[Rajaie]

Beisan has launched three new products for the S54 vanos. They are a seals kit, a rattle kit with tools, and an oil pump disk with new small holes to prevent the exhaust hub tabs from breaking. There are associate repair procedures that document the repairs. These procedures also document replacing the sprocket sleeve bolts that can come loose on the intake side, the exhaust sprocket hub that can have broken tabs, and the sprocket hub diaphragm springs that have been redesigned to be thicker and function better and last longer.

There are three major S54 failures associated with the vanos. The solenoid coil pack failure, exhaust hub tabs breakings, and loosening intake sprocket sleeve bolts.

Beisan had previously launched a rebuilt solenoid coil pack product to address the solenoid coil pack failure. The failure is due to breaking connector pin solder joints at the PC board. This is caused by a vibrating PC board that’s not well mounted. Beisan solves this by introducing a new PC board mounting bolt close to the solder joints to better mount the PC board. Beisan also injects potting epoxy in the pins housing cavity to better mount the pins and prevent pin vibration. The rebuilt coil pack was also accompanied by an S54 vanos sealing plate repair kit product. The sealing plate between the vanos solenoid and vanos body has Buna rubber rings that fail. The sealing plate repair kit provides Viton O-rings of the same size as new sealing plate rubber rings. The old failing rings are cut out of the sealing plate and the new O-rings are mounted in their place.
The Beisan S54 vanos solenoid procedure and S54 vanos procedure both document these repairs.

The Beisan S54 vanos oil pump disk product addresses the exhaust hub tabs breaking problem. This failure is most likely due to excess play between the hub tabs and oil pump holes. This design was first utilized on the Euro S50 engine. This is the predecessor engine to the S54 and was not available in the US due to high emissions. With the Euro S50 there is .4mm play between the tabs and hole sides. Unfortunately this play was increased to 1.0mm on the S54 by making the pump holes wider. This increase was likely made to help with the insertion of the hub tabs into the oil pump holes during vanos installation onto the engine head. The S54 hub tabs were also lengthened by 3mm and 2.5mm length champers were added to the end. The tab extra length with chamfers design change is also meant to help with insertion of the hub tabs into the oil pump holes. The Euro S50 rarely experiences breaking hub tabs, but this is an epidemic problem on the S54 and can in some cases cause significant damage. The tab breaking could either be caused by a large press force produced in rotating the oil pump disk, or a striking force produced by the tab hitting against the side of the oil pump hole. Inspection of the oil pump holes shows tab indentation in the rotational and counter rotational sides of the holes. The counter rotational indentation indicates tab hitting as the oil pump disk does not rotate in this direction and thus the indentation could not be due to rotational press force. The hub tabs have a 40 RC (Rockwell C scale) hardness, while the oil pump disk has a softer 35 RC hardness. This hardness variation explains, and indicates a design intention, to facilitate tab indentation into the hole sides. The tab and hole sides do not have the same curvature and thus at initial contact only an edge of the tab engages the hole side. With use the tab indents into the hole side and the full tab side contacts the hole side. This indentation technique also overcomes any tab or hole position deviation. On Euro S50 engines the indentation is slight and is considered optimal. Normally running S54 engines also have this slight indentation or a little more. On S54 engines with broken tabs this indentation is usually much larger. This fact is further indication that the tab breaking is caused by hitting. As the tab hits, the indentation is increased. This indentation increase allows longer tab travel facilitating larger hitting forces which further increases the indentation. This scenario perpetuates to the point that the tab encounters large enough hitting forces to weaken and break it. Beisan’s solution is to drill new holes in the disk that reduce the tab to hole side play to .1mm. This is a significant reduction in play and should prevent the large indentations that allow the large hitting forces that likely cause the tab breakage. Some tab to hole play is necessary. This is needed to address any part and assembly variations which cause hub tab to pump disk hole misalignment. Further, some play is likely needed to facilitate the initial tab indentation needed to fully embed the tab into the pump disk hole side and allow full tab side engagement. Current testing of the new disk small holes shows slight indentation of the tab into the hole side until full contact is achieved. This is an optimal result.
The Beisan S54 vanos procedure documents this repair.

The S54 vanos seals are made of the correct materials and are not failing. The internal piston seals are the usual design of Teflon ring backed with an O-ring. The Teflon filler material is a high grade bronze which is appropriate for this application and the O-rings are Viton which can withstand the engine synthetic oil and high temperature.
Even though the OEM seals materials are correct the seals will lose some function over long term use. The primary degradation is due to O-ring compression set (flattening). The piston seal O-rings are under constant compression and over time and heat exposure take on the new flat shape and degrade in their energizing function to the Teflon rings. The Teflon rings will also from long term use experience some material loss. This seals degradation will cause some oil leakage and degradation in vanos function which in turn will cause some loss in engine performance. It is still being determined at what miles and age a seals replacement is beneficial. From initial testing it seems engines with less than 100k miles will not likely receive notable performance improvements from replacing the seals.
The Beisan S54 vanos procedure documents this repair.

There are many components that can cause vanos related rattling.
Loose tolerance valve offsets are known to cause an engine rattle. This is addressed with a valve adjustment.
Loosening intake sprocket sleeve bolts is one of the major vanos related failures and causes a rattle. This is addressed by replacing the bolts with new bolts and applying medium strength thread locker to the threads. The Beisan S54 vanos rattle procedure documents this repair.
Sprocket rotational looseness facilitates parts chatter and rattle. The camshaft sprocket is mounted on a sleeve which is mounted to the camshaft. This sprocket sleeve mounting facilitates the rotation of the camshaft independent of the sprocket to allow timing adjustment for variable camshaft/valve timing. To prevent sprocket chatter and rattling BMW incorporates a diaphragm spring that presses against the sprocket. This dampens the sprocket chatter movements to resolve the rattle while still allowing rotation of the camshaft on the sprocket. The S54 diaphragm spring and associate pressure plate is the same part used on the Euro S50 and S62 engines. This spring was deemed too weak by BMW and redesigned to be thicker for the S62 engine. From experience, utilizing this new thicker spring design on the Euro S50 and S54 engines has resolved rattling. The Beisan S54 vanos rattle procedure documents this repair.
The loose fit of the exhaust hub oil pump driver tabs to the vanos oil pump disk holes facilitates a rattle. Reducing this play resolves the rattle. The Beisan S54 vanos oil pump disk has new smaller holes to achieve this. The Beisan S54 vanos procedure documents this repair.
Splined shaft bearing axial play facilitates a rattle. The splined shaft is located at the intake and exhaust camshaft and sprocket. It connects the camshaft and sprocket and has helical gears that facilitate camshaft relative rotation to the sprocket. The splined shaft incorporates a bearing at its center which allows mounting of the vanos piston to the splined shaft while not rotating with the splined shaft and camshaft and sprocket. The splined shaft bearing has axial play that allows the camshaft to engage this play axially back and forth. These movements can resonate at certain RPMs and cause a rattle. The solution is to remove the bearing axial play. Further, the OEM bearing ring in the splined shaft is made from non-bearing annealed steel. Its inner diameter is experiencing scoring from the rotating bearing components. The Beisan S54 rattle repair kit includes bearing rings that are shorter to remove the axial play and prevent rattling. The rings are made from bearing steel that is hardened and ground to bearing standards. This prevents the scoring. Replacement bearing washers are also included in the kit as they affect the bearing axial fit and need to be provided with tight tolerance thickness to achieve the bearing tight tolerance axial fit. Beisan also provides S54 rattle tools which are custom designed and manufactured and facilitate the opening and closing of the splined shafts to perform the bearing modification. The Beisan S54 vanos rattle procedure documents this repair.

Here are the costs of all the Beisan S54 vanos products.
S54 vanos rebuilt solenoid coil pack, $150 plus $150 refundable core charge
S54 vanos sealing plate repair kit, $10
S54 vanos oil pump disk, $150 plus $150 refundable core charge
S54 vanos seals repair kit, $60
S54 vanos rattler repair kit, $80
S54 vanos rattle tools, $20

Please consult the two new repair procedures for more detail.
http://www.beisansystems.com/procedu...anos_procedure
http://www.beisansystems.com/procedu...ttle_procedure

I’m happy to answer questions.

[LakerE46]

Essentially then, if I were to use all of your vanos solutions, I would have a bulletproof vanos system?

[vivid02]

Raj, you are a great man. Thank you for making everything so affordable for us. Next time I open up the valve cover I am going for your oil pump disk. That is if my tabs are both hopefully intact.

[Rajaie]

Originally Posted by LakerE46

Essentially then, if I were to use all of your vanos solutions, I would have a bulletproof vanos system?

Performing all the repairs I prescribe here should give you a pretty well running system.

[not///Mpōrtant]

All of those items are going in my car shortly. I'm glad there seems to be actual solutions to the vanos issues.

[AndyLu]

wow this is awesome. glad that even though these cars are getting up there in age. ppl put there are still working on these beautiful cars

[kaiv]

This is simply amazing! Thank you!

[WyattH]

^ You'll get to install some of these very shortly.


to Raj!

[snikwad]

Ooooo. This method is cheaper. Might give it a try.

[M3_#67]

It's funny you made a thread about this tonight because earlier I was on your website haha...I'll more than likely look into ur upgrades.
Are the tools for rent or to keep?