I am having an issue and need some help from someone with technical knowledge
The history of this car is I bought it sight unseen about 6-8 months ago and had it shipped to me It was a completely stock R53 JCW car. I drove it maybe 25 miles to see if everything was working and as it seems this was my first mistake. Car ran fine so in the shop it went.
Started doing normal service stuff and put in a WMW cam and a 17% pulley
New parts are
oil pump
Gaskets
Head repair and gasket
water pump and thermostat
supercharger service
coil and wires and plugs
o2 sensors
cam
pulley
struts and brakes
new bearings and wheel sensors
timing chain
clutch and LSD
intercooler
Got it all done and was so excited to drive and when I cranked it up is was in limp mode. I thought for sure I had timed it incorrectly and took that all apart again and did it a second time.It did not work. I fumbled around and cranked it and suddenly it popped out of limp mode without doing anything and I said OK! great! All is good with the world. Drove it for about a week all worked good and suddenly again back into limp mode.At first it would start off again if you recycled the key and started it up but progressively got worse. At the instant the car drops into limp mode all the DSC lights pop on.Way was telling me that the DSC will not be the cause for Limp mode
I contacted Way and he was thinking the first place to start was doing the head. He had seen this in the past. Seemed reasonable to me so off with the head and back on with care and still Limp mode.
I have been wrenching for a long time but the new software is challenging to me. I posted up the pics of what I got on the Autel tool I bought that I was thinking would make things easier for me but apparently it's over my head.
My thought now is the ECU has a problem but I just guessing and it would be nice if someone way better at these cars that I am to point me in the right direction..I am not even sure what all the faults mean.

 

Would start with bare bones basics.

Out of car battery test
ECU connectors clean and seated fully / properly.
Every ground connection car-wide (see Bentley) checked - clean, tight,no corrosion
Likewise verify anything else electronic touched, disconnected or replaced during the long list of work performed
Your Autel mentions 'faults' on that screen, would drill down to and reply with individual codes to help others weigh in

Also:
What is the model year and production date for the car?
Did the ECU get / need a tune for the new camshaft and pulley installed?
Any water intrusion in the car, i.e. wet footwells from sunroof drains?
Is the car running the original stock crankshaft pulley?

 

Just at a glance it looks like either bus issues or a dodgy module. Unfortunately I don’t have the manuals in front of me at the moment, and I don’t remember what’s on the CAN bus and what’s on the k-bus.

 

I'm reading all the new mods and thinking the same thing as @Daftlad , your problem might be the crankshaft pulley/harmonic balancer. Consider getting a fresh belt tensioner assembly too.

 

sorry for the delay in answering.

Daftlad
the car was built in August 05
I triple check the ECU connections and at time 2 or 3 put a very small amount of electric grease to improve connection.
The cam does not need a ECU re-tune according to WMW
I forgot in my original post I put in a new WMW balancer , new tentioner and belt and a 17% pulley

before all this happened I felt really sure I had everything put back now of course I question that.
I do need to know where all the grounds are! This would be a great start!
The only two I know about are the motor mount and the blue plastic connection bus on the passenger horseshoe
Is there any conversations here about the blue ground plastic part failing without it being noticeable?

The other question about water in the cab is not that I know of. the car did not have any evidence of that smell stains so forth.
I have not seen any light window lock problems.
Does the BCM control other functions?
I have charged the battery and did not receive the charger red light saying the battery was bad. have not taken it for testing it does turn over without issue.

I just wanted to try new O2 sensors so I put both in one at a time without any improvement . I used factory sensors and that was an expensive parts to trow at it!

DeepGrey

Noticed the British Racing Green club. need to check that. The reason I bought this car was JCW British racing green well optioned 06 gen1

I know you guys can coach me on how to figure this out and learn how to deal with multi-module cars that all talk to each other.
What I am use to is before this engineering took place. OBD diagnosis is a learning curve for me. part testing and test plans and factory printed manuals is where I have been.

I don't know what the Dodgy module is?
Also don't know what the CAN bus or the K bus are?

You will have to help the greenhorn out.

Hopefully this will be something easily fixed so I can go driving. dropped a bunch of money in this and can't drive it. I know some of you can feel that pain!


Jimmy

 

 

Great! I will get started on it to eliminate that! Have to report for the paying gig so it will take a week so I will let you know where I am soon.
I also charged up a spare battery to eliminate that too.

 

A good update!
I have a buddy that is a mechanic at Mercedes that was just coming by for lunch unrelated and started talking about this problem with him and he said lets take a look at it. He started by looking at the coil and I was unsure if that would be the problem but I haven't had any success so lets do it. He kept plugging away at it and as it turns out the pins on the plug where the problem!
That is a major move forward! I guess the KISS method still applies even in todays modern cars.
I was thinking that replacing the plug would be the best but he was telling me at the dealership the do not like to cut the plugs that this can create more problems down the road and I certainly agree. He was suggesting I purchase a De-pinning kit to work this problem and keep the plug to factory specs.
This is another area I have never been so

The next question I have is what De-pinning kit would be the best for the BMW minis to keep around the house to repair such problems?

 

Aright! Moving on! This was the problem with the car running on only 2 cylinders. As you can see they touched from time to time and killed one side of the coil. I was over thinking this but wanted to post to help others that may be experiencing the same problem. Have been reading this morning and as it seems the OE wire may not be the best so problems like this will most likely happen to all of us over the years of repairing and restoring these vehicles I de-pinned the plug which took a minute to figure out and sleeved them with heat shrink and put it back together and running like a champ now.

I am now receiving only one problem which has the dash warning light lit up like a Christmas tree. The ABS/DSC is not communicating with the ECU. I opened it up on the scanner to help you guys to help me get through this tech. I know these problems have occurred several time and we need a sticky on step buy step instructions on many different problems like these because I read for over an hour without much help.Maybe Im not looking in the correct places here.
This morning I checked all the fuses and replaced the battery with a known good on to take that out of the equation.
The speedo and horn are also not working. they did work before I began
Help would be appreciated!
We have 6 first gen cars! After this one gets all ironed out I am going to post up a restoration car so I will need to know this stuff and be able to do it and help others with you guys that have tons of experience. Then Im cutting down to 5 so all three kids and me and my wife car will be here for probably ever. This one I am working on is my car. her car is the resto project.

This has to be a simple problem and easy to address. Not great on the new tech stuff.

 

 

This is the one Im working on. After a year of working on this car Im sure am ready to see this rascal working correctly!

 

What a great looking car. Hard to go wrong with BRG, and the grey metallic wheels are a nice contrast with the brighter silver outers. Can see why you're anxious to get it back up and running.

Have you tried to do an ECU reset? Can do a search on here to find the step by step, that sometimes addresses gremlins like this.

Also noticed you have ABS + DSC + TPMS warning lights on, which is sometimes referred to as the 'Trifecta,' - a somewhat commonly encountered issue with these cars, not infrequently caused by wheel speed sensors / connectors / wheel hubs, example below:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-traction.html

It can also be caused by other things, and often if it is the wheel speed sensor you'll get a code for that but maybe not. BTW would be careful on trying to swap out wheel speed sensors; the screws and the recessed sensor parts both like to snap off inside the hub which is a day ruiner. Would verify first it's not a connector / wire issue. If you decide to easter egg them would soak the hardware with a good solvent for a couple days before attempting removal.

 

Addition to what daftlad said. Soak em a day but when you go to remove, if you have impact, tighten first a brrt then switch to loosen and they will come out fine.


also I’d pull the gauge cluster out of dash and check the pins are good on it since you are getting a very specific error. Since you mentioned having another one, I’d even try swapping clusters between cars to see if problem follows cluster or stays with car. And then work your way back dow the harness from there if required.

 

Had thought about suggesting this too - if you have another car with navigation or the chrono set up (tachometer and speedometer pods on the steering column) would consider swapping in a different, known good speedo. My tach crapped out once and caused all kinds of similar strange lighting effects, swapping it with a good one solved the issue in my case.

 

For this purpose, just seeing if Kbus talks, type doesn’t even matter, you could use any cluster from any r50/53 of any of the 3 types.

 

I took the chrono cluster and the Nav system out of my wifes car to restore without any change. Is there a good thread on this problem that is step by step for us mini greenhorns? Get the DSC fixed and that car will be finished!
Then I can post up my 18 month wifes car resto project.