Bimmer Performance Center S63 tear down for bent rod (Pic Heavy)

[phil@BPC]

Hey guys here are some photos I took during a tear down of an F10 that came in. Customer brought this M5 in because of a really bad sound coming from the engine. Surprisingly a check engine light never came on or a warning message. Once we brought it into our center we could hear the noise right away. Once we looked over the car and made sure everything externally was ok we performed a compression test. During this test we found cylinder 5 to be the culprit. We pulled the drivers side cylinder head and removed piston/ rod combination from cylinder 5. Hope this sheds light on something that's rarely seen.

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[phil@BPC]

Only very minor scoring on the cylinder walls. Most impressive is that the cylinder bore has a bend about half way facing the passenger side.

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The culprit... still amazing this didn't set a check engine light or any malfunction warning messages.

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[NoQuarter]

Great Pics! Looks like a fun project!

 

[doublespaces]

Holy cow, nice bend... And these photos are awesome. With the customer this far in, did they do any upgrades or just factory replacement?

 

[phil@BPC]

Thanks guys, we built this one to the same spec as the 1000+ rwhp F10 M5 that is posted on M5Post. I shared this one over there as well but wanted to share it here too

More details on our built S63s can be found here: https://bimmerperformancecenter.com/pages/bpc-engine-package

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[phil@BPC]

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[phil@BPC]

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Performing leak down before reinstallation in vehicle.

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[phil@BPC]

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[phil@BPC]

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[Jeffman]

Holy complicated as hell engine, Batman!
Somebody remind me never to buy a S63.

Seriously tho, how many miles on the engine and what was the culprit? I’m sure the DME logged some errors.

 

[phil@BPC]

I cant recall the exact mileage but it was between 30-40,000.

Most S63's bend rods due to inadequate tuning. Majority of tuners just tune for max power. The S63 makes so much torque and horsepower it will literally bend rods. If the tuner is good you can have the horsepower and torque come in smoothly and not aggressive and keep the torque around 600ftlbs to make it last. But... on the flip side we have seen stock S63's without tunes bend rods as well. This one bent a rod due to being driven through a rather large water puddle.

 

[Jeffman]

I cant recall the exact mileage but it was between 30-40,000.

Most S63's bend rods due to inadequate tuning. Majority of tuners just tune for max power. The S63 makes so much torque and horsepower it will literally bend rods. If the tuner is good you can have the horsepower and torque come in smoothly and not aggressive and keep the torque around 600ftlbs to make it last. But... on the flip side we have seen stock S63's without tunes bend rods as well. This one bent a rod due to being driven through a rather large water puddle.

Wow. That’s crazy to bend a rod by driving through a water puddle. If the car wasn’t tuned, i.e., stock, then I’d call this a product defect which repair should be covered by BMW.

 

[doublespaces]

Wow. That’s crazy to bend a rod by driving through a water puddle. If the car wasn’t tuned, i.e., stock, then I’d call this a product defect which repair should be covered by BMW.

I give your sarcasm a 3/10

 

[Jeffman]

I’m not trying to be sarcastic. Is this a stock untuned engine? If so, BMW should cover the repair of their defective product.
Edit: I didn’t appreciate “going through a puddle” meant “bad driving lead to water getting into the intake.” BMW is not responsible.

 

[LessIsMore]

So the owner actually drove through water high enough to get sucked i to engine? through intake filters?

Cant blame BMW design for that.

 

[phil@BPC]

This was an untuned stock S63. We have seen a few water seized BMW engines (N52, N54 and N55 being the most common). In NC we don't see much flooding around us. What we see is that when you go through a standing water no matter the depth water gets splashed up and gets pulled into the intake. Especially if you are going 35+mph there just enough suction from the engine to pull in the water. What makes this worse is when there is a car next to you that splashes water up as well, that's just more water getting pulled into the engine. We feel bad for owners because they had no idea what happened.

 

[LessIsMore]

I just dont see how enough water could get in the filters/engine unless the filters are mounted in a dangerous place (behind fender plastic or fascia), or are placed open to elements too much ( directly under large hood vents, etc), or are leaving the plastic under shields etc off.
99.9% of owners with filters in DCI type or stock location or even ST relo pass-side, and shields in place, I dont see how water could get in ...

 

[JuniorB]

Not only that, but thru the hot turbo, inter cooler, and charge pipe. If that kind of water would make it thru all that, it would seem it could breakdown the filter, which would make its way to/ threw the comp wheel. A design flaw with this repacution, would have these cars lined up at the dealer. Sometimes no one really knows what happens inside an engine.

 

[phil@BPC]

It is amazing how something such as water can enter the engine. Sometimes even we find ourselves baffled as to "how that happened?"

Everyone on forums talk about the usual rod bearing failure and connecting rods bending. We've seen a small handful of those but what we see most is the oddball things such as water collected in stock intake plenums with stock air filters and housings in place and the vehicles drive hours to see us like that and the customer only complains about a check engine light and no rough running. Wheel bearings about to give out with no sign or sound they are about to totally seize. Once we found the head of a hammer between a mounted wheel and tire. No complaints at all about a noise or anything just wanted the tire replaced because it was showing signs of wear and needed to be replaced. The tech on that one had quite the surprise when he demounted the wheel and tire.

It's amazing what happens to these vehicles, its like our cars should play the lottery instead of us lol.

 

[Ace718]

Have you guys built any N63TUs as well?