Calling all M54 gurus! HELP!
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Hey guys so this my become a bit lengthy but I will keep it as short and detailed as possible. I am fairly new to the BMW world and struggling to diagnose an excessive white smoke on start up along with slight smoking at idle.
For starters the car is a streetable drift car. I drive it on the street and abuse it on the track.
Engine:
M54b30, around 120xx miles on the engine. I swapped this engine into my 330i because when i bought the car it had a junk head and it was easier just to replace the whole engine based on my time constraints. While the engine was out I replaced the oil pan gasket, installed a turner motorsport saftey wired oil pump nut, replaced the oil housing gasket, spark plugs (gapped to what my tuner recommended) Rebuilt the DISA valve with the German Auto Solutions billet rebuild kit and did a few other o rings and gaskets. I did not open the engine besides taking off the valve cover. The car has an RK-Tunes m54 performance flash on it with the burble option, rear o2 delete, sap delete and evap delete. The car has headers and an intake cone filter.
The immediate problem:
After about half the day at the track last weekend we noticed that when i started the car there was quite a bit of smoke that floats up and into the air. It is fairly thick and stays visible for quite awhile as it floats away.
Now I am no newbie to what the colors of exhaust smoke can mean, BUT this smoke is mostly white but does have a slightly blue tint (more white than blue). It has a hard smell to determine becuase it seems to be a mixture of oil and possibly fuel.
There is no signs of oil in the coolant (water and water wetter) and vise versa. Fluid levels are the same as they have always been (last checked 2 days ago now) besides having to add a quart after i drove the car proably 1500 miles if i had to guess which was prior to the day at the track.
As stated before the car smokes ALOT on start up (cold or warm), there is some smoke coming from the exhaust at idle (looked blue-er than on start up) and when accelerating in first and second I can see a small could behind me (assuming that after that I am moving too fast to see an immediate cloud)
CCV system:
Now the CCV system is no longer installed. The previous owner added a cheaper catch can in place of the system. The outlet on the valve cover goes to the catch can and the outher inlet on the catch can is linked to the 2 CCV ports on the intake manifold. When i checked the catch can at the track there was minimal oil in it. The catch can system does NOT have a one way valve in between the intake and the can (I read a few forums that said it should?) Lastly when it comes to the CCV i had to change valve covers because the original one was cracked. The other valve cover I had was not (although it was not new) The over inside of the valve cover that seems to be a baffle before the outlet on the valve cover for the CCV has been removed. (was thinking this may be allowing crank case gasses to pass quicker through the system and into the intake to be burned possibly?)
After doing a bit more research I found that the valve seals seem to be another possible cause to the smoking a bit at idle. SO without doing a compression test (which i planned to do tonight) would it be a fair assumption that the next possible issue would be worn valve seals? (assuming that the excessive smoke on start up is caused by the seals allowing oil to seep into the combustion chamber.)
Thanks in advance to anyone who can shed light on this!
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From what I know the m54b30 uses a low tension piston ring (sadly) and is very prone to blow by due to this.
Removing the CCV system makes this even worse as there is no longer vacuum being drawn from the crank case.Other than hooking up some sort of CCV you may have to just live with it.
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From what I know the m54b30 uses a low tension piston ring (sadly) and is very prone to blow by due to this.
Removing the CCV system makes this even worse as there is no longer vacuum being drawn from the crank case.Other than hooking up some sort of CCV you may have to just live with it.
Interesting, so even though the catch can is keeping the system sealed and not venting to atmosphere it could still effect it?
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Interesting, so even though the catch can is keeping the system sealed and not venting to atmosphere it could still effect it?
Oh, I stopped reading that sentence early lol.
I know that they tend to burn oil, and my dad has a 330 that has been burning oil for quite some time so it seems to be consistent across the board. -
Oh, I stopped reading that sentence early lol.
I know that they tend to burn oil, and my dad has a 330 that has been burning oil for quite some time so it seems to be consistent across the board.Does his smoke pretty bad on start up? After looking at a few videos my symptoms seem to be that of valve seals. But i also see that the rings tend to get gunked up and are not able to fully expand. A few people used fuel injector cleaner and poured it into the spark plug holes and let it sit for a day and it raised the compression from almost nothing to 120 psi. Once i get down to the garage and do a comp test i may have more insight into this
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The m54 is know to burn oil.
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The m54 is know to burn oil.
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That's what I have been told and read, but again oil consumption is one thing. The billowing clouds are another I would think.
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Brave soul performing a compression test and posting it here. There's been bad juju all here regarding compression tests lately haha
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ThatRatRodProject said:
The m54 is know to burn oil.
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That's what I have been told and read, but again oil consumption is one thing. The billowing clouds are another I would think.
As far as I'm aware Oil consumption is mostly caused by burning oil where else is it going to go.
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Can you post pictures of plugs also a video of the smoke would be helpful.
I will try to get the video up after work along with some photos of the plugs!
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As far as I'm aware Oil consumption is mostly caused by burning oil where else is it going to go.
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I believe you took that wrong. Yes oil consumption is caused by burning oil, I think we all can understand that. But when it comes to excessive smoke out the exhaust it's more than a standard "oil consumption" issue and all I was looking for was some people with experience beyond knowing that there are oil consumption issues with the m54. I appreciate the specs but this issue is more than reading the manual.
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Brave soul performing a compression test and posting it here. There's been bad juju all here regarding compression tests lately haha
I wasn't aware buttt I suppose if a person believes in that time will tell haha
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I know it is a different engine but just for comparison. My m50 smokes a little, Pretty sure it is ring blowby in my case because it smokes most under WOT. The m50 has no catch can/ oil separator, it just goes from the valve cover to the intake manifold (stock) and the baffling in the valve cover is not good enough to keep oil from going with the air. It has 275k on it so I don't feel it's abnormal. It doesn't hang in the air like a diesel but it is a visible smoke on startup and when romping on it. I don't keep great records but I think I add a quart every 1000-1500 miles, some is due to leaks though.
Compare to a 2 stroke engine. Assuming 25mpg, 1k miles is 40 gallons of fuel, mixed 50:1 that is 3.2 quarts of oil per 1k miles. You aren't near that much so I wouldn't think it would cause plug fouling problems. A little lube for the cylinders is good anyway.
How's that for redneck engineering?
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how many tanks of fuel have run through the engine?
Since this started about 2 tanks. One of which was under heavy abuse.
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I know it is a different engine but just for comparison. My m50 smokes a little, Pretty sure it is ring blowby in my case because it smokes most under WOT. The m50 has no catch can/ oil separator, it just goes from the valve cover to the intake manifold (stock) and the baffling in the valve cover is not good enough to keep oil from going with the air. It has 275k on it so I don't feel it's abnormal. It doesn't hang in the air like a diesel but it is a visible smoke on startup and when romping on it. I don't keep great records but I think I add a quart every 1000-1500 miles, some is due to leaks though.
Compare to a 2 stroke engine. Assuming 25mpg, 1k miles is 40 gallons of fuel, mixed 50:1 that is 3.2 quarts of oil per 1k miles. You aren't near that much so I wouldn't think it would cause plug fouling problems. A little lube for the cylinders is good anyway.
How's that for redneck engineering?
Hahaha I don't disagree there, but to me it's abnormal for alot hanging smoke to be in the air after start up and at idle and when blipping the throttle. I went through a quart in one tank of gas, so something has to be wrong. After a good compression test result im leaning toward valve seals.
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