[N55lif3]

Hi all,

Here to share what happened to me in the past two days.

I have a 12' 335i Pure Turbos Stage 2 77K miles. Yesterday it was wet out and raining so I decided to do a little drift around a turn. When I straightened out I noticed that my power steering went out and that the car actually shut off. No audible noise or anything that would make me think that something broke. Note that the car was on my daily map which is 8 pounds of boost (the stock map). Checked the codes. Nothing. I thought maybe alternator because I noticed that 2 minutes after I tried cranking that the lights in my interior were flickering and that the dash was also flickering (like when you have a dead battery). Checked belt and accessories. The car would only click but barely because the battery was dying

So I left the car there until today when I could keep it charged and check it. The car cranked very slowly for about 4 seconds in a weird manner but after that, it would only click. However, what confused me was that my dash would still flicker as if the battery was dead even though the car was hooked up with another car for over 10 minutes. I checked the codes again and I get three new codes:

2A60 - Ignition Relay and Injectors, supply voltage, fuel injection: short circuit to ground
3BD1 - No Message, DME Receiver, DSC Transmitter
CDB0 - No Message, DME Receiver, EGS/HIM Transmitter.

So here I think that maybe its a blown fuse since it was raining that night. check to see that there is a small puddle of water near my 6th cylinder coil even with the back covers on! I dry everything and remove the coil but there is no moisture on top of the spark plug or on the coil.

I then finally check the crank pulley to see if I could spin it as the thought of my engine being seized was lingering. The pulley wouldnt budge even with the car in neutral and with the spark plugs out until i manage to yank it until it spins with an inconsistency amount of force with each movement. I successfully spin it maybe two cycles before it gets stuck in one spot where it doesn't move at all.

I'm lost and don't know where this came from. I really had a passion for building this car and its sad knowing how sensitive and vulnerable it really is. I strongly guess that my engine seized after this turn but it shocks me as to why. Oil pump failure? Starvation from g-force? I dont know. The turn lasted maybe 2-3 seconds.

[Pladi]

As i was reading your post about 1/3 way down, all i could think is ' check if cranks spins freely'. High current demands or current loads can be interpreted as shorts. Unfortunately i think the high g and bad oil pan baffle design on these are an issue. I doubt ur oil pump failed.

Do you know if ur oil level when u last checked was full or a little less than full ?

[lwgrenier]

That's tough to hear, sorry man. When my engine seized the exact same thing happened--I noticed the steering become very heavy and realized the engine had shut off.
Apparently the design of the oil pan makes it susceptible to loss of oil to the sump area on certain high-g turns. I would assume this is what happened in your case. Prevention for this has been discussed extensively but no one has found a solution that doesn't carry excessive costs. I hope you manage to find a way out of this without spending too much money

[carguy138]

By any chance did this happen on a left turn?

There's a thread on spool street about low oil pressure under high g left hand corners and the oil pickup gets starved due to no baffle design in the oil pan.

m2/m3/m4 have a much different oil pan and secondary oil pump presumably for this reason.

[TheGoodTheBadTheUgly]

The N55 was never and poorly designed when it comes to drifting and taking very tight corners and it clearly shows in the pretty restrictive baffle design.

Sorry to hear what happened, especially after putting so much into it. I hope you find a reasonable solution that sits well with you.

When doing some research, the only ulgrade which I came about and that didn't need high cost or machining was the baffle from VAC motorsport. I have no clue if it actually adresses the problems we have efficiently.

https://store.vacmotorsports.com/mob...n55-p4854.aspx

[N55lif3]

Originally Posted by carguy138

By any chance did this happen on a left turn?

There's a thread on spool street about low oil pressure under high g left hand corners and the oil pickup gets starved due to no baffle design in the oil pan.

m2/m3/m4 have a much different oil pan and secondary oil pump presumably for this reason.

Yeah it was on a left turn unfortunately. Going to stick a camera down to see what's going on as one of my spark plugs had been pushed in by something as there's no more gap. Another one has a thin lining on top as if something scraped it.

[Ozzie335i]

N55, so what is the latest?

[TheGoodTheBadTheUgly]

Originally Posted by CoffeeBean

So is this only an issue in the E-series N55 since that baffle is not for the F-series?

I am not sure if they completely addressed the issue for the F-Series, but I was on RealOEM and I saw that the E90 and F30 use different variants of oil pickup tubes, a different oil pump (Probably internal change), and the oil pan is also a different code.

I don't know if that means that physically that baffle can't fit in the F-Series or even if that there is a use for any baffle for the F-Series, but it's small stuff I found out.

N55lif3, I hope things are doing ok buddy. Any update?

[N55lif3]

Hey so I did some extensive work on my car to see if anything uptop was the issue.

First started off by checking my oil filter. Each fold contained about 2-3 specs of tiny metal particles. I then took out the oil and drained it through a filter. Caught absolutely nothing and the oil was pretty dirty after about 1100 miles of driving. Drained out 6.2ish litres. My main focus was to filter the oil as I knew my level had been at 3/4 the day before. I do have a small RMS leak on the car.

Took off the starter just in case maybe it was seized on the flexplate. No luck

Checked intake valves, looked fine. However, noticed that the right valve on each port was coated in wet black oil. I walnut blasted my car a few months ago so I could see the difference clearly.

Took off the valve cover, checked timing chain for slips or cracks. Looks fine as well. Checked everything on top; camshaft, bearings, etc.

I then used an endoscope to check the top of my piston heads. Results are attached. I noticed on #5 that there was a pile of white particles (bottom right corner, i put two photos of it). Dont know what it is, have no experience whatsoever with looking at these. I figured maybe carbon

Not sure if maybe my crankhub spun? Apparently I would get a code for it. Plan on removing oil pan and checking bottom.

If it wasn't for the fact that my crankshaft doesn't move, I would never have guessed that my engine was seized based on all the inspections made thus far.

In terms of plans for the future, I really loved the E92 platform and i can say it truly is the best drivers car. I cant describe how this car felt especially with the pure turbos upgrade. But I would be stupid to get another BMW. This car never saw an issue for more than a day, I took care of everything you name it. valve cover gasket, ofhg, oil pan gasket, new belts pulleys, hpfp, plugs, precision coils, catch can, tranny cooler, tranny fluid changes, new radiator, new hoses. I thought all the stress and maintenance would be worth it. But in the end I ate shit for taking a turn too tightly. I realize that the new BMWs are more reliable and such, but as I said, it would just be dumb to get another one. So I think I might be going back to my roots in a Mercedes, preferably CLS63. Those engines are bulletproof and I know at least that even if it does have a few problems here and there, I'll have the discipline of an e92 owner so it would be nothing to me

[Pladi]

There seems to be a bit more carbon build up than usual from what i can see. I totally understand your frustration. I think most logical conclusion for owners is not to go back to the car make that had a catastrophic engine failure when u give it so much love.

[N55lif3]

Hey guys just an update.

Third-party warranty approved me for an engine back in the summer and I finally got around to finding a PWG F30 N55 engine with just under 50k miles.

Just been swapping every part such as the older style hpfp/water pump/oil pan/power steering to the newer f30 engine since all that needed to be changed. Along with little stuff like the oil cooler housing and pulley system.

Finally took out the oil pan from my old engine and took a look at the rod bearings. All of them were fine until I removed the oil pump and saw cylinder 1. The cap barely came off and my bearing was welded onto the crankshaft but we managed to pry it a little and we could see the intense scoring on the crankshaft. So cylinder #1 rod bearing caused the seized engine. As you looked more towards the front of the engine you saw the overheated yellow/orange colour become more evident around the block.

My theory is that the oil pump failed and caused this. The front of the engine not getting enough oil means that the g force sending oil back during pulls or drifts (where the pickup tube already is) did not get circulated and pump at the correct pressure to reach the first cylinder.

The first thing i thought of was replacing the oil pump on my new engine with a brand new one until I decided to do more research on realoem.

I noticed that the 2010/2011 PRODUCTION date n55s had a different part number oil pump than those n55s produced until their latest year on the f-series. I have experienced a lot of 2011 335i/135i owners having oil pump failures and seized engines. Just two months ago I witnessed a 135i n55 seize on the dyno due to oil pump failure. I think the newer part number solves this issue for whatever reason as I dont really see any f-series owners experiencing these oil pump failures like we see in the early years so I'll stick to the oil pump in the new engine for now. And most importantly, no more swinging the car or launching anymore!

[bbnks2]

Originally Posted by N55lif3

Hey guys just an update.

Third-party warranty approved me for an engine back in the summer and I finally got around to finding a PWG F30 N55 engine with just under 50k miles.

Just been swapping every part such as the older style hpfp/water pump/oil pan/power steering to the newer f30 engine since all that needed to be changed. Along with little stuff like the oil cooler housing and pulley system.

Finally took out the oil pan from my old engine and took a look at the rod bearings. All of them were fine until I removed the oil pump and saw cylinder 1. The cap barely came off and my bearing was welded onto the crankshaft but we managed to pry it a little and we could see the intense scoring on the crankshaft. So cylinder #1 rod bearing caused the seized engine. As you looked more towards the front of the engine you saw the overheated yellow/orange colour become more evident around the block.

My theory is that the oil pump failed and caused this. The front of the engine not getting enough oil means that the g force sending oil back during pulls or drifts (where the pickup tube already is) did not get circulated and pump at the correct pressure to reach the first cylinder.

The first thing i thought of was replacing the oil pump on my new engine with a brand new one until I decided to do more research on realoem.

I noticed that the 2010/2011 PRODUCTION date n55s had a different part number oil pump than those n55s produced until their latest year on the f-series. I have experienced a lot of 2011 335i/135i owners having oil pump failures and seized engines. Just two months ago I witnessed a 135i n55 seize on the dyno due to oil pump failure. I think the newer part number solves this issue for whatever reason as I dont really see any f-series owners experiencing these oil pump failures like we see in the early years so I'll stick to the oil pump in the new engine for now. And most importantly, no more swinging the car or launching anymore!

I've never seen an n5x oil pump fail. Seized motor? yes. but not the oil pump.

I've re-used the oil pumps on several seized engines without issue. They all showed very little signs of wear and went on to produce normal oil pressure.

how did these oil pumps fail?

[ptpending]

thats not a oil pump but oil pressure regulator failure