1st Gen R53 Cooper S This is what made the R55 Clubman notorious.

A bonafide member of the 50 k piston club. With the broken in to 2 chain guide casette.

 

Heres more, in the suceeding picture is the chain guide , the yellow markers shows where it cracked.

 

More pictures

 

Another angle

You can see how the piston is chipped

 

Non turbo rated material

The piston that BMW put on the r55 cooper s is the same piston material they use on the M3. Light weight precise and works well with N/A. Using it on a SC or turbo engine was a mistake. The culprit was the heat produced by the turbo. Do you guys remember the water injector for the old turbo system? After continuous boost the top of the piston glows and to cool it down BMW uses oil which is sprayed from the bottom of the bore and this piston literally melted , the rings were fused to the piston. From what i know there is a class action suit against BMW . I dont know if this had something to do with the casette breaking up. The car was running and the symptom at first was a random misfire and random smoke till it got worse with aconstant misfire on 4 , loss of compression and continuos blue smoke. The death rattle is cuased by the chain guide casette getting thinner until the tensioner can not compensate any more rendering the chain loose and slapping on the timing cover. I strongly suggest to owners if you have a stock casette on your mcs , replace it.

Thats how loose the chain was before i rebuilt the engine

 

Nope they are all fine , the symptom that the r55 showed already happened to me but with a different car and i was clearly at fault, i tried putting standard compression pistons on a turbo engine but man it would fly and about 3 ft of fire would come out off the exhaust pipe when i let go of the throttle, but it was good only for 2 1/4 mile runs then it would smoke , one of the euro techs said that it was a simple fix but i was confident it was the piston. To prove my diagnosis i smoked the engine through the oil dipstick so smoke would flow from down to up and true enough 4 started smoking through the plug well, i tested further by removing plugs 123 but still only 4 would smoke now my partner was convinced we decided to pull the engine and take it apart just to confirm the extent of the damage since we actually dont know at what position the piston and the valves were when it fragmented, there were small pieces of the piston by the vanos tube but luckily no valves were hurt then the rest of the rings and plastic were found in the oil pan heres a closer look on the melted part of the piston, oh pistons 123 were loose, possibly because the car was still used with only 3 cylinders working but we decided to replace all of them.

 

Here you can see rings purple and yellow fused to the piston .

 

Sad to say i have another r55. Clubman s coming in later , customer complains of sudden lose of power, misfire and blue smoke.

 

There is enough evolution put into this motor. The vanos is amazing more simpler than its big bro the n52 but more effective

 

The r55 is here

Next r55 is just arrivec and how ironic same color, s e symptom

 

I agree , but its not all about the car and power, its always about the driver and his attitude :beer

 

Here she is now

At $11500 newly rebuilt engine , new cp 78 mm pistons, new conn rod bearings, new impeller shaft bearing , new impeller 3 blade, intake port and polish , rebuilt with pride , yes still proud of BMW, and guaranteed when you stick your hand in any part of the engine compartment it will come out clean, no grease gunk oil , every part, screw , bolt was polished. The person that would buy this is lucky .

 

The guy i used to work with at a local dealership here told me that the vanos will shriek for about 4-7secs and its completely normal because its a dry start and vanos is empty. Didnt hear anything except for dry lifters.