At least that’s what everyone wants you to believe.

The S55

An inline 6 twin-turbo motor manufactured by BMW. You can find this in the F80 M3, F82 M4, F83 M3, and the F87 M2 Comp package. We may be a little biased but this motor is one of our favorites to date. The potential that this thing packs is insane. We started out with basic bolt-on builds and now have multiple 700+ hp builds under our name. All stock internals, most, stock fuel systems. Some of our craziest builds to date have been going strong for well over 2 years with zero issues. We wish we could show you some of the insane videos we have but for sake of legality, we’ll leave it up to the imagination or a few simple Youtube searches 😉

It seems like BMW did everything right with this one…almost everything anyways.

The Ticking Time Bomb

It wouldn’t be BMW if this amazing motor didn’t have some odd weak point that we managed to find. “We” being the aftermarket savvy community. For the S55 it’s the crank hub. A brief synopsis of the issue – the crank hub is what holds the crankshaft together with the timing gear, these, accompanied by a chain, keep your pistons and valves moving when they are supposed to move. On the S55, these pieces are held together by what’s called a friction plate, and a single bolt with a ton of torque. In some rather unfortunate instances, the bolt backs out and causes the timing to slip. In the best cases, the DME catches this slip of timing and will not allow the engine to run, in the worst, well, most of you know what happens when valves and pistons meet..they tend to leave a lasting impression..and not the good kind.

When Will It Happen To You?

Well, it depends on who you talk to.

The forums? You probably already spun it and just don’t know yet. Facebook, 70% say you’re screwed. 20% say “well, I’m running full e85 with no issues – it’s not a real problem” and the other 10% have already upgraded theirs and are enjoying life stress-free at night.

If you ask us, well, it’s like an insurance policy. Do the fix, save yourself the nightmares. Don’t do the fix, and panic every time you feel like mashing the throttle in your $50k+ performance car you bought to enjoy without limit. Personally, we don’t push the subject until customers decide to pass the stage 2 OTS map. However, this is purely based on our own comfort zone and personal experience.

I Can’t Sleep At Night – How Do I Fix This? 

Step one, DO NOT TRY TO DO THIS AT HOME. Unless you are some sort of BMW guru with all of the proper tools and a ton of patience, please, save yourself the headache and the awkward phone call. Find a shop, like us 🙂 that is familiar with the issue and how to properly complete the fix.

Now that we got that out of the way.. you call us, we order one SSR 4 pin crank hub kit, plus all those gaskets, bolts and other miscellaneous bits we have to remove, you drop off your car, four days and a lot of drilling into your crank later, you pick up your car! You now sleep nightmare free. It’s that simple.

We may have missed a few small details, like pricing and such but you can call or email us if you’re looking to have this done and we’ll get you all of those minor details.

We have been tackling the dreaded crank hub fix since the very beginning, alongside many other big-name shops. We are here to help ease any concerns you may have. Our phones, emails, and DM’s are always open to questions! Please do not hesitate to reach out.

For more information, BMW modifications, service, repair, or any other questions you may have, feel free to contact us.

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Ah, the infamous N54…Yes, we are going to talk about it. So brace yourself.

The N54 platform is pretty stout. We won’t get too deep into it because a simple search will provide you with mountains of information on the motor itself. The N54 coming equipped with a forged crank and rods (yea, yea this is up for debate according to half of the community but we’re basing this on our personal experience) have made upwards of 800+ hp on STOCK INTERNALS.

However, it seems at this point in their existence they have gained some sort of reputation for being rather unreliable… which is quite interesting to us.

Most of the N54’s we see come through our shop on a daily basis have already lived the first half of their life as a full bolt-on/tuned car.

Now as the second and third owners acquire these cars at the 80,000 miles + mark, they are experiencing the failure of gaskets, water pumps, electronics, turbos, etc.

This where the bad reputation begins.

Every motor faces normal wear and tear. Completely stock motors end up with leaky gaskets, blown turbos, broken coolant lines, etc. These items are only made to last so long. Especially with most of these items being made out of plastic. Factor in the additional heat, the additional power, and torque being pushed through these motors when they become tuned – now you have sped up that process.

As the current owner, you hold the responsibility to understand and respect the performance this platform provides you. Maintain it!

As the next owner, you have to educate yourself. Do your research, find the history, modifications, mileage, what maintenance has been performed, and what needs to be done.

The unfortunate downfall of the N54 platform is simply the owner’s failure to keep up with maintenance.

We see it all too often.

We cannot stress enough the importance of maintenance. Believe us, we know it sounds lame.. who wants to spend $2,000 on maintenance when you could make 500hp and then some with that same money but you’ll thank us later when you have a reliable 600+ hp N54.

A great example of this very conversation is our good friend Cristian, or as some of you may know him by, Vehicle Virals. We’ve been working with him for quite some time on his 335i. When he first came to us, we had a similar conversation about his feelings on the reliability of the N54 motor. He was frustrated by multiple repairs that were needed at this point in the car’s life. However, like most others, Cristian was not taking into account the current mileage of the vehicle vs the additional power that he has now chosen to add.

When customers like Cristian come to us and are in need of turbos, gaskets, and other maintenance items, we offer an option to drop the motor and completely reseal it. This route means we can knock out turbo replacement and all gaskets well under the same time frame of doing only turbos. Basically, you guys get more for less!

Cristian opted to take this same route and decided to document this process with us for his Youtube channel.

His videos show a lot of this process in-depth and explain why we offer this option and a lot of our feelings on the N54. Check them out!

For more information, BMW modifications, service, repair, or any other questions you may have, feel free to contact us.

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