Timing Chain and Swirl Flaps

[Wellsy]

Hi all morning,

Oh what a week its been, sent the car in (D3 Biturbo) for the timing chain to be done. No symptoms to speak of other than the car is 15 years old and has done 174,000 miles. So for peace of mind for a few road trips coming up this year. Swift Performance in Aylesbury were tasked with doing my timing chain. Firstly Swift are great guys you may have seen them on Joe Achilles channel or even from there own content.
It's an engine out job so they booked the car in for 2 days. All good so far, but then I get a call Wednesday there was a oil leak from the back of the inlet manifold so Swift being who they are thought they would take the inlet off and check if its the gaskets and if so change them. Which is perfect exactly what I want them to do. BUT as they removed the inlet they noticed the swirl flap rod locating bearings had actually broken off and was flapping around. So I'm now into a new Inlet Manifold as well. Clearly aside from the extra cost, I am so lucky to have found this while in a garage and able to get it done. Rather than half way into one of the road trips planned this year.

Hoping the car can be done by end of today so I can still take to Ultimate BMW on Sunday but the most important thing is getting it fixed.

[JohnW]

It’s all good news if you consider the damage the swirl flaps could have caused too.

BMW claimed they fixed the issue with the E46, clearly a shrug off for the newer car owners, that’s extremely poor from them.

The new chain has more oil journals in the links that throw around more oil which in theory was the cause of the early N47 failures.

[Wellsy]

Hey,

Yeah to find that problem while the engine was out and with Swift is really lucky and kudos to Swift for being diligent and taking the time to take the manifold off to check things. Really pleased they did this. Fabian showed me the inlet manifold when I picked the car up and where the bearings fix to it the plastic had snapped off and was spinning around and the Swirl Flap rod was loose and moving around. So if it had failed, even more, I'd of been looking at a new engine.

The car drives lovely now, really smooth and maybe a little quieter. Perhaps that's just in my mind though. Definitely feel like better pick up from low down. Which would make sense now the Swirl Flaps are working correctly.

All set for some more shows and road trip in June to Bimmerfest.