Index 12 failure

IQraceworks

Corporal
Jul 7, 2020
216
136
0
Missouri
Ride
07' BMW 335i
I know it was the DI injector that caused the rod to bend. My question was are these counterfeit injectors. I was told the are old index 12's from 2015. How can you determine manufacturing date of these injectors?
Not sure on the date codes. All the fake china ebay injectors I've seen have bright white lettering on them, and the calibration numbers are the same on every injector. The ones you posted pictures of sure look OEM...real. But, just because they are read OEM index 12's, doesn't mean they can't fail.

If you search google, you can find lots of pictures comparing real vs. fake N54 injectors.....just as a reference.
 

SLOWESTN54

Captain
Feb 9, 2021
1,246
978
0
23
B.C. Canada
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2007 E92 335i
Let us take another route. It is called "Thinking".. Not something you will find in your FB research.

The internet says an s55 injector from Kies (first result i found. Can be wrong) can flow around 22g/s @ 100 bar (1450psi). Let us just assume this is the max flow.
What is the remaining volume at TDC? I have no idea.
1 liter of pump fuel weights around 720 to 775grams. So 22 grams are around 30ml of pump fuel. So as soon you hit 1450psi or more you are constantly injecting 30ml of fuel into your combustion chamber. Yeah. Most will leave unburned through the ex valve. But only so much possible.

Now.. Why do you assume high rpm? Hydrolock and stuck open injectors are not a thing during high rpm. This can happen any time. It happened most likely happened when hitting WOT and fuel was just filling the cylinder.

My guess with thinking about the issue is.. It wasn´t high RPM but if an injector failed and was stuck open it is ALWAYS injecting fuel without any PWM operation.

Now.. Still something you can´t imagine?
Remember your talking to the guy that was bragging about his leaking injectors here, then was confused when piston said bye bye.
 
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SLOWESTN54

Captain
Feb 9, 2021
1,246
978
0
23
B.C. Canada
Ride
2007 E92 335i
I know it was the DI injector that caused the rod to bend. My question was are these counterfeit injectors. I was told the are old index 12's from 2015. How can you determine manufacturing date of these injectors?
As Carabuser said your injectors seem legit, i also had a index 12 stick open, but luckily for me it wasn't bad enough to flood the cylinder.
 

802Gst

New Member
Dec 30, 2019
1
2
0
Ride
2008 Bmw 335xi
Seems like the n54 direct injectors have many correlations with common rail diesels. I have two high powered 3rd Gen Cummins trucks besides my n54 and on that platform injectors are also a problem. Same with the lb7 Duramax. All 3 of these are first generation common rails (n54 being gas but same concept). Anyway on the Cummins we will go through injectors about 100-150k miles before problems arise. Same type of issues, leaking nozzles, internal seals, cracked bodies etc. One thing we figured out early on was filtration was key to injector life. I wonder if this correlates to these injectors. Aside from being pizeo vs solenoid, the rest of the injector seems similar. Shoot an lb7 injector looks pretty similar to an n54. We also started using 2 stroke oil in our diesel because ultra low sulfur diesel is dry and ruins injector internals. Diesel injectors and cp3 pumps (hpfp) require lubricity in the fuel to lube the metal parts. We had problems early on with people running dual pumps and blowing injector tips, blowing solenoids off etc because of excessive rail pressure.

Anyway if you are still following my rambling here lol I couldn't help but comment about the similarities. I imagine e85 is hell on pumps and injectors. I'm curious if anyone has tested better filtration? Is e85 typically a dirty fuel? I know diesel certainly is, especially in the US. It's known that our fuel is shit compared to Europe. And being that our fuel system is designed in Europe, shit fuel quality isn't what they have to work with. On my truck Chrysler in all their cheapness installed a 10 micron fuel filter, and Bosch requires 2 micron. So naturally we had lots of injector problems until we started using 2 micron filtration. Anyway long time lurker here but this is my first post. Hopefully this made some sense 🤣
 

IQraceworks

Corporal
Jul 7, 2020
216
136
0
Missouri
Ride
07' BMW 335i
Yep......diesel injectors seem to always have issues too. The 6.0 in my F250 uses the HEUI type injectors that actually operates off of high pressure oil. Dirty oil, and low fuel pressure it what eats those injectors up. At least the diesel injectors are somewhat affordable if you have to replace them, not like the $400+ each N54 index 12 injectors.

To comment on your post, from what I've seen, and after talking to a few of the big injector shops that "attempt" to service these N54 injectors, it seems the main issue with them is that they are piezo type injectors...simple as that. Not sure if you are familiar with how they work, but basically, they pass an electric current through a stack of piezo crystals to get them to expand, and that opens the needle inside the injector to meter the correct amount of fuel. Over time, the crystal degrade, swell up, and don't respond properly to the electric current...causing all kinds of lean and/or rich conditions with fueling.

And, unfortunately, from what all the injector places have told me, there isn't a single shop that has the ability to recharge/restore the piezo crystal stacks. I think the Injector shop says they can "restore" the crystal stack, but it sounds like it's basically just cleaning things. And even after that, if they can't hit the proper flow rate on the injectors...they are trash.

It's just a finicky, expensive to manufacture, and an extremely complicated design for an injector. That's why BMW went with solenoid type injectors on motors like the B58...and ditched the piezo injectors. I think all their diesel motors use solenoid type injectors now also..but I could be wrong.

And then take into account that these N54 engines have been out for 16+ years....so there are lots of older (and fake) injectors floating around out there.

I wish someone would come out with an affordable aftermarket injector that would be plug-n-play...but I doubt that will ever happen.

But to your point....YES, I'm sure dirty fuel cause issues with the injectors. There isn't much of a fuel filter setup on these cars. A small filter on the LPFP, and a small little screen on the HPFP. No big pleated fuel filter like on most cars and trucks.

Lots of great info here ......
https://theinjectorshop.com/blogs/news/bmw-piezo-injector-service-faqs

https://injector-rehab.com/knowledg...ons-for-piezoelectric-fuel-injector-cleaning/
 
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wheela

Lieutenant
Jun 4, 2021
1,131
635
0
Twin Cities, MN
Ride
2015 e84 X1 35i Msport
Yep......diesel injectors seem to always have issues too. The 6.0 in my F250 uses the HEUI type injectors that actually operates off of high pressure oil. Dirty oil, and low fuel pressure it what eats those injectors up. At least the diesel injectors are somewhat affordable if you have to replace them, not like the $400+ each N54 index 12 injectors.

To comment on your post, from what I've seen, and after talking to a few of the big injector shops that "attempt" to service these N54 injectors, it seems the main issue with them is that they are piezo type injectors...simple as that. Not sure if you are familiar with how they work, but basically, they pass an electric current through a stack of piezo crystals to get them to expand, and that opens the needle inside the injector to meter the correct amount of fuel. Over time, the crystal degrade, swell up, and don't respond properly to the electric current...causing all kinds of lean and/or rich conditions with fueling.

And, unfortunately, from what all the injector places have told me, there isn't a single shop that has the ability to recharge/restore the piezo crystal stacks. I think the Injector shop says they can "restore" the crystal stack, but it sounds like it's basically just cleaning things. And even after that, if they can't hit the proper flow rate on the injectors...they are trash.

It's just a finicky, expensive to manufacture, and an extremely complicated design for an injector. That's why BMW went with solenoid type injectors on motors like the B58...and ditched the piezo injectors. I think all their diesel motors use solenoid type injectors now also..but I could be wrong.

And then take into account that these N54 engines have been out for 16+ years....so there are lots of older (and fake) injectors floating around out there.

I wish someone would come out with an affordable aftermarket injector that would be plug-n-play...but I doubt that will ever happen.

But to your point....YES, I'm sure dirty fuel cause issues with the injectors. There isn't much of a fuel filter setup on these cars. A small filter on the LPFP, and a small little screen on the HPFP. No big pleated fuel filter like on most cars and trucks.

Lots of great info here ......
https://theinjectorshop.com/blogs/news/bmw-piezo-injector-service-faqs

https://injector-rehab.com/knowledg...ons-for-piezoelectric-fuel-injector-cleaning/
A lot of the s55 guys running e85 have started using this Bend Calibration flex fuel kit, which comes with this nice looking Injector Dynamics fuel filter:


 
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IQraceworks

Corporal
Jul 7, 2020
216
136
0
Missouri
Ride
07' BMW 335i
Yeah, that looks nice! I'm sure if someone came up with a simple aftermarket fuel filter setup for the N54's.....they would sell plenty of them. Pretty much the only filter we have on our cars is that cheap little filter screen that snaps onto the bottom of the LPFP. A nice big canister filter would be great!