The head bolts were removed with a standard 8"ratchet and virtually little effort according to the tech that removed them.. The owner was also present and verified this. Prperly torqued M96 head bolts that have been heat cycled are never removed by hand that easily, I have broken tools (ratchets and apexes) removing them on many occasions.
I personally chassis dynoed this car, flashed the ECU 5 times and put at least 20 runs on it.. I then drove it to and from my house/ shop twice at 83 miles round trip before the car was shipped.. There were no symptoms of intermix when it left my shop and also when it arrived in Ohio and was inspected by the shop that was doing the track alignment on the car..
It also blew my mind that the engine could make that much power (251 RWHP) and drive that well with no symptoms but then have head bolts with such little torque.. Trust us- it did, but it was a miracle.
The case halves of this engine were not broken apart, so the torque of the carrier, rods and other internal shortblock components are not in question. The Phantom didn't go there- if he would have I have no doubt that a connecting rod would have ejected it's self the first time the engine hit 7,000 RPM.
Depositions from all involved will tell this story later.
As for the cracked head creating immediate intermix- thats a blanket statement thats not true. Thats simply because I have experienced these engines doing very weird issues- we are the guys that get the jobs that dealers can't figure out or don't want to work with.. I specialize in working with "problem children. That said I have seen several instances where intermix would only occur at certain temperatures due to the area of the crack coupled to oil and coolant pressures at those areas at certain temps, engine speeds and oil/coolant volume and pressure. I have seen engines that would not intermix unless the engine was idling.. Try to troubleshoot that!
Anyone who works with these engines at a heavy internal level for any amount of time will learn to NEVEr make a blanket statement.. The M96 has a wild array of bazaar issues and no, some don't make sense and they don't have to because mechanical things are just that.. They are not governed by rules.
Our engine dyno can currently accomodate the M96 engines using up to the 7.2 DME, with a few hacks.. These are the engines we work with most due to their age and application with most of the cars of this generation now seeing mods with age.
When doing newer than 7.2 cars or VC+ I have to use one of 3 different programmable ECUS that are permanently hard wired into the test cell.
Most of the work we are doing with the newer engines is development work and mechanical work of comparing different camshafts, head work and etc. For this work the ECU doesn't really impact our data because the results are comparables with the same ECU back to back. When comparing a couple of aftermarket ECUs to the DME the results are very similar in the same car with back to back comparos done with no other changes made. even with aftermarket ECUS we are still able to use all the stock sensors, coil packs and can run sequentially... At WOT during evals the results are damn near identical.
In the majority of instances we aren't testing fuel delivery/ ECU capabilities, we simply want to see what a change does to the engine's efficiency, BSFC, throttle response and overall net outputs.
I use a Race-Technology DL-2 data acquisition system to gather data for all dyno cell evaluations, so we don't need any of the Porsche hardware to gather what we are looking for. This system is also transferrable into any customers car or test car to gather the same analog and OBD (in car only) data so we can compare engine dyno, chassis dyno and on the road numbers with the same instruments, senders and software. Here we are not stuck on Porsche procedures, mindsets or rules.. I do my best to defy everything that Porsche set forth and not play their games.
Lots of engines that we build are shipped to the corners of the country or world and we have no car present to install them into. Due to this it is critical to have an arrangement where we can run engines under load for several hours to ensure there are no mechanical issues, no oil leaks and that the engine's output is within the range thats defined by it's base engine combination. I run most engines more than 10 hours, do all the break in, leak down, compression tests and even pull the oil sump to remove any stray sealant that may have made it's way into the oil pick up tube..
In situations where we are forced to use only an aftermarket ECU we can still gain critical efficiencies from the fuel MAPs that will help to create tune files for the engine if it is to be applied with a DME system. This gives a very good starting point for base tuning files.
I am working on some ways to outsmart the newer ECUs, but it requires assistance from several different people and just making what we have now actually work was a real ******************** and took a year of experimentation to make happen.. The answer for the newer ECUs is going to be salvaging the dash and entire critical harnass from a later car to overcome the immobilizer and etc.. Thats something we'll need to worry about in 2-3 years as those cars gain in age and begin to see higher desires for internal mods, like the 1st gen engines are now..
And no, I won't tell anyone how we made it work, you can figure it out like I did..
Anyone doing this type of set up would be considered my competitor, and I choose to develop, maintain and perpetuate our advantages.
As for a used engine:
I agree about the prices and etc that you guys have posted.. The gripe that Phil and I have with the Phantom is the fact that he misrepresented this engine in every way possible.. He then created stories to substantiate this, then created false users to help portray these and even generate fake letters and had them mailed to us by another fictitious character on the opposite coast.
Who cares if the engine broke.. We were lied to and we vowed to do whatever was required to find the history of this engine and it's owners.. This is a matter of principal, nothing more. We have been successful.
As for how Phil did all this... Well anything is possible with effort, dedication, google and a few phone calls to the right people, especially when those are the owners of the car the engine came from, both past and present.