I've built a Z4 track-car with a friend (2006 E86 3.0si), and the 1st TD was at Donington Park on Friday 5th April.
The car was utterly epic! As far as handling and braking are concerned we've absolutely nailed it!
Unfortunately the engine (which had done 170k miles) decided that retirement was long overdue and we've thrown a little-end (suspected at this point, but pretty confident).
So we're going to fully rebuild this engine, and thought we may as well build a forged engine whilst were balls-deep into the old girl, and hopefully have a strong donkey that laughs in the face of our tomfoolery, and has spare capacity to maybe supercharge down the line.
The thing is..... We simply cannot find any forged parts; pistons/conrods/crank etc. for this engine, Google is drawing a blank so far.
Does anyone in the Z4 fraternity know of any good points of contact to try and find solutions to building a stronger N52 please?
To anticipate a few questions/suggestions, I'll put a couple of details below:-
1) We fitted a baffle to the sump.
2) Engine oil was high-performance, brand new and level was good.
3) Lots of copper/brass in the oil post-failure. Noise is very high, pretty confident it's a little-end.
4) 3.0 N52 running stock.
5) Engine swap for an 'M' engine etc has been considered by us, but that is very involved, and we want to get the car back on track this season.
Thank you all in advance for your help.
