Ok help! Engine trouble!

[Erick]

Well imagine I would be taking it to the shop. Would it be worth having to deal with labor for a rocker arm and maybe other damaged parts?

Because it doesnt really sound logical to have an engine causing detonation or being damaged somehow and only targeting the rocker arm. Unless the rocker arm's function is to protect all the other parts, which doesnt sound very logical either

[peerless]

Dude, just pull the valvel cover, take you half an hour. Do a visual inspection. You have no idea whats is wrong, all this guessing is just freaking you out. Could still be a melted cat.
All that backpressure on the valves will make some noise. Could be a rocker arm who knows. Dont trip bro. Pull the exhaust pipe like I mentioned earlier, takes 10 min. fire it up,
if it runs great you know your problem, go to the exhaust shop. Hiflow Cat $150 + installation. You said it has gotten worse, a cat will do this. A broken rocker is a broken rocker and only affects the cylinder it is located at thereby not getting progressivly worse.
And in addition, if the rocker arm did break, where did the broken peice go? Under the cam, where the cam punches the piece through the cylinder head casting, thereby exposing the cooling system and subsequently flooding the engine with coolant. Check the oil, is it milky?
watery? smell like coolant? if so get a new motor. But you never mentioned anything about overheating, and you drove the car for sometime with the problem that was getting progressively worse which points back at the plugged cat situation.

It will only take you 1 hour to find out if there is anything major engine damage to the car.
Check oil 2 minutes.
Check plugs, 5 minutes
Check exhuast, 10 minutes
Check valve train, 30 minutes
Setup and Cleanup, 10 minutes

= 1 hour.

No more asking question, go answer them.

Love thy E30.

Robert
85' 325e

[Inspar8r]

someone care to enlighten ( or just finish off my day ) on what exatcly are rocker arms, what do they do, and how much would I be looking to waste in parts and labor?

At this point from what I'm assuming, I figure even looking for a better condition M20 and dropping it in would be cheaper than these rocker arms.

I doubt it is ANY of that. Sounds to me like the intake boot from the AFM to the Tb has a crack or hole in it, and you have a crazy vacuum leak. Check THAT first, then go to the mechanical stuff. Make sure you really chekc the boot, matter of fact, take it off and check it, sometimes it looks fine, but if you really flex it around, small stress cracks are really HUGE HOLES in disguise, ask me how i know.

What you describe sounds like exactly what mine was doing when i had the holes in the boot.

If thats fine, then go to your spark plugs and see what the plugs look like. I know i messed one of mine up, and running of 5 cylinders is doable, be has no power, and runs REALLY rough. Turns out one of my plugs was toasted, so much so that the center ceramic around the electrode was blown in half. If that chunk were to get out, it could cause problems.

If that still doesn't fix it, i'd do the bentley check test on the ICV to see if the valve is operating correctly inside of there. I'd check your fuel system as well too. If you're detonating or knocking, you either have too much air, or not enough fuel. Check your fuel pumps and relay, and fuel pressure. Throwe in a bottle or two of TECHRON to clean and debris out of there, maybe a bottle of HEET gasline anti-freeze/water remover.

If you're still out of luck, then i'd pop off the valve cover and see what might be up.

[KeithV]

Count another vote for the AFM boot. Thats how the car behaves with even a small crack, and the these engines make weird noises when something isn't right.

[Erick]

Ok then.... I'm going to look up on the Bentley how to swap the boot from the white e30 to the black e30, and I'll try it out hopefully today or tomorrow.

Thanks guys, and I'll keep you all posted.

[Charlie]

Dude, it's been 4 days, and you still haven't taken 10 minutes to take off the valve cover?

Having had three cracked throttle boots, you can notice a problem, but it's no where near as extreme as what you are describing.

-Charlie

[Erick]

Look, as much as I want to look into this... I haven't had the time or opportunity to do so. Right now I could do it seeing I'm sitting at my house for once without anything to do. But 1-) My father insisted I took all my tools to the warehouse.... so this house doesnt even have a screwdriver
2-) My school is literally being a bitch.... I am being shoved with tests up the ass and this is the first Saturday since early november that I did not have to show up for some stupid science fair project that I'm stuck with a retarded sophmore that fucked up the experiment TWICE and I keep having to go back and start all over again.

3-) I thank you guys for bearing with me and giving more ideas to think about what it could possibly be..... but again, I will do it when I have the opportunity to do it.

Yes it might be 10 minutes like you say and yes it might be as pathetic as a crack.... but I havent seen the crack by popping the hood, which indicates that if there is one, it will be on the bottom of it.

Now that the weekend is here, HOPEFULLY I will be able to do it. And I'll keep you all posted.

[Erick]

Anyways to bring you guys up to speed.

I took off the ICV, the intake boot, and the valve cover.... it feels pretty good to actually see things for yourself and assimilate the diagrams and pictures you've seen.

But here's the thing.... I haven't found a crack on the intake boot. I took a look at the rocker arms and all of them looked to be ok.... I didnt see any cracks or anything that would "look" out of normal.

Tomorrow I'm going to exchange ICVs from both e30s and the intake boots as well. I'll try different combinations ( white icv w/ black intake boot, black intake boot w/ white icv, etc ) to see if I can get the car to fire up correctly, hold it's revs at 600rpm like it's supposed to, etc

I'll also see try to smell the exhaust like someone else suggested.

Any other ideas I should look for?

Thanks
Erick

[KeithV]

Anyways to bring you guys up to speed.

I took off the ICV, the intake boot, and the valve cover.... it feels pretty good to actually see things for yourself and assimilate the diagrams and pictures you've seen.

But here's the thing.... I haven't found a crack on the intake boot. I took a look at the rocker arms and all of them looked to be ok.... I didnt see any cracks or anything that would "look" out of normal.

Tomorrow I'm going to exchange ICVs from both e30s and the intake boots as well. I'll try different combinations ( white icv w/ black intake boot, black intake boot w/ white icv, etc ) to see if I can get the car to fire up correctly, hold it's revs at 600rpm like it's supposed to, etc

I'll also see try to smell the exhaust like someone else suggested.

Any other ideas I should look for?

Thanks
Erick

There ya go, new boot should fix it.