ok I have two VANOS faults thrown on my dual vanos M3... Exhaust Advance and Inlet Retard. Now if those two solenoids had actually hard failed would my car necessarily run like crap? The car currently idles and drives fine under all conditions. Has anyone else received surprise vanos fault codes? I suspect the faults could be furfies resulting from a deteriorating vanos condition. Is there perhaps a common element between the exhaust advance and inlet retard solenoids?
What should be my next step here? I am thinking do the "Mukerji" o-ring procedure (easy and can't hurt) and bench test/inspect the solenoids while they are out.
hi shadey, my vanos had faulty solenoids as well, the car still ran quite well though. it idled fine, and was still quite powerful. now that its replaced, the torque delivery is smoother and the car pulls harder
altho, the unit dr vanos sent me has a stuffed exhaust solenoid, so my idle is now really lumpy, as the exhaust camshaft does not return to the nominal angle on idle. he has been good enough to help diagnose the problem via email and send me another solenoid pack tho.
Ok I have clarified with the mechanic, my problem is all on the exhaust side (as is usually the case) and very likely only to be solenoid related. I am going to 'service' my solenoids then get another diagnostic run and I'll report back
Last edited by shadey; 22-01-2010 at 10:33 AM.
Just an update in regards to my vanos saga;
It's become clear the unit sent to me by Dr Vanos is faulty, as replacing the exhaust solenoids has made things worse. My idle is terrible and the car is surging all over the place. Some of the seals on the exhaust side must be dodgy, which stops the cam from returning to the right spot.
Camshaft is definitely in the wrong spot on idle, but is on the correct angle under throttle
I have mailed Dr Vanos to find out what the story is but he has so far been unresponsive. So far I would probably recommend to stay away from him for these reasons.
Further to this, he has not creditted me for core unit I sent back. I must admit this is probably my fault because it has leaked oil in transit. It is stuck at US customs for almost 2 months now. He does not appear to be making any effort to retrieve the unit from them, after initially stating they were repacking it and re sending it to him.
I have mailed Beisan Systems to see if they sell a E36 M3 vanos repair kit, and he has advised they will be available in a few months.
Does anyone else know if there another place to get a decent set of seals for the 3.2L vanos? Don't want the stock BMW ones.
http://iridiumengineering.co.uk/vanos.htm
Sells B30 and B32 Kits with bolts.
Im going to be getting the B30 kit soon, it replaces most seals apart from the piston seal, but they are developing that now and will have it ready in a few weeks time, but that seal req the vanos to be removed.
What else does DrVanos do to the vanos to rebuild it?
Beisan Systems will have a kit ready soon they say, and there after Beta testers atm.
Im using Shell Helix Ultra 5w-40, is this ok / what should i be using???
Cheers,
Chris
Last edited by BLAKE AuST; 12-04-2010 at 08:46 AM.
The problem with these "Kits" is that they're incomplete. The all important piston seals are not included.
I put my own kit together (less piston seals) from a combination of viton and factory seals and it made no difference to the vanos noise.
Only when I sent a spare to drvanos did it make a difference-but then I also restored the timing and they tighten up the clearance on the gear bearings, and they install piston seals as well.
I've seen longitudinal play between the gears that wont disappear unless the gears are constantly loaded in one direction-maybe they are loaded hydraulically but the system can't respond quickly enough ?
The end result is the marble in a tin can noise came back sooner than I expected ,and I don't expect it will go away unless someone has an epithany and solves it.
i always assumed the rattle in the tin can noise is the bearing on the back of the spline shafts
BMW made the tolerances wrong on them so they bounce around a bit once they get older and make the noise
its unrelated to performance/failing seals etc
here is an excerpt from drvanos:
"The factory Euro vanos units are also well known for the annoying rattling or diesel sound heard at idle and low RPM's. It needs mentioning that the rattling noise is not directly related to the failing seals, and is a separate issue of it's own. It will not harm the engine and is not an indication of the health of the vanos, but is simply an engineering oversight that can be easily fixed with some minor internal modifications.
The common 'diesel rattle' that is heard on the Euro 3.2 and 3.0 vanos units can be attributed to the splined gears that fit at the back of the vanos, connecting the vanos to the cam gears. Each splined gear has a bearing assembly inside which allows it to spin freely with the camshaft. These bearing assemblies are designed with a very loose tolerance from the manufacturer, causing them to rattle or resonate at certain RPM's. At DrVanos we slightly modify these bearings to bring the tolerances much closer together for a tighter fit. By reducing the tolerances in the bearing assembly, the gears no longer resonate and the diesel rattling is virtually eliminated. This is a permanent modification that will last the life of the car.
Also included in the rebuild service are new gaskets, oil filter, and oil pump retaining rings. The oil pump is also rebuilt and the solenoids are bench tested using the BMW solenoid switch box to ensure everything is working properly before shipping the vanos to you. "
Hey Paul, did you end up getting your Dr Vanos kit working in the end or are you still having issues?
my car is still in bits, undergoing the smg to manual conversion
so the vanos has not yet been attended to. i did get a set of new seals for it though from iridium
hi Dus, any word on where to get the piston seals from? my vanos is out and the piston seals on the exhaust side are stuffed. maybe they forgot to change them. the iridium seal kit does not include the piston seals.Originally Posted by Dus_M3
To get the piston seals a group would need to get together and have a bunch of them machined from graphite impregnated viton-otherwise they're just not available.
I'm putting together a kit to have a bleeder and pressure gauge inline with the pressure accumulator, I have to wonder whether there is a full 100bar available as the spring in the pressure limiter ages.
Dr V is sending me a new piston with new seals on it. So hopefully this will solve my problem
good to hear he got back to you
I hooked up a custom pressure tester today, I've currently got a '96 vanos installed so I thought for sure pressure will be down at least a little.
Well wrong I was, bang on 1500 psi at steady rpm with closed or partially open throttle . Interestingly, blipping the throttle causes a momentary dip in pressure of about 500 psi, but I also had the accumulator disconnected to use the port.
Open the throttle a little more and at steady 3k revs the gauge needle oscillates about 20% of setpoint.
I think oil starvation from the head is causing the dip and oscillation, I'll only know if I do the test again with the accumulator connected.
If I get a good reading then all is well, if not then supplying oil from the pump via a braided hose is an option.
If I'm wasting effort, feel free to save me.
i think its worth checking out because if the oil starvation is the culpurt we can look at alternatives and free flowing oil through the vanos
the vanos filter got dumped in the s54 so maybe we can work on that in the s50 to improve pressure
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