I cleaned up the old oil return line out of curiosity and I have doubts about its serviceability. It pitted pretty heavily and although the id cleaned out well with brake clean, I don’t trust the o-rings. I guess I’m just gonna have to order one and the turbo gaskets again and try to have them overnighted. I haven’t heard back from ecs yet and I can’t have this cost me another week.

I’ve done some homework and it appears the part I require is 11427808154. I’m totally defeated at this point. I’m seriously looking at removing both turbos and replacing all those gaskets and doing all that work again for the oil return line… local bmw can get it in 3 business days for $260. I’m honestly considering it even though it’s $90 more than the online retailers. I haven’t heard back from ecs at all so I’m going to have to just order it elsewhere. I can’t have this car down any longer. I’m almost to the point of just cutting the new hard line and buying a section of hose to route around the lp egr valve. It’s way less work and would eliminate removing everything again. Thoughts? What would you do?

If the turbo gaskets have not had heat applied to them, you should not have any issues with reusing them. Once they are used on a running engine the heat and related expansion of metals will apply more pressure to the gasket than the applied bolt torque from assembly. I had a similar issue during one of my builds and experienced no gasket issues. As far as cutting the oil return hard line, it does sound feasible as the low pressure turbo does have a hose segment on the return. There may be an issue with heat proximity on the high pressure turbo oil return but I don't remember the actual routing.

No heat yet. I don’t know how much I want to trust that though. These gaskets are layered steel and clearly crush to seal. Is it worth doing all that work a third time for 2 gaskets? I’ll read up a bit on reusing gaskets of this type. Thanks for the heads up that it’s possible.

So I had the idea to cut the return tube in the most accessible spot and throw together a -10 ptfe lined stainless oil drain hose. Got all the supplies this morning and got to work. Line looks good (never messed with an fittings before). But… I don’t like it. I’m worried the line will eventually abrade and cause a leak. I’m going to try to make a new line that goes out and all the way around the lp egr valve. I don’t have high hopes. I’m going to try the an hard pipe compression fittings on the old oil drain line to test the diameter but as the pipe is metric, I’m not holding my breath. If it works, I’ll be glad but I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that I’m going to have to buy the correct pipe and pull the small turbo out again. It’s really a crap deal because I had all the individual pieces (gaskets, bolts, etc.) in my shopping cart at fcp euro (and verified part numbers on real OEM by my vin). Since ecs had the “kit” available, I decided to go that route. Total kick in the teeth. I trust “kits” a lot less now, even if they’re BMW OE. Whoever decided the “fitment “ totally failed me. Again, I don’t blame ECS and I’m not suggesting they won’t make it right. I’ll give them every opportunity. I just can’t wait the 3-5 business days it’ll take them to get me a new one IF they do make it right. Gotta get it running and get back to my life. Renting a car is too costly and buying a “work beater” is not an option given the market right now. A “work beater” is now a 6-8000 $ proposition (and roughly equivalent to what I’ve spent fixing the e70 in the last 2 months).

Another update and man it’s not going well. Took everything out down to the oil return line, replaced it with new (not from ECS) and replaced all the gaskets on the rebuild. I just couldn’t see wasting more time if they didn’t seal or only sealed for a few thousand miles. So by the book, everything went back together to the point I had it before (almost). So the only thing I had left was the LP egr cooler and I bought new bolts and gaskets for it. Get it into position and the clamp on the egr valve, move to the rear connection to the dpf and nope, not a chance. The angle they welded that flange on the new dpf will never align, let alone seal to the egr cooler. So there’s you answer folks, eBay dpfs wont work and it’s not worth it to try. So now I’m doing the dpf job again which means subframe comes down again and everything. Thank goodness I don’t have to get into the turbochargers again but man, how long is this job going to last? I must’ve been an a-hole in my past life cause my luck lately is crap.
So now the plan is to take the old dpf to be cleaned somewhere in jersey (hopefully) and drill out the broken bolts and remove the sensors. Wish me luck, I need all I can get.

Hmmmmm. Surely this company has sold a bunch of these, so if the flange is not aligned right, they would have already run into this. Before giving up, I would contact the mfgr. and see if they respond. Perhaps you got a bad one and they'll replace, or perhaps they have another workaround. Don't give up. Don't get discouraged. Don't quit. Most problems turn out to not be as bad as they seem at first.

AM.

You would really think in todays world that a metal manufacturer would have better quality control than this, especially given the work involved in getting this particular part out and back in. Where I work, (much larger scale but metal manufacturing for industrial parts) all the flanges are laser verified on every piece as part of qc before they go to the paint & blast shop. It’s a shame. I’ve reached out to the company and sent them some pictures so we’ll see what happens. Still no resolution from ecs either. So I will continue to push forward despite the road bumps and slowish supplier responses to help rectify the issues. I really was hoping for a new system to increase reliability but if I can clean the old dpf and reinstall, it will be good enough. it likely has far more precious metals content than the aftermarket dpf anyway and a much greater serviceable lifespan. We’ll see on Monday when I get the old one cleaned, if they say it’s still serviceable, it’ll go back in (once it’s emptied of 215k miles of ash). I’ll at least be up and running again. To bad no one makes a modular dpf for these, where you can pull the “filter” element section and just have that cleaned every 50k miles.

I did hear back from the dpf eBay seller. They offered to take it back but no details on that resolution yet. They didn’t offer to send a replacement. I’ll let you all know what happens with the OE dpf at cleaning tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll tell me it’s ok. If not, I’ll be looking here and on marketplace for one that fell off from someone else hitting a pothole. I just can’t spend the ~$4000 for a new one from bmw.

It’s alive!!!
So the cleaning went well. They were able to clean the dpf and get the resistance through the filter cut in half. Their machine backwashes with a mild solvent (for ash) and uses hydraulic pressure to push the ask plugs back through. They said the filter was at the top end of “still good” when I brought it in. Said I didn’t really need to clean it yet. After the way this job has gone, I had no desire to do any of it again any time soon so I had them do it. They got it down from 1.4 to .7 (resistance through the filter walls). So after the cleaning (waited a few hours for it), I took it to the machine shop and dropped it off. There were 2 bolts broken off in it (one for the lower mount to the block, and one on the flange for the LP egr cooler). After 215k miles, they were pretty brittle. I was a little careless pulling them out because I wasn’t reusing the dpf. I did buy the hardware to replace the broken fasteners but instead of fighting with broken bolts, I decided to let the machine shop do it. My daughter came with because it wasn’t far. She’s got her drivers permit and needs the practice driving. That was a mistake. About 1/4 mile from the house she crashed my wife’s minivan. Everyone is fine but It’s done. So I seriously had zero vehicles. They say bad things come in 3’s so I guess I’ve got mine out of the way for 2024 haha.
So Thursday I got a ride to pick up the dpf from the machine shop. Took most of the day but I got it buttoned up last night. I ended up using a few rigging straps and a small chain fall to pull the subframe back to where it belonged. Hooked a strap around the top spoke of the rear wheel and another around the bottom spoke of the front wheel on the same side. Hooked up the chain fall between the straps and tightened it up until the subframe was aligned again. The strap placement caused it to roll up the ramp instead of down so it didn’t crush me. Actually worked well without any drama.
So it’s all back together and runs great. Sounds great. Smells awful since I painted the exhaust manifold.
So to start initially, I didn’t want to just fire it right off. Wanted to get oil through the lines to the turbos since all that was replaced and empty. I hit the button so it would turn over for a second and immediately hit it again to stop ignition. I did this quite a few times over about 5 minutes. My theory was that the mechanical oil pump would fill the lines but without ignition, the turbos wouldn’t get any real speed to them. This should help keep the heat and friction down until I had oil to them from the pump. I can’t say if it worked or not but it made me feel a little better about initial start up with new, dry turbos.
It doesn’t squeal anymore and it sounds like it should. Tomorrow I’m gonna hook up ista and reset the dpf.
Perseverance wins the day but man was it hard won this time. Between the unfortunate snafus and just plain unrelated bad luck, it seemed like I was going to be stuck in the driveway forever. Thanks all for the encouragement though this process. I probably would have struggled quite a bit more if it weren’t for the resources and knowledge base here to draw from. That’s ultimately why I kept updating the thread. Hoping that my misadventures will be able to enlighten future readers as to what to look out for and potential problems.
Truthfully, I probably didn’t have to replace the turbochargers. I eventually found the exhaust manifold leak at the block and I could have just replaced those gaskets and put everything back as it came off and kept driving it without issue. The route I took was by far the more expensive choice but I feel really good about everything on the passenger side of the engine being new. I shouldn’t have to worry about a problem over there for another 200k miles. Would it have been cheaper and less problematic if I deleted it? Absolutely… do I regret not doing that out of the gate? No. I can say with certainty that I can pass emissions inspection where I live and not have any issues since I remain above board. If I deleted, that would always be hanging over my head. Here, it’s a $10,000 fine and they impound your vehicle. I’ve heard stories of them threatening to crush vehicles not put back in 10 days.
I still have plans to do the timing chains and vcg. I also have the rear shocks and e brake actuator to do. Maybe I should just start a build/OEM restore thread.