Since my last post, I've continued to make my 135i work hard nearly every single day. I've made this car live up to the road warrior name, putting nearly 700 miles on it each week and enjoying every second along the way. Each morning with the clutch in and a push of the ignition button, the engine fires right up with no hesitation, releases a quick roar, then quickly settles down to idle because of the Quiet Start mode embedded within the MHD tune. I continue to find this coupe practical, comfortable, quick as hell, and an absolute blast to drive through a number of different driving situations.
I know my driving experience would be greatly enhanced by installing the GC Lite and other mods I have sitting in my spare room, but I still haven't been able to pin down an exact time to start this tedious teardown. In the meantime, my mileage is continuously increasing and that means more maintenance. Not only was it time for an oil change with fresh Motul, but also time for a new set of NGK plugs as its been about 18,000 miles of E40 and 20psi since they were last changed.
Before we get to that, I wanted to share a few purchased I've been meaning to pull the trigger on. I've become less and less satisfied with the hodgepodge of different jacks and jack stands that I have access to at the shared garage I use, so I wanted to grab some new hardware that would be more suited for my setup.
For jack stands I went with Esco 10498 low-profile units with the included large circular rubber jack pads.
For the jack, I went with the
Sunex 6602LP 2 Ton, Low Rider Service Jack, which I picked up off Amazon for $217.99. I chose this because of the 2.75" to 24" height range, which would allow me to use it on the 135i and my Cayenne. Regarding the turbocharger replacement that I'm about to undertake, this should allow me to get the car high enough off the ground to comfortably work for a week or two.
Aside from the extreme weight (close to 100 pounds), this jack is impressive and looks phenonemal. Unfortunately, it arrived with no upper handle. Because of the hassle of returning such a heavy item, Amazon instead gave me a 50% refund. I was able to easily replace the upper handle with one off an old jack laying around the garage.
The finishing touch for the Esco stands were these Pivot-Top posts made specifically for the BMW jack pad by Reverse Logic. Now I'll no longer need jack pad adapters or worrying about breaking the pads themselves by destroying them with y-shaped jack stands.
I was a little disappointed to see that the Sunex jack wasn't long enough to fully reach the middle jack point under the engine by itself, but it got impressively close considering this car is lowered with a front lip. Using a smaller jack on one of the front jack pads using an adapter would still be necessary to get the new Sunex jack deep enough under the front bonnet.
I was very satisfied to see the Pivot-Top posts slide smoothly into the jack pads. This height provided ample room for an oil change and the jack stands still have plenty of upward range; range that I'll utilize when swapping turbos.
Sticking to the 5,000 mile oil change interval I've been adhering to lately, the old Motul X-Cess 5W40 oil was drained and replaced with 7 quarts of new Motul X-Cess 5W40, a new Mann oil filter and o-rings, and both catch cans were emptied. Since I drive this car so often, it only takes a few weeks before my Mishimoto OCC + RB external PCV needs dumping. As expected, after emptying the can a few weeks ago, today it was half full again. After 10,000 miles I checked the BMS OCC to find less than a teaspoon of oil coating the inside. I may get rid of that OCC altogether when replacing turbos. After addressing oil concerns, I then turned to the ignition. Eventually the old NGK plugs were out and looked pretty good from front to back. This came as no surprise however, as they've had zero misfires over their life.
In addition to taking out the spark plugs, I also disconnected the injector electrical connections in preparation of performing a compression test--just to ease my mind about my smoking when coming to a stop. I'm fairly positive that the issue stems from leaking turbo seals, but I wanted confirmation there wasn't something more serious going on before I went through the trouble of upgrading to higher flowing turbochargers. For this, I utilized the
OTC Deluxe Compression Kit. This was easy to use, had the correct insert, and worked perfectly.
With the engine warm, but not hot, I left the spark plugs out and one by one hand tightened the compression tester in cylinders 1-6. Each time I would go inside the car, depress the clutch, and let the car turn over 10 times. When it was all said and done, my 92,000 mile N54 passed with flying colors.
Afterwards, 6 new NGK plugs were installed and shouldn't need replacing until closer to 110,000 miles (or when I upgrade turbos), whichever comes first.
And while I reinstalled the stock coils with around 25,000 miles of use on them because they were working perfectly at current power levels, reinforcements have arrived for the increased power right around the corner. I'll probably hold on to these and just install everything all at once closer to Spring.
