Mousa.J

Hi, I'm planning to change the camshaft adjusters for M276 engine but, the OE parts are too expensive (600-1000$ each). Not to mention the tensioners and the other needed parts. I'm looking for a high quality aftermarket parts. I found Febi Bilstein much cheaper but as far as I know their parts' quality are poor and I don't want to risk it installing them inside the engine. Any thoughts?Thanks

juanmor40

May I ask why? What led you to conclude the adjusters are damaged? All four are already damaged? If so, you may have a bigger problem than you realized and you have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Mousa.J

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

The typical rattling noise in a cold start. The noise is not always there so it might be just the beginning of the problem.

I have been reading a lot of threads related to the same problem and it seems the issue is very common with this engine.

I took the car to a local workshop to have it inspected. I don't really remember the error code but, after the inspection , the mechanic concluded that one of the cam adjusters is bad.

I assume it won't take very long for the other cam adjusters to go bad so I decided to change all of them. By the way, the car has 155K KM.

Thanks,

juanmor40

These engines ALWAYS rattle at the cold start because they do not have enough oil pressure. The rattle should go away very quickly within 30 seconds, then we can start thinking something is OFF.

If you do the "oil pump solenoid modification", the rattle will go away within 10 sec if that long since the ECU will ramp a cold engine to @1200->1500 RPM.

To be certain the VVT (cam adjuster) is bad, the adjuster will usually MISS, and if you are rotating the engine manually you can hear a loud "CLICK" on the adjuster.

It seems the first cam adjuster that goes bad is the Bank 1 intake camshaft since it is also the one that drives the High Pressure Fuel Pump.

155KM ~ 100Kmiles. My two M276s are just fine at 91K+, and 95K+, and sure you can hear the engine when starts, but it goes aways within seconds. The E350 has the oil pump solenoid modification though.

Be certain you really need these parts, and do not open the engine for the sake of it. There is nothing worse than disturbing a good working engine and taking chances.

What oil specifications are you using? Several (not everyone) in the forum have tested heavier than 0W, I am at 5W since Florida does not see cold winters (compared to Canada for example). The engine is quieter, and smoother (to me).

CaliBenzDriver

It's not easy to speculate with certainty without hands on. I fear you got sold a job with all the most expensive parts. That should clearly not be the basis for your repair.

Feel free to replace what's necessary even it its not expensive: tensioner.

Instead of looking for cheaper VVT parts, let's make sure how your startup rattle is responding. This will gelp narrow things down.

Definitely don't rely on thin oil to prevent rattle... thin oil washes out of tensioner + VVT too quickly.


Is your startup rattle length ...:
1 second : bad oil viscosity
3 seconds : bad chain tensioner
7 seconds : bad VVT intake


- Bad oil grade is too thin and/or too old.

- 155Km: original tensioners are long gone!!

- Bad VVT you can be tested easily without opening anything!!

CaliBenzDriver

Let me enlighten you with a bit... my new 10kMi engine was already welcoming me with morning rattle even before my first oil change.

I was delighted - Dealer had me captured with chaos and discount coupons for jobs to come.

I had purchased the extended warranty, so NOTHING got fixed... "everything was normal".


The 8kMi oil viscosity allows a brand new VVT and tensioners to drain out and rattle for 5seconds.

TENSIONERS need to be in golden shape but the VVT can get way extended with normal oil pump pressure of better choice of oil viscosity.

Weak oils are no match for superheated engines.

Oil interval 5kMi... after that viscosity is all used up and key aluminum engine parts create glitter specs.

CaliBenzDriver

Juan: I am beginning to wonder if the dry cylinders super-heat is not purely designed to waste the oil viscosity that causes rattles... on schedule.

This weekend I gave our favorite Motul 5w-40 a little booster shot....
I went to the car store to pick up a qualified 10w40... they were all conventional paraffined oils.

The next thing you know is I added 500ml of synthetic 15w50 in my 50kMi engine that had restarted to consume thinned vaporized 5w40.


Mobil1 viscosity booster shot...

The outcome shows viscosity improvement evidenced by :

-- Much quieter engine noise after crank start

-- More positively set VVT evidenced by solid responsive hard pedal at 900RPM. Zero "hesitation" as with thin oil.

-- Freeway pedal is amazing: at 70MPH i hardly need to touch the pedal from idle.

-- Between coasting and acceleration: zero lag instantaneous response.


My next oil change is a 10 or 15W-40 synthetic. As of now I am concentrating on ball-joint, AKE brakes and ECT YOYO.
​​​​​​

Mousa.J

The engine rattle for about 2~3 seconds immediately after the ignition، it goes away and it is not constant.

I have no idea about the "oil pump solenoid modification" but I guess you mean the check valve that keeps some oil for the VVT gears during the ignition. (Engine 276.952)

Engine oil is Mercedes-Benz 229.50 5w40. I'm in Saudi Arabia.

If I may ask, for how long have you kept your M276s rattling without addressing it? Is there any error code or just the noise? I know what you are saying cause the car feels and sound very normal after a couple of seconds but i'm afraid the issue might escalate.

Mousa.J

Hi,
The rattle noise is just 2~3 seconds. For the oil I use Mercedes-Benz 229.50 5w40.

I have seen the process of testing VVT. However, I'm not really a mechanic I just do some basics and have no tools whatsoever. The guy that I took the car to him has been well-known for years fixing Mercedes cars so I trusted his diagnose and he has mentioned the car has some error code in bank 1 I believe, which is related to the camshaft( I can get the error code later)

For the time being, I will not replace anything unless the issue is clearly identified.

Mousa.J

I really appreciate your help , thank you.

However, could somebody advise If there is a manufacturer with high quality VVT gears for a decent cost.

Don't get me wrong guys, I don't mean China garbage, I mean a well-known company with high quality products.

if it's not now , is gonna be for later on if I decided to replace them.

JettaRed

iTrader: (1)

Look for your parts on www.fcpeuro.com. They only will sell quality genuine and aftermarket parts. Parts designated "OE" are claimed to be "genuine" without the Mercedes markings. "OEM" parts are slightly different as they are made by the same manufacturers as genuine parts, but not necessarily the same as OE.

ninobrn99

I don’t know if this is how they should sound or not. My car has 76800 miles so I’m trying to get all of the maintenance items sorted.

CaliBenzDriver

That idle sound is smooth... good.

ninobrn99

I guess I just thought the ticking was pretty loud. Thanks for the post!

CaliBenzDriver

that loud ticking is from the injectors working.

It may go away when ECU switches to better GDI timings... it then will sound more like a "diesel engine".

The injectors ticking is morphed into a sort of cowboy wip cracking... attached mp3 sample.

Ticking idle will still be used on cold engine then switched into "advanced GDI" based on engine operating temperature.

As far as I can tell... advanced timings are linked to oil viscosity, Bank1 tensioner, engine temperature. The heart of which is HPFP timings satisfying ECU with necessary precision.

CaliBenzDriver

The only thing non-stock I have in fuel control is my 3-Phase fuel pump module is a bit electronically reworked to be honestly reliable.

This module is a perfect noise factory. It switches 12VDC into AC approximated sine wave voltage times 3 phases shifted 120° apart to cover 360°.

-- Additional capacitive noise filtering
-- Shorter GND/12V power wires
-- Separated harness path

Nothing too crazy! If no one else gets "diesel GDI" may the above is the answer.

By experimenting with solderless fixes, I have the proof CAN-Bus are not too good error correction is heavily used.
The low pressure pump uses extra-long wires to help make this worse directly on the ECU/TCU own VIP CAN-C. This bus should be mint for timely work. Retransmit protocol is chaos tolerant but I am certainly not.

I may upgrade my stock skinny twisted-pairs CAN-Bus wiring to shielded (CAT-6) on long runs such as:
-- VIP CAN-C ECU bus shared with LPFP module!!
-- Busy Rear-SAM
-- Faulty RFK.
After I have resoldered my ESP/ABS to minimize active CAN-C disruptions.

PWM wiring needs to be sized to carry the peak current not the average. Grounding far away with skinny wire is a substandard calculated mistake. Me like GND half-foot or 10cm away.


+++Pump controller module located between rear seat and door on passenger side.

++++ Also I made "Swiss-cheese" with plastic enclosure to drop amazing high heat.

ninobrn99

I only just ordered my LPFP today so that’s the only change to the fuel system I’ll probably have. I’ve been researching trying to retrofit the BMW B58TU HPFP. I ordered a BMW extension harness to see if the electrical connections were the same, but they’re not (tried it out today on a spare m276 HPFP I bought off ebay to test). Reached out to a couple of shops to see if they’d be willing to compare the two units and see if it’s do-able…. Here in the UK, there isn’t any place to get E85 and I won’t be running WMI so it’s petrol-only for me. Still debating whether or not to upgrade the turbos so for now fueling will be okay.

I’ll be interested to see how you do the wiring. It could only help.
​​​​​​​

CaliBenzDriver

I reworked the power wiring couple years ago when I discovered the pump controller - Documented in my signature.
Back then I resolved to survey my entire car to retire chaos from my then low mileage chassis.

No1 chaos purveyors are "WTF" main GND and painted GND posts in particular at front footwell where SAM + ECU source GND.

Many discoveries from or shared with master @S-Prihadi



+++ HPFP is a very touchy unit to timely control.

ninobrn99

Also accomplished today was the camshaft solenoids. Last week was the oil pump mod. I have been reaping the rewards off all of your guys hard work!

CaliBenzDriver

While you're there... did you renew your 2x chain TENSIONERS ?
These tensioners are extra soft to save gasoline. They are unable to go the distance before impacting Bank1 timings.
This effectively forces the ECU to detune the engine with limited torque from weak mixtures.

I think tensioners are more important than new 4x VVT Solenoids unless leaking oil. The VVT solenoids hardly work... easy life unlike nearby CPS that may get toasted on hot engines with limited cooling.

ninobrn99

No, I haven’t. That’s why I had posted the video. I wasn’t sure if they were causing the sound. I guess I’ll get those done before I do too much else. Scrolling eBay for some factory turbos at a good price right now. Guess I’ll hit pause.

CaliBenzDriver

Don't wait for these tensioners becoming noisy. They are maintenance item. No point in stretching life: 50 to 75k.Mi is recycle time.

Treat weak tensioners like plugs and coils.

ninobrn99

Agreed. I’ll be booking in to have to done as soon as I can

Sultano

Dear mousa
Can I d m u?

Mousa.J

Hello
Sure