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March 2023 - big Oopsie
After getting the supercharger on the car and getting the car driving again and trying to dial in the tune, I found out I was out of injector. But I found this out after I had my flywheel come loose. When I changed out my stock clutch/flywheel I used a video guide that had all the torque specs and everything, and the one torque spec that ruined my day was it said to torque the flywheel down to 65 ft-lbs. I didn't know any better so I went along with it. I first noticed there was a problem when I heard what sounded like a rock flying around in my bell housing. I took the little cover off and found the head of one of my flywheel bolts. From there I didn't think the whole flywheel was loose, but just had one bolt fail so I went about to drop the trans and replace the flywheel bolts, but when I got to the flywheel the remaining 5 bolts were just about finger tight. When I took the flywheel off it looked like the slight vibration of the flywheel caused chunks of the crank to get welded to the flywheel.
"Band-Aid Solution"
At this point, I knew it was fucked and just tried to sand both the crank and flywheel smooth, but I knew I probably wasn't going to be able to get anywhere near balanced but figured it would at least let me drive the car for a couple of months while I figure out a permanent solution. Well after reinstalling the flywheel and torquing the bolts to 90ft lbs, after 30 minutes of driving, I was getting a terrible vibration, so I immediately took the car home.
Permanent Solution
Well, I knew no matter what I did, the engine wasn't going to be balanced as long as that crank was being used so I first tried to look up how much it would cost to replace it. And the crank itself was cheap finding used ones on eBay from $200-$300, but what I wasn't expecting was how expensive all the weird tools, and one-time use bolts and gaskets I would need to replace to even get to the crank. From my estimation, it would have cost me around $800 in just parts and tools, and I'm sure I was still missing stuff. And that would still leave room for me to mess up assembling the motor as I've never built a motor before. So then I started looking for used motors since you can get a complete motor for around the same price. I was looking for a couple of weeks, but kept seeing motors going for around $1300 and had over 120k miles on average which I didn't think was a good deal. So I kept looking until I found one on eBay that only had around 30k miles out of a 2012 128i convertible and was only $1200 shipped. I immediately bought it and patiently waited.
Where I'm at now
Well the new motor was scheduled to be deliver on march 7th, so I started to work on getting the car ready that same day. Well as the days went on it kept getting delayed being told it will be here tomorrow, over and over again. I tried calling to see if I can just pick up the motor myself as it was at a distribution center only an hour away from me, but they said I can't until Monday next week as it's still just sitting on the back of a truck waiting to be unloaded. So as frustrating as that is I used the free time to clean up the engine bay, and have my oil pan baffle welded in. So hopefully my new motor will be here soon, so I can finally have my car driving again.
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