Yup, looking for a used ZHP motor. I don't want to part it out, but may still go that route. We will see. I'll definitely tear into the old one to see what the failure was. Speculation is that it might be a wrist pin. The car only has a few sessions on the track, nothing serious.
As an aside, what is a rolling chassis with a brand new cooling system, brand new Bilstein B8s and H&R sports at all four corners, Rogue short shifter, mint AL HIDs retrofitted with ZKW lenses, new Dr. Vanos kit, new brake pipes, new stainless steel brake lines, new cross-drilled zimmerman rotors & pads, new Pilot Super sport tires, control arms, poly CABs, poly RTABs, poly subframe bushings, TMS subrame reinforcement, BMW SIB epoxy injected subframe floor, and a super clean interior worth?
Totally forgot to update this post! I swapped in a used motor that we took apart to reseal and upgrade a bit. I tore down the old motor afterwards and found this as the root cause. I finished 2/3rds of a track day with it making the knocking noise, AND drove it a few hundred miles. Not many motors would hold up like that with a badly worn rod bearing.
I *think* it was cylinder number 1, but it was a few months back so I don't remember exactly. I keep this on my desk now It looks a little extra-crappy in the photo because it came out months ago and I cleaned the excess oil off of it before I took it into the house.
We are plagued with this kind of bearing wear in the S54 engine, but I didn't know it could also be a problem with the M54. Do you know if your other bearings looked similar, or was it just this one? The top of your engine looked amazing. Sorry this happened. I'm going to be doing a rod bearing replacement on my S54 soon. It probably won't take me more than 10 hours. Uggh.
Salty
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2005 BMW 330Ci ZHP Jet Black/Black with aluminum cube
Bone stock at the moment
Just curious, did you happen to notice when you tore down the engine if the oil pump nut was still firmly attached?
Salty
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2005 BMW 330Ci ZHP Jet Black/Black with aluminum cube
Bone stock at the moment
The others were all fine. I don't think it's a major issue with the M54 though, at least not like it is with the e46 and e9x M3. This car had over 250k miles at the time, and when I bought the car it had an oil filter housing with a major drainback issue that caused the oil light to stay on for up to 5 seconds at each start. God knows how long the PO had left it that way. The shop I go to has a ton of high mileage e46s and this is the first time a motor had blown due to anything other than gross negligence.
Thanks for the info, Sean!
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2005 BMW 330Ci ZHP Jet Black/Black with aluminum cube
Bone stock at the moment