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On last trackday with my friend who has this '97 e36 m3 at Thunderhill at temps of 100 plus degrees. At the end of the day his car started making a ticking sound from the engine compartment. We both noticed it when we were heading home after fueling up when he started his car. So he added abit of oil to the car and now the sound is gone. Would there be something to worry about longterm. Sounds like top part of engine valves were rubbing like it was lacking in lubrication but it's gone now. Sorry for the post but too lazy to register on the bimmer boards for this one. Regards. Mike
It's probably lifter tick, which as I've learned can come and go with the E36 model M3s. It's a good idea that he checked the oil and topped it off a bit, I doubt it's anything catastrophic although he might want to get i checked out.
later,
amir
Agree that it's probably lifter tick.
My previous car was an E36 M3 (MY 95), and it was something that you just got used to with the 3.0L engines. Your friend's model year has the larger engine (3.2L), but I think that the characteristic remained.
No worries.
Typical sounds after sustained high gs cornering on both the 3.0 and 3.2 USA spec M engines. Nothing to worry about too much. Let it idle for a bit and all should come back to normal.
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