Anyone have a Raby rebuild yet?

[mikefocke]

other than Jake has a big backlog of orders, has built another building and you occasionally hear of an engine that was either IMS-updated or completely rebuilt. From a news perspective, a lack of bad stories. Guess the owners are busy driving. And he doesn't post as often because he is too busy...and the subject has been talked to death.

[silver arrow]

Originally Posted by mikefocke

other than Jake has a big backlog of orders, has built another building and you occasionally hear of an engine that was either IMS-updated or completely rebuilt. From a news perspective, a lack of bad stories. Guess the owners are busy driving. And he doesn't post as often because he is too busy...and the subject has been talked to death.

That's understandable, but hopefully we can get some owners in here to tell us about their experience and about the performance of the various iterations.

[ALarracuente]

I don't mean to take anything away from Mr. Raby, his reputation precedes him but, I performed a complete rebuild on my base '99 Boxster recently using more or less the parts he uses like LN Engineering's Nickies and JE Pistons (Thanks Charles!). I also got their IMS upgrade as well as the 160 thermostat and other goodies for fair pricing. Blueprinting, P&P, etc. of course is way out of my league.

Living in Puerto Rico, sending the engine to Mr. Raby was not an option and there is a lack of reliable Porsche mechanics here (aside from the dealer which I hate) so I was kind of forced to tackle it myself. I'm happy I did. I was able to perform the upgrade for under $7K and that included a 996 crank to make it a 2.9 and 12:1 compression. So far, I have 8K miles on this engine (the las 4K driven like I stole it) and everything is great! I'm averaging 27-28mpg and 0-60 in the low 5s. Seems to get faster with time...

I only had VW type 1 and 4, and Chevy I-4 rebuild experience in the past and was able to complete this rebuild in around 30 m/hrs so the project is 'doable' by the 'average joe'. After that, I feel there's nothing I can't tackle on this car except maybe ECM reprogramming. The major challenge with this cars still is the special tools required. Even then, they can be made 'in house' fairly easily at a fraction of the cost of new tools.

Idea: Maybe somebody can invest on these tools and rent them online (with a hefty deposit of course) thus, facilitating the job for somebody else.

If anybody is considering tackling a project like this, PM me and I'll be more than happy to chat and hopefully save you some frustrations.

Regards,
Fred

[Jake Raby]

Our program is going very good, so good that I haven't the time to spend updating the websites and etc.. We suspended parts sales earlier this year because we just didn't have the time for them and needed every person on deck to assist with the engine build program.

Engines are doing well and people are happy, happy enough not to complain online as most people have come to expect these days.. No news is certainly good news.

We are being very successful, in the past year we have had ONE experience where a customer had a small issue that was fortunately not catastrophic and we took care of the engine under warranty, even though it was out of warranty by several months... Small issues can be expected and we deal with them when necessary.

We have six dedicated track cars running our engines this year, ( i cpould have had more but turned down the builds) all of those had successful seasons and none had any issues. One of them has done 1300 track miles in 2010 and the oil samples from it are looking very good.

I have been focusing on my book, our engine oil and my training classes more than anything personally here at the facility. We don't want to be building hundreds of engines per year, but rather to help others build thousands of engines per year with our knowledge.

The engine combinations are now fully developed and have standardized components. This has made things much better in many ways. We thank the Lord that more work has come our way than we want to do and that during the time when most every other business is struggling we are growing by leaps and bounds. Things are so good that we can be selective of what engines we build and who we choose to work with, which is something I have been able to do since I started my engine business 19 years ago... In the Porsche world, being able to selectively choose clients is a huge benefit.

One thing is for sure... We are pleasing people.. If we weren't you'd be hearing about it to the point that no one would have to ask the question concerning our effectiveness.

Good news= Silence....
Bad news= Loud mouths that want to tell everyone...

[Lobo1186]

lets say I were to want a jake raby 996 gt3 motor. what parts of a 996 gt3 motor would we have to supply. Case? long or short block? etc. or is there a base where we can give you the bare necessities and you would put all the rest of the enhanced parts and know how?