Metal VANOS Cover Failure - MUST READ!

How difficult is it for a shop to retime the engine with Mporium a covers?

Battle wrote

How difficult is it for a shop to retime the engine with Mporium a covers?

Once the valve covers are off. 30 mins per bank average speed.
That’s not removing the phasers.

Done it twice by myself. Assisted on 4 other cars. It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it and understand how it works.

Helmsman wrote

Can't see in your picture mate, was that one of the small clips?

Would be interesting to hear from Ajolives as well.

Cheers

Everything on mine is good. Not too worried about it personally. I had a rogue clip a year ago, fixed it, and still good better part of a year later. That being said there’s way better options out there now thanks to threads like this.

Battle wrote

How difficult is it for a shop to retime the engine with Mporium a covers?

Actually, it's not very difficult, to open ISTA, step by step. If they have never done it before, it may take some time. I had done this step for many S65s, If I complete it alone, it will take less than an hour for only retiming it.

Is there anyone installed VANOS COVERS that were tightened with screws.
Can they withstand huge torque and maintain tightness, I have encountered fault codes caused by the relative rotation of cams and vanos gears before in 3 S65s, everything is stock, maybe loosening due to natural aging I don't know.

If they can withstand huge torque and remain firm in engine running. They will be the best choice.

A few updates with my Slon covers. Gave the car some spirited driving this weekend after pushing the clip back on, and all seemed well. Today, I checked the car, and had some interesting observations.

The good news: I got the motor to stop at a perfect stop to get a good look at the suspect clip. It was still attached.

The bad news: I can clearly see that the clip had wear on the inside of the clip. There is a slight gap between the clip and the lip of the vanos unit, much more than the other clips.

This kind of wear could not have been caused by an installation error. Wear in that scenario would have worn down the pointy part of the clip, but there would have been no way to wear the inside part of the clip, as if it wasn't clipped on all the way, nothing would be making contact in that area.


This suggests that the clip wore down, and eventually popped off, likely due to vibration.

Its worth noting that all of the other clips looked perfect.


I took one of my original pictures I took last week, and zoomed in and its fairly obvious there as well. Picture is attached.

You can see a nice healthy right angle on the attached clip. On the one that is popped off, you can see the inside of it has been rounded out a bit, again likely from vibration. There's simply no way that wear pattern could have been caused by an installation error, as it has rounded out inside the clip.

At this point, I'm convinced. It's a flawed design.

drwankel wrote

A few updates with my Slon covers. Gave the car some spirited driving this weekend after pushing the clip back on, and all seemed well. Today, I checked the car, and had some interesting observations.

The good news: I got the motor to stop at a perfect stop to get a good look at the suspect clip. It was still attached.

The bad news: I can clearly see that the clip had wear on the inside of the clip. There is a slight gap between the clip and the lip of the vanos unit, much more than the other clips.

This kind of wear could not have been caused by an installation error. Wear in that scenario would have worn down the pointy part of the clip, but there would have been no way to wear the inside part of the clip, as if it wasn't clipped on all the way, nothing would be making contact in that area.


This suggests that the clip wore down, and eventually popped off, likely due to vibration.

Its worth noting that all of the other clips looked perfect.


I took one of my original pictures I took last week, and zoomed in and its fairly obvious there as well. Picture is attached.

You can see a nice healthy right angle on the attached clip. On the one that is popped off, you can see the inside of it has been rounded out a bit, again likely from vibration. There's simply no way that wear pattern could have been caused by an installation error, as it has rounded out inside the clip.

At this point, I'm convinced. It's a flawed design.

That is all I need to see.

I wonder if the Evolve or VTT covers would suffer from this issue or is it just worth the extra effort to put in the Mporium covers?

Something that is still bugging me is why do the original plastic clip on covers last 200k miles and the aluminum clip on pieces pop off?

Nickco43 wrote

That is all I need to see.

I wonder if the Evolve or VTT covers would suffer from this issue or is it just worth the extra effort to put in the Mporium covers?

Something that is still bugging me is why do the original plastic clip on covers last 200k miles and the aluminum clip on pieces pop off?

possibly because it doesn't have individual clips but is one continuous surface so the whole thing needs to deform to pop off.

Worth the extra effort! No doubt about it. We should be thankful Mporium decided to produce the “cups” because it actually encloses the spring like the OEM does. To me, that’s extra added insurance.

I showed both the Vargas and Evolve Vanos covers to some engineers at my work and just looking at the photos the Evolved ones looked more substantial to them.

I bit the bullet and spent the $530 to get the Evolve covers over from the UK. Once I get them a fitted I will let everyone know my thoughts on them.

Ugh, so we've just got expensive 7075 paper weights?

Shredicus wrote

Ugh, so we've just got expensive 7075 paper weights?

Seriously, that’s a grip of money!

So we’re now operating from “I showed pictures to random engineers and they said these look more substantial” as meaningful contributions?

Starting to feel like I should be selling parts to some of you.

DRLane wrote

So we’re now operating from “I showed pictures to random engineers and they said these look more substantial” as meaningful contributions?

Starting to feel like I should be selling parts to some of you.

the anodizing contributes to the substantiality.

Why is anyone installing the clip on options at this point. Why isn’t Carbahn the obvious solution (master engine builder) or oem replacements? Retiming the engine seems like the better option than rolling the dice with engine failure IF your van is covers are toast and the caps fail? 6 pages of thread for what??????

Helmsman wrote

Thanks Eric,

had a look and what do you know... immediately found one clip (one of the small) loose. Easy to click back with a screw driver.

Turned the engine around and checked as good as possible, thought maybe one of the lower clips was lose but couldn't confirm it really.

Mine are btw SLON' from the first unmarked set. The shop doing the job 2y/5k miles ago did screw up first time and had to do it all over again. As its an "easy" clip to get in place I found it hard to believe that they fokked up again.

Think I decide that it was the tiny clip only and the caps will stay put. I'll take a look after driving from now on. Even after almost 10 years this car never stop driving me crazy, but still a keeper. What love does to you.

Catched the small clip also on the lower vanos this morning. Squeezed it in place with a nice and distinct click.
Have not seen any of the mentioned worn at all on the clips (passanger side only). No offence but find it hard to believe that they could worn the way they sit. They can't rotate, and there is plenty lubrication should they manage to vibrate (which also seem strange with the despite all fair spring power holding it down. Why would they jump up/down?).

Anyways, will try to make sure that pass side clips are all in place and drive while waiting for gasket. Where after plan to pull driver side timing cover.

At this point I tend to lean back on that the mech simply missed hooking the small clips. Living on the hope.

DRLane wrote

So we’re now operating from “I showed pictures to random engineers and they said these look more substantial” as meaningful contributions?

Starting to feel like I should be selling parts to some of you.

These engineers sure know more about these things than I do.

Anyway I am taking a $500 gamble that the Evolve ones will not pop off and last the life of the car. I will periodically monitor them and report back to the group. if they start to pop off I will have a shop install the Mporium ones.

It seems like everyone here is running the original slon design or a knock off of it. I can’t find any user feedback about the full cover VTT or Evolve designs so I am going to be the beta tester.

Nickco43 wrote

Anyway I am taking a $500 gamble that the Evolve ones will not pop off and last the life of the car. I will periodically monitor them and report back to the group. if they start to pop off I will have a shop install the Mporium ones.

The problem with that line of thinking is that you can only really see/monitor the passenger bank and assume that the drivers is fine. For me personally I rather not be pulling my valve covers periodically for peace of mind. I'll either go MPorium or Carbahn after I find someone to re-time my car locally or learn to do it myself.

Sounds like what we need is a good DIY on timing the engine and some timing kits floating around

Tommysalami wrote

Sounds like what we need is a good DIY on timing the engine and some timing kits floating around

Going to be doing a set of Carbahn plates on an e90. Would you like me to take photos? Maybe a DIY?

charliev68 wrote

Going to be doing a set of Carbahn plates on an e90. Would you like me to take photos? Maybe a DIY?

A detailed DIY with photos would help the community immensely

Going to start tonight…I’ll snap photos as I’m doing it and will post a write up