I have to say, I can see Charles' point about not wanting to give the car back to Nowack again. He's obviously decided to cut his losses and wants to get the car fixed by someone he trusts - his car came back with faults that suggest a lack of care such as unconnected electrics and temporary lash ups using wire. (Oil leaks etc could have other explanations, but not these two problems.) He does not want to risk that again!
(Equally Nowack are not being given a full chance to remedy their errors but that is Charles' choice based on his experiences - if he was interested in pursuing them legally then he would probably have to give them a chance to work on the car. He just wants his car fixed.)
As for the power gains, I have to respectfully disagree Bart - more agressive cams, better breathing etc might very well only give a 40hp gain without ECU modifications. The point is that the ECU work is necessary to take full advantage of the engine work. A new cam could easily rob power if the engine is not retuned to suit.
the cams could be a regrind. in other words, they start with bmw cams and regrind them. that would explain the bmw part numbers. however, the interesting part is that regrinded cam is usually less aggressive than the original since you cant really increase lift...the other possibility is that nowack has genune bmw "blanks" (cores) that he uses to cut camshafts.
make no mistake, i think i know enough about the e39 m5 engine to tell you that the biggest gains can be had from ported heads with matching cams and free-er flowing headers.
said that- interesting finds on the nowack conversion. i will not be surprised if all he has done is ported the heads, raised compression a bit, tuned the computer and put high-flow headers....
Originally posted by Bart Carter The post said that 75 % of the gain came from the software.
The mechanical added 25 to 30 %.
It was not stated the other way around.
OK, time to fess up. I did overstate the software. I did it on purpose because I wanted to rip Nowack. And I wanted to rip Nowack because of our two members and their experiences. Having seen my company grow because of the way we take care of our customers, I take offense at this kind of treatment.
In reality the mechanical and software should be more than the sum of their parts. They would compliment each other to reach higher outputs.
Originally posted by AJ however, the interesting part is that regrinded cam is usually less aggressive than the original since you cant really increase lift...
Sure you can. You just grind on the base (not open) portion of the profile.
Indeed that's where extra lift usually comes from on most pushrod engines, as the entire cam must fit through the round bearings in the block due to the way they are installed (like nuclear moderating rods).
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'08 E60 Space Gray M5
'01 E39 Le Mans Blue M5
'99 550 Maranello
'98 Supra
huh? you cant grind on the "closed" section because you cant get the valve to close more.. unleast you have hydraulic lifters which will self adjust.. which is not the case .. i think.. ... you can actually achieve results in your scenario, but since the whole valvetrain geometry changes you will need new rockers to accomodate the thinner "closed" section of the cam... hope i make sense.. besides the vanos will make your life miserable if you change the geometry, because all bets will be off on what will happen. i honestly think, given the complexity of the task at hand, nowack is not doing anything with the cams. it just that the packaging of the engine leaves some intake/exhaust improvements to be made and nowack is capitalizing on those along with some computer tunning.
Just been in Scotland, (cold and wet) so reviewing comments
Ashok -- yep, the guy is at Milcars Temple Fortune. his name is Finbar and he has been the straightest guy that I've met in this whole sorry affair. rings me regularly, invites me in to see the progress, etc.
Anyway good news is that they stripped the engine down to the gaskets and, would you beleive it, the reason why the engine was leaking oil was because the bolts holding the heads onto the block were loose (only discovered once cams etc removed)!! Gaskets are fine, block is not cracked -- incredible. Interestingly the engine was heavily coked up, which is odd since the block and pistons are supposed to be new and I've only done 1,500 miles since getting the car back from Germany, mostly on motorways.
I'm not a technician, but Finbar at Milcars told me that when stripping the engine down, the valves, timing, etc. all seemed to be stock. His impression is that if they have done anything to the cams (and I think Bart pointed out, shaving cams surely reduces lift) then something else should have been altered (valves, Vanos, etc) to take account of the altered lift (I'm not doing him justice here, he explained it more to me but I didn;t take the full details). Anyway, his view was that since everything else looked stock and the cams looked (at least) stock it was very probable that not much had been done. Would you guys agree that if the cams had been altered then other parts should also have been altered to take account of this ? Any thoughts on the coked up engine?
Anyway, it looks as though they've started to rebuild my engine, and I hope to get my car back in a couple of weeks -- Hurrah !!
On my lack of comunnication with Nowack, my view is that
the quality of the wrok was o poor first time round, shipping back to Germany could well just add new porblems
I've got a great guy here in London. he costs, but I trust him
If you refer back to my earlier reports, even from back in October and November I had concerns that these guys weren;t being straight with me. Given everything I've found out (and propensity of certain parties involved in this case to b#llsh#t like crazy) I jus't don;t see the point in talking to them -- I just get angry. I'll just get a whole load of placatory cr#p with the ongoing "bring your car back to Germany and we'll fix it" line. Well, it ain;t going back to Germany any time soon, so why bother.
Anyway -- lets hope my baby's back in 2 weeks or so and I can move on from this sorry tale and maybe even have some fun driving again......
Originally posted by AJ huh? you cant grind on the "closed" section because you cant get the valve to close more.. unleast you have hydraulic lifters which will self adjust.. which is not the case .. i think
Actually, the valve clearance can be adjusted with shims that go between the valve tip and the camshaft.
Valve to cam dimentions have to have a way to adjust clearance. The clearance changes form new to wear to repair. Shims are used for the adjustment.
Originally posted by CharlesW Anyway good news is that they stripped the engine down to the gaskets and, would you beleive it, the reason why the engine was leaking oil was because the bolts holding the heads onto the block were loose (only discovered once cams etc removed)!!
This is totally inexcusable. It follows the other things you have discovered.
Quote:
[i]I'm not a technician, but Finbar at Milcars told me that when stripping the engine down, the valves, timing, etc. all seemed to be stock. His impression is that if they have done anything to the cams (and I think Bart pointed out, shaving cams surely reduces lift) then something else should have been altered (valves, Vanos, etc) to take account of the altered lift (I'm not doing him justice here, he explained it more to me but I didn;t take the full details). Anyway, his view was that since everything else looked stock and the cams looked (at least) stock it was very probable that not much had been done. Would you guys agree that if the cams had been altered then other parts should also have been altered to take account of this ?
There should be a way to adjust the clearances without altering other parts, such as with shims.
What you have here is a perfect opportunity to check the total lift, duration and overlap of the camshafts. All you need is a dial indicator and a degree wheel. You could have all the information in less than an hour. Then you could be sure of what has been altered.
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