[00:02] going to show you what caused our lemons BMW engine to catastrophically fail at our very first endurance race so at this point of the race I just finished my first few laps and we switched drivers so now it's Aaron's turn on the track
[00:15] Aaron was doing amazing he moved up nine positions in just seven laps but at the end of the half mile straight after breaking hard from 100 mph into a tight turn the engine let loose and sent Rod number two to the Moon we actually got
[00:28] can see right at the end of the street there was a huge cloud of smoke and ended up pulling off the track because the engine was running rough and there was no oil pressure and we got the car towed back to our
[00:40] pit well that's not good any idea what happened I have no clue after doing a little bit of diagnosing it was pretty clear the engine was toast that is a rod well it was it was at some point yeah so we
[00:57] local junkyard and we Tri swapping engines at the race pull all the way out engines at the race pull all the way out pull it have yeah that's fine we got our old engine out and we saw the extent of the
[01:12] damage which was pretty bad with multiple holes in the block to get the junkyard engine into the car so we pushed our race car back into the heard of this car now back home teammate Pierce asked
[01:26] if he could take the lead and put the junkyard engine back into the car so he a lot of fun with it first pierce disassembled the entire junkyard motor and just left the head on he then installed the very important aftermarket
[01:39] chain tensioner on the oil pump these oil pumps are known to fail and this drill then he drilled two holes in the block and then threaded the new tensioner into the block and with the sigh of relief that new tensioner fit
[01:51] perfect Pierce also wire tied the oil pump nut because they're known to back off at high RPM and then he took apart the Vanos which is BMW's variable timing replaced all the seals on both the engine and the differential that way our
[02:05] BMW will be the only BMW on the track possibly in the world that doesn't leak fluids and finally Pierce went on a cleaning spree and cleaned everything he could and with a clean engine it's a lot easier to work on also you could easily
[02:18] identify leaks and problems that you might have so with the engine all put together fresh seals all cleaned up looking amazing he got it back in the car added some oil and the swap was complete all right so Pierce did an
[02:31] awesome job freshening up this 140,000 Mi X3 engine and getting it installed and we are ready to race it is good to go let's start her
[02:45] nice and quick she idles nice and smooth and she drives great so we are ready to race now we did learn a bunch from our first endurance race and the first thing we learned is we need seat time in this car before our next endurance race
[02:58] bunch of laps we need to practice getting in and out we need to practice fueling up we need to practice taking the turns just get a good feel for this car and beat on it that way we know the engine's going to last and that way if
[03:11] Race not during the race we also learned that this car is way too quiet with the stock exhaust so listen to this so that sounds really good and how we did this was we got stainless steel
[03:28] ful length headers and you're probably like Chris but there's a $500 budget well guess what these cost $100 I found them on eBay fulllength stainless steel headers they're actually really nice and they fit really well they fit so well
[03:41] that I have an extra pair here because my buddy bought them for his car and he's going to put on his BMW so we have headers we have the rest of the stock exhaust and then if you remember we cut off the muffler at the racetrack which
[03:53] not only saved us 2030 lb but it also makes this car sound awesome so we're loudness that we need so we could hear what RPM we're at we're getting a little engine run better we don't have these big hot heavy cats right next to the
[04:08] engine and overall it's perfect it's exactly what we needed for this car now difference between the stock exhaust manifolds and our aftermarket headers exhaust gases are flowing out of the head into this manifold look at how thin
[04:24] this manifold is look at that that is Tiny and it pinches down and then it turns 90° here and then it turns 90° here into a restrictive cat and then you have all these bends going out is just not good now compare that to our header
[04:38] this is all Mandel bent tubing nice and smooth equal length all the way down to our collector and that is just going to be so much better compared to this and track we don't need to run one which is great now since this is a straight six
[04:51] we have two of these exhaust manifolds and look how thin this is again crazy restrictive 90° turn into a restrictive cat compare that mandrel bent equal length tubing our headers are going to make a huge difference here and not only
[05:05] will there be a difference in airf flow but wait these weigh 30 lb these weigh 8 lb that's a huge difference every little bit counts on this race car and the racing you always want to have a backup engine just in case I don't plan on this
[05:19] going but if it does our team now knows how to swap out an engine in this car very quickly so a backup engine is a great idea and I have a friend down in Florida Jamie with Elite Motorworks who knows how to make these engines super
[05:32] reliable so he's going to go and freshen up an engine for us so we could have it as a backup check it out thanks Chris guys my name is Jamie I'm the owner of endurance racing reliability is absolutely a
[05:44] must last year Chris and his team had an engine failure and they needed another they're out of the race they don't want that to happen again so Chris has asked me to build him the most reliable backup BMW engine ever so I'm taking a BMW M54
[05:59] the block I'm rebuilding the engine to make it more reliable than new and I'm doing it by using upgraded components now we're not adding horsepower what it the most reliable engine ever so don't worry Chris I got you now if you
[06:15] guys want to see our backup engine get completely rebuilt Jamie is filming the entire process for you guys from tearing it down to the Machine Shop to building it back up he knows the ins and outs of these M54 engines he will show you what
[06:28] I'll leave a link to that video in the description it's up now it's a great video Jam's a great mechanic really nice guy and I think you're going to like it so we have our junkyard engine installed ready to go for the race we have a
[06:42] which will be ready by the race but what the heck happened to our engine that was in the car when we got it this is the engine we took to the race and this is the engine that didn't make it home but what caused the problem and our race
[06:56] team is really methodical we like to know exactly why something fails so that we could correct it so we tore apart this engine completely every nut and bolt every bearing every piston everything is taken apart so we could
[07:10] analyze it and see what went wrong so let's start right here with what failed cylinder number two you can see the rod and piston are destroyed so this is what it should look like and that's what all the other rods and pistons look like
[07:22] they're all completely fine and this is what cylinder number two looks like it's here at this interface Cas where the bearing cap and the rod meet we think that's the main point of failure that's what all started it so what caused this
[07:36] well the first thing you would think of for this engine is the oil pump we lost problem on this engine so it's very common on these M54 engines for this to nut on here usually we're actually using the nut in the new engine it's wire tied
[07:51] and all that but this nut because of resonance because of vibration at high RPMs backs off and then the sprocket comes off and then now you lose all oil pressure because the chain can't drive the shaft which drives this pump now in
[08:03] bad motor on race day and we were convinced this blew up because the oil nut's still on there and it was actually on there tight so our oil pump was completely fine it worked and we did not have an oil pressure light come on until
[08:17] after the engine threw a rod so it wasn't the famous oil pump failure that logical thing we could think of was driver error Aaron was at the end of that straight high RPM he had to downshift multiple times and slow the
[08:31] car down so he could have money shifted by accident meaning he could have over R the engine by shifting incorrectly but luckily we were datalogging the engine here you could see the engine RPM when Aaron was driving and for this engine
[08:44] red line is 6500 RPMs and you could see the engine never revved past that RPM so Aaron definitely didn't over rev the engine and just so you have an idea right here at the 1630 Mark that's where the engine blew up now looking at the
[08:57] cooling temperature when I ran the the car and that's the green line and you Aaron ran the car and that's the blue line and you can see Aaron pushed the car a lot harder he has a lot more experience driving BMWs so he's able to
[09:09] push that car now right at this Mark is where the engine blew up and just to engine so our coolant temperatures should be within the zone of this green area even a little bit above that is fine especially on the track now where
[09:21] now that you know that you can see where the engine blew up and then it actually the end of the straight so the engine had time was still running it had time to cool down and then a half a mile later he drove off the track and shut it
[09:34] spiked after he shut it off is because the coolant is no longer flowing so all created from this broken engine is just heat soaking and has nowhere to go so that's why it spiked to over 245° F so
[09:48] having access to this data was amazing we know we didn't overheat the engine we know we didn't money shift the engine we didn't over rev it and Aaron actually consistent way more consistent than me he is a
[10:01] great driver so it wasn't human error that caused this failure and if it wasn't human error then what caused it well after analysis of this entire engine we've come to the conclusion that the engine spun a rod bearing in
[10:14] tell this was a spun bearing but real quick let me show you what a spun bearing is so these are a set of rod bearings and you can see that they are worn down to the Copper normally you would see a silver color kind of like
[10:27] this bearing but even this is worn worn down all these came from that bad engine so it's going to have wear marks on it but without that wear Mark in the middle that gray color should be consistent across this whole bearing surface and
[10:39] it's not cuz it's worn down that is called a babit layer that is a mixture of metals that is a very low friction surface and underneath that is a copper compression from the engine and then behind that is the steel backing of the
[10:52] you could see score marks like this you know your bearing is toast and all these bearing works so how a set of rod clamp in so it'll clamp into the cap and
[11:05] loose cuz they're worn out but pretend these snap in place and they sit on the rod like that so with the bearings snapped into the rod they are one with the rod now the rod will clamp down onto the crankshaft like that and then you
[11:20] would just tighten these bolts down to connect the rod to the crankshaft now Journal surface this surface right here Will Never Be Touched by these bearings on here you can see that right there that is an oil Gallery that's a hole in
[11:35] the crankshaft that provides oil pressure that puts oil around this so with an engine that's running perfect these will never touch that journal there's always oil in between and that's very important so basically the rod
[11:47] bearings are always connected to the rod and they ride on a thin oil film around if you lose oil pressure or if your bearings are worn out just from Bad maintenance and these bearings touch this surface here they will grab onto
[12:02] the crankshaft surface they're just spinning and they're going to spin inside of the rod and the rod does not have any lubrication so this spins really fast 6,500 RPMs fast over and over and over and this will heat it up
[12:17] how the rod bearings fail so that's literally what a spun bearing is it's a bearing that grabs onto the crankshaft surface cuz there's no oil film anymore and it literally spins inside of this over and over and over until it just
[12:32] catastrophically fails and that's why when you have a spun bearing the bearing is toast and this becomes black so not only can you see the black heat mark on the crankshaft but you can also see it on the rod itself so take a look at this
[12:45] again this is all discolored because of how hot it got it's black in there you effect that you get when you have really hot metal you see that rainbow effect lot kind of turns a rainbow color cuz
[12:59] happens here and not only does it change the color of the metal but it changes the strength there's a lot of force going on as this engine is running and all of a sudden this overheats now these little Rod bolts they start fatiguing
[13:12] they might break off and then this separates and then now you have your Rod that's what actually blew through our engine block that's what created the hole so this was banging around in here until it bursted through and destroyed
[13:24] that block and then this piston head is what hit the valves you could actually intake valves this actually bent the exhaust valves you can see the exhaust valves are completely bent open it should look like that but those are
[13:37] stuck open and that's because our piston hit those exhaust Valves and that caused our piston to crack so now you know how to diagnose if your engine has a spun bearing and you also know what a spun bearing actually is but what causes it
[13:51] so almost every cause of a spun bearing is related to an oil issue first you could have dirty oil because your air filter or oil filter isn't doing its job of oil on here if it has dirt in it the dirt could increase the friction enough
[14:04] RPMs next you could have oil contaminated with fuel coolant or water on here so if there's water or fuel in this oil it could thin it out and that bearing will make contact with that crankshaft journal and that could cause
[14:19] the bearing to spin next your oil could be broken down oil that hasn't been changed often enough could be broken down and the viscosity or the thickness protection needed to lubricate the bearing so the bearing could make
[14:32] bearing could spin next you could have too much oil if your engine is filled up with too much oil the rods could actually splash the oil creating Bubbles oil won't protect the bearing and the bearing could contact the crankshaft
[14:46] next is the opposite problem you could have oil starvation or not enough oil pressure if the car is taking sharp Corners like on the racetrack the oil could slash to one side of the oil pan causing the oil pickup to suck up air in
[14:59] engine will be starved of oil you'll have zero oil pressure or if the not being taken care of with regular oil changes or maybe it's just a really high mileage engine you could have low oil pressure which could cause the bearings
[15:12] to make contact with the crank Chef journal and spin so how do we know what caused a spun bearing for our engine well luckily we have an oil sample you guys remember we took an oil sample at the track as we were removing the blown
[15:24] up engine and here are the results so you can pause the video and read the important parts there were high levels of iron copper lead and Tin which since that's what bearings are made of also there was no fuel or water or
[15:38] coolant in the oil and the viscosity was exactly what it should be 5 w40 finally indicates that the air and oil filters were working so there was no dirt in the at the actual numbers you could see how high the iron copper lead in tin numbers
[15:54] are compared to the averages and these averages are at 6,000 Mi of oil use and we only ran the engine for about 40 Mi but we ran it pretty hard on the track so we definitely did have significant bearing wear and at the bottom you could
[16:06] see that we didn't have any fuel antifreeze or water in the oil and the insolubles also known as the dirt in the oil were low so our oil sample analysis perfectly fine no contamination it wasn't the issue so then we started
[16:20] thinking maybe oil starvation or low oil pressure because of taking hard turns here's the pickup tube and this is about where where it sits in our oil pan now in e46s you run about an extra quart of oil which prevents starvation but this
[16:35] is an all-wheel drive version so we have something even better we have a built-in something even better we have a built-in baffle this is a baffle here because our differential which would be over here and since we have a differential over
[16:47] here this squeezes the oil pan shut so we don't have much room for the oil to turns so this oil pan is actually designed very well to prevent oil starvation so that wasn't the issue what we think happened is we had low oil
[17:02] pressure and the reason we had low oil pressure is because we had a worn old 24,000 Mi engine that wasn't taken care of obviously the previous owners did not got it so cheap and if you look at the gauge cluster in the car we don't have
[17:16] an oil pressure gauge all we have is this idiot light that will turn red when oil pressure is below 7 PSI so we had no clue what the oil pressure was just that it wasn't very very low so with an engine that isn't worn out and is in in
[17:29] good condition the oil pump at higher RPMs will be pushing 40 to 60 PSI of oil and that is enough to protect these journals to make sure that there's oil on here and the bearings do not touch them now in our case we obviously had a
[17:42] worn engine so we're thinking maybe we had 15 to 20 psi coming down that straight at 6,500 RPMs and it just wasn't enough it wasn't enough oil pressure it wasn't enough oil film on here to protect the bearing from hitting
[17:55] this journal and eventually it hit it hit it enough heated it up enough and it spun and that's exactly what killed our engine so a spun bearing is what caused our engine to catastrophically fail and I think that gives you guys a good idea
[18:08] of what happened at our very first lemons race now what's next for our lemons BMW we're good to race with our engine our engine's in there and we are good to go but before the next race we definitely need to get a new livery on
[18:20] this car you guys sent me a bunch of awesome liveries but none of them made probably this one right here but I feel like the body kit and Wing ALS make this there's aspects on all of these different ones that you guys sent in
[18:34] busy but at the same time we don't want it to look boring and I want everyone to instantly recognize this car among the millions of BMWs out there the lemons race is supposed to be a junk car so I like that rat rod look like this or like
[18:47] this so I think we should try to incorporate that into the car somehow for me to make me say hey we need to make sure our car looks like that so if email me one of your liy ideas feel free to do that because we're definitely
[19:01] going to have a liery on this car before the next race now one last thing I want noticed but I actually removed the fire suppression system I removed the battery cut off and I put the old steering wheel back in because I learned a ton from
[19:15] how to properly install all three of those things and we're actually adding some additional safety factors to it things I learned from the race and I going to do a video on how to properly install a quick release steering wheel
[19:28] function so I'm going to show you how to wire in a horn and we're also going to move our radio communication button to our steering wheel so this is the Mount steering wheel like that and the button goes right there so we don't have to
[19:41] order to press the button to communicate with our team then I'm going to show you how to install a fire suppression system as well as do a test
[19:54] that is hot quick fire in the hole and we're actually going to install pull yourself and an automatic system so if the driver's unconscious it could going to show you how to install a battery cut off
[20:13] battery that way if you wreck you won't have electricity that could spark and start a fire it's also a good theft deterrent device which makes it more go I hope you guys are enjoying the series and I hope you enjoyed this video
[20:25] our very first endurance race it didn't go the way we wanted to but we learned a stronger than ever if you enjoyed the video remember to give it a thumbs up if that subscribe button we have a lot of really cool and helpful videos on this
[20:37] car coming up and as always all the tools and products I used in this video are linked in the description so you can easily find them