Official S65 Rod Bearing Condition Example Thread

2008 E90 6MT with 70,000 miles. Purchased the car in 2019 with about 63,000 miles on it. Oil was historically done at the dealer on an annual basis, which was usually around 5,000 miles between changes.




Replaced with BE. I've seen worse, but happy to have them done. Worst wear was on the upper of #7, which is what the detailed picture is of, just a small amount of copper coming through.

Assimilator1 wrote

Err, I think you misunderstood my question , I wasn't calling into doubt the numbers, I just wondered what hardware was used to achieve that power.

You mention boost pulleys, so it's supercharged then. I've not looked into supercharging for M3s, though often seen people quote about 600hp for a supercharged one. I guess that 1000hp is running much higher boost! Or is it stroked and running wilder cams etc too?
Re drivetrain losses, I've always understood it to be about 20% for a 2WD, not read anything solid about that though.

It's a 4.5L low compression (9.5:1) supercharged stroker. It uses brand new BMW blocks with factory 92mm piston holes. Therefore as the bore measurements dictate, custom pistons need to be made to fit into each individual hole. It uses ESS hardware with a customized ESS manifold for larger intake and multiple BoV's. The supercharger was not the standard ESS V3si, but was the larger Vortech V2ti. The V2ti has since been replaced with the new ESS G3 supercharger hardware. The tuning is completely custom by "Master Yoda" (you'll need to look him up) -- he flew to Moscow for the job. Nobody makes cams for forced induction S65's, so the cams are stock, as I think the heads are too...but not totally sure about that. Here's the build thread:
https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1651043

WagonR wrote

2008 E90 6MT with 70,000 miles. Purchased the car in 2019 with about 63,000 miles on it. Oil was historically done at the dealer on an annual basis, which was usually around 5,000 miles between changes.




Replaced with BE. I've seen worse, but happy to have them done. Worst wear was on the upper of #7, which is what the detailed picture is of, just a small amount of copper coming through.

Good move. You will sleep much better now. For an '08 they really don't look that bad - in comparison to many others on this thread. However, consider the BE Bearings an investment not just in the car, but in peace of mind. Now go drive it like you stole it.. :-)

DrFerry wrote

Good move. You will sleep much better now. For an '08 they really don't look that bad - in comparison to many others on this thread. However, consider the BE Bearings an investment not just in the car, but in peace of mind. Now go drive it like you stole it.. :-)

Yeah, you don't know until you're in there, and at that point might as well refresh them no matter what. Looks like I might have gotten lucky on the stacked clearances from the factory. Based on what I can infer previous owner wasn't an enthusiast, but they did take the car into BMW for maintenance on a frequent enough basis that I was comfortable with the cars history. The state of the bearings at least let's me know they weren't idiots with the car (probably no cold engine redlines out of the neighborhood...), which is nice!

Yea relatively good for pre LCI S65 bearings, but still more wear than their should be.
Good that you've had them done .

Green-eggs
Thanks, sounds awesome, must be insane to drive!

whats average cost to replace rod bearings I have 2008 M3

2012 E92 M3 6MT with 51558 mile. New BE Rod bearing and ARP bolts is in. Peace of mind. Will sleep much better now. For an ‘12 they really don’t look that bad.

Serviced by Ian IS. Motorsports in Seattle.

jamabdi wrote

Went with BE bearings, and BE ARP bolts. The car has had two previous owners before me. Original owner changed oil every 5k miles, and sold it to carmax with 12k miles on it back in 2016 I believe. Second owner bought it in 2016 with the carmax warranty, did oil changes every 6k miles, and took it to autocross and track days. I bought this car in January of 2021 with 42k miles. Decided to get them done now since the warranty is coming to an end this april.

2013 e92 m3
6 speed manual
45k miles today.

Did you do the RB change yourself?

gmandmd wrote

whats average cost to replace rod bearings I have 2008 M3

On average, expect to pay approximately $2500 to replace the rod bearings on the S65 engine - which includes parts and labor. It will also depend upon where you live.

Ximian wrote

Did you do the RB change yourself?

We really only have only have two options for shops that do this service in MN that I know of. One is Orr Autosport (the shop that did my bearings), and the other is Eurotech. Orr normally uses VAC for their service so you have to special request BE bearings. Eurotech uses/recommends OEM, don't know if you can request your bearings of choice with them, you'd have to ask them.

jamabdi wrote

We really only have only have two options for shops that do this service in MN that I know of. One is Orr Autosport (the shop that did my bearings), and the other is Eurotech. Orr normally uses VAC for their service so you have to special request BE bearings. Eurotech uses/recommends OEM, don't know if you can request your bearings of choice with them, you'd have to ask them.

Orr did mine two years ago with the BE/BE-ARP combo, they've been great.

jamabdi wrote

Eurotech uses/recommends OEM

It's best to avoid any shop that replaces a problem with a problem. Moreover, it shows a lack of knowledge on the issue and proper solution. BE Bearings are the proper solution IMO.

DrFerry wrote

It's best to avoid any shop that replaces a problem with a problem. Moreover, it shows a lack of knowledge on the issue and proper solution. BE Bearings are the proper solution IMO.

That specific set of indy shops has a great reputation around here and I think it's just a blanket recommendation from them for all engines. I know they have used other RBs before, so they probably don't want to deal with a-holes anymore.

Remember that there are quite of lot of horrible people out there that would blame an unrelated issue or catastrophic failure on service they recently had, especially RB work. The owner of that shop posted on FB not too long ago that someone tried to blame the side mirror rusting and falling off their car because the shop took it through a car wash after service.

It's true their are plenty of dick customers out there, but that's no reason to stick with OEM bearings.
You can quite imagine that someone who has OEM bearings fitted there, and then later blows up their engine and finds out about dubious OEM clearances, that they would blame the shop for fitting them being the problem, even if it's absolutely nothing to do with the rod bearings!
So it can cut both ways when someone wants to blame the shop.

joe6mt
Yea don't look too bad for S65 bearings, at least from what we can see as 1/2 of them are covered in oil ;)
And yep, no more worrying as to whether the OEM clearances are ok or not!

Got bearings replaced last week at MPorium (shout out to Coulter and the crew for working me in during a visit). Pics below - not the worst on here but certainly not great.

Original owner, no mods or track days, with that low mileage oil changes are on time rather than miles and have been done every year with 10W60. Car has never been over 3K before oil was fully warmed up.

Last 4 Blackstone reports showed copper at 5, 4, 3, 3 ppm. We intend to keep the car long term and decided to go ahead with this rather than wait, glad we did.

Yea relatively not bad for early S65 bearings, good their gone anyway!

Btw, re oil analysis, more importantly (at least until they've worn through the lead), what were the lead levels?

Lead was 9, 3, 6 and 8 in order most recent to oldest.

1000 km First Test done at first track day with BE, everything is OKAY!

2012 e93 M3 with 52k miles, post LCI bearings. I was on the fence about doing this since they are post LCI and the raw data shows fewer failures, but so glad I did. Thank you wetm3 on youtube who posted a vlog about his post LCI bearing change at 30k; his findings pushed me off the fence and into action.

CamasM3e93 wrote

2012 e93 M3 with 52k miles, post LCI bearings. I was on the fence about doing this since they are post LCI and the raw data shows fewer failures, but so glad I did. Thank you wetm3 on youtube who posted a vlog about his post LCI bearing change at 30k; his findings pushed me off the fence and into action.

I'm only aware of one thread with the raw data and it was abandoned about 2-3 years ago. That thread showed higher failures with later 702/703 bearings. The later bearings are 4x harder, and the presumption is that they are less forgiving and cause more damage -- hence the higher failures.

Do you have a link to any other raw data posted that shows the opposite? I'd like to see how it compares -- especially whether or not it includes the same cars from the other thread.

Green-Eggs wrote

I'm only aware of one thread with the raw data and it was abandoned about 2-3 years ago. That thread showed higher failures with later 702/703 bearings. The later bearings are 4x harder, and the presumption is that they are less forgiving and cause more damage -- hence the higher failures.

Do you have a link to any other raw data posted that shows the opposite? I'd like to see how it compares -- especially whether or not it includes the same cars from the other thread.

https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=924916

There's a poll at this link which shows 16 bearing failures in model years '12 and '13 out of 117 total failures across the entire e9x M3 build. It's raw data, response to a poll. Hardly scientific, but my having seen this months ago shaped some of my decision making. To be certain, you'd need to add in total # of cars built in each model year to see if there was a shift in the percentage of failures, and perhaps have more robust input data then the folks who cared to respond here on the forum.

CamasM3e93 wrote

https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=924916

There's a poll at this link which shows 16 bearing failures in model years '12 and '13 out of 117 total failures across the entire e9x M3 build. It's raw data, response to a poll. Hardly scientific, but my having seen this months ago shaped some of my decision making. To be certain, you'd need to add in total # of cars built in each model year to see if there was a shift in the percentage of failures, and perhaps have more robust input data then the folks who cared to respond here on the forum.

I'm referring to a different thread which collects data on known engine failures and tallies them up. As you point out, a poll is not scientific. The poll asks for blown motors based on model year. THe poll doesn't make any distinction between rod bearing failures, main bearing failures, or any other cause. The other thread isolates to rod bearing failures and counts them up. Neither thread is perfect, but the poll is the least perfect and only accounts for people who see and respond; whereas the other thread is better because it collects data that already exists and isolates to a specific type of failure.

BTW, LCI (702/703) bearings are 2010.5 and later -- not just 2012 and 2013.