Time really flies when you’re being productive. I’ve forgotten to sit down and write for you guys. I’ll start with a quick update today, then break things down more systematically in the coming months. Take a walk with me through putting together some “simple” tasks that took way longer than expected. You know those “1-hour” jobs that make your wife ask why you’ve wasted y’all’s entire Saturday.
Last we spoke, I explained what a crankhub is, why it’s an issue, and what the aftermarket has to offer. You can read that here: S55 Crank Hub Explained: Failure, Fixes & Which to Buy. I’ll also cover a deep dive later with some tips for my brethren on making that job a bit easier or just knowing when to give up and take it to someone.
The Post-Surgery Key Turn
Am I the only one who gets nervous turning the key after surgery? I was beyond nervous, eyes darting around the crowded engine bay like a squirrel trying to cross the street. No knocks, no metal-on-metal sounds. Well, besides the general dog-water sound the S55 makes anyway. I felt that relief. “yeah, see, I know what I’m doing”….. right before a low rumble, a stumble, and a blinking check engine light. Well, fuck.
I went back into the house and shut off the garage lights. I needed a minute to stop catastrophizing.
After I let my mind calm down, I went back out to work through the checklist. Coils, plugs, go from there. Since I’d just put new plugs in, I figured that wasn’t it, so I was hoping I just hadn’t seated a coil pack. Guess what, chat? These connectors have a locking cap that does the seating for you, as you flip it down, it cams the connector the last bit onto the coil and locks it there. I’d closed the cap before it had anything to pull, so it latched over a connector that was only half on. One click later, everything ran fine, nothing leaked. Calling that a successful surgery.
Should’ve stopped there. I didn’t.
The 1AM Mistake
I also replaced the oil cooler with a CSF unit, but I was tired while installing it and bent the OEM line. I’ve got a plethora of O-rings on hand, so I grabbed one that I thought was close enough. This was around 0100, and I told myself this was the last thing before I called it a night. I started forcing that damn male end into the cooler, and you guessed it…. bent the fragile aluminum OEM hose end. The dumb part is, I’ve got a rule I learned working the railroad: if it’s hard to fit, hit it with a maul, wait, wrong one. The actual rule is: if something’s hard to put on or take off, that means something’s wrong. Either it’s not compatible, or you forgot to pull a fastener. I didn’t listen to myself, so now I get to pay the price in literal dollars.
Building My Own AN Lines Instead of Just Buying New Ones
A normal person would’ve just bought new lines for a clean $270. But nooooooo I wanted to make things better. Classic “while you’re in there” moment: I jumped on eBay looking for adapters to convert the oil cooler and oil thermostat housing over to AN fittings. Interestingly, there was an oil cooler line kit with clearly inferior lines, but the adapters it came with were exactly what I needed. What I find silly is that it was cheaper than sourcing the adapters separately or designing my own. So, bought.
I’ve got a ton of AN line in the garage, so I pulled out the old Rigid box, grabbed some fittings from the stash, and built lines I actually trust. There ya have it. Routing was tight, these S55 engine bays are already crowded as it is. I ended up fabricating some brackets I can’t show you, since there’s no way to get a camera back there. Trust me, though.
Small Cosmetic Touches
A few small cosmetic things too: cutting slits in the bumper tow hook covers and hanging red tow straps out of them. Going for that OEM-plus look this time, not the typical track-rat look my S2000 had back in the day.
Writers Challenge Check-In
If you remember, I’m still in that writers challenge I introduced here: Meet the Competition: My Writers Challenge Rivals and Their Builds. Update: unfortunately, my brethren with the manual M4 totaled his car, so he’s out. GRM’s currently off playing with Hyundais, so they’re busy. Terry’s working on his E46. Which technically means I’m still ahead with zero track time, but a car that runs. Sort of runs. There were some software glitches from dropping coolant on a plug, and it still smells faintly of oil on initial startup. But those are minor things in BMW ownership. Very, very minor. Allegedly.
Life, the Railroad, and Missed Track Time
One of the shitty parts about working on the railroad is I don’t get as much time at home as I’d like. And I actually like my wife and my house, so I don’t want to spend every spare hour in the garage. Which means missed track time. Sorry about that, folks. I do have plans to narrow down track compounds using temp-indicating caliper stickers, so I can figure out which Paragon pads I actually need or whether I need to upgrade to a BBK for more thermal capacity.
What’s Next
That said, what’s next is getting real testing done, plus a deeper dive I’ve been sitting on. I’ve done a lot of digging into some F82 topics I think the community has flat-out wrong. Come back in a couple weeks, I should be past 1,500 total miles on this build by then. Right now I’m sitting at $4K into the car with 1,500 miles on it. That math isn’t mathing so let’s change it.
