jon dee

Bump stops prevent the piston contacting the bottom of the tube at full compression by introducing a urethane or rubber "bumper" with a sharply rising spring rate, between the top of the tube and fixed end of the spear. Depending on the suspension design the bump stops may only be to provide "emergency" protection against damage from a big hit, or they may actually be a working part of the suspension under "normal" conditions. Bump stops are an important part of suspension design on high performance cars with short stroke suspension. The bump stops may be external as with Koni yellows, or internal as with many Bilstein shocks. Cheers...

Instant "Barn Find" Chance here for one of those... "Abandoned for 30 years... will if run and drive 2000 miles" programs Cheers...

True... no doubt most (if not all) of the running gear has been swapped/upgraded to build this car. If the shell is still from an 330ci then that is good enough for me What I like about it is that it is still N.A., doesn't have a 2JZ, LS or some other non-BM engine. The builder has not succumbed to the current belief that you have to have 1000hp, heaps of ugly aero and stiff as a board suspension. I don't even care if it doesn't have exactly 500hp.... it has enough power to get the job done. And best of all it has suspension that does an outstanding job of putting that power to the ground !!! Not all roads are billiard table smooth and more power is no use if the wheels spend too much time off the ground Cheers...

This is as good as it gets when you put a talented driver into a well balanced car that has the perfect blend of power and handling No fancy aero, no paddle shifters, no anti-lag and no apologies if this has been linked before. You have to watch this more than once to appreciate what it takes to drive that fast on those streets !!!!! Cheers...

You obviously had a bad experience and nothing said here will change that. However, to help others get a better perspective on what went wrong, it would be helpful if you could explain in a little more detail the job that you wanted done, but the workshop was unable to complete. If Bellars were unable to complete the work, did you find another workshop that could do the work to your satisfaction ? Cheers...

Those up changes... soooooooooooo nice

There is a popular misconception that timing chains last forever and never need replacing. In reality both the chain and the sprockets that it runs on wear. This causes the chain to "stretch" due to accumulated wear, and go slightly out of pitch. Eventually the chain will no longer engage correctly with the sprockets, and the likelihood of the chain jumping teeth on the larger sprocket will increase. The tensioner may also become less effective depending on its design. For industrial applications (and automotive applications are no different) a transmission chain is considered worn out once the change in length (stretch) reaches a specified percentage increase over the original length. Putting a new chain onto worn sprockets will cause accelerated wear on the new chain, so it is good practice to change chain and sprockets at the same time whenever possible. So yeah... that chain did a good job but I would guess it just wore to the point where a cough or kickback on shutdown caused it to jump a couple of teeth. When you have the chain off, try bending it sideways. if you can form a pretty good arc, that is an indication of a well worn chain !! Cheers...

@Bronsk How many kilometres were on the engine before this all happened ?

Yes... Vodafone also offer a callback service that I have used, but 2degrees don't have that in their automated answering service. They do have a comprehensive range of answers to simple every day questions, but when a query goes outside those simple answers you just go on the end of a seriously long queue for a real person. Rest assured I will be looking at alternative service providers !!!!

Pffffttt... 34 minutes is kid stuff. Try 2 hours and 58 minutes to get a simple plan change with 2degrees. First wait a little over an hour to get a real person on line, then discover that they don't have the credentials to make the change. I will transfer you to someone who does she said... and an hour and 15 minutes wait. Eventually got someone who could do the changes, but that took another half an hour or so. Why not hang up you say ? Normally I would have only in this case I needed the plan change before leaving for a trip. After the first wait I was so far into it that I decided to stay on the line and see how long it actually took... 2 hours and 58 minutes Lucky I had other work to do on the PC while I was waiting. But yeah... We value your business... please stay on the line for the next agent.... repeated ad nauseam !!! What a fkn joke !!!! Cheers...

The spirit of L V Martin lives on

Yussss... I was just thinking that this is a bit like when you have to reload the OS on a PC. When I have done that it erases all the little tweaks and extras that have been added over a couple of years to make the system better and/or more user friendly, and puts it back to how it came out of the box. Is a major piss off event but if it has to be done then that is what you have to expect. However, in my case it is a last resort to get the machine running again... not something I would do to fix some small software glitch. In your case I would have to assume that this recall was more about BMW covering their ass against legislative punishment for not meeting emissions standards, rather than a safety critical item. But maybe not... could be something that affects fuel economy or some other factor that is beneficial to the customer. Bottom line is that BMW dealers must be aware that owners to make changes to enhance their enjoyment of their vehicles, and therefore it would be good PR, if nothing else, to advise customers BEFORE re-flashing the DME. Don't know if that would have helped if you don't have the information on file to re-enable the features knocked out by the re-flash. Tough break and hope you can get it sorted. Cheers...

This ^^^^^. Happens on older gasoline engines that only have a tensioner on one side of the chain. Engine kicks back on shutdown and the tensioner is now on the wrong side of the chain and ineffective, allowing the chain to get loose and jump teeth. Go to start the engine the next morning and it will not fire due to bad spark timing and/or lack of compression. First check would be to make sure the cam chain (or belt) had not broken and the second check would be to make sure all the chain timing marks still lined up. Not sure what the tensioner/guide arrangement is on your diesel engine, or how easy it is to check the cam timing, but as said, that should be one of the basic crank-no start checks. The checks that have already been done appear to have covered these points, However, diesel engines are likely more sensitive to a drop in compression than gasoline engines. A friend of mine had an old diesel truck that wouldn't cold start, and every morning we had to tow it at around 50kph to bump start it in a high gear Once started it would run fine all day. Not going to work with an auto though, even for testing. Cheers...

Don't know if it is relevant or not, but where I have put the broken green line the achieved boost spiked more than 1psi higher than the target boost. Depending on what it takes to trigger an overboost reaction (% above target, duration etc) that might be enough ? It's almost like the wastegates or BOV are not reacting fast enough when the achieved boost reaches target. Wastegates are controlled by the DME so there will be some kind of PID control going on = tune function. Just guessing of course, but that is what I would expect. Cheers...

That guy ^^^^ was mowing down a row of battens but the post showed him who's boss

Half an hour of badass rally thrash here....

On this basis I would tend to agree with the mechanics initial advice of "look for another engine". It is impossible to say that there is not some rare and/or bizarre factor (that does not bring up a code) and is stopping your engine from starting. Like gelled fuel for example. But that would be unlikely to cause one cylinder to be 100psi low. And since you previously drove for a long distance without noticing any rough running, I would not be expecting stuck rings, but I guess it is possible. I sincerely hope that there will turn out to be some rational explanation to this problem, as I hate unsolved mysteries !!! Good luck. Cheers...

If the Tapley meter is not attached to the heavy frame that holds it in place on the floor of the car, and is in fact hand held, it is quite a small object. Possibly easy to miss if you were looking for something larger. The operating instructions for the meter require the vehicle to be driven at a steady speed greater than 30kph and then the brake/s applied smoothly and firmly (without "jabbing"). I doubt that this procedure could be safely carried out on the service agents premises, hence the need to go out on the road. Not defending anyone, just saying brakes are a kind of important safety feature on a vehicle. So the service agent would be reasonably keen to make sure that they were working properly before putting a WOF on the car. Cheers...

The workshop may have a "deceleration box" that they put on the floor of the car in front of the passenger seat and road test the car to check the brakes. When applied in a moving vehicle, the handbrake has to generate a certain degree of retardation to pass the test. Cheers...

Hi Wang... welcome aboard You might want to say hello in the "New Members" thread which is the very first on the index page. Put in a few details of your ride and tell us about your hopes and dreams (for your car that is ) Cheers...

The money that is being pumped into setting up the new speed camera network (that will use facial recognition to see who is in the front seats) has to come from somewhere. Just a question of priorities. Cheers... PS: If potholes are that effective maybe the police should use them instead of road spikes ?

But is this the future ?? Will this new way of using hydrogen make traditional EV's redundant ?? https://www.goodwood.com/grr/event-coverage/festival-of-speed/2022/6/viritech-apricale-is-a-1000ps-hydrogen-hypercar/ Cheers...

... and what was the compression like on the other cylinders ? Manufacturers usually stipulate a minimum compression psi below which the engine is considered worn out. And on a compression ignition engine low compression on all cylinders would be a major contributor to a crank - no start condition. Cheers...

How many cylinders does that engine have ?? I have had 4-cylinder (N.A. petrol engines) that ran, not well, but ran with only two cylinders firing. Don't see why one cylinder with low compression should stop the engine starting unless there was some other factor at play. Cheers...