Originally Posted by James
basicly varible valve timing, cos the engines are chain driven vanos is like a bolt on unit full of gears which adjusts the cam timing, iirc it's just on the inlet cam? unless it has double vanos which is both, iirc it's got a solenoid on it which makes it ecu controlled. vanos is simply the bmw name for the unit, like honda call theres v-tec.
It's about £1100 for the unit from bmw, common fault is excess noise from the unit, iirc theres a gear that wears and nothing can be done, the other fault is it stays advanced or something and i believe you can change a seal or solenoid to get it back running on course, although i suspect special bmw tools are needed for this.
But i'm no bmw expert, hopfully alex will confirm/deny though.
If you remove all the iirc, it is pretty exactly what happens to them.
There seems to be many horror stories about vanos (i know jj's e39 m5 has had some work in this area, he may expand on this) and on some of the forums it seems to be a 'sinking fund' area (i.e you accept it will break at some and therefore you put aside money each week to fund t when it does) but isnt this the same for every other motor?
BTW i know buddies who think the E34 motor is stunning and think i am being a complete tool for trying to by an E36 M3.
I think they are bargain Q cars (not at 8k to be fair) but if you can get a minter for 2.3k that needs new shocks, well hell, 340bhp here we come!!