[Soravia]

Pulled off the valves from Z4 E89 3.0i.
Small valve has torn rubber seal.
I think there might be oil in both.
What should I get to replace? I heard VIACO and eBay are crap.
Any experience with URO?
Should I get catch can to prevent oil?

[E92William]

Check for stiffness and test them on your car even if it isn't tuned to see if they turn just being plugged in. You can glue the rubber back on its no biggie.
People seem to have 50/50 experiences with URO. If you don't mind to do the job again maybe soon if they're crap, go for it.
I'm currently putting together a setup to vent the pcv to atmosphere on the n52 to prevent my valves getting full of oil with a catch can.

Ones in the manifold I pulled are both Mahle which idk if it's OEM or not but they're a good brand

[Soravia]

If you just vent PCV you will run super rich. It will need totally different retune with just MAP based tune that assumes air is lost from venting, since there's no way to know how much air is lost from vent.

I'm thinking the OE valves still work, but I will definitely replace the inner one, so I won't have to deal with it for a long time.

Looking at just the price for valve cover gaskets, I see URO prices are dirt cheap $10 vs $25 for others and $45 for OE. I guess time to go OE for inner?

[E92William]

The idea to vent to atmosphere is to plug the manifold completely so it will never know the pcv is not coming in to it but again this is experimental so who knows what will happen. I'm willing to be a bit of a test bed

If the valves work I wouldn't bother much if you wanna replace the inner one go ahead because that's the one that's the b*tch to replace with the manifold mounted. I'd rather get the nice stuff and do it right the first time. But up to you.
For my valve cover gasket I've got a felpro one so far so good

[Soravia]

Originally Posted by E92William

The idea to vent to atmosphere is to plug the manifold completely so it will never know the pcv is not coming in to it but again this is experimental so who knows what will happen. I'm willing to be a bit of a test bed

If the valves work I wouldn't bother much if you wanna replace the inner one go ahead because that's the one that's the b*tch to replace with the manifold mounted. I'd rather get the nice stuff and do it right the first time. But up to you.
For my valve cover gasket I've got a felpro one so far so good

I got Felpro, too. It works great on my Mazda so it must work better than BMW OE crap
Replacing valve cover gasket, Valvetronic cover gaskets, NGK spark plugs, Delphi coil packs, intake gaskets, all at onces. I'll get a tune from Tuner/ECS. For $400 they claim 20+ HP over stock setup with DISA, and better throttle response, 93 Octane map, etc.

The PCV air is assumed to recycle back into the intake and behind the MAF senor by ECU. As you go higher RPM, the air blowing pass the cylinder rings must go somewhere, that's what it is for. In old days they could be vented since there's no real ECU tracking the airflow into the intakes.
You have to reuse that air for ECU calculations to be correct.
Done it before and engine will run rich enough to bog down on heavy throttle.
Catch can is the only way forward. I think it will make the seals last longer on the DISA valves since they won't have to deal with oil and fuel eroding the rubber.
ECS Tuning aka Turner sells catch can for $185. Hella expensive. I think it's rebrand can. Only plus side is a drain hose and a valve for it.

I'm thinking this one. Not sure about drain. Comes with magnetic plug so it must be at the bottom.
https://www.mishimoto.com/mishimoto-...catch-can.html

I'll keep the OE outer for now. When it craps out, I can replace it easily. I'll just gently clean it out.

How do I fix the broken valve seals? Use RTV that resists fuel?

[E92William]

I like felpro as a brand I hope they hold up in the high temps of the n52. While you're under the valve cover you could consider doing MILVs

I just flashed my car with the bimmerlabs 330i tune. Still a 328 with the stock intake manifold and what I can say is the car is noticeably torquey. Did a few pulls its stronger can't wait to swap the manifold in place today! The tune is free except for the bimmergeeks cable and I think it's a great way to start off.

As of now I'm going to perform a stock install with the pcv setup as stock. Later on I will fiddle with the catch can and such.

For my seals I used loctite 404 whether that's good or not I will find out when I have them in the car.

I was looking at a catch can and there's many that look very much like the mishimoto one which are way cheaper I will most likely be playing around with a super cheapo one to see.

Going to plug in my disas to the stock wiring with the tune to see how they actuate before doing the manifold swap.

[Soravia]

Supposedly that Mishimoto has no baffles, and the mist just blows right pass, according to Amazon reviews.
There are always fake stars on Amazon to look out for, too.
What's MILV?

[E92William]

If I was gonna get catch can I'd put on a breather filter it's like a white mesh inside anyway to prevent that from happening. So some oil actually gets caught on

MILVs are valvetronic shims. They basically increase valve lift when valvetronic is set to the highest opening position. You can look up bimmer MILVs online and see the website aswell as a few threads going on about their benefits. Developed by cobramarty. If you can afford it do them with the cover off already.

Not tagging the actual URL because I think the guy that makes them got banned from here for selling them without paying the forums to do so

[Soravia]

I bit the bullet and ordered OE upper small from Tuner.
I figured I can resell the old one on eBay for $$ at least and recover to same cost as URO.
ECS Tuning is dumping the VAICO brand for $130 or so each, STEEP cuts. Get one if you need outer large valve.
I'll keep OE for now for outer. The catch can may help last longer when no more oil is being pushed around.
Replacing intake gaskets while at it. The MILVS are sold out at the site. I might see others elsewhere but not sure about quality etc of the grinding. Seems to easy to install with nothing being removed.

[E92William]

Sounds good some people have said they've had Vaico valve failures but I think it's rare. Good deal I'd say for a name brand part.

Currently opening my two disas because I felt oil slushing around inside them and long behold they were soaked in it inside.

Probably a good thing you decided to go for new ones lol I'm gonna see if I can make these work. If you can get a hold of some MILVs it would be great as you'll have the cover off already

[Soravia]

Any wear or damage on the gear cogs? Possible to replace the seal to keep oil out? Or perhaps use soft gasket maker that is oil and fuel resistant?

What if I still holes and spray brake cleaner to get oil out? I think it can be easier to deal up by melting in ABS spool for 3D printing?
Ordered $59 catch can from eBay. Good reviews, drain tap and tube. No dip stick but has a screw cap on top that I can make one into. 2.5" diameter. Comes with a strainer on exit side. I'll try to plug in a strainer on inlet to drop fluid to bottom.
I can use the bottom drain to run a hose to a remote can. I don't want bump in the road sending all the fluid into intake for a hydrolock.

[E92William]

I cleaned them up and made sure the motors were nicely seated and everything. No wear on the cogs they seem pretty strong, I put some grease on the worm gear of the motor. Here's them both working after cleaned

Oil gets inside I believe through the flap seam they have an o ring but it seems it sucks at its job, maybe a weep hole would help indeed

I think regular checking of the catch can for oil would rule out any worries about oil jumping around if you hit a bump or something. My concern with an inline catch can is how much vacuum the engine pulls normally without it from the crankcase and how this would be affected from having a catch can in between and longer piping between the intake and crankcase

[Soravia]

Weep hole will suck in air. Needs to be air tight.
K Motors brand catch can is quite small. About 2" diameter.
Drain will be used for external tank somewhere else.
Top "vent"😂 can't be used as a dip stick, not without some hard work on modifications
Maybe I can drill and tap closer to edge of the lid and get dip stick there.

[E92William]

I meant a weep hole on the disas not the catch can. That one looks pretty well built I wonder what the filtration system used to keep oil from being pulled into the intake is like inside.

Are the fittings made 3/4 in hoses?

I've seen some cheaper cans they have kind of like a fitting at the bottom that goes to a transparent tubing next to the can that comes up the side and since oil is a liquid it will be the same level at that transparent tube as the bottom of the can and you can see how full it is inside.

[Soravia]

Yes, hole on DISA will cause air to be sucked in since the DISA flap stem o ring isn't sealing well.

I've seen those cans as well. But I'm not going to take chance about road bumps. If routed to a second can via a hose, there's no chance of it coming back up! 😃
Trick is to mount the can low, and let the gravity do the work to keep oil down.
There are two types of barbs. I guess one is 1/2"?

[E92William]

True, forgot the main reason that disa is out is because of that o ring being the only barrier between the internals and the intake.

I'm pretty certain the pcv outlet from the valve cover is fit for a 3/4 in hose.

My only concern with an extra can under the main one would be longer piping and theoretically this would increase the surface area the engine has to pull vacuum through and out of the crankcase.

[Soravia]

Originally Posted by E92William

True, forgot the main reason that disa is out is because of that o ring being the only barrier between the internals and the intake.

I'm pretty certain the pcv outlet from the valve cover is fit for a 3/4 in hose.

My only concern with an extra can under the main one would be longer piping and theoretically this would increase the surface area the engine has to pull vacuum through and out of the crankcase.

Isn't the crack case a positive pressure? They are already throwing out air and oil mist when engine build pressure.
ECS Tuning aka Turner is behind on shipping. Was supposed to ship out Tuesday but still nothing today. Looks like I paid extra and not going to get it for the long weekend. I'll do valve cover work

[E92William]

I'm pretty sure crankcase is positive but intake vacuum is negative so not too sure which is supposed to do most of the work here. Either way I believe they'll have a weaker effect if the piping is longer because more surface area.

You can most likely get a refund for the extra paid for fast shipping for that delay. Sucks when you can't do all work in one weekend.

Update valves are sealed with rtv and melted the seams with a soldering iron. Not worried if I have to open them again I already tried and the plastic is more brittle than flexible so worst case it'll be easy to do.

[Soravia]

Let me know how they work. RTV will hold seal on vacuum for sure.
I called again today and they said they upgraded me to free two day shipping.
They should after I spent about $5,000 on parts from them.

Wife is complaining so I will have to get up like 5 in the morning to work on the car about 3 hours each day on next 4 days to get them done. Parts should be here Saturday.
Most time taken will be tearing down the engine bay.

[Soravia]

No shipping yesterday or today. I'm leaving them bad review on FB.

[E92William]

I wouldn't stress it too much maybe they aren't working today since it's the onset for the 4th of July just sucks you couldn't get your stuff sent in. Maybe you can ask for a discount

Car has the manifold in right now took almost 4 hours because I was recording the process aswell.

It pulls very good specially on the low end also there's added top end power. Every n52 should have this mod done. You definitely should replace that inner disa if you can because it'll be a bitch if it fails to replace.

[Soravia]

No taking out fuel rail? Some YouTube video showed the fuel rail off.
I need to do valve cover, plugs, coils at same time.
If high miles I'd have done the starter, too.
Is this a good time for belt? I have 65k

Looks like I might get delivery Monday.
Car stripping starts tomorrow morning. Wife's garage sales been taking my time. All I could do was fix the door speaker wiring for Super20. JL Audio crossover fell out of mounting and broke a wire.