The high performance BMW S62 engine was made for the E39 M5 and the BMW E52 Z8. The engine is a 4.9 L (4,941 cc and 301.5 cu in) V8 Engine based on the same architecture as the all aluminium block 4.4 and 4.6L BMW M62 motor found in the E39 540i and M53 4.4 and 4.6 engines. BMW Motorsport ‘M’ Division has extensively developed and modified the engine accordingly for increased all round power as proven on race tracks and dynamometers around the world today.

The M5's engine features an aluminum and silicon alloy sand cast 'Alusil' engine block. The cylinder block piston sleeves walls are etched after a special honing process to promote oil retention and reduce friction. The S62 V8 block shares the M62 basic configuration and architectural design of it’s 4.4 and 4.6 engined brothers, but with  94 mm cylinder bores compared to the M62, 92mm and 93 mm bores. The stroke was increased from 82.7 mm and 85mm to 89 mm significantly improving the torque curve of the engine from the bottom end. This increase in stroke increased the displacement to 4941 cc or 301.5 cubic inches.

The cylinders are narrowly placed together with only 4 mm of block surface between cylinders. BMW engineers developed a 3x layered steel variant head gasket to ensure a better seal at higher performance levels due to the Siamesed oversized cylinder bores.

Based on the cylinder heads used in other BMW V8 engines, the M5's heads were completely redesigned with new jackets for cross-flow cooling. The intake side of the cylinder heads also got newly designed coolant passages to help keep the larger pistons cool as this was an all out hi-performance engine designed for the BMW enthusiast that was taken to the race tracks.

The air induction system is taken in at two points behind the front bumper, passes through two intake silencers and two hot-film air-mass meters, and then flows into the voluminous plenum at the top of the engine. The air courses through 230 mm-long intake runners and 230 throttle housings to the individual cylinders. The entire assembly of plenum and runners is attached to the throttle housings via a rubber and metal flange on either side of the cylinder banks that decouples the plenum from the engine itself. This is how the engine is helped to be kept cooler before the air fuel mixture passes into the combustion chambers through eight individual throttle butterflies, each 48.2 mm in diameter, one throttle body for each cylinder. The S62 was the first BMW engine with electronically actuated individual throttles with each throttle mounted directly above the intake port.

The S62 is BMW's first V8 engine equipped with Double VANOS a system that steplessly varies the cam timing of both intake and exhaust valves of both left and right cylinder banks. As on other BMW engines, the VANOS cam timing mechanisms are located at the front of the cylinder heads. The 100 bar hydraulic pressure used to actuate VANOS is produced by two oil pumps, one for each cylinder head. Valve timing is varied over a range of 60 degrees in terms of crankshaft rotation with a wider adjustment range than that of other BMW V8 engines.

A forged five-main bearing crankshaft with counterweights receives Mallory metal plugs for extremely fine balance and all 8 conrods are forged as one piece. The connecting rod caps are then fracture split for the best possible fit when being installed. Balancing pads are also placed on both small and large ends of the rods for perfect end to end balancing.

Piston design is unique to the S62 motor. For optimum power output, engineers designed specifically shaped cutouts in the piston crowns for the intake and exhaust valves. This requires a different piston design for each cylinder bank, rather than the usual identical design for all eight pistons. Pistons are cooled by two upward-firing oil jets in each cylinder as per the M62B46 engine. The oil jets are indexed to oil pressure and when pressure reaches 2.5 bar they begin squirting. The compression ratio is 11.0:1

Other significant features of the cylinder heads include hollow camshafts of nodular cast iron for reduced inertia. The S62's 35 mm intake and 30.5 mm exhaust valves are shared with the M62 engine, but valve timing is unique. The intake cam profiles yield 10.32 mm (0.406 in) valve lift and 252 degrees total duration and the exhaust cam profiles yield 10.2 mm (0.402 in) lift and 248 degrees duration.

In place of the M62 engine's simplex or sinle row roller chain driving both intake camshafts, the S62 employs a heavy duty duplex or double roller chain driving each intake camshaft. As with the M62 engines, the two secondary single row chains drive the exhaust camshafts from the intake camshafts and visa versa.

The S62 engine revs to a limited 7000 RPM producing 294 kW or 394 hp at 6600 rpm and 500 N·m of torque at 3800 rpm. The engine is easily identified by its large intake velocity stack chamber cover that carries the "M" logo with "BMW M Power" badged against a carbon fiber background.

For more information CLICK HERE “BMW V8 Engine Specialists / Spares” or Call Centre : 0861 7777 22

Engine Blueprinting is the art of defining tolerances to an acceptable minimum. The wisest and most important process would be to have the entire bottom end, i.e. crank, conrods, pistons, flywheel /flex plate, front damper pulley etc, to be balanced from “end to end” or harmonic balancing as some like to call it. This process is an important part of the engine blueprinting process which obviously entails extensive machining and polishing works, and when all put together enables an engine to rev more freely without excessive vibrations prevalent in mass production engines, thus extending the life of an engine. Simultaneously, your bores can be checked and a new set of rings and crank bearings installed.

BMW V8 crankcase designs have blocks which have a thin walled aluminium sleeve which is cast into the block at the time of manufacture. NIKASIL or ALUSIL is a electrodeposited lipopholic nickel silicon carbide coating lined cylinder bores that are prone to scratching or gauging which is an extremely costly repair, (there is no quick fix solution as good old fashioned cylinder reboring to the next oversize!) It has always been said, “there is no replacement for displacement”, but with these engines the only way to increase cubic capacity is by “stroking” the motor thus increasing the crankshafts stroke. By increasing the bore diameter would require changing the entire crankcase.

The best advice we can give any reader of this article, is to keep all the cars air filtration component areas well sealed and regularly checked for cracks and any openings. Always use the best possible gasoline with the lowest sulfur content and change the engine oil and oil filter with an ‘A’ grade quality replacement lubricant and filter at regular intervals. These thin sleeves usually develop cracks at the top of the bore due to overheating or stress.

Sulfur content in fuels is responsible for either pitting or thinning the NIKASIL walls on the cylinder sleeves and when dust particles enter this environment they can start tiny scratches in the NIKASIL film, developing into more severe damage, causing NIKASIL and ALUSIL bore coatings to eventually crack and even flake off, resulting in bore to piston ring failure. This is probably the number one reason for smoking V8 engines besides worn valves and guides. BMW will only guarantee the cylinder linings for 150,000 km's on a new engine with a stringent service history.

An essential preventative measure to the problem is to ensure that all the injectors are serviced by a competent fuel injector specialist. Injectors that over fuel or spray in an irregular pattern, will also lead to “washing”, a term applied, meaning that an excessive amount of fuel deposited onto the cylinder walls, thus thinning the lubricating qualities of the essential oil required for piston ring and piston to bore scuffing qualities is present.

Cylinder head gas flowing is also a very important part of blueprinting a V8 BMW engine. Camshaft re-profiling to an acceptable limit also ads gains and immense kW, HP and Torque depicted by what is referred to as an engines torque curve which can be altered by dynamometer chip tuning.

We have many more power gains in the process of engine blueprinting, but for now I’m sure the above will suffice, and most importantly, keep your engine well serviced. The above should be a stern reminder that this is an expensive engine affair, with a total engine rebuild amounting to at least 60 hours of labour, so don’t skimp here.

For more information and a Free quote CLICK HERE “BMW V8 Engine Specialists / Spares”  or Call Centre : 0861 7777 22

NIKASIL is a trademark name for a process called “electrodeposited lipopholic nickel silicon carbide coating” for various engine components. The coating is mainly applied to piston engine cylinder liners of the engine block. It was introduced by the engine component company 'Mahle' in 1967. The Nikasil process was first developed to allow Wankel rotary engines and Mercedes C11seals to work directly against the aluminium housings. The coating has wonderful characteristics, allowing aluminum cylinders and pistons made from various similar alloys to work directly against each other. Nikasil allowed very large cylinder bores with tight tolerances and thus allowed existing engine designs to be expanded easily, the aluminium cylinder sand castings also gave a much better heat conductivity, lowered friction levels present in cast iron cylinders sleeve liners which are prone to overheating, which is an important factor for a high output engines and with specific attention given to V8 engines.

The Nikasil coating was further developed as a replacement for hard-chrome plated cylinder bores for Mecury Marine Racing, Kohler Engines, and as a repair replacement for factory chromed motor-X motorcycles such as KTM, various snowmobiles, watercraft and many automotive V8 liners and cylinder block bores.

Porsche first started using this on the 1970 in a 917 race car, and later on the 1973 911 RS. Porsche also used it on its line up of standard production cars. Nikasil cylinders were always used for the 911 Turbo and RS models. Nikasil coated aluminum cylinders allowed Porsche to build air cooled engines due to the low frictional qualities that Nikasil coating offered, which had the highest output of any engine of their times.

Nikasil was very popular in the 1990s. It was used by companies such as Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Jaguar, KTM and Motto Guzzi motorcycles in their new engines. However, the sulphur found in much of the world's low quality gasoline caused many Nikasil cylinder sleeves to break down over time causing piston cylinder bore failure resulting in low compression due to damaged cylinder walls which in turn damaged pistons and rings. These fuels are such as that are used in parts of the USA, Brazil many African countries and parts of the UK. The sulfur Nikasil reaction causes damage to the very top of the cylinder bore, where there is the most pressure and contact of the burning mixture and the cylinder lining of Nikasil plating. This ‘leak down’ will cause engines such as the BMW M60 with worn or damaged linings to exhibit a rough idle and left unchecked, the engine will not start.

The only permanent remedy for this problem is the replacement of the entire engines cylinder block. Problems are still present in these engines so affected and cars of this period should be bought with caution unless the service history verifies that work was carried out to rectify the problem. The BMW M52 used iron sleeves from the beginning, and so was unaffected by this problem.

The composition of the engine can be found by checking the engines, engine code and number stamped onto various engine blocks of the BMW M60B30 and M60B40. The only permanent fix for the Nikasil problem is the replacement of the short block with the equivalent block using Alusil linings together with the correct rings, which do not exibit this corrosion problem prevalent with Nikasil bores. Alusil has become a far better option than Nikasil plated linings.

Alusil is an aluminium alloy commonly used to make linerless aluminium alloy engine blocks. Alusil, when etched, will expose a very hard silicon precipitate. The silicon surface is porous enough to hold oil. BMW switched from Nikasil-coated cylinder walls to Alusil in 1996 to eliminate the corrosion problems caused through the use of petrol / gasoline containing sulfur. Alusil engine block sleeves are not an electro-plated process and therefore do not crack, peel or become pitted.

ALUSIL is a treatment of the aluminium surface by either chemical etching or honing and lapping to expose silicon particles on the aluminum surface to act as a wear layer and has been found to be an excellent wear surface through time trials and wear indications of the cylinder bores.

BMW engines using Alusil cylinder block sleeves are as follows: N52, M60 V8, M62 V8, N62 V8 and V12 motors.These aluminum alloy engines weigh in at only 146 kg.

Piston rings from the Nikasil engine may NOT be installed in the Alusil engine and visa versa. This ring change over affects the BMW M60 and M62 engines.

For more information  CLICK HERE “BMW V8 Engine Specialists / Motor Spares ”  or Call Centre : 0861 7777 22

The BMW E34 was manufactured from February 1988 to 1995. It replaced the BMW E28.

The 525i had two models that were manufactured and used the M20 engine while the 535i used the larger M30 powerplant. The cars were a mix of BMW tradition and modern technology of the times. The new 5 series had a much stiffer body and was more streamlined than the E28.

The E34 was among the most reliable luxury cars on the market and still considered one of the most reliable BMWs ever made and also one of the safest cars on the road during its production years, providing airbags, 4 wheel anti lock brake system, and a very rigid body structure. It was also equipped with traction control in later years on higher-specification variants of the vehicles line up.

The 525i was built throughout the E34 production, and in 1992 was offered as a station wagon also referred to as the touring version. In June 1991, the engine was changed from the SOHC M20 engine to the DOHC M50B25 engine. This engine dramatically improved performance, raising power from 170 to 192 Hp or 141 kW.  The timing belt was replaced by a cam timing chain and hydraulic chain tensioner that improved the reliability of the engine.

A further revision of the 525i engine took place in 1993, when VANOS was added to the M50 engine which was coded the M50TU ( TU represents, Technical Update). VANOS brought no horsepower increase, but flattened the torque curve from about 3,000 rpm up to redline at approximately 6,300 rpm.

The 525iX was the only four-wheel drive version in the E34 series. It was available both as a sedan and a station wagon version. It features a computer-controlled rear and centre differentials. The centre differential normally would divide 36% torque to the front axle and 64% to the rear axles.

The six cylinder E34 530i was available in the year 1988. It was fitted with the M30B30 engine which is a 3.0 liter inline 6 petrol engine producing 188 Bhp or 140 kW. In 1992, a new eight cylinder 530i model was introduced in Europe, replacing the 535i with an all new, it had the new M60 engine, a 32 valve double overhead camshaft 3.0 liter V8 engine that was capable of producing 218 bhp or 163 kW of power.

In 1993 BMW added a 4.0 liter V8 to the 5 Series of its ever increasing line up of cars. It was available in both sedan and touring models. Its large engine, upgraded brakes, and 5 speed automatic transmission made this a very competitive car in the sports sedan market. The HE98 was made in the BMW Rosslyn plant in Pretoria, South Africa.

For more information  CLICK HERE “BMW Engines / Spares / Engineering”  or Call Centre : 0861 7777 22