My supercharger PTO gears made it to 158k miles before failing (in late 2020 naturally) so as many know, my supercharger replacement turned into "since I'm here..."

One of those add on jobs was replacing a long overdue valve cover gasket. As the original owner of this car, I have always kept up with maintenance (done myself). The first couple oil changes I think I followed the service light (15k miles) and then I've stuck with 10k miles or so. I've always used full synthetic oil (Castrol, Mobil 1 and Liqui Moly lately) so I expected to find a clean valvetrain when I pulled the valve cover. It was clean, however closer inspection of the rollers showed what I would consider normal at this mileage except for cylinder 1 exhaust roller.



Cylinder 1 exhaust roller.

Cylinder 1 exhaust cam lobe.

My clean valvetrain. 🙂


It shows galling, so logically I wanted to have a look at the cam lobe. With my inspection mirror and through the mess of rocker arms and valve springs, I could see a pitted cam lobe. Since this condition seems isolated to cylinder 1 exhaust and to cylinder 1 intake lobe nearest the timing chain it seems to be localized concern as opposed to a general oiling failure to the valvetrain. To be honest, I had a lot to do yesterday, the shop closes at 5 and it was important for me to finish all the work I planned to complete on the R53 so my attitude was "I guess I need to start shopping for a valvetrain" as I proceeded with my repairs, so I didn't look at the other cam lobes since the rollers seemed OK.

A search here for cam wear tells me my condition is not unique and quite mild in fact compared to some. So my question is how much time might I have before I have driveability issues?

I assume the correct course of action is to replace the camshaft and all the rockers. Since I've finally entered the rabbit hole of modifications with the 17% pulley on my rebuilt supercharger, what cam might complement that for a daily driver?

Finally, what is the cause of this?

 

This is a good chance to upgrade the cam. Newman Cams are sold through M7. There are other brands too.

I’m redoing a motor with 125k miles and the cam lobes were worn down a lot and about half the rollers were bad. I assume it was from using the wrong specs oil.

 

It’s a little tricky to tell from the pictures but my professional opinion is that it’s caused by a manufacturing defect in the cam. I think what I’m seeing on the cam lobe are voids in the casting or perhaps spalling. Either points to a bad casting and/or heat treatment.
Tough to say how much time until it gernades.

 

That's my opinion too but with 158k miles on the stock camshaft, I'm not complaining.

It's just that my car was down for 6 weeks while I decided my course of action, acquired all the parts I needed and got shop time to do the work. I just got it running yesterday and now it looks like I've got to start planning another little project. If I'm replacing the valvetrain, I may as well do the whole timing drive system while I'm there.

 

i've seen quite a few with this damage

 

Yea, I looked my stock cam over very well to find minor putting on a lobe though it ran perfect and the rocker wasn't effected. This seems to be a pretty big problem I see with them..I wonder if there's an issue with the coating of the cams ??? Because mine doesn't look like wear as much as it does just the cam coming off.

 

Long oil change intervals, lack of zinc/phos. I run diesel oil in my r53 to prevent wear like that

 

Really ??? Please educate me... I have an ns1 cam n tpr2 I don't want that happening to. I run my oil out to 6k miles but use obv full synthetic and I been using valvoline as its what Walmart usually has 0w40 in
pm me so I don't thread hump plz

 

what was your question? High ramp rates low zinc content in most modern car oils and lots of cam wear on these engines. None of mine have it but I've worked on enough that have. Going to a bigger cam typically increase the ramp rates even more than stock

 

I was asking what desiel oil he runs because I'm wondering if I should switch over to that also because I'm running a performance engine with bvh and mild cam.

 

I run rotella t6 truck oil (not the car version) in the following, I have well over 1M miles on various bmw's on the oil, I've used it for many many years

R53 jcw
r53 track car
f150
motorcycles
atv
mower
x5 diesel
135i
128i
toyota 86

 

I change my oil every 5,000 miles also....full Synthetic. Not sure why some people are stretching it out to 10K or even 15K miles. Seems crazy to me.

My motors going on 185K miles.....no issues and the Blackstone oil reports looks great. (knock on wood)

 

When BMW and mini introduced free oil changes they extended the service intervals and a lot of people believed that that was okay

BMW has walked back the intervals a little bit but nowhere near enough I buy and sell a lot of BMWs that are screwed up from lack of oil changes It does help my wallet because I can pick them up cheap fix them and flip them

 

I’ve never had a Blackstone analysis done. I’m curious if it would pick up that cam lobe issue.

Since the cam lobe wear is only on a couple of my cam lobes, I’m not convinced it’s an oil failure issue more than a manufacturing defect in the camshaft material.

That said, when I do replace my rockers and camshaft, I will switch to a 5k service interval continuing with 5W-40 LiquiMoly that I’ve had in the last couple of services and maybe pull the valve cover to inspect every 50k miles or so.

 

Could you link me a pic..
What weight do you run in the modified r53 ?
I been running 0w40 and have had no emgine tick and very minor oil usage so I'd like to stay around that weight .
what this one be good I pictured below?

 

if it has a picture of a semi on it thats what I run, 15w40 T6