones and Lake Speed Jr), they know what they are talking about as they have measured all this stuff and are experts in the field of tribology and rings and have data to back their positions and work at highest end of motorsport as well as OE.

Doing something for 30 years does not mean a person knows what they are talking about (this is a general statement about life that people should be able understand and not intended about any individual), it just means they are experienced but could be good bad or otherwise.

Like everything there are lots of ways to effectively skin a cat but some can be shown work better than others.

[Thoglan]

STAATS I must admit that I am 100% talking outside of my knowledge and largely appealing to an authority, but all of us on here are. And obviously FA protection is an exaggeration but the fundamental point is that under any significant load or RPM it will not provide the necessary lubrication these need. At what point does 'controlled' wear just become wrecking your fresh hone and putting premature wear on the bearings. Whether or not it was simplified for my sake, probably. But his credentials are unquestionable as he's built BMW engines for 30 years and has a direct line with BMW. He was commissioned by BMW in the early 2000's to develop tooling to service the Getrag 420G and is one of the few in the world who is able to rebuild them. Anyone else who is rebuilding them is likely doing so using his tools.

In addition to knowing him personally, it's hard to to argue. The impression I got when talking to him honestly, was that the process you follow is not that significant to the final outcome but synthetic is the safer bet.

[STAATS]

I ran synthetic 10w60 the entire time. First startup all the way through. As per the recommendation of my engine builder, who is probably the most well regarded BMW engine builder in NZ and has built them for racecars since they were new. His words were 'non-synthetics offer fuck all protection in these engines' and running for a period of decreased load/rpm with the normal oil will break them in just fine. Changed at 850km for fresh stuff and now sitting at about 1500km with another change soon. I maintain that running non synthetic in them from the start is absolutely fine. I would be comfortable changing over if I were you. But ultimately it is your call, and probably best to just follow the advice of whomever built your motor.

Intuitively if there is a interference between parts, e.g. the cylinder walls with a fresh hone and the rings, that will self clearance regardless of what oil is in there. If anything it makes sense that in a engine built to proper spec, with the right hone, torque plated, properly gapped rings etc, it would seem a more protective oil would give those two components a tighter more refined seal. But honestly it's probably all guesswork and superstition as many have said in this thread. Not many people build an engine, run it in, then strip it down rebuild it and run it in using a different run in procedure and then measure the differences. Chances are they all end up at the same conclusion anyway.

I think your engine builder is being a bit OTT and over simplifying with a statement like non-synthetic provides FA protection in these engines. It does definitely provide less and that is part of the point, so the superstition goes... Break-in with synthetic has the potential to not allow the piston-rings to seat but instead to glaze over. as it is too "slippery"... As digger says this doesn't strictly manifest as catastrophic issues but instead would manifest as additional oil consumption and blow-by... so in general, regular punters (like most of us), wouldn't strictly be able to tell the different between a non-synthetic and a synthetic break-in... This is actually 80% of the reason I installed a Radium Automotive Catch Can after rebuilding my engine so that I could monitor the blow-by during break-in to check the piston rings were seating correctly (the other 20% was to keep the oily residue out of my pretty new CF airbox haha)

Digger is pretty on to it with why some places, including many auto manufacturers, are perfectly comfortable with a synthetic oil break-in, because their engine build tolerances have become so good they basically sell it to you ready to go... well this is true to a point... I believe it is Audi... for the R8... or maybe one or all of the RS models? (could be wrong) who actually break-in the engine on the dyno before installing in the car as they do not trust the consumer to do it right and want to give them the keys ready to hit redline day one... This is also something Porsche has supposedly considered doing at some point...

[digger]

I ran synthetic 10w60 the entire time. First startup all the way through. As per the recommendation of my engine builder, who is probably the most well regarded BMW engine builder in NZ and has built them for racecars since they were new. His words were 'non-synthetics offer fuck all protection in these engines' and running for a period of decreased load/rpm with the normal oil will break them in just fine. Changed at 850km for fresh stuff and now sitting at about 1500km with another change soon. I maintain that running non synthetic in them from the start is absolutely fine. I would be comfortable changing over if I were you. But ultimately it is your call, and probably best to just follow the advice of whomever built your motor.

Intuitively if there is a interference between parts, e.g. the cylinder walls with a fresh hone and the rings, that will self clearance regardless of what oil is in there. If anything it makes sense that in a engine built to proper spec, with the right hone, torque plated, properly gapped rings etc, it would seem a more protective oil would give those two components a tighter more refined seal. But honestly it's probably all guesswork and superstition as many have said in this thread. Not many people build an engine, run it in, then strip it down rebuild it and run it in using a different run in procedure and then measure the differences. Chances are they all end up at the same conclusion anyway.

The idea is the oil is specified to allow some amount of controlled wear like a final honing process. In an ideal world the parts are prepared exactly as intended and there is no breakin in needed. With modern equipment and measuring/inspection tools many high end places essentially achieve that in that after a pull on the dyno after the engine first gets hot its all sealed up. However the majority wouldn't even know what a profilometer was.

All the aftermarket testing i have seen suggest its safest to use a breakin oil and then after a short period change to the regular oil as it is more forgiving and almost never will it be a problem unless the honing was junk to begin with. Where as not doing that occasionally things do not work as well, this doesn't manifest as a a catastrophe but slightly less ring seal and higher than normal oil consumption the former of which the average punter wouldn't be aware of.

It should be noted that honing equipment, operator skill, ring material and cylinder wall material varies greatly which produces vastly different cylinder wall conditions so its hard to generalise.

BMW may use synthetic but they have qualified their process with the honing methods they have used and done alot of testing to ensure it meets their requirements. They are also mass producing things so cannot afford to be a pedantic as others.

[Thoglan]

I just finished my rebuild too and just dropped the Driven break in oil with about 120 miles on it. I did the progressive loading break in, working up to about 5.5k rpm 2/3 throttle with hills and coasting thrown in.

Am I good to swap to the synthetic 10w60 or should I stay on conventoinal oil for more mileage?

I ran synthetic 10w60 the entire time. First startup all the way through. As per the recommendation of my engine builder, who is probably the most well regarded BMW engine builder in NZ and has built them for racecars since they were new. His words were 'non-synthetics offer fuck all protection in these engines' and running for a period of decreased load/rpm with the normal oil will break them in just fine. Changed at 850km for fresh stuff and now sitting at about 1500km with another change soon. I maintain that running non synthetic in them from the start is absolutely fine. I would be comfortable changing over if I were you. But ultimately it is your call, and probably best to just follow the advice of whomever built your motor.

Intuitively if there is a interference between parts, e.g. the cylinder walls with a fresh hone and the rings, that will self clearance regardless of what oil is in there. If anything it makes sense that in a engine built to proper spec, with the right hone, torque plated, properly gapped rings etc, it would seem a more protective oil would give those two components a tighter more refined seal. But honestly it's probably all guesswork and superstition as many have said in this thread. Not many people build an engine, run it in, then strip it down rebuild it and run it in using a different run in procedure and then measure the differences. Chances are they all end up at the same conclusion anyway.

[Syfon]

I just finished my rebuild too and just dropped the Driven break in oil with about 120 miles on it. I did the progressive loading break in, working up to about 5.5k rpm 2/3 throttle with hills and coasting thrown in.

Am I good to swap to the synthetic 10w60 or should I stay on conventoinal oil for more mileage?

Many people have differing opinions here, and mine is stay with a mineral oil for the first 1,000km (600miles), and continue to drive it about loading it up in 3rd/4th/5th gears up hills with fresh mineral oil.

I'm just going on what others have told me re mineral oil. I'm sure you'll be fine switching to 10w60 fully synthetic oil now, so long as you've followed the correct procedure re loading the motor to get the piston rings to seat.

[Syfon]

Interesting... I would tend to agree with you that it is probably left over particles as your cleaning was potentially not good enough. If its not magnetic it could be any number of non-ferrous metals in the engine; aluminium, copper, lead, tin, etc. Mine was fresh rebuild and all new parts in the oil system and I had very very minimal particles even when only dropping at 1000miles (which I can objectively confirm through Oil Analysis)... I would strongly recommend if you are going to go through this effort of constant oil changing or flushing that you consider getting Oil Analysis done instead of speculating... its like ~$32/test at ALS Tribology. I bought a 10pack and an extraction pump for like ~$370 and I get a test every time my oil gets changed, Oil Analysis is so much more useful if taken regularly, its very hard to draw conclusions taking no tests and then trying to take one at ~90,000ks to see if you should change Bearings then... very cheap insurance when you are doing the labor yourself. Another interesting point of note is every oil test I have done so far has included the comment that my Oil Change intervals can be extended (including the sample of my run in oil) which means to say that I changed my oil too early... and is why I was providing a counter point to the idea that you do multiple oil changes instead of just the 1000mi oil change... although I didn't consider the fact your base engine spun a bearing and hence was potentially already full of particles... whereas I started with a clean slate.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. Time will tell.

As for oil analysis, I've saved oil samples from the first 4 drops. Will get in touch with this mob in Canning Vale and see what they find.

Yeah when it spun #3 bearing, there was copper flake literally everywhere in the motor. Sump, oil cooler, ofh, etc.. Harris hot-tubbed & cleaned every component. How well is anyone's guess. I did flush the oil cooler again myself. My guess is as good as anyone's at this stage, however I believe it's left of shit in the motor.

[Syfon]

Syfon Sounds pretty much the same as me. Although I only changed once at 850km, more often you change it the better I'm guessing. There was nothing in my oil or at the bottom of my drain pan but definitely a few small flecks in the oil filter. However my oil itself had a definitive metallic sheen, quite glittery. I was concerned by the flecks in my filter and sent some photos to my engine builder who has built these for racecars since they were knew, and he said he was happy with it. My guess is some small metallic debris is very par for the course for these engines. Frequent oil changes are probably best with non synthetic. Sounds like you're doing all the right things, depending on how much material you have in your oil and how long it keeps coming I think you can rest easy.

I'll be doing another change after about 850km again, but even after the first oil change I'm pretty comfortable bashing on it. It's hit red line a fair few times

I've opened up the oil filter after each of the oil changes and there are very few miniscule metallic pieces in there.

Upon dropping the oil for the 4th time last night, it still had metal in it, but it was most definitely a lot less than before.

Currently at ~200km. Will run this oil until I hit 500km at which point I'll drain it again.

Massive learning curve for me and I'm likely being ott anal about it but I just want to be sure.

I've taken her up to 6,000rpm under ~2/3 throttle several times up a hill, followed by letting it engine brake. Bottom end & valvetrain seem happy. Nothing abnormal to report at this stage.

[STAATS]

I just finished my rebuild too and just dropped the Driven break in oil with about 120 miles on it. I did the progressive loading break in, working up to about 5.5k rpm 2/3 throttle with hills and coasting thrown in.

Am I good to swap to the synthetic 10w60 or should I stay on conventoinal oil for more mileage?

Can def go to synthetic now... you could have run synthetic from the start... thats how the OE BMW break-in is done... I personally used a non-synthetic but I mean that was based on various factors such a superstition and convenience not really heavily based on fact. Andrew Lang advises break-in with the oil the engine will run on long term (so synthetic 10W-60) and a ~1000km break in so, between him and BMW chose your poison or pick a superstition haha

[chapmans]

I just finished my rebuild too and just dropped the Driven break in oil with about 120 miles on it. I did the progressive loading break in, working up to about 5.5k rpm 2/3 throttle with hills and coasting thrown in.

Am I good to swap to the synthetic 10w60 or should I stay on conventoinal oil for more mileage?

[STAATS]

I've now driven ~100km since first start. Changed the oil three times so far. Same oil each time + new filter.

After the first ~30minute run in, I dropped the oil and noticed a decent amount of metallic particles at the bottom of the oil pan. Normal from what I understand as all surfaces ae saying hello for first time.

I went for a ~15km drive followed by dropping the oil again. There were still metal particles, however less than before. I did see 2 or 3 miniscule copper pieces. I can't be sure it isn't from the bearings, however, I DID NOT replace my oil cooler; it was cleaned/flushed by the machine shop and I flushed it again with high pressure water. Maybe there was some left over copper floating in the oil cooler from the spun bearing. Furthermore, I can not be sure how thoroughly the block was cleaned. IMHO it is possible there was still some shit stuck in oil gallies or the cooler.

Went for a decent drive late last night. Up some good size hills, loading it in 3rd & 4th gear up to ~4k rpm, 1/2 - 2/3 throttle. No unusual noises. No knocking.

I'm going to drop the oil tonight and inspect for metal particulate contamination once again. The current lot of oil should have ~100km on it by the time I change it this evening.

For those whom have recently rebuilt their S54, what did you find in the oil after the initial start-up and run, and then after your first drive & oil change?

I have been reading a lot of forums (any and every performance car out there) and a lot of people whom have rebuilt their own motors were finding metallic particles in their oil for up the first 1,0000 miles, although it was less and less with each oil change (some of these people changed their oil 4 or 5 times in that first 1,000 miles to inspect for contamination). Everything I've read suggests this is normal wear as all new surfaces find their place, especially given I'm using a mineral oil allowing surfaces to "bed-in".

I did check my oil with a magnet fyi. No particles are magnetic. My guess is their Aluminium?

I'm speculating a bit here. Just want to be sure this motor won't go bang and need another rebuild...

Interesting... I would tend to agree with you that it is probably left over particles as your cleaning was potentially not good enough. If its not magnetic it could be any number of non-ferrous metals in the engine; aluminium, copper, lead, tin, etc. Mine was fresh rebuild and all new parts in the oil system and I had very very minimal particles even when only dropping at 1000miles (which I can objectively confirm through Oil Analysis)... I would strongly recommend if you are going to go through this effort of constant oil changing or flushing that you consider getting Oil Analysis done instead of speculating... its like ~$32/test at ALS Tribology. I bought a 10pack and an extraction pump for like ~$370 and I get a test every time my oil gets changed, Oil Analysis is so much more useful if taken regularly, its very hard to draw conclusions taking no tests and then trying to take one at ~90,000ks to see if you should change Bearings then... very cheap insurance when you are doing the labor yourself. Another interesting point of note is every oil test I have done so far has included the comment that my Oil Change intervals can be extended (including the sample of my run in oil) which means to say that I changed my oil too early... and is why I was providing a counter point to the idea that you do multiple oil changes instead of just the 1000mi oil change... although I didn't consider the fact your base engine spun a bearing and hence was potentially already full of particles... whereas I started with a clean slate.

[Thoglan]

Syfon Sounds pretty much the same as me. Although I only changed once at 850km, more often you change it the better I'm guessing. There was nothing in my oil or at the bottom of my drain pan but definitely a few small flecks in the oil filter. However my oil itself had a definitive metallic sheen, quite glittery. I was concerned by the flecks in my filter and sent some photos to my engine builder who has built these for racecars since they were knew, and he said he was happy with it. My guess is some small metallic debris is very par for the course for these engines. Frequent oil changes are probably best with non synthetic. Sounds like you're doing all the right things, depending on how much material you have in your oil and how long it keeps coming I think you can rest easy.

I'll be doing another change after about 850km again, but even after the first oil change I'm pretty comfortable bashing on it. It's hit red line a fair few times