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      01-10-2025, 08:08 AM   #67
spidertri
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Sweet Cayenne bro, going to need some more pics of that.
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      01-13-2025, 01:51 PM   #68
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Oil starvation even with the baffled oil pan? Hmm I've seen some people swear these cars need a dry sump and some people say they run the stock oil pan with no issues for years. How many track miles on your engine?
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      01-14-2025, 05:53 PM   #69
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I run on Rcv Zandvoort (NL) with slicks, without a drysump, i has a very hard breaking moment after hitting 225/235km/h followed by a u turn.
500whp+
I overfill my oil a bit before my trackday.

I do plan to install one, just to avoid unnecessary wear and damages.
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      01-15-2025, 08:46 PM   #70
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Trust the Process

I filmed the entire motor rebuild and replacement, but to get the heartbreak out of the way, I lost all the footage while backing up to iCloud. This means I won’t have the usual accompanying images and details to call out. Anyways…

Starting with the new donor motor, I conducted a leakdown test and got some scary numbers across all cylinders. 30%, 40%, and as high as 60% were shown which set off alarm bells in my head. After some quick googling, it turns out leakdown results on a motor that has been sitting are pretty much worthless as debris/corrosion can build up, preventing valves from sealing as they normally would. Thankfully boroscoping the cylinder walls showed minimal damage.

The first order of business was replacing the problematic Vanos bolts with the updated parts. Having already experienced the pain of these backing out on my original engine, I was meticulous in cleaning out the threads and applying torque values. This requires a specialty T45 security key to be done properly, as it gives enough extension for the ratchet to approach the bolts straight on. These are very soft, which I found out when I stripped the second of eight. Switching from a ⅜” to a ¼” ratchet solved the problem of the ratchet head pivoting on the cam cover, causing too much angle on the torx bit. For full instructions, see the TIS linked here.

Next up were the valve covers and oil pan. For the oil pan, I harvested the steel one from my original engine and my buddy welded in the Condor baffle. This is the simplest approach to tackling the oil starvation issue on lateral turns.

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Oil Starvation Context

At this point I’ll take an aside to describe the oil starvation problem. I cannot say with certainty as I haven’t been logging pressures, but it appears the N52 struggles with pressure drops in sweeping corners, especially left handers. Few people are tracking these motors, so solutions and data collection are in primitive stages. I know Phloozy has blown at least 2 engines, and I’ve popped mine so the oil starve problem is very real.

The easiest prevention method is to overfill by ½ to one quart of oil. What makes this difficult is the lack of a dipstick, though Fe1rx has a guide on how to view when oil is at “maximum” as read by the digital oil level sensor. Unfortunately it cannot read past 7 quarts, so as blowby and PCV activity increase at high RPMs, burning off oil, you’ll lose a reliable sense of how much oil is in the engine unless it’s less than 7 quarts. Having too much oil is undesirable as the crank will come into contact with the oil in the sump, leading to aerated oil which drives pressure drops as well. At best this approach will provide inconsistent protection.

The intermediate option is to overfill slightly and add an oil pan baffle. This works by utilizing trap-doors which surround the oil pickup with a finite supply of oil while cornering. During steady state conditions, the trap doors open allowing oil to flow to the pickup freely. In long sweeping corners, it’s possible for this baffled oil supply to run out, creating an oil starve condition.

A definitive solution is to add an oil accumulator to the oil circuit. These work by precharging a pressure chamber with a few quarts of oil. The oil pressure provided by the engine oil pump pushes oil into the accumulator, which is counteracted by air pressure on the other side of a piston in the accumulator’s chamber. This stores oil in the event that the engine experiences a pressure drop, as the force on the oil side of the piston will decrease, and the air side of the piston will push the reserve oil back into the oil pan so the pickup is submerged. JoeO has done this on his 135i, and it works the same on our N52s.

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Rebuild Continued

Any and all of these can be combined, with the ultimate judge of effectiveness being determined by an oil pressure gauge. Going forward I’ll be running an Aim Solo 2 DL to log pressures, but that install has yet to be completed. Back to the rebuild…

One hiccup I didn’t expect was that AWD N52s utilize a different oil pickup tube. I could see fragments of metal in my original engine’s, so rather than swap it over I ordered a new one. On the topside of the motor, I swapped over the eccentric shaft sensor then installed the new valve cover.

From there it was a simple if not laborious process of swapping over all the accessories. Headers with new gaskets, Valvetronic motor, A/C compressor, water pump, thermostat, idler pulley, crank pulley, spark plugs, coils, vanos solenoids, oil filter housing. Notably, the crank pulley is different on the automatic and manual motors, though I’m not sure if the heavier auto pulley would do any harm. Next I draped the engine harness over the new motor and connected all the sensors that were ready to go.

Then began the transmission adventure. I bolted up the JB racing lightweight flywheel no problem, but ran into an issue when I tried pairing the Valeo single mass pressure plate and clutch. My desire was to avoid using the unsprung OEM clutch to prevent chatter at idle. Test fitting revealed the locating pins on the pressure plate were not compatible with the flywheel. Who knows if the depth would have been appropriate to play nicely with the clutch fork, so maybe this saved me a headache. I begrudgingly pivoted to a new OEM clutch and pressure plate rather than spend nearly another thousand on a Clutchmasters solution.

After refreshing the transmission, it bolted up to the motor with ease and the entire assembly was ready to go back into the car. At this point we brought out the crane, which decided to have a comedic moment of its own. Having worked fine extracting the motor, the hoist jack gave up the ghost and wanted nothing more to do with the project. We paused rebuilding the car to rebuild the hoist, and a run to harbor freight saved the day.

Getting the drivetrain back into the car was simple until it wasn’t. The load leveler was running into the cowl no matter how we tilted the engine, preventing it from moving far enough backwards to land on the mounts. After spending an hour jockeying things around, we ultimately decided to place a jack under the transmission, then disconnected the chain linking the load leveler to the back of the motor. This gave us juuuuust enough room to seat the engine.

With the drivetrain in, I thought I’d feel a massive sense of accomplishment. In actuality I felt more stress than ever. I’m still pretty new to this car hobby, and was doubting all the variables that were going into the first start. What if I forgot something, broke a sensor, backed out the vavletronic motor too far, left a tool in the valve cover? All of that was stacked on top of the fact that I STILL had no idea if it was a good motor or not. Having taken all day and now being in the dark, I decided to come back to button everything up the next day.

THE NEXT DAY

From here it was a pretty straight shot of reconnecting the DME, bolting up the trans and driveshaft, connecting the exhaust, bolting down the motor mounts, replacing the entire cooling system, reinstalling the front clip, and adding all the fluids. Okay maybe that’s a bit much for a “straight shot”, but you get the point. It was all plug and play, and since I still had the videos from disassembly there were references any time I got stumped. This work did take all afternoon, and once again it was dark for a major milestone.

To prime the oil system, I disconnected the injectors to prevent them from firing and turned the starter over for 3 rounds of 10 seconds. I did a pedal dance to re-calibrate the valvetronic motor position. I plugged the injectors back in, and it was time to start.

I held my breath and pressed the ignition, as it started to turn over, hope was building. Next thing I know the engine came to life, and hope immediately turned to dread. It sounded like an industrial sized sewing machine, with a terrible clattering sound coming from the top end. It was unmistakably metal on metal. I quickly turned it off, and felt awash with despair. After being so careful, could this really be the position I found myself in? I’d put so much time and effort into putting this thing back together, an exercise that would be worth it to very few individuals, and this was what I had to show for it?

Then I started to recall the fact that lifters work on a hydraulic principle, and that over time oil can drain out of them leading to lifter tap. This sounded more like a lifter racket, but it might make sense as the motor had been sitting for almost two years. My buddy was thinking the same thing, and found a youtube video where someone’s 328 acted similarly albeit not as loud. They were able to bleed the system by holding the revs at 3k for 3 minutes.

Against all intuitive judgement, I got back in the driver’s seat and turned the car on. My buddy started a timer, and I pressed the accelerator to 3k, wincing as every instinct told me to back off. One minute passed, nothing but noise. Two minutes passed, no change. At 2 minutes and 30 seconds, all of a sudden things quieted down. Then the racket came back, but now we knew we were onto something. Another 30 seconds went by, and the noise went away again. Commence the jubilation and relief for myself and the crowd, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe an Italian tuneup was all that it needed. The motor sounded healthy and alive, with more refinement than my previous engine. I couldn’t believe it. The 128 was back.


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      01-15-2025, 10:55 PM   #71
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Nice job! 10,000 likes. What a roller coaster of emotions.
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