I am a serious idiot. I was driving down the highway and a buddy of mine was following me ad he pulled next to me to race around a bit. We went and I went to put it in 4th from 3rd and put it in 2nd and things went bad from there. My car died and didnt would not start so here I am crusing with no power to my brakes!!Finally it started and I was able to exit. I pulled into a parking lot and stopped to see what was going on. Before this my car was making the horrible pinging from the vanos(I think). Anyway My car now has a seriously rough idle and stalls out periodically. I am thinking though I am not sure but I think that I may have spun something loose on the vanos and possibly by replacing it with a setup from dr vanos would take care of the problem but I dont know...... I need some help because I cant really drive the car cause it stall out really bad now...... Please Help....

Moneyshift, huh?

I'm sometimes glad that my 2nd gear synchro is so worn that I have to double-clutch to get into it.

Um...I don't know how VANOS is affected by an overrev. From my understanding of why revlimits are where they are, you might've screwed up your timing, or the valves themselves.

I really dont know if it's the vanos or not I just noticed that the pinging sound is absolutly horrible now. do Just out of curiousity how much do you think I could get for the car as is right now. New clutch last week too.. 1500 maybe? I dont know I am just about sick of FCKING with this car. It seems as if it never wants to run right and when things need fixin its cost me givin up lefty to get it done!!!

I am assuming you let the clutch out and ran it well past red-line? If so, I would dig into things a bit before starting it up. You could make things worse... if you floated a valve into a piston.

Good luck.

Floated a valve into a piston? Im not familiar with what that means. All I know is I put it into gear let of the clutch facpalted the windshield and pushed the clutch in. I did this once before and it ran bad but not this bad mind you and i replaced my sparkplugs valve cover gasket changed my oil and lubed everything up and it ran like a charm I just dont know enough about these cars to figure out whats wrong and I dont want to spend 80 bucks to find out my engine is fckd... so i dont know... I do know that it cant be an extremely bad problem and is something that fixable because i still drove my car home( 15 miles or so) and it drove ok at higher RPMs but at lower it would be horrible and stall.........

Floating a valve means that cam is pressing on the valve so hard/fast that the spring can't control the valve. It might've jumped and so you're timing would be off. That pinging could be the valve knocking on the piston head, but I really don't know.

I would go with what Moroza and BigRed said, your timing must be off, or you have valve damage, but I don't think that the VANOS unit itself is the problem.

Obviously you should be driving something else. A 525 is not a racecar, it annoys me when people blame their cars for their lack of driving skills. Go by a Kia and stop abusing real cars. BTW how much for your seats?

Obviously you should be driving something else. A 525 is not a racecar, it annoys me when people blame their cars for their lack of driving skills. Go by a Kia and stop abusing real cars. BTW how much for your seats?
No offense but I not blaming the car so. I shifted into 2nd not the car dumb @$$ (dumb@$$). And I dont need your idiot self telling me that. So your telling me you never drove fast in your miata or bmw? I said I was sick of dealing with these problems. If I floated a valve would that require a head rebuild and if so how much would I be looking at? Because I think If I can get her back and running for less than oh say $2000 I will go ahead a do it but if its more Ill probably set it aside and purchase something else until I find a 540 engine to swap into it in the future. I really would like to be able to fix it up and keep it going but I just dont know.

yea i used to see thesethings on teh honda forum where while drag racing they shifted into 2 instead of 2 and there goes a piston out of the motor. i'm glad our motors aren't such pussies.

i bet the timming just jumped or a valve felloff it's spring or something. hopefully it ddin't bend a valve alittle to where there's no compression

do this, get a compresion testing tool from local store.

test each cylinder, if the compresion is low on all cylinders, most likely your timming jumped, if it's just one or 2 cylinders, prolly a valve problem. cheap easy test o begin with

Depends on how many valves you bent. You could go the cheap route and just get a used head. That would minimize your cost. Alternative is to pull your head, change, at a minimum the valves and seals that you broke and go from there. Getting a used head and swapping it is cheapest, but if you're paying someone to do it, you're still looking at close to 2K.

but fyi, valves arent cheap either...i did the same 2 years ago and bent all 12 exhaust valves and snapped the timing chain. It was ~55 bucks for a new valve, and that was the cheaper of the two...I believe intake valves were around 75 bucks a pop

How do you adjust the timing on my car. Isnt it electronically controlled? I know the chain cant be snapped and I know I couldnt have bent all the valves cause like I said I can still drive it (not very well mind you) but I can drive it. I hope it is something that I can fix though(labor charges are out the roof!!)

oh and bye the way bav auto valves are not high at all.
24.95 for the exhaust and 22.95 for the intake.
http://www.bavauto.com/shop.asp
Reaplacing all the valves cant be that bad about half of what you had said.
However I do feel better seeing those prices....

Just out of curiousty shouldnt my check engine light be flashing at me? Its not on and you would think that it would be. I duhno................

oh and bye the way bav auto valves are not high at all.
24.95 for the exhaust and 22.95 for the intake.
http://www.bavauto.com/shop.asp
Reaplacing all the valves cant be that bad about half of what you had said.
However I do feel better seeing those prices....

I'm sorry, but if you don't know what valve float is, or what some of these very basic concepts mean, I seriously doubt you have the tools or knowledge to do a head rebuild yourself. Most of the cost of a head rebuild is the labor involved, which you would still be paying.

I'm with Alan on this one, a used head and install of that head with new gaskets will run at least 2k, and that is assuming you didn't kill a piston, which would open up a whole other can of worms.

Also, doing a 540 swap on a 525 would likely cost more than actually buying a 540. Something to consider.

I dont plan on doing to work myself. I was refering to the comment of the $55-$75 Valves.

oh and bye the way bav auto valves are not high at all.
24.95 for the exhaust and 22.95 for the intake.
http://www.bavauto.com/shop.asp
Reaplacing all the valves cant be that bad about half of what you had said.
However I do feel better seeing those prices....

prices are different due to vanos, bavauto shows exhaust valves for me at 54.95...

keep in mind you still need to recondition the top end...

a 94 525i has Vanos does it not? I am confused now. or are you saying it is cheaper because of Vanos?

No offense but I not blaming the car so. I shifted into 2nd not the car dumb @$$. And I dont need your idiot self telling me that. So your telling me you never drove fast in your miata or bmw? I said I was sick of dealing with these problems. If I floated a valve would that require a head rebuild and if so how much would I be looking at? Because I think If I can get her back and running for less than oh say $2000 I will go ahead a do it but if its more Ill probably set it aside and purchase something else until I find a 540 engine to swap into it in the future. I really would like to be able to fix it up and keep it going but I just dont know. Lighten up Francis. I did the same thing to a VW bus when I was in highschool. That stuff happens. But seriously how are your seats?

My seat are fine but dry. I was planning to get rid of them anyways as I have a whole new set sitting in my garage waiting to be reupholstered(or however that is spelled.) But I am getting rid of them in the next two month either way. But my buddy looked at it and he told me he thinks I jumped timming. I am taking it to a BMW mechanic I know(I know his daughter so that helps lol) He is going to take a look at it and we can only wait and see.

a 94 525i has Vanos does it not? I am confused now. or are you saying it is cheaper because of Vanos?

VANOS was introduced in the late 1992 to the m50tu's, so yes you do have Vanos.

My observations conclude that yes, it appears your valves are cheaper then mine...lucky you

Kewl man. I was gonna say something but I usually look like an idiot when I open my mouth. but hey we all do it. I like it when things are less expensive.

Well its bad. My number 3 cylinder valves are destroyed.............Tha even worse new is that they wanted 3600 to do the head. Of course I am not going to da that. however it does help to have freinds that wrok on cars. I have a buddy that is going to rebuild the head for 800 parts and labour included. Everything will machined and ll new parts. So it will take about 3 wks to get done cause he is gong to do it on the side but we will see.

Damn that sucks :(

gotta love your friends...

Yeah it does help to have good freinds. Though I have decided to seel the car once it all fixed up. I think I should be able to $3000 for it but I dont know. Its not in that bad of shape really. Littlehe cosmetics here and there but hey who doesnt. So if anybodys interested let me know and I will get pics up......

Floated a valve into a piston? Im not familiar with what that means. All I know is I put it into gear let of the clutch facpalted the windshield and pushed the clutch in. I did this once before and it ran bad but not this bad mind you and i replaced my sparkplugs valve cover gasket changed my oil and lubed everything up and it ran like a charm I just dont know enough about these cars to figure out whats wrong and I dont want to spend 80 bucks to find out my engine is fckd... so i dont know... I do know that it cant be an extremely bad problem and is something that fixable because i still drove my car home( 15 miles or so) and it drove ok at higher RPMs but at lower it would be horrible and stall.........
floating a valve into a piston is code for you're screwed, nice...:nono

floating a valve into a piston is code for you're screwed, nice...:nono

:help It's True. LOL

only 3k for a 94?

does this sound about right to everyone? Id figure atleast try and go for 5...

only 3k for a 94?

does this sound about right to everyone? Id figure atleast try and go for 5...

I paid 2k for my 93.... and i've ended up fixing it for the last 3 months... including doing work on the headgaskets in a couple weeks.... get it checked, please, do your self the favor...

Glad to hear it's not TOO bad, but sad to hear you've been turned off of the car...

This is why I shall probably not drop my CDV until I have at least 5kMi on the car and some urethene tranny mounts... by then I'll have my flywheel kit and I'll have to drp the trans anyway...

I wonder how hard it would be to engineer a lockout of sorts for this kind of thing; for intance, at certain speeds, lock out certain lower gears?

time for new aftermarket preformance cam, and valve springs? lol

time for new aftermarket preformance cam, and valve springs? lol

+1