A BMW E46 uses plastic ends on the radiator hoses, plastic tanks on the radiator, plastic hardlines for the heater core coolant lines, and O-rings in all of these connections and sensor locations. There were minor leaks and rotted cooling system plastics throughout the engine bay. Refreshing the cooling system on our red 330 included a lot of new parts replaced to prevent "old car problem" failures. I love replacing OEM style aluminum/plastic rads with all aluminum core/tank aftermarket units that have a larger core with no plastic to crack. The unit above had a leak in the core (green evidence) and the plastic end tanks and necks also have a finite lifespan. This radiator above was also bent from some sort of front end impact, and I suspect the original radiator in our red 330Ci was likely damaged at some point, but replaced recently because it was in fairly good shape. This was a rare "Northern car" (we don't see many rust belt cars in Texas) with the typical salt road crust on every inch of that car. The radiator above is more typical of what we remove from E46 BMWs, and came out of a customer's 2001 330ci. But that's why company's like mine exist - to make BMWs more track worthy, faster, and more robust. I love their cars, but some of the engineering choices baffle me. We've already replaced those nasty things with our own Nylon motor mounts (stiff) and red poly trans mounts (95A durometer) - which radically improved shift feel and throttle response, but ALSO helps saves all of your hoses and cooling system bits.Īm I saying BMW is imperfect? Yes I am. All of those pesky items eventually strain and crack, and these leaks are worsened simply by BMWs insistence on using luxurious hydraulic drivetrain mounts. This excessive drivetrain movement PULLS on all of the coolant hoses, thermostat housing neck, radiator necks, power steering hoses, and more. When the hydraulic motor mounts fail (they break in half) the engine can move inches up and down. The sloppy hydraulic OEM motor mounts and soft rubber trans mounts allow the engines in BMWs to move around a lot. Yes, that's what we have determined after 15+ years of futzing with dozens of our own and hundreds of customers' Bimmers. Why do these parts only last 50K miles? Its the motor mounts. It was always on a car we neglected to follow the 50K mile cooling system replacement rule. I've never done that, but we have run into several BMWs we have owned in the past that "sprung a leak". What can happen? Some plastic piece usually cracks, you spring a leak, and - if you are not paying attention - you run the car out of coolant, overheat the engine, warp the head, and ruin the engine. I refused to risk another event and running at a max 5000 rpm because we had the stock engine balancer and no oil system upgrades.ĬOOLING SYSTEM UPGRADES - Modern BMWs are known for fragile cooling systems that have to be replaced every 50,000 miles, "or else". Just too damned busy get to the required updates this car needed before we could race it again. It pained me to miss three NASA Texas weekends, including the May NOLA, June Hallett and another MSR-H event. Once again it went too long so I will cover the return of this car to NASA TTD competition (above) at the Fall 2016 NASA event at Texas World Speedway next time.Īfter the April 2016 NASA event we were super busy at the Vorshlag shop and our 330 build got kicked into the corner. This second half of the update shows what we did to the red '01 330Ci Coupe over the Summer of 2016, which was a lot of little things that added up to some big improvements in performance. Project Update for November 12th, 2016: My last update got a little bloated so I wanted to break it up into two parts.
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