I doubt the MAF is the cause of the issues. Is the fuel pump original? When was the fuel filter last changed?

 

No lower intake boot replacement?

Smoke test will find any air leaks.

How about Freeze Frame data and what are the warm idle Fuel Trim values?

What OBDII tool or App are you using?

Leave the VANOS seals alone.

 

So i did a smoke test, no sign of leaks.. today i checked the 2 vacuum caps and the line on back of intake manifold connected to electric valve and they seemed good except the smaller 3.5mm cap was not pushed in secure all the way. On cold start car actually ran a lot better with some signs of bad idling.. obd2 scanner read 1351 and 1352 misfires with fuel cutoff codes. Car did not shutoff when pressing gas pedal. Took it for a 20 minute drive, car ran good. Erased codes and they didnt come back. However P0174 did come back a couple of times after being erased when driving.. what i think is, and let me know if i am wrong or if you think it is likely other reasons, is that i was getting 171 and 174 and misfire codes from vacuum leaks. Fixed those leaks but maybe the o2 sensor that correlates to 174 is faulty and creating misfires in cylinder 5 and 6. Does 174 o2 sensor correlate to cylinders 5 and 6?
Also having a weird cooling system situation. After driving for about 10 minutes low coolant light comes on for 1 to 2 minutes and goes off, engine temp according to dash shows no overheating. After about 5minutes this cycle would reoccur. I read that it is likely air bubbles in system. Read countless how tos on adding and bleeding system, pretty confident there is no air bubbles. I followed directions on adding and bleeding system But none of these e46 how tos would use the electric pump process to remove air bubbles from system.. i read some other bmw cooling system bleeding processes and they would talk about electric water pump. I would turn car to #2 start position and hold gas peddle down for 10 seconds and checked reservior for coolant to be recycled from system through small hole near top by cap but nothing would happen. However once i started car up coolant would flow through hole. Does this mean something? Do i even have an electric water pump system? I ask cause im checking all possibilities since this coolant light situation doesnt go away. I have no noticeable leaks and recently changed water pump and reservior tank since it had. A leak on side of it which i read is common. I might sound stupid but is it possible that electric water pump is broken somehow and that is why proces only starts once engine is turned on so it can power electric water pump?

 

Oh ya i am using the crapiest obd2 reader from oreily auto. Its blue and called something like innova, some really minimal scanner.. what would you recommend if i wanted to get something that would show live fuel trim readingsmormfreeze frames ans something that i could use to reset airbag light since i forgot to unplug battery before unplugging airbag while fixing window regulator...

 

Replacing lower intake boot about 2 years ago as i was having 171 and 174 and it solved problem then. Checked boots thoroughly recently when i took it off and found no cracks, or possible leakage anywhere

 

These E46 have no electric water pump, forget about most of what you read, the info is often wrong and misleading.

You need to get a decent OBDII App and interface, less than $40 and will blow the Innova tool away.

Really need warm idle Fuel Trim values and Freeze Frame info when the SES/CEL/MIL is on.

O2 sensors are not likely the cause of the Lean codes, for Lean codes to be present the O2 sensors are working reasonably well.

P0171 is for Bank #1 = Cylinders 1-3
P0174 is for Bank #2 = Cylinders 4-6

If you have a smart phone or tablet, get an OBDII App and interface so you can read the codes along with Live/Realtime or Freeze Frame data then you will know exactly what is going on with the engine fuel management system.

The OBDFusion App and proper VeePeak interface from Amazon are less than $40 for both for iProducts, less than $20 for both for Android.

OBDFusion for Android is is $3.99.

https://www.amazon.com/Veepeak-Blue.../B011NSX27A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487373393&sr=8-1&keywords=veepeak+bluetooth

OBDFusion, for the iProducts it is $9.99.

For iProducts you NEED a LE Bluetooth adapter which are more expensive. VeePeak now offers a LE Bluetooth interface that is compatible with OBDFusion.

https://www.amazon.com/Veepeak-OBDC...upports/dp/B073XKQQQW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1504549087&sr=8-2&keywords=veepeak

Suggest you also read the PDF in this thread for more details about how to capture and share the data - http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=1097893 This info is Android specific, iProducts is similar, menu options may be different.

 

Just wanted to say thanks to jfoj. It seems you really do a lot to help many that become part of the e46 fanatics community. I have just bought the veepeak interface from amazon and downloaded obd fusion for my ipad and iphone8.. it may take a couple of weeks to get here since i am in hawaii but as soon as i can figure out how it works and how to capture and share the data properly i will be doing so. Also will be reading the pdf file that you attached to make sure i got it down path. Thanks again and hope i didnt waste your time.. will be posting results as aoon as i can, dont forget about me, lol...aloha...

 

I feel for your folks in Hawaii and Alaska.

I used to work for a major auto manufacturer and supported dealers in Hawaii, one each island. Actually went to meet with the dealer service staff a few times.

I was really in tune to the fact that Hawaii was 6 hours behind the Corp office. I was located in CA so I was even 3 hours different. You could easily loose a day just trying to get answers to things so support was tricky and a bit slower due to the time differences.

I have a soft spot for the folks in Hawaii as well as Alaska as it is hard being this far separated from the mainland and how hard it is to get goods quickly and cost effectively. Having traveled to Alaska and understanding how tricky it is to travel within Alaska along with the crazy weather extremes, it is not a place for less than hardy people. Everything just take longer to get accomplished, cost more and if you toss in some severe weather, well you have to be determined.

Best to contact me via the email in the PDF. Sorry I have not had time to write up the iProduct version for OBDFusion.

 

Sooooo, finally got my veepeak bluetooth and downloaded OBDFusion. Was able to trackdown problem which seemed to be a combination of various vacuum leaks and replacing a cheap Chinese MAF sensor which i closely inspected and found out to be something they sell on Ebay, however at the moment do not have money to buy an OEM MAF so I bought another cheap one, lol. My CEL turned off and car has improved dramatically, able to idle well on cold start, car has sufficient power and car drives well. However I have a question. Ran a diagnositcs, checked the CSV file and it seems that bank 1 and 2 short term fuel trims remain at zero with slight variances from time to time during the 20 minutes that ranged from -3 to +3.... However the long term fuel trims in bank 1 was steady at 7.8125 and bank 2 steady at 8.59375. I'm not having any problems with driveablity of engine and CEL is off but I was wondering if this exhibits or could eventually exhibit a problem in the future. Could it be the MostPlus MAF sensor that I got on ebay....
On another note, I am still getting intermittent coolant light..I was also not getting any heat from heater into the cabin so after changing reservior tank and finding no other leaks I though that perhaps the heating system was somehow creating air bubbles in the cooling system. I the proceeded to flush out the heater core unit, open up the Heater valve to clean out, especially the plunger, which had a lot of buildup on it that looked like corrosion (Brown color) and changed the heater sensor in the cabin which was original to the production date of the car (printed on sensor). I then tried to drive and see if heat worked but it didnt so I decided to change thermostat, but not water pump since it was changed about 4 years ago. after doing so and driving around a bit there was heat blowing through the vents. Also there was no overheating after the thermostat change, and I drove for about 40 minutes. But intermittent coolant light would come on, and I noticed it would come on mostly when I was driving down a hill. I am thinking that I didn't bleed it well enough and maybe there is air in the heater core unit since I read that it is higher than the tank. However when bleeding it I had the front of car on rhino lifts to bring front higher than the cabin. I filled it before starting until there was no bubbles coming out of bleed screw. Then I let car run with bleed screw in and cap off and bubbles consistently were coming out of the cap portion. It seems that it was never ending and after about 30 minutes i had to go so I closed the cap and drove, this is when the intermittent coolant light happened. could the water pump have something to do with it, the heater was cold when I was bleeding it for all that time and only started to heat up when I drove the car. Should I bleed it again? Is it normal for bubbles to continually be coming out of cap for 30 minutes?

 

As for the driveability and Fuel Trim issue, I would driver the car for at least 1 tank of fuel and see if the Fuel Trims stabilize and the report back.

A "real" Siemens/VDO MAF will probably cost between $185-$250 as I recall depending on part number required. I find OEMBimmerparts.com often has very good pricing on genuine MAF's but you could also shop the usual sources and compare prices at: FCPEuro, ECSTuning, BMAParts and others.

As for the heat issue, it sounds like there is still air in the system due to the low coolant light coming on and the heat fading in and out. Often you need to run the car at a fast idle 1500-2000 RPM to help purge air out of the system. While there have been some problem water pumps that did cause heat problems, these were mostly recently in the past 6 months. Apparently some water pump were assembled with impeller on backwards, the engines did not see to overheat, but the heat did not really work. I would not go down this path until the system is confirmed at bleed.

You might consider this trick: http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=1124821

 

Csv file link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ktgijmh3a4zgn6/CSVLog_20180318_143248.csv?dl=0
Update:
Car running well with no CEL/SES/MIL on. Everything seems to be good however fuel trims are a little off. Since I was able to fix vacuum leaks and the MAF sensor, i believe that the answer lies in the fuel lines/pressure. I will be doing a fuel pressure test, i was told that pressure should be 36-46 psi when car on but not started and 50 psi when car running. Is this sound correct? Regardless of the pressure i will likely change the fuel regulator/filter sinse it probably hasnt been changed in a while. Also i have an extra 325i thta i use for parts. It has been sitting for about 4years. Is it okay to use thta fuel pump if i need to change it? The fuel system has been closed the whole time and fuel pump was working when last driven.

Electric auxiliary fan situation:
At what coolant temperature is fan suppose to turn on during running? I wasnt able to witness the fan spinning but my car only got up to 96C. Also the fan does this weird thing of spinning very slowly for 1-2 seconds then stopping for 1-3 seconds. This cycle occurs over and over when car is at running temp and idling, it probably does the same thing when driving. is this normal? It also doesnt come on when AC is on but its probably because the refrigerant pressure is very low sinse i didnt use AC for a couple of years and there is likely a leak through a dried rubber part. Fan still comes on for about 20 seconds when starting up.

Suspension and brake problem when stopping:
When i stop i can feel a clunking type of feeling when pressing brake like it is something loose or a bushing is worn out. Passenger can also feel it and says that it feels like im running over the small bumps on the center lines of road. It seems to be felt in the pedal more when braking at lower speeds. Anyone familiar with this problem? I was thinking worn out control arm bushing but wanted a second opinion beforehand. Maybe change out entire control arm, tie rods and sway bar links when i do my oil pan gasket since most of these things need to come off to remove the oil pan.