[Sevelyth]

Hey, I had and have compression surge or a fluttering sound at idle revving so I bought a GFB DV+ for my E92 335i XDrive.

Can anyone guide me on how to install this? I have a jack and jack stands and basically all the parts and pieces. I just finished my catless downpipe which took me 8 hours and was a total PITA, will this be easier? Could I do this tonight in about 4 hours? If anyone could give me a guide or has done it themselves that would be great.

[Zygote55]

You need to remove the water pump and thermostat. The DV is right above them attached to the bottom of the turbo. Just look for a guide for replacing the water pump and thermostat and that'll get you 95% of the way there. It's miserable and I'd pay somebody to do mine if I had to do it again.

[cahme]

Here's my experience
https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1289466

[xxMike61]

Gonna have to drain coolant and remove pump + Tstat. I had to undo the pipe that goes into Tstat with the c clip to get to the top bolt of water pump. Once its out of the way the DV is right there and easy to get to. A long 5mm ball tip hex bit is gonna be your best friend

[TheGoodTheBadTheUgly]

Alright, we are both in luck since you will have to tell me how you managed to do that downpipe on xDrive.

I have a 2011 E90 xDrive and here is how I did it. You might watch youtube videos, but everything in the xDrive is just so much more compacted.

I just replaced my diaphragm OEM DV with GFB DV+ this weekend and I did it on ramps as well. Some of these steps are optional, but I prefer to always take more stuff out and do the job right then to cut corners. It is a pretty annoying job to do, to be honest. You will definitely work out your abs and your patience a lot. Keep some rubbing alcohol near because I am quite sure you might get a few cuts! Good luck!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Drive your car on your ramps.


2) Start by removing all of the coolant in the expansion tank with a bleeding kit.


3) Remove the expansion take of the engine bay. To do this you unclip the top coolant line and you pull. You then remove the lower one that is also retained by a clip. You remove the electrical connector by pushing on one of the sides and pulling and finally you remove the two bolts which are 10mm or 8mm I don't recall. Your expansion tank is now ready to be removed, you simply pull it out of the engine bay.


4) Go under the car and remove the plastic undertray.


You will now notice that on the subframe side facing the front of the vehicle you will have 3 attached components. Coolant lines, Power steering lines, and the swaybar.


5) Detach the Power Steering lines from the subframe. You will notice that it is held in two spots and that there are rubber boots resting on metal brackets welded to the subframe. If you lift these rubber boots a bit, you will see a sort of nut. It's around 18mm. You put a wrench there and then under that bracket, you use a 10mm socket to remove a nut while still holding the 18mm wrench. When the nut is out, you pull the lines upwards to get the bolts out of these brackets and you can then move that around and have a bit more space to play with.


6) Detach the Coolant lines from the subframe. The coolant lines are attached to the subframe in two spots by some 10 mm bolts. Get a socket and remove these. You will notice that this coolant line was the one that we removed from the bottom of the expansion tank. It is still attached to the thermostat by a clip connector.


7) I then proceeded to detach the sway bar. It is held by 4 13mm bolts located at the two ends of the subframe near each wheel. You simply take a socket and remove these. They might be well tightened. When you remove these, the sway bar will be able to move more freely left-right and a bit forward-backward which will save you a lot of time when getting the water pump and thermostat out.


When this was done you then start to work on the thermostat. It has 1 electrical connector and 4 coolant lines. It is held onto the water pump by 2 10mm bolts. Even if we removed a lot of coolant from the expansion tank, there is still a lot that comes from the radiator and other components so be ready to catch coolant every time you remove a line.


8) I started by removing the coolant line that was addressed in step 6). I pulled on the clip to disengage the lock and pulled back the connector from the thermostat. This line was finally free and I worked the top of it down the car and let it rest under the car and out of my way.


9) I then proceeded by removing the electrical connector. If I recall it was a push and pull. That part is pretty simply and you can figure it out simply by looking.


10) Next step that I did was removing the big coolant line that is coming from the radiator to the thermostat. Again, pull on the clip to disengage it and pull the connector out of the thermostat. It might be hard to pull out.
*USUALLY A LOT OF COOLANT COMES DOWN FROM THAT LINE*


11) After that, I removed a little coolant line that was connected to the top of the thermostat if I recall. This one was retained by a hose clamp that I unscrewed with a flat head screwdriver. Since it is held by a clamp and not a quick disconnect clip, this pipe might be really pressed onto the thermostat and hard to remove. Just continue pulling on it till you get it off.


12) The final hose that I removed was the one that is located at the back of the thermostat and that loops and connects to the water pump. It is also held by a hose clamp. To have access to that hose clamp, you have to lay under the car, with your head a bit behind the passenger wheel. There is a little spot where you can put your hand under the wastegate and reach that clamp and hose on the thermostat side to pull on it. To unscrew it, you can do it from the side facing the passenger wheel with a flat head screwdriver while still looking at the clamp from the spot I told you. When it is loose enough, pull like a train on that damn chubby hose. If it doesn't work keep on pulling, I know it's a tight spot but you will eventually get it.


13) Finally, grab a 10 mm socket to remove the first bolt connecting the thermostat to the water pump. Then use a ratchet wrench to remove the other one, since getting a socket there is quite hard and just too much of a hassle.


14) The thermostat is now free. You can move the hose you removed out of your way and maneuver the thermostat out of the car.


Be careful to clean the inside of the thermostat before reinstalling it since some impurities probably got in while you pulled hoses and took it out.


It's now time to start working on the water pump. You will need 3 new screws to mount back the water pump. This is the code of the screws that I used, it may be different for you, just double check: 11517602123.


The water pump is held by 3 inverted Torx E12 bolts. These are torque to yield so they have to be replaced. It also has 2 coolant lines where 1 is already loose since we remove the end that was connecting it to the thermostat. It also has one electrical connector.


15) I started by removing that one remaining big coolant line. It is held by a hose clamp, so again, grab your flathead screwdriver and loosen the clamp. Same as the other, pull hard on it to get it out.


16) Next step that I did was remove the chubby electrical connector located at the back of the water pump. On the right side of that connector (Passenger side), there is a clip that has to be firmly pushed and then you can pull the connector.
*If you are having a hard time removing the connector, start by doing step 17), pulling the water pump out and then come back to remove the connector.*


17) The only thing remaining for the water pump is to remove the 3 inverted E12 Torx bolt. Two of them are located at the bottom while 1 is located at the top. You should now have enough clearance to get to the top one with sockets and extension and get it out. For the bottom ones, the one that is the most towards the front of the car is also easy to remove with the right extension setup. You might have to move the sway bar in a configuration allowing you to reach these bolts without any disruption. Finally, the last bolt is a bit harder to get since it's in a tight spot. You might need to use a universal joint or very specific sizes of extension to get to that one. Another trick that I used and that works very well but that I don't recommend especially if your bolts are pretty rusted, was to use an SAE 3/8" 12 Point (Star shaped, NOT HEX) ratchet wrench to remove it. I removed that bolt and even reinstalled the new one that way, it worked very well for me.


18) The water pump is now ready to be removed. You can move all the detached coolant lines and sway bar out of your way to finally wiggle and maneuver the water pump out of the car.


There it is, you can finally clearly see the diverter valve apart for the topmost bolt that hidden by the DV itself. There is 1 electrical connector and 3 5mm Allen bolts holding the DV to the compressor.


19) The first step was to remove the electrical connector that was held by a quick disconnect clip. Pull gently on that clip to disengage it. Gently since it is prone to fly out of its seat if you pull too much on it and it is a true hassle to find. When it is disengaged, pull the connector out.


20) Here comes the final step. Removing the 3 Allen bolts. My bolts were pretty rusted up so I started by scrapping the inside of the bolt head to clean it and remove all corrosion and rust layers. I then soaked the three bolts with penetrating oil. If you have a 5mm Allen socket, just chuck that one in your extensions that will vary for which bolt you are working on. When these bolts are removed, the DV will be loose and you can finally pull it out. If you don't have a 5mm Allen socket, try to find a 5mm L shaped Allen key to cut and put into a socket, or go buy one.


Since you are buying the GFB DV+ there is provided instructions. When installing the OEM solenoid part of the DV onto the DV+ plate, make sure to align the bulge on the OEM part with the groove carved into the DV+ plate and then push hard in order to press-fit these two parts together. Also, when reinstalling the DV, make sure that the golden piston doesn't come out of it when placing it!


Reinstalling everything should be much easier since you already know where everything goes and you already worked the pipes up. Just follow these steps somewhat in some sort of backward order.


!IMPORTANT!
When you are all done, put coolant back in the reservoir till it reaches the maximum and prime the coolant system. To do so, hop in your car, turn the ignition on and put heat on the lowest level and highest temperature. Turn off all other unnecessary electric equipment. You then press and hold the gas pedal with the ignition on but engine off for about 15 seconds. The pump will now start to prime the coolant system. You can hear it as well as the coolant running. After a while, it will be done and the level of coolant in the expansion tank will be below the minimum. Keep on doing this till the level after priming is still at the maximum of the expansion tank level.


Don't hesitate to ask me for more details or clarifications, I'll do my best to find images if I took some.

[Sevelyth]

Originally Posted by TheGoodTheBadTheUgly

Alright, we are both in luck since you will have to tell me how you managed to do that downpipe on xDrive.

I have a 2011 E90 xDrive and here is how I did it. You might watch youtube videos, but everything in the xDrive is just so much more compacted.

I just replaced my diaphragm OEM DV with GFB DV+ this weekend and I did it on ramps as well. Some of these steps are optional, but I prefer to always take more stuff out and do the job right then to cut corners. It is a pretty annoying job to do, to be honest. You will definitely work out your abs and your patience a lot. Keep some rubbing alcohol near because I am quite sure you might get a few cuts! Good luck!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Drive your car on your ramps.


2) Start by removing all of the coolant in the expansion tank with a bleeding kit.


3) Remove the expansion take of the engine bay. To do this you unclip the top coolant line and you pull. You then remove the lower one that is also retained by a clip. You remove the electrical connector by pushing on one of the sides and pulling and finally you remove the two bolts which are 10mm or 8mm I don't recall. Your expansion tank is now ready to be removed, you simply pull it out of the engine bay.


4) Go under the car and remove the plastic undertray.


You will now notice that on the subframe side facing the front of the vehicle you will have 3 attached components. Coolant lines, Power steering lines, and the swaybar.


5) Detach the Power Steering lines from the subframe. You will notice that it is held in two spots and that there are rubber boots resting on metal brackets welded to the subframe. If you lift these rubber boots a bit, you will see a sort of nut. It's around 18mm. You put a wrench there and then under that bracket, you use a 10mm socket to remove a nut while still holding the 18mm wrench. When the nut is out, you pull the lines upwards to get the bolts out of these brackets and you can then move that around and have a bit more space to play with.


6) Detach the Coolant lines from the subframe. The coolant lines are attached to the subframe in two spots by some 10 mm bolts. Get a socket and remove these. You will notice that this coolant line was the one that we removed from the bottom of the expansion tank. It is still attached to the thermostat by a clip connector.


7) I then proceeded to detach the sway bar. It is held by 4 13mm bolts located at the two ends of the subframe near each wheel. You simply take a socket and remove these. They might be well tightened. When you remove these, the sway bar will be able to move more freely left-right and a bit forward-backward which will save you a lot of time when getting the water pump and thermostat out.


When this was done you then start to work on the thermostat. It has 1 electrical connector and 4 coolant lines. It is held onto the water pump by 2 10mm bolts. Even if we removed a lot of coolant from the expansion tank, there is still a lot that comes from the radiator and other components so be ready to catch coolant every time you remove a line.


8) I started by removing the coolant line that was addressed in step 6). I pulled on the clip to disengage the lock and pulled back the connector from the thermostat. This line was finally free and I worked the top of it down the car and let it rest under the car and out of my way.


9) I then proceeded by removing the electrical connector. If I recall it was a push and pull. That part is pretty simply and you can figure it out simply by looking.


10) Next step that I did was removing the big coolant line that is coming from the radiator to the thermostat. Again, pull on the clip to disengage it and pull the connector out of the thermostat. It might be hard to pull out.
*USUALLY A LOT OF COOLANT COMES DOWN FROM THAT LINE*


11) After that, I removed a little coolant line that was connected to the top of the thermostat if I recall. This one was retained by a hose clamp that I unscrewed with a flat head screwdriver. Since it is held by a clamp and not a quick disconnect clip, this pipe might be really pressed onto the thermostat and hard to remove. Just continue pulling on it till you get it off.


12) The final hose that I removed was the one that is located at the back of the thermostat and that loops and connects to the water pump. It is also held by a hose clamp. To have access to that hose clamp, you have to lay under the car, with your head a bit behind the passenger wheel. There is a little spot where you can put your hand under the wastegate and reach that clamp and hose on the thermostat side to pull on it. To unscrew it, you can do it from the side facing the passenger wheel with a flat head screwdriver while still looking at the clamp from the spot I told you. When it is loose enough, pull like a train on that damn chubby hose. If it doesn't work keep on pulling, I know it's a tight spot but you will eventually get it.


13) Finally, grab a 10 mm socket to remove the first bolt connecting the thermostat to the water pump. Then use a ratchet wrench to remove the other one, since getting a socket there is quite hard and just too much of a hassle.


14) The thermostat is now free. You can move the hose you removed out of your way and maneuver the thermostat out of the car.


Be careful to clean the inside of the thermostat before reinstalling it since some impurities probably got in while you pulled hoses and took it out.


It's now time to start working on the water pump. You will need 3 new screws to mount back the water pump. This is the code of the screws that I used, it may be different for you, just double check: 11517602123.


The water pump is held by 3 inverted Torx E12 bolts. These are torque to yield so they have to be replaced. It also has 2 coolant lines where 1 is already loose since we remove the end that was connecting it to the thermostat. It also has one electrical connector.


15) I started by removing that one remaining big coolant line. It is held by a hose clamp, so again, grab your flathead screwdriver and loosen the clamp. Same as the other, pull hard on it to get it out.


16) Next step that I did was remove the chubby electrical connector located at the back of the water pump. On the right side of that connector (Passenger side), there is a clip that has to be firmly pushed and then you can pull the connector.
*If you are having a hard time removing the connector, start by doing step 17), pulling the water pump out and then come back to remove the connector.*


17) The only thing remaining for the water pump is to remove the 3 inverted E12 Torx bolt. Two of them are located at the bottom while 1 is located at the top. You should now have enough clearance to get to the top one with sockets and extension and get it out. For the bottom ones, the one that is the most towards the front of the car is also easy to remove with the right extension setup. You might have to move the sway bar in a configuration allowing you to reach these bolts without any disruption. Finally, the last bolt is a bit harder to get since it's in a tight spot. You might need to use a universal joint or very specific sizes of extension to get to that one. Another trick that I used and that works very well but that I don't recommend especially if your bolts are pretty rusted, was to use an SAE 3/8" 12 Point (Star shaped, NOT HEX) ratchet wrench to remove it. I removed that bolt and even reinstalled the new one that way, it worked very well for me.


18) The water pump is now ready to be removed. You can move all the detached coolant lines and sway bar out of your way to finally wiggle and maneuver the water pump out of the car.


There it is, you can finally clearly see the diverter valve apart for the topmost bolt that hidden by the DV itself. There is 1 electrical connector and 3 5mm Allen bolts holding the DV to the compressor.


19) The first step was to remove the electrical connector that was held by a quick disconnect clip. Pull gently on that clip to disengage it. Gently since it is prone to fly out of its seat if you pull too much on it and it is a true hassle to find. When it is disengaged, pull the connector out.


20) Here comes the final step. Removing the 3 Allen bolts. My bolts were pretty rusted up so I started by scrapping the inside of the bolt head to clean it and remove all corrosion and rust layers. I then soaked the three bolts with penetrating oil. If you have a 5mm Allen socket, just chuck that one in your extensions that will vary for which bolt you are working on. When these bolts are removed, the DV will be loose and you can finally pull it out. If you don't have a 5mm Allen socket, try to find a 5mm L shaped Allen key to cut and put into a socket, or go buy one.


Since you are buying the GFB DV+ there is provided instructions. When installing the OEM solenoid part of the DV onto the DV+ plate, make sure to align the bulge on the OEM part with the groove carved into the DV+ plate and then push hard in order to press-fit these two parts together. Also, when reinstalling the DV, make sure that the golden piston doesn't come out of it when placing it!


Reinstalling everything should be much easier since you already know where everything goes and you already worked the pipes up. Just follow these steps somewhat in some sort of backward order.


!IMPORTANT!
When you are all done, put coolant back in the reservoir till it reaches the maximum and prime the coolant system. To do so, hop in your car, turn the ignition on and put heat on the lowest level and highest temperature. Turn off all other unnecessary electric equipment. You then press and hold the gas pedal with the ignition on but engine off for about 15 seconds. The pump will now start to prime the coolant system. You can hear it as well as the coolant running. After a while, it will be done and the level of coolant in the expansion tank will be below the minimum. Keep on doing this till the level after priming is still at the maximum of the expansion tank level.


Don't hesitate to ask me for more details or clarifications, I'll do my best to find images if I took some.

Thats an in depth write up if Ive ever seen one. Basically to get that downpipe out which is the hard part I had to remove the whole catback, drop the subframe and then cut off one of the downpipe flanges that was bolted onto the subframe. This allowed me and my friend to finally get that hog of a cat out. Once that was done it was suppper easy. Took us about 8 hours start to finish.

[TheGoodTheBadTheUgly]

Originally Posted by Sevelyth

Thats an in depth write up if Ive ever seen one. Basically to get that downpipe out which is the hard part I had to remove the whole catback, drop the subframe and then cut off one of the downpipe flanges that was bolted onto the subframe. This allowed me and my friend to finally get that hog of a cat out. Once that was done it was suppper easy. Took us about 8 hours start to finish.

Yep so it always comes down to dropping the subframe. I hate that haha. I'll do this soon. Good luck with your DV. It's not that hard when you keep your temper together