My BMW V8 engine build thread

[The Dark Side of Will]

my 540 (m62b44) dyno'd 282 to the rear wheels with just software on it.

What did it do stock?

[M3 euro ltw]

Great thread

Following with interest.

About to take ownership of a 59K mile 540 MSport with Nikasil block most likely needing refreshment of some sort.

Mark Dyslva has in fact burned at least one or two chips for these hybrid engines with 4.4 crank/blocks etc....

Second thought:

Weaksauce mentions drysumping as partial method of making more power.

Be conservative in your estimates. The gains from running the bottom end under some low levels of vacuum to decrease resistance, as well as some possible gains from removing vapor and oil more quickly in the head can easily be neutralized by running a multi-stage pump.

Consider that the chain driven pump on the engine has "X" amount of parasitic loss, and now you'll be swapping it for a pump with a high pressure stage and 2-4 additional stages depending on your implementation in terms of scavenging. (some people use a stage for each cylinderhead, and 2-3 in the oilpan.

Just a consideration. In the I6 world of BMW tuning the seals don't hold vacuum too well in the block, so its almost of negligible value HP wise. Don't know much about the V8 seals. This information is more or less from PTG's engine builder of the day in terms of relative merits of dry sumping that platform.

[iamsam]

Mark Dyslva has in fact burned at least one or two chips for these hybrid engines with 4.4 crank/blocks etc....

so someone HAS done this conversion????

[The Dark Side of Will]

Be conservative in your estimates. The gains from running the bottom end under some low levels of vacuum to decrease resistance, as well as some possible gains from removing vapor and oil more quickly in the head can easily be neutralized by running a multi-stage pump.

Just a consideration. In the I6 world of BMW tuning the seals don't hold vacuum too well in the block, so its almost of negligible value HP wise. Don't know much about the V8 seals. This information is more or less from PTG's engine builder of the day in terms of relative merits of dry sumping that platform.

Because pulling a vacuum in the crank case adds a few more PSI of pressure difference across the pistons, the evacuated crank case helps the engine *produce* more power, rather than simply "recovering" power (reducing parasitic loss, in this case from windage).

However, you won't get that benefit if your crankcase leaks and can't maintain the lower pressure. I have a hard time believing that the front and rear main seals can't hold vacuum. *EVERY* other leak path can be dealt with via careful preparation...

[bmwmech1]

Mark Dyslva has in fact burned at least one or two chips for these hybrid engines with 4.4 crank/blocks etc....

Alex,
I missed this in your earlier post... Are you positive about this? When I spoke to Mark via email in January, he didn't act as if he had ever worked with this motor setup before and needed all kinds of baseline data. If he had done a few chips already, I would think he would have that data already. I didn't directly ask him if he had or had not done any work with these motor setups, but he did not offer up any indications that he had...

Garey

[VinniE30]

What happened to this jean?

[Jean]

Still happening, just had to put it on hold to take care of my daily driver, concentrate on job/school, and other things like that.

In the next week or so the e30 will have an empty engine bay and that will probably push me to work on the swap :)

[F34R]

Nice build Jean, looking forward to some dyno runs =)

[M3 euro ltw]

missed the responses and questions

Because pulling a vacuum in the crank case adds a few more PSI of pressure difference across the pistons, the evacuated crank case helps the engine *produce* more power, rather than simply "recovering" power (reducing parasitic loss, in this case from windage).

However, you won't get that benefit if your crankcase leaks and can't maintain the lower pressure. I have a hard time believing that the front and rear main seals can't hold vacuum. *EVERY* other leak path can be dealt with via careful preparation...

What you are talking about in first case is indeed a generally accepted "truth" when one reads and researches the benefits of dry sumping. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying with any positive data that you can not pull a significant vacuum on the M60/M62 front and rear seals...it may be possible.

However, (despite "you have a hard time believing") PTG told me just that for the S50B30 and B32 engines. That with measurements and research on the inline 6's, they were not able to pull enough vacuum to make much difference in air resistance to the crank in the bottom (windage), or apparently in "pulling down" the pistons etc.... that the front and rear seals didn't support it. If you dry sump your engine and run a standalone, it would be super cool to do some DA and report back.

Often times there are oil vapor separators in the cylinder heads... oil is meant to drain down to the block in holes that go straight to the top of the cylinder head, so you just pull atmosphere (or scavenge from the intake if you are venting into the intake!) through the separators.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you....as I said, my "knowledge" about this topic is that of general information, and garnered wrt the inline sixes. knowing that rear main seals often leak over time also makes me suspect that even a new fresh one will hold much vacuum. At the very least if one were going to drysump and expect improvements for power, new seals would be virtually mandatory I would think....along with some care to include one way valves in the oil vapor scavenging system to prevent inflow.

Alex,
I missed this in your earlier post... Are you positive about this? When I spoke to Mark via email in January, he didn't act as if he had ever worked with this motor setup before and needed all kinds of baseline data. If he had done a few chips already, I would think he would have that data already. I didn't directly ask him if he had or had not done any work with these motor setups, but he did not offer up any indications that he had...

Garey

I am "almost" positive. I think it was an M-Sport was built in Vancouver I think and when the guy who runs a shop and buys/sells cars too...got his M-Sport it was Nikasil engine, in the conversion he built this hybrid as displayed here. I'm pretty sure Mark did the chip for it. Will Z was the guys name that did the conversion....pretty sure this was the car. I know he did one hybrid, I think it was this car.

http://www.bmwmregistry.com/detail.php?id=6615

http://willz.ca/GA64934.htm

Want to drool? Perhaps a repost?

http://willz.ca/GD63011.htm

[Jean]

What's going on here?

[The Dark Side of Will]

What you are talking about in first case is indeed a generally accepted "truth" when one reads and researches the benefits of dry sumping. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying with any positive data that you can not pull a significant vacuum on the M60/M62 front and rear seals...it may be possible.

However, (despite "you have a hard time believing") PTG told me just that for the S50B30 and B32 engines. That with measurements and research on the inline 6's, they were not able to pull enough vacuum to make much difference in air resistance to the crank in the bottom (windage), or apparently in "pulling down" the pistons etc.... that the front and rear seals didn't support it. If you dry sump your engine and run a standalone, it would be super cool to do some DA and report back.

Often times there are oil vapor separators in the cylinder heads... oil is meant to drain down to the block in holes that go straight to the top of the cylinder head, so you just pull atmosphere (or scavenge from the intake if you are venting into the intake!) through the separators.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you....as I said, my "knowledge" about this topic is that of general information, and garnered wrt the inline sixes. knowing that rear main seals often leak over time also makes me suspect that even a new fresh one will hold much vacuum. At the very least if one were going to drysump and expect improvements for power, new seals would be virtually mandatory I would think....along with some care to include one way valves in the oil vapor scavenging system to prevent inflow.

And that might be the case. The main seals certainly weren't designed vacuum. I'm surprised they do that poorly, however. I guess there's another item of dry sump system design of which I have to be aware.

Dry sump isn't exactly something that can be slapped onto an existing engine easily. There's a lot of thought that needs to go into sealing the PCV connections, oil fill, etc. so that you don't have huge leaks through the top end of the engine, as you were mentioning.

The S62 "active sump" is a halfway solution. The crankcase drains to the main sump as usual.
However, each cylinder head drains to its own "mini-sump" (still in the oil pan) via the usual oil drain back passages.
The DME actuates valves that control whether the oil pump pulls from the main sump or one of the mini-sumps. It pulls from the left mini-sump in right hand corners and vice-versa.

So if I dry-sumped my S62, I'd want to use a 4 stage scavenge pump, one stage connected to each mini-sump and two pulling on the crankcase.

Want to drool? Perhaps a repost?

http://willz.ca/GD63011.htm

Hehehe....

I'd like to build one of those one day...

Obviously a 530i, M73 and Getrag 265 would a a lot cheaper than an M5, S70 and 560G.

[Jonsku]

However, (despite "you have a hard time believing") PTG told me just that for the S50B30 and B32 engines. That with measurements and research on the inline 6's, they were not able to pull enough vacuum to make much difference in air resistance to the crank in the bottom (windage), or apparently in "pulling down" the pistons etc....

Just a stupid question, but I don't see the point in creating a "vacuum" to crank case. Yes, it reduces air resistance when the piston is coming down (work-stroke), but doesn't it also increase required work to push the piston back up..?

[The Dark Side of Will]

It increases the net work gained on the power stroke more than the net work lost on the exhaust stroke. It also reduces intake pumping losses.

[iamsam]

Let's get some updates here! ;)

So you didn't end up getting the block cleaned? Why do you say you can't do new rings if you can't hone the cyl walls?

I'm about to go through this whole process shortly so I may be pestering you (and others) a little bit. The block I have is pretty messy and it is tempting to take it apart completely and have it hot tanked.

[Jean]

Yeah, a couple bmw mechanics locally told me to not touch the bottom end/rings and leave it alone but to do the rod bearings so.... I will do my best at cleaning the bottom end by hand but still not 100% sure on the rings.

What are you plan on doing?