Did my leakdown, looks like bad news confirmed...

[MIKe30]

Some of you may remember this thread :

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=114598

cliffs: bought an s52 semi-locally. PO said it was in great shape, ran great, NO problems, 83k miles. Start tear down, do a compression test - all cylinders have compression except for #5.

Now I took it to a reputable shop in the area. All cylinders were under 30% leakage with the exception of #5 which had near 80% leakage. Shop says leakage is through bottom end.

Now i paid for a good motor ($3.3k with all accessories and tranny, both from 96 m3) and last time I talked to previous owner he said we'd work it out if there really was something wrong. Well, now i know something's wrong. What do s52's with blown cylinders/bad bottom end go for?

thanks
-mike


btw, i turn 21 today. :hitler:

[PiercedE30]

Sounds like you just need a set of pistons. Not a complete bottom end. If you planned on tearing it down anyways, now would be the time to choice between NA and turbo.

[MIKe30]

Sounds like you just need a set of pistons. Not a complete bottom end. If you planned on tearing it down anyways, now would be the time to choice between NA and turbo.

Well to be honest i wanted to keep it as stock as possible and get an s50b32 down the road.

I'd probably stay NA and go high compression if i had to choose between the two, but IMO heavily modding US S50/S52'S is dumb. From what I've read it takes way more than $4k (about how much extra you'd have to spend to get your hands on a decent euro s50) in modding to get as much power NA as a euro s50.

aside from all that, the fact still is nobody in the right mind would have paid what i paid for a blown motor.


IIRC, you went high compression with your m52. I need to read up more on what needs to be done aside from pistons to properly go high compression...

[brandon11130]

that sucks mike............... dibs on the crank, rods, cams, guides, springs and lifters. ill trade you my red e30 for them ;)

[Jean]

How much was the leakdown? Curious.

[e30this]

that sucks mike............... dibs on the crank, rods, cams, guides, springs and lifters. ill trade you my red e30 for them ;)

how you going to trade it to chris then offer to trade to other people?
you make no sense.

Sorry to hear about the motor Mike.
I hope it all works out for you in the end.

[MIKe30]

that sucks mike............... dibs on the crank, rods, cams, guides, springs and lifters. ill trade you my red e30 for them ;)

ha, sure you can have it all for 3k. just stop by after work tomorrow and i'll help you load it into your car.

How much was the leakdown? Curious.

$40. half hour worth of shop's time, seems reasonable to me. it was the getting a motor in a truck and having some time and help that took me forever to finally get to it.

how you going to trade it to chris then offer to trade to other people?
you make no sense.

Sorry to hear about the motor Mike.
I hope it all works out for you in the end.

brandon's flakey like that haha ;)

I hope it all works out too, I need to give the seller a call but I'm not sure how much $$ to ask for back. just looking to be fair. He and I both know i paid for a good motor, so the issue needs to be taken care of.

[e30this]

Well the way I see it is, go to a machine shop and ask what it will cost to do a hone, line bore and deck the block.
then add up the parts you will need.
bearings, rings, main bolts, gaskets seals. shit like that so you get a complete bottom end.
then add another 500 or so for all the trouble you went through to make all of this happen.
then give him that price.

[brandon11130]

how you going to trade it to chris then offer to trade to other people?
you make no sense.

Sorry to hear about the motor Mike.
I hope it all works out for you in the end.

i was kidding honey, i want that glass sunroof too much:D

[matt]

Happy birthday. Hell of a present to get.

I wouldn't pay more than a thousand bucks for an S52 with issues like that.

[kylebes1]

Tell the guy who you purchased the engine from you want $2000 back... that should be more than enough to repair the damage. Worst case the ring on that #5 messed up your cylinder wall... if you have to have it bored out then you have to use larger pistons as well.

Then you have reassemble that thing. I have never gotten it clear if the bearings HAVE to be replaced, or if you can retorque and drive... can someone clearify that for me?

Happy Birthday!

[matt]

Bearings can be reused if they are in good condition, but the hardware holding them in can't.

$2k won't even start to do a rebuild on an S52. It'll be $1000 in machine work alone to do it right, assuming the head is not cracked.

[MIKe30]

ah fuck.

[equate975]

If he was running it with bad crank bearings for a while it could have worn the cylinder oblong.