Contraversial M50 crankwheel pics! WTF!

[Jon K]

Ok so a guy on bimmer.info posted a pic of an M50* (not sure its an m50 any more!) at TDC and it clearly shows a crank wheel with a marking on the face of the wheel and the missing teeth to the left of the crank sensor. This is weird compared to the M30 and M20 but whatever it could be right - so I thought.

Set the MegaSquirt up and couldn't get it to go. Still have yet to get it to run so I decided to just double check the wheel position. This is result of my own failure to check it myself especially since I have a spare engine.

Anyway, here is the photo the guy gave:



You can see gap to the left and a little TDC marking on the front.



Well I checked out my wheel. There's no TDC mark on the face at all. There IS a mark on the base of the wheel behind the teeth (as if you were looking top down) as per bentley manual. The reason I was confused is because bentley shows the M50 at TDC with a marking like mine and theres no gap to the left of the sensor. I was confused, so I went and looked and mine matches bentley:



Hrm so I have the marking where bentley says... so where does that put my gap?



Very off! This is similar to the M30 and M20, if not the same! I have to go find some pics of the M20 and M30. So all of this time I was probably doing my coil on plug correctly but using wrong numbers because my engine is different than the one that the guy posted... whatever model engine that is. This is a 1992 M50 non vanos... im so perplexed as to what is going on in the other picture, but now im hopeful i can just use M20 settings MAYBE!

I may be able to use M20 wheel settings after all! My coil on plug setup may have worked afterall....

[BillionPa]

the huge gap of no teeth is standard.

[Jon K]

LOL i know...

im saying the motor he must have put @ tdc was prob a M50 vanos... or something... im not sure, but theres no marking on my crank wheel that would put the gap there. That little spec youre pointing to is just something dirty i think - look to the right theres another. His mark had a /T on it...

[yaofeng]

LOL i know...

im saying the motor he must have put @ tdc was prob a M50 vanos... or something... im not sure, but theres no marking on my crank wheel that would put the gap there. That little spec youre pointing to is just something dirty i think - look to the right theres another. His mark had a /T on it...

The mark says 0/T, meaning 0 degree TDC, not a/T. Yes it is a VANOS engine. See picture.