A little over 4 years ago, I drove my 3.0 X5 to my new house. It ran like garbage because at least one of the cats was dead, from running way to rich. It would hardly go more than 30pmh and needed to be in 2nd gear to do that.
So I parked it and took the entire exhaust system off. I replaced the manifolds with cheap ebay headers and BMW gaskets. In the meantime, I also did a bunch of maintenance; rebuilt vanos and DISA, water pump, and cleaned out the smog distribution system--which is almost certainly what caused it to go rich and kill the cat.
I finally got it to run again for the first time since around 3 years ago when the battery died. It started right up (once I got the fuel pump sorted). With headers and junky gas, it sounds kind of terrible and kind of great. It does not like to idle until it gets warm, then it sounds ok. It revs smoothly to 3k and comes back down again nicely as well. I did notice all the oil leaked out of the rear main and the gasket between the front passenger side bearing support and the oil pan, but it did take 3 years to do that.
Overall, I am just happy the thing runs again. It's still a long way from streetable, but at least I can start heading that way now.
05-22-2021, 03:40 PM
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