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Originally Posted by mts
I was able to tow the car to a local Porsche tech who was unfortunately able to confirm that my initial diagnosis of an IMS failure was correct. Now I've got to figure out what to do. Initial thoughts are:
1) Let Jake Raby take a look and get his thoughts. Unfortunately he's on almost a 2 month backlog before he can even look at the car. It will be June before I can even tow it down there to get his thoughts. He's indicated even on a failure caught as quickly as mine was, it's probably less than a 50% chance the motor can be saved(debris in the engine everywhere). If it needs to be rebuilt, I would probably go ahead with the 3.2->3.6 upgrade, but if that is decided in June it will be approximately February 2011 before that work can be completed according to Jake. So I would be out out the cost of the rebuild plus being without the car for almost a year. 
2) Do a new crate motor from Porsche and replace the bearing with one from LN before sticking it in the car. This is easily the option that gets the car back on the road the quickest and sadly may end up being one of my least expensive alternatives as well.
3) Call RUF in Dallas to see about doing one of their 3.6 conversions. I would insist on the IMS bearing being upgraded to the LN one before installation. This is probably the most expensive route, but gets the car back on the road in a reasonable amount of time. Anyone dealth with them before?
4) Take my chances on a salvage motor. Frankly this isn't too appealing to me. If my pristine 20k motor failed, how much faith would I really ever have in one that I have no history on?
5) Sell the car as a rolling chasis for whatever $$ I can get and get the fark away from Porsche all together. It's a pristine 550 Edition, but even with that I would probably be very luck to get $10k for it.
By far my preference would be to deal with Jake. I've talked to him on the phone a couple times and he really seems like a good guy. However, the timing just stinks there and really is a testament to how many problems these cars have that he's booked so far out.
Decisions, decisions. |
There are a ton of positive aspects related to our engine program, but quick turn around simply isn't one of them.. The engines take a ton of time to assemble when one individual does all the work and at the same time we are developing and evaluating components for the engines.
We are also in the midst of moving our machine shop to another (3rd) building on our property so thats creating a tad more wait than normal as well. When we are finished with this move things will be much better with another 3,500 square feet of manufacturing space and that'll free up another building to store customer's Porsches indoors while they await our attention.
We'll be glad to help, we just can't (and won't) rush to make a buck. Recession??? What recession :-)