Stage 2 tune: My SCR, DPF, EGR and Urea delete Journey

[Stockx5]

Hello Folks
I decided to do this project myself in a parking lot on jack stands and since it seems there isn’t that much instruction from those who did it on the x5d I was planning to do a DIY but there is already a very detailed DIY over here for the e90 (LINK) and its very similar to the e70 with some very important distinctions.

My set up:
DUDMD tune Dima hooked it up after many many issues with Bawareca tune member who basically wasted my time and refused to give me a refund.

Buzzken downpipe and midpipe w/out cat and keeping the stock muffler.
This is what you get:



The inside part of the welds where the bungs are is somewhat rough and unfinished to my liking. Probably does not make any difference.



But I smoothed it out with a dremmel anyway.



Weight:
According to FedEx this is the weight of the Buzzken kit. Give or take and extra lb for for packaging



This is what comes off the car, they weight: 25.8 lbs for the SCR and 22.2lbs for the DPF ( they are both for sale btw and in working condition)



So at the end of the day the oem parts weight around 48lbs and the replacement Buzzken pipes weight about 19lbs for a total weight savings of 29lbs.

The EGR exhaust cooler and valve attached to the dpf weighs 4.4 lbs




on 6/19/17 I removed the EGR intercooler at the intake that weighted around 5lbs

Total weight savings for this mod: 38.4 lbs

And If I were to remove the now obsolete EGR cooler and valve at the throttle it would probably weight approx. another 5 lbs. but I have not done that since I have nothing to replace it with.
Also, there is the weight savings of not carrying the two urea tanks and the urea that goes in it. So food for thought.

Now for the tutorial part of this thread:

Pretty much follow all the steps on the excellent abovementioned tutorial by MasterC17

when you get to step 11. The 6 subframe bolts have to be completely removed. Now, results might vary based on how you jacked up the car but for me it was like this:

1. I jacked up the front of the vehicle only on jack stands on the 2 front door lift mounts, since the rear is not necessary. But it won’t hurt if you do.

2. Place jack on engine oil pan on the passenger side (WITH A WOOD BLOCK) I cracked my oil pan because the damn wood block fell off and I applied the jack directly. The oil pan is made of saltine cracker material IT WILL CRACK.

Now on to the dropping the subframe process.

4. remove the 6 subframe bolts completely. For me the subframe did not just drop on my face. It had to be pried down. First with a crow bar and later with a piece of wood. (this piece of wood is very important as we will use it to gain leverage )







If you jacked up the engine too high the subframe will not drop because the right wheel drive shaft will get caught on the shock fork and force the subframe up. So you only want to lift the engine enough to take the weight of the subframe.

To get the engine mount out you have to get the engine support arm out first. To do this you must loosen the 4 bolts holding it. As mentioned by MasterC17 the two front and rear bolt are easy. The top middle bolt is damn near impossible to get.

But this is how I did it:

This is what you are triying to do remove this bolt..this is after I got it out.



The problem is the DPF is right on top of the arm and for me even after removing the V band and all brackets holding the DPF the sucker was welded in there with rust and would not move.
This is what it looks like after you manage to get the socket in there.





the socket would not fit it in there at all so I began with a long flat head screw driver and chiseled it in with a hammer to carve a path for the socket. Once the screw driver went in I pried it up and down. Then did the same with a metal rod, then with a bigger tube and kept hammering in there bigger diameter things until the dpf and the control arm had been bent enough to allow the socket to get in there.

The entire time you are doing this you are jacking the engine up and down and priying on the subframe up and down with the wood stick.

Once that nut is out you get under the car and with one hand on the wood stick and another on the engine mount ARM you begin to yank on both on them frantically in different directions like you are having an epilepsy seizure.

Once you dislodge the engine mount arm itself and angle it a bit you can get the engine-mount out Then the engine mount arm will come out.

I hope you jacked the engine and jacked the car with multiple jack stands and back ups after the back ups in case the entire thing falls down.

Now to get the DPF out I undid the 2 egr electric connections from the top, the o2 sensor I could not undo so I left it on, it did not interfere with pulling out the DPF there is enough cord once you undo the clips holding the wire to let it hang to where you have it under the car and can remove it with gusto.

Now you have to repeat the same process to get the dpf out, pull on the wood stick to drop the subframe as much as you can, pull on the dpf with the the other hand, rotate it sideways up down left left right up L button.

I did not have to bend the dpf tubes, it came out intact, maybe if you bend the tubes you don’t have to drop the subframe as much but I am selling the DPF so I needed it intact. I did this solo but I can see how with 2 people it would be much easier.

Re assembly is easy the only difficult part is that once the subframe was dropped and pushed out of place it will be tough to re align since there are so many things attached to it mainly the metal steering fluid hose. To get it to align I had to pull on the subframe with a crank type rope attached from a fixed point on the passenger side subframe to another adjacent car then use a small bottle jack to lift it, only then was I able to get the sub frame bolts in.

Honorable Mentions:
All the nuts are completely rusted and welded in, made this project x10 harder. Working on a east coast car is not the same as working on a car that has seen the Chicago snow/salt. Make no mistake!

The first NOX sensor was almost impossible to get out as it was welded in, despite using the right o2 open socket tool, banging it with a hammer, appliying wd-40, Pb blaster, heating up the bung, any attempt just rounded the head more and more. The only thing that got it out was by squeezing extremely hard some macho vice grips with scary sharp teeth.

Same thing with the egr sensor at the midpipe, all though I did not have the 45 dollar 14 mm open socket tool, anything I tried just rounded off the head. Vice grips was the way to go. And Im going to guess the 14mm tool would have striped the head too as the open socket does not have the strength.

Since I had already sold the NOX sensors before beginning the project I had to remove the NOX and wiring behind the heat shield. The first NOX sensor’s connector/ecu looking part location is exposed to the road elements and was completely rusted out. Rusting is a common reason for these failing. And actually, the secondary NOX sensor looked brand new because it was properly located behind the heat shield. If I had not done this mod I would relocate the NOX or place it inside an enclosure, they are just waiting to fail sitting there and are not cheap!


Here is my MPG reading before the mod:



the idea is to take another screenshot keeping the same driving habits whenever the AVG speed hits 28.6MPH after about the same distance driven.

Exhaust sound at the muffler before Mod:
https://youtu.be/jmIWwwvx2sI


My 0 to 60 run before the mod:
https://youtu.be/X4-I5fWl4UQ


I should get the ecu back sometime this week and will Update !

Total investment for me is $804 bucks for the Buzzken kit and $600 for the TRF tune since they have that deal going and you also have pay 25 bucks to send the ecu in. so if you do the work yourself you are spending $1,425 bucks.

Here is how the monitors read after the tune



* the NOX sensor-s must be left plugged in at the front and rear of the car doesn't matter if it's not working. otherwise you will get a check engine light.
* the TEMP sensors must be left plugged in dangling also or you will get a check engine light.