[ajvee]

Originally Posted by MNm3

Anvar,

How do you subscribe to the HBR weekly article's like that? I always get them from friends and family but I would like to just get them all the time. Its free isn't it?

I had this one sent to me as well. I would check the website

http://hbr.org/

Think it is one of those things where there are subscriber only sections in addition to the general free sections.

[ajvee]

Originally Posted by airwolf878

You all have way too much free time! I can't keep up with all the new posts haha. Every time I check there are 2 or 3 new pages!

Nick is planning to take this thread to new heights!

I remember a time when we had to bump it occassionally!

[ajvee]

Art,

What tires did you run for the driving clinic last winter? Can I just run my winter tires or should I swap out to my summer track setup?

Better Yet

Should I get a new set of winter track tires, wheels, and TPMS? Gary...Nick? hahahhaha

[BrianMN]

Jeez, you guys have been BUSY on here today!!!

[BSME90]

Did some walking around the Las Vegas strip.

Hope everyone's holiday is going well!

[prelude2perfect]

Originally Posted by Nick.CBR

Just the usual chat about the snow, the vikings, Anvar's wheels and tires, Gary in Ireland with frozen pipes, a new member with a 335, American top gear sucks, autos are faster 'round the 'ring, there was probably some iPhone is the best phone type debate from me, I'm a post whore, etc. etc.

I love Utah skiing - where did you go? I've skied Alta a couple of times and had a blast. You see that story this am about the chairlift getting blown off it's tracks in Maine?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/28/mai...ex.html?hpt=T1

We were kind of throwing around Friday or Sunday for a meet. Using my lease return 335 as an excuse to have some beers and food or something somewhere (St. Louis Park perhaps?)

Nick

That's crazy, I've snowboarded there dozens of times growing up. We used to always joke as kids about the lift falling off and would rock them back and forth too, lol

[prelude2perfect]

^^^ Great pics!

Here's a funny video about the 1M

[u2b]<object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZtenM2hFTgE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&versi on=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZtenM2hFTgE&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&versi on=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>[/u2b]

[prelude2perfect]

Originally Posted by MayorOfCoolCity

Hey guys .... new to the BMW world and this forum. I'm going to have my HPFP replaced after the first of the year. Anybody know of a good SA at Motorwerks I could talk to about warranty and tuning? I'm covered through 100,000 miles and don't want to be screwed if I tune and something goes wrong between now and then.

Thanks

Tim Storms from Minnetonka has been good to me. I went in there when my car was running poorly and had my injectors replaced under warranty. I had my intake in and muffler delete and they never said a word. I always take out my tune and scan for codes any time I bring it in for warranty work though.

If you want warranty work done then I wouldn't talk about tuning. Aftermarket tunes will void your warranty. Most tunes are undetectable so there's really no reason to talk to any of the SA's about tuning.

Originally Posted by BrianMN

That depends on what you are considering engine wear or destruction. The actual engine block and most pistons don't look all that terrible to me...even though there are a few scoring marks, you can even see the honing marks (criss crossing tiny lines) on most of the cylinders. The deteriorating piston ringland is pretty serious, but it's doubtful that will become a 'common' issue. (at least I hope). I think it's too early to tell how well these engines (pistons primarily) hold up to higher boost. The only failures we've seen come from a combination of VERY high boost of 20+psi, poor gas and questionable timing control. So for the average guys like us that run ~14-15psi, it's just too early to tell how it's affecting things.

However, the head/valves are pretty badly caked with Carbon, which is definitely cause for concern. It can lead to rough driving or poor performance, and is pretty hard to remedy without tearing the entire head apart. It's likely that the 'average' N54 owner that rarely drives spiritedly or WOT will have more carbon buildup than us who frequently do a few 3-4 gear pulls. (every drive) So it might be indicative that our heads will need to be rebuilt at sometime, but who really knows.

Otherwise, the only real 'problem' with that engine is the piston ringland. It might be a result of higher boost, but if I read right, he's only at 16psi. I'd still think the ringland failure is going to be an abnormal and rare occurence...we hope at least.

The pictures of that head is pushing me to make the move on meth even faster now. I've been thinking of doing a seafoam treatment but, meth does the same thing and gives me more power at the same time.

I think the rest of his problems was due to how hard he was driving his car since he put so many miles on the track. So many more factors come into play when you start doing extended hard racing like that.

[ajvee]

Originally Posted by prelude2perfect

Tim Storms from Minnetonka has been good to me. I went in there when my car was running poorly and had my injectors replaced under warranty. I had my intake in and muffler delete and they never said a word. I always take out my tune and scan for codes any time I bring it in for warranty work though.

If you want warranty work done then I wouldn't talk about tuning. Aftermarket tunes will void your warranty. Most tunes are undetectable so there's really no reason to talk to any of the SA's about tuning.



The pictures of that head is pushing me to make the move on meth even faster now. I've been thinking of doing a seafoam treatment but, meth does the same thing and gives me more power at the same time.

I think the rest of his problems was due to how hard he was driving his car since he put so many miles on the track. So many more factors come into play when you start doing extended hard racing like that.

I was in stitches after that M1 commercial.

The track use assessment is fair and you might argue that BMW didn't intend for the n54 in 335i form to be used at the track, but the same cannot be said for either the 335is or the M1.

Serious buyers will expect a fair amount of track duty from them and I will be curious as to what they report back.

I would also be curious to look at the internals of that black test mule they keep flogging around the track.

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by prelude2perfect

The pictures of that head is pushing me to make the move on meth even faster now. I've been thinking of doing a seafoam treatment but, meth does the same thing and gives me more power at the same time.

I think the rest of his problems was due to how hard he was driving his car since he put so many miles on the track. So many more factors come into play when you start doing extended hard racing like that.

I've been doing the seafoam treatment about once a month just for kicks...however,

My roomate in college tested seafoam for his final chemistry project. We had a SLEW of engine parts, some in good condition, some decent, some a little beat up, some toasted. Quite a few valves with varying amounts of carbon on them.

To sum it up, we put all the parts in different buckets of seafoam for 6 months.


Bucket 1- Let soak for 6 months, shaking weekly and swapping seafoam as necessary
Bucket 2- We shook up every 12 hours, swapped when necessary
Bucket 3- Every other day we took parts out and scrubbed with a wire brush.
Bucket 4-For the first two weeks, we would daily take the parts out and clean with brake cleaner and wire brush and dried off, Then back in the bucket
Bucket 5- Same as bucket 4, however we put the bucket in the oven at 300* twice a week


Each month we would take the parts out and take pictures of the results. The results surprised me quite a bit...absolutely nothing for carbon. Zero reduction in carbon on pistons, valves or heads. The parts were cleaned, but the carbon was still hard as a rock. Even the bucket that was wire-brushed had no significant changes.

I had really wished it would show more positive results, but unfortunately we have to find another way to fight our carbon build up.

[prelude2perfect]

Originally Posted by BrianMN

I've been doing the seafoam treatment about once a month just for kicks...however,

My roomate in college tested seafoam for his final chemistry project. We had a SLEW of engine parts, some in good condition, some decent, some a little beat up, some toasted. Quite a few valves with varying amounts of carbon on them.

To sum it up, we put all the parts in different buckets of seafoam for 6 months.


Bucket 1- Let soak for 6 months, shaking weekly and swapping seafoam as necessary
Bucket 2- We shook up every 12 hours, swapped when necessary
Bucket 3- Every other day we took parts out and scrubbed with a wire brush.
Bucket 4-For the first two weeks, we would daily take the parts out and clean with brake cleaner and wire brush and dried off, Then back in the bucket
Bucket 5- Same as bucket 4, however we put the bucket in the oven at 300* twice a week


Each month we would take the parts out and take pictures of the results. The results surprised me quite a bit...absolutely nothing for carbon. Zero reduction in carbon on pistons, valves or heads. The parts were cleaned, but the carbon was still hard as a rock. Even the bucket that was wire-brushed had no significant changes.

I had really wished it would show more positive results, but unfortunately we have to find another way to fight our carbon build up.

I think the whole "steam cleaning" effect is what your tests were missing. Old mechanics would just use water to do the same thing that seafoam does. I realize bucket 5 was heated but I don't think it's a fair comparison as to what happens when the engine sucks it up through the intake manifold.

As for an oil additive that I truley believe in, AutoRx. I've seen proven results of that stuff working over on bobistheoilguy.com. I don't think it could do much for the valves though as oil doesn't really get to them

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by prelude2perfect

I think the whole "steam cleaning" effect is what your tests were missing. Old mechanics would just use water to do the same thing that seafoam does. I realize bucket 5 was heated but I don't think it's a fair comparison as to what happens when the engine sucks it up through the intake manifold.

As for an oil additive that I truley believe in, AutoRx. I've seen proven results of that stuff working over on bobistheoilguy.com. I don't think it could do much for the valves though as oil doesn't really get to them

Yeah you have a good point, the steam cleaning is something that might have produced results. When you suck it into the hot intake manifold, I'm assuming its significantly vaporized or at least tiny droplets. That said, when the engine turns off, it basically 'soaks' in the steam. If we could have a way to continually push (very hot) steam into the head that'd be ideal...

And I've been swearing by Justice Brothers Heavy Duty Oil Additive. Another long story short, we did a bunch of testing with it at ProKart. Myself and another ran the same 5 karts each for 20 laps to gather our fastest laps/average laps. Note- Those laptimes were ~41 sec. Once we added the oil additive, both of our laptimes INSTANTLY went down by over 1 second! Average laptimes were down 1.2 seconds. I'd like to maybe do some dyno testing with it next time.

I'll check out the AutoRX stuff though!

[prelude2perfect]

Definately check it out. I swear by it after my extensive reading about it. I'm about to do a cycle with my MDX and eventually the 335i

[MNm3]

That movie is fricken hilarious... I almost laughed out loud while at my desk...

[MNm3]

Originally Posted by Nick.CBR

How 'bout those Vikings btw? Damn!

I was totally expecting them to loose last night. Which is exactly why they won. I have come to realize that if I want the Vikings to win a game I need to expect them to loose. That is what they do. They dissapoint. They do the opposite of what's expected...

Great game though. Webb looked good.

[IRL-MN]

Originally Posted by ajvee

Art,

What tires did you run for the driving clinic last winter? Can I just run my winter tires or should I swap out to my summer track setup?

Better Yet

Should I get a new set of winter track tires, wheels, and TPMS? Gary...Nick? hahahhaha

Obviously a new set of wheels with winter racing tires would be the best bet

Seriously, I'm just going to run my winter tires. Given that the objective is to learn the limits of your car in winter driving conditions, I'd assume the car should be configured as it is during your regular winter driving.

[ajvee]

Originally Posted by IRL-MN

Obviously a new set of wheels with winter racing tires would be the best bet

Seriously, I'm just going to run my winter tires. Given that the objective is to learn the limits of your car in winter driving conditions, I'd assume the car should be configured as it is during your regular winter driving.

I am getting antsy Gary! I want to see how M3 offset wheels fit on 335s. Can I put my track setup on your car for shits and giggles?

[BrianMN]

Originally Posted by ajvee

I am getting antsy Gary! I want to see how M3 offset wheels fit on 335s. Can I put my track setup on your car for shits and giggles?

Someone can use my Nittos! haha that'd be a sight.

[MNm3]

Originally Posted by ajvee

I am getting antsy Gary! I want to see how M3 offset wheels fit on 335s. Can I put my track setup on your car for shits and giggles?

I think that would look pretty good... Its the winter time... what the hell else are you going to do?

[M3x2]

i somehow missed anvar's post about winter tires at the BMW winter driving school.

I cant really answer your question, though, since last year I did it in the E63, didnt even own the E90 yet.

I think you need to do it with your current winter set-up, whatever it is. Its not a really fast course at all (max speed ~ 60 mph), but it's fun. Unfortunately, I wont able to attend since I am working overnight (on call) the night before and will be spent.

[BrianMN]

Hey guys,

Just a little teaser of the project I've been working on the past few days. The previous owners of the house had green paint on the floor, which is making it a HUGE pain. One inch is stuck on firmly, one is able to be scraped off. Some of it just takes 5 minutes to clear a sq.ft. Ugh.

[ajvee]

Brian that garage is going to look awesome, though oil stains will show nicely! What material are you using?