last call before i try my hand at reinstalling the cams

[static]

so the retainers/keepers/seals are changed, trays and lifters are all nicely greased up and reinstalled installed (btw, didn't even need to hold the lifters with tape, nice and thick royal purple assembly lube took care of the falling out problem nicely). Now comes the tricky part - shoving the cams back in. I will have another pair of steady hands to help me (holding the wrench)

anyone wanna give me pointers before i break them?
I've tried to find some diys on that but found only pelican's article and triggerhappi's writeup, but i need a more detailed writeup / described methods to feel more comfortable plunging into this.

Thanks

[matt]

There are two ways to do it: The BMW tool, and rolling the dice.

[kesslerbmw]

You won't break them..

Set them in the way they are suppose to go and then rotate them just a little one way or the other.

I can pull a set and put them out and put them back in, in less than 15 minutes.

I use a piece of 8 guage stereo wire to hold the lifters when I set cam trays in. Works great, no mess.

[FredK]

Kesslerbmw is right. S50 cams can easily be installed without breaking them. Take the engine slightly off TDC and individually install the cams placing the least amount of pressure on the cam.

Check out the bimmerforums FI section for "timing Vanos" if you want a few pictures of how the install goes. IIRC this guy goofynick6 has a pictorial of how the entire top end went together.

[Van Westervelt]

GL. :) I have been postponing putting my shricks in my fresh head. Just gotta do it.

[Rev Engineer]

Before I removed the cam from my head, I wrapped a thick soft rope around each valve/valve seat to keep the valves from closing. Essentially accomplishes the same thing the jig does. Since your cam is already out, I would have your helper force each valve stem down while the other person wraps the rope around the valve stems.

I might have mis-read.. Of course, this trick won't work unless the head is off the engine.

[FredK]

Yeah, I think he's doing this job with the head on. You can just use an adjustable wrench on the rear of the cam to hold it still. I did it alone and it wasn't bad. I was super careful, of course.

[static]

Thanks for the replies guys. Please pray to the car-diy gods for me

Yes i am doing all this with head on the block and block in the car.

Holy crap Fred, you did this with no help? How the heck did you manage to keep the wrench/cam steady while putting caps on/tightening them/etc? Do you have more than two hands by any chance?

[FredK]

I had a pretty long adjustable wrench, so keeping the cam stationary didn't take much effort. As the cams are tightened, the tendency to rotate will increase, so take more care as the caps get tightened down more.

One tip is, when you decide on the "magic position", prior to torquing them down, try to rotate the lifters that may be contacting the cam. They should turn fairly easily, even though you put all that assembly lube on them. Rotating the lifters will tell you that things are going hunky-dory. However, do not let go of the wrench holding the cams. This would be an excellent way to injure your finger!

[madjurgen]

GL. :) I have been postponing putting my shricks in my fresh head. Just gotta do it.

Boo, youre better off selling them. The Evosport guys say very bad things about shricks and I'd listen. I'd get sunbelts or even better wait till evosport finalizes their cams.

[FredK]

haha, weren't people bashing the Sunbelts, professing their preference for Schricks at some point?

[madjurgen]

I remember that, dont remember the reason though.

[static]

diy-gods were kind to me tonight! just finished installing those skinny suckers, all by myself with no extra pair of hands

Notes for noobs 8) :
- Agree with Fred that adjustable wrench with a long handle is a good idea.
- Keep things bagged, prelubed with good assembly lube and clean of any debris. (don't drop anything on the ground)
- Kimwipes recommended an available from Pelican are very nice wipes for the job that leave no residue
- Get yourself in a comfortable position when doing it (esp the left hand holding the cams in place with a wrench). This is especially important if the engine is in the car and you have to bend over to work on it (my case). Once you start tightening things up, you cannot exactly let go to stretch your back or relieve a spasm, but have to finish tightening all nuts fully before letting go of the wrench holding the cam in place (unless you wanna bend or break something).
- Don't forget to take the bottom end off the TDC (i used 30 deg counter-clockwise from TDC)
- My target cam position was #6 fully compressed on both cams
- Don't confuse the two cams (not sure if it is even possible to install them wrong, but remember: 3 hole = intake, 4 hole = exhaust cam, E on caps and trays means intake and A means exhaust)

My sequence was the following:
- Put the cam on the trays with lobes #6 and #3 touching lifters.
- Lift the #1 side of the cam a tad to give enough clearence to put nuts on the cap #7 (just put couple of full turns on it, don't thread it too much)
- Put the adj wrench on the end of cam and rotate it such way to create more tension in #6 (lobes will point more towards lifters), but not, the fullest tension yet.
- Put on cap #4 and thread the nuts hand tight
- Now carefully turn the adj wrench all the way so the tip of lobe #6 is pointing straight down the lifter (full tension on #6) and hold it very steady (make sure left hand is comfy and won't fall asleep). Move it back and forth, to get a feel of the rotational torque the spring is applying on you (this force will increase as you tighten things down as Fred already mentioned) Carefully check lifters for motion on the cylinders where lobe may be touching them (to ensure they don't, which they won't if the #6 lobe is perfectly perpendicular to lifter surface).
- Put all the rest of the caps and nuts hand tight (helps to have within the reach of your right hand)
- Now comes the repetitive part: keep tightening the #7 nuts quarter of a turn, while constanty making sure other nuts are still hand tight on the rest of caps. Don't tighten the non-#7 cap nuts, only do it hand tight, as this may create a lip/taper on the cap bearings (since cam is actually at an angle). You have to do all this with right hand, while keeping your left hand steady
- Only let go when cap #7 and all the other caps are nice and flush with the tray

haha, weren't people bashing the Sunbelts, professing their preference for Schricks at some point?

From what i read on bf.c:
Sunbelts have high chance of causing issues with stock vanos advance (valves may apparently touch pistons at full advance).
DrVanos supplies modified vanos for those and runs sunbelts in his own racecar and claims that less advance is needed to prevent the negative effects of too much overlap like too much internal EGR.

[matt]

Boo, youre better off selling them. The Evosport guys say very bad things about shricks and I'd listen. I'd get sunbelts or even better wait till evosport finalizes their cams.

You have some science to back that up or are you talking bullshit like everyone else?

[matt]

haha, weren't people bashing the Sunbelts, professing their preference for Schricks at some point?

Using anything in an application for which it is not designed will lead to failures. This is a multi-way street.

The valvetrain needs to be considered as a SYSTEM, not as just which cams to bolt in, and you need X,Y, and Z titanium components if you want 9k RPM.

It's all a lot more complicated than that.