You have tightened up the top end. Now the piston rings have to work harder which they may not be able to due to the miles on them. I'd guess you'll be OK. Watch your oil consumption it may go up a bit. Good on you for doing all that work.
Maybe. That is very low. Was the car at running temp when they did the compression test? It may be a good time to install one of these. I had one on my R53 https://www.detroittuned.com/detroit-tuned-bypass-valve/
Thanks for weighing in with ideas. I'm really not sure. Bypass valve is interesting... I need to research that more to understand it. Would love to stop buying stuff right about now though... Couple things happening now. I have the car up to drain the cheap oil and refill with the good stuff now. I also planned to pop in the new drain valve to the oil filter housing. Something seemed amiss when I checked the dipstick before lifting the car and it seemed to be showing a very low reading. But I've always hated that dipstick, it's never easy to read. I warmed up the car and checked again and there is definitely oil on it but it honestly hard to tell if it's low or normal or even maybe high. Got underneath to take out the drain plug and... there's oil everywhere. Maybe an exaggeration, not nearly as bad as before. But what a kick in the gut. I want to see no oil outside the car. I have some photos, it seems to be all originating from the transmission side. Visible Oil #1 this is from underneath at the front of the car. This part is attached to the front of the transmission near the engine block. There is visible oil on that mounting point. The oil runs down from there - this appears to be the highest point where I can see fresh oil (I cleaned up the old gunky oil as well as I could last weekend, I'm almost certain this is new). Visible Oil #2 here I've moved a few inches down and back - looking straight up from underneath the transmission. The most visible oil forming a droplet there is the lower end of the bracket you can see the top end of in the first photo. You can see the oil continuing its way downward through the lower portion of this image. Visible Oil #3 Directly underneath the transmission looking straight up toward the ceiling. Top half of the image is the transmission, then the seam where it meets the oil pan. Bottom half of the image is the oil pan. Lots of oil! It appears to be the continuous run-off from that high point in the first image, but it's hard to tell and to me it looks like a LOT of oil where the transmission meets the pan/engine. Does not feel good to see it here. Visible Oil #4 that big fat droplet is what I saw first, that's just near the drain plug. Power steering fan housing is visible in the lower right corner to orient you. I hope these images post correctly, I would love any input anyone can offer. I know diagnosing this stuff is damn near impossible for any of you via static images in a forum, but I appreciate all the advice so far a million times over. The mechanic was impressed with everything just two days ago... either they were suffering from situational blindness and missed all this oil mess while focusing on everything at the top of the engine (possible they never got under it since I had them looking at compression and smoke testing and the throttle body / intake) but that seems surprising. I dunno why it would suddenly be leaking this much in the past two days if it was dry when they had it. The car is up on stands and ready for fresh oil to take it the next 5,000 miles, but now I don't want to put anything in it if I need to re-do the oil pan gasket or worse... much worse... the rear main seal? If anyone can get me in the right direction from that first image where I think I'm looking at the highest point of the new leak maybe I can start there. I'm going to go out and check torque on the fasteners mating the transmission to the oil pan, but I know 100% I torqued those to spec. For further context since the details never seem to dry up (like the damn oil): When I started it this morning I checked the codes first, because the SES light was on for the first time since doing the work. I pulled a misfire cylinder 2 code and a code for Intake pressure before compressor. Cleared them and cycled through the engine off/back on/KP2, codes never came back on multiple restarts. No idea if that's something else to worry about or what. Saga continues.
This might be a better look than all four of those previous photos: Is this transmission fluid and a leak at the transmission, not engine oil from the engine at all? Stepping back and looking at fresh with the bright lights on it the pattern is clearly visible as starting at the front of the transmission and flowing downward and back.
The bypass valve is not a must have item. The it can be hard to see where the oil is on the dip stick. I get a clean paper towel and lay the dipstick on it then roll it over. Then you see the oil line better on the paper towel. When the oil is real clean this is about the only way I can see it. As far as your oil leak goes that may be a rear seal. I can’t see it coming from anything higher in the pictures. You could pull the fill plug on the transmission and check it’s level to full it out
Suddenly I’ve forgotten all about leaks... the car is staging a mutiny. It runs worse than it ever did before doing all this. The code for cylinder 2 misfire is back, and it most definitely runs like it has a misfire this time. Never really did before except for the occasional rough stumble at idle. But it’s pretty much terrible now. My son drove it yesterday, the day after the mechanic checked it all out, and parked it last night with it feeling good and normal, better than before. This morning it has a misfire, I change the oil and it’s even worse. I’m kinda beside myself at this point. Parking it for the night and stepping away. The only sort of glimmer of hope I have is that replacing the intake tube where the throttle body bolt is broken off will work some magic. That part arrives this week, I’ll install it next weekend. Maybe, to follow the logic of a recent response here, everything is so well cleaned up and balanced and tightened now that that one weakness is really a huge problem. I don’t think I fully believe that one point of weakness is enough to throw everything off like this, to the point of a misfire, but that will be my Hail Mary.
I doubt it’s the throttle body and intake tube. It could be but I would think it would miss fire on more that one cylinder. Step away from it for a day sometimes that helps. Then check all your connections. Pull the number two plug and see what it looks like. I would even make sure that it is getting spark. Hang in there you’ll find it.
Drove the car for awhile today to see what I could see. Gathered more data, getting a plan together. I drove 35 miles today, all highway at speeds between 70 and 90 mph except for maybe 5 miles on surface streets at low speeds. The car drives fine. At normal revs it seems okay. The idle is rough and sort of coughs a bit. I don’t feel like the power I felt on the first drive last weekend is there though. Hard to say for sure. Drives well but maybe not quite as responsive as it was last Sunday night. new codes appeared during my drive: 0302 Misfire Cylinder 2 0171 Mixture control (bank 1)-system too lean 0234 Charge-air pressure, compressor 1237 Pressure sensor, intake manifold before compressor-input low First two are obvious. No idea what to make of the misfire code persistently coming back on cylinder 2. Hopefully it is being caused by the vacuum and boost issues shown by the other codes. The lean code is certainly true. In my 35 mile drive the car used nearly a quarter tank of fuel. That is insane to me. I felt like I could watch the fuel gauge dip. the third code is for overboost I think. Which from what I can find is going to be the way it is if I keep the 15% pulley. the last code is interesting to me the most. Seems to point to a pre-supercharger vacuum leak in intake. So this could be my missing throttle body bolt. But I wonder if it could also have to do with the previously-recommended bypass valve. I’m considering several things next. First and foremost, I’ll pull the intake duct out next weekend so I can put in my new one and finally eliminate this broken throttle body bolt from the equation. I’ll clean my throttle body then as well. I’ll also put in a new intake duct to supercharger gasket (the green one). I’m now thinking about ordering the Detroit Tuned bypass valve to put in while I have that stuff out. I’ll also try to inspect every vacuum line I can when these parts are out of the way. Mechanic already did and said they’re good but I’ll triple check. I think I’ll check the supercharger oil levels front and back even though I just filled it last year. Although I’m now remembering I couldn’t get the back plug open and didn’t fill the back chamber. That could be a problem. Maybe I can get both open this time. finally, I’m thinking about process of elimination. I don’t want to do this but I might replace my new pulleys with my original stock parts to see if going back to normal boost and normal crank pulley gets all of it back to normal. But I really really don’t want to do all that swapping to go though one at a time... belt off, pulley pullers, pulleys back on, belt back on... then do it all again to find the culprit. Plus, I actually want the new pulleys. Although my mechanic managed to make me nervous about using the non-dampened crank pulley. I don’t know how to feel about that decision. thinking out loud here I guess, organizing my thoughts.
The supercharger pulley will not through a code. I have never heard of one doing it. I had a 17% pulley on my R53 no codes. I also know of people with 19% pulleys with no codes. I would take care of the broken bolt on the throttle body before I tried anything els.
I'm lost on what this could be. I'm in agreement that an undampened crank pulley is not the best idea. I'd recommend a nice ATi fluid damper.
I've decided to not go after every single little thing (re: swapping pulleys) and just focus on what I know is wrong - throttle body intake tube. I will also have a good look at my fuel rail and be certain the injectors are seated properly, but that thing seemed basically idiot proof with how easy it was to fit, and the two mounting bolts take care of the rest. I am seriously thinking about cutting my losses on the undampened crank pulley and buying the PRW crank pulley. I remember seeing something about the ATI pulley - it has to be serviced or rebuilt throughout its life? Is that true? I don't want to get into that much attention and maintenance at that price point. The PRW seems like the perfect middle ground. Honestly, I bought the one I have based on cost. I didn't understand what I was getting into with undampened vs dampened. So to my point about maintenance and attention, living with the undampened pulley would probably be okay if I had plans to tear down and rebuild things frequently, like with a track car. Which this is not.
I have never heard of anyone that has had to rebuild an ATI damper on a MINI. Although I'm sure someone has. It is not a part that would require frequent maintenance or any at all. If you really want to know call Detroit Tuned & speak with Chad.
I never rebuilt my ATI and as far as I know nether has the guy that bought myR53. He is on MA. Maybe if he see this he can confirm it has not been rebuilt.
Ok, that's good to know... this is a classic case where "I know I saw that somewhere, last week, can't remember where..." You all are incredibly helpful, thanks for continuing to weigh in on all this stuff.
Yes I would have to go look but someone said they have to be rebuilt on this thread. He May be right but I don't think its that often, he may chime in with more detail. But as @Crashton said Chad is great guy to ask.
This thread is a bit of a time machine for me... I'm having flash-backs from 4 years ago when I bought Rufus and started documenting his refresh project. https://www.motoringalliance.com/threads/refreshing-rufus-2005-mcs-jcw.29878/ Have you done the oil pan gasket? You are right... that's a lot of oil around the bottom of the oil pan. The crank position sensor is also a regular source for smaller drips, but that comes down from high on the front of the engine block and tends to blow back along the oil pan, but it usually is a SMALL drip, not this much in a week or so.
I looked through your thread a bit! Good stuff. I changed the oil pan gasket while the head was out. I now wonder if that timing was a mistake. After getting the pan back on, I spent the next days with a jack under the pan to raise and lower the engine for the pulley work. I wonder if I stressed the new gasket too much. And I wonder the same about the bits connected to the transmission. The transmission is definitely leaking at that mount going into it on the front side, seeping down the bell housing and then collecting on the pan. Because of all that coming from above, I can’t really tell if it is also leaking oil at the pan to transmission point. I did find last night that the oil filter housing is leaking a bit. I had that out also to replace the gasket. Great.