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BMW 3-Series (E90 E92) Forum > BMW E90/E92/E93 3-series General Forums > General E90 Sedan / E91 Wagon / E92 Coupe / E93 Cabrio > N55 intake valves after 61,000 miles



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      12-11-2013, 12:49 PM   #1
ze_german
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N55 intake valves after 61,000 miles

First the car details:
N55 coupe, build date 7/10, mileage at the moment of manifold removal 61,000 miles. Factory maintained until 47,000 miles and then I had oil changes done every 5000 miles.

The car has not had a tune (yet) or oil catch can, just a ER chargepipe and BMS intake.

I was reading a lot about the carbon deposits on the intake manifolds and I had to take off my manifold because of a leaky oil cooler seal last Saturday. I got myself carb cleaner and the gun cleaning kit for some scrubbing.

Both me and my mechanic were pretty stunned at the cleanliness of the valves. The was almost no carbon deposits at all. A little bit on the valvestems itself and a thin layer of residue on the walls but absolutely not worth mentioning at all.
Maybe because the car did more than 60k miles within 3 years so it has a lot of freeway miles and always ran nice and warm.
I just had to do some minor tidying up of the valves which took like 10 minutes and my mechanic confirmed the car could have done at least 100k miles without even thinking about a valve cleaning job.

I attached a pic if found on the interwebs and marked the affected area in red. I didn't take pics myself because like i said they looked in very good shape.

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      12-11-2013, 12:51 PM   #2
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thats clean lol
edit: oh realized they aren't yours.
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      12-11-2013, 12:56 PM   #3
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Nice report. Thanks for sharing. Wish you took a picture though
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      12-11-2013, 12:58 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dkexige View Post
Nice report. Thanks for sharing. Wish you took a picture though
Yeah, didn't think about it until the manifold was back on. But imagine above pic with a little black residue on the red parts. That was really it. Nothing more.
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      12-11-2013, 01:33 PM   #5
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The carbon buildup is much more of an issue in the N54. I have 126k on my 2011 e90 335. I had mine cleaned at 100k and they looked basically new when we opened everything up.
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      12-11-2013, 01:44 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ze_german View Post
I was reading a lot about the carbon deposits on the intake manifolds and I had to take off my manifold because of a leaky oil cooler seal last Saturday. I got myself carb cleaner and the gun cleaning kit for some scrubbing.

Both me and my mechanic were pretty stunned at the cleanliness of the valves. The was almost no carbon deposits at all. A little bit on the valvestems itself and a thin layer of residue on the walls but absolutely not worth mentioning at all.
Maybe because the car did more than 60k miles within 3 years so it has a lot of freeway miles and always ran nice and warm.
I just had to do some minor tidying up of the valves which took like 10 minutes and my mechanic confirmed the car could have done at least 100k miles without even thinking about a valve clean

Just out of curiosity... have you been using the same fuel and if so which fuel have you been using?
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      12-11-2013, 01:48 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by toniostyle View Post
Just out of curiosity... have you been using the same fuel and if so which fuel have you been using?
I would say 80% of the time I get Chevron. The other times it's a mix of Arco near home or 76 near work (when I was too lazy to stop and fill it up at Chevron and gas is getting low).
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      12-11-2013, 02:12 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by D's Bimmer View Post
The carbon buildup is much more of an issue in the N54.

They say that about every platform that releases an updated direct injection engine until the miles really start accumulating. ALL BMW, GM, Mazda, VW/Audi, Hyundai and every other direct injection only engine has this issue, the N55 is no exception. Driving habits and quality of oil will make more of a difference than the changes made between the N54 and N55. Toyota/Lexus is the only car company presently with a solution is production and it incorporates port injection along with direct injection.
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      12-11-2013, 04:10 PM   #9
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Carbon build up is from oil flashing over as fumes and sticking to the valves. Using high flash point oil seems to eliminate this. One of our members has over 200K miles on his 335 and had his intake valves cleaned at 59K or close to that. He changed to high flash point oil and has never had to do them again. He also changed to lower OCI at around 7K miles. His is not a stock car either I believe he runs a JB4 tune.
I am curious about my intake valves and plan to pull my intake in Feb to replace the OFHG and see how bad my valves are too.
Subaru has a patent on their technique for DI engines which is reported to eliminate the carbon build up. I have not seem this problem reported much on the GM site for DI engines but significant reports on Audi/VW our BMWs.
Would be nice if BMW was not so mute on this topic because I think they know of a solution to the problem...
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      12-11-2013, 05:22 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fun2drive View Post
.
Subaru has a patent on their technique for DI engines which is reported to eliminate the carbon build up.
The patents are Toyota's who developed the fuel injection system used on the Subaru BRZ/Scion FRS
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