Lessons learned?: Buying a "used low mileage engine"....

[BigOlJohnson]

Have we learned anything?

I have a 2.6 engine with IMS failure and I am leary of sending it to
any shops until names are named.

What happened in the thread to get it locked? I read it a couple times
and couldn't figure out why...

BIGGY

[BigOlJohnson]

I'll be pissed to find out that I shipped my engine to the same guy that
deserves *Rookie of the Year* for building Dr. Phil's engine.....


BIGGY

[Jake Raby]

It gets better... Much, much better. Unbelievable.

[BigOlJohnson]

I'm interested in knowing why thehighheelsgirl jumped to the aid of the seller
and distracted the thread....

Anyone know anything about the relationship between THHG and the seller of
this engine in question?

Is THHG and the seller the SAME person?


An internet search of posts by the username THHG reveals QUITE a LOT of
disturbing(at least to the general/non-wierdo public!) info!

HE uses the same avatar also.......

Anywho, I was contacted by a forum member about his company rebuilding
my engine and I found out that he does NOT represent the username he
was using.....
VERY DECEPTIVE!

And for some reason, he has NOT responded to any of my later PMs..... maybe
he is banned?

Anywho, Jake is getting my business, as he seems to be the most forthcoming
and honest about his work.

Thanks Jake!

I'm done here....I found a rebuilder who isn't in it for the $$$ in my wallet.

BIGGY

[Jake Raby]

Biggy,
Lots of things are still unanswered.. I received a letter in the mail yesterday that makes things even more interesting and confusing.

Who knows whats going on, but I will say that I had to buy another core engine with a blown piston to get pair of usable heads from to get Phil back on the track. Even after a piston explosion the heads were better than the ones that came from the engine assembled by the "Phantom".. In fact the head that was from the cylinder bank that suffered the piston failure only had one cosmetic flaw that Len easily addressed.

[Brucelee]

I locked the original thread. The back and forth behind the scenes is not something that I want to get into. Suffice it to say, there is controversy and disagreement.

The best take away here is not big news.

1-Be VERY VERY careful buying ANYTHING used, esp an engine.

2-Be very very careful who you place your trust in when you dish out the kind of money that an engine rebuild entails.

Due diligence is ALWAYS recommended in these matters and that can rarely be done over the Internet.

So, again, no flamming or name calling please.

[grantsfo]

Buying used motors is always a crap shoot. I make it a rule to never spend more than $3000 on Porsche sixes. Aircooled or watercooled.

I bought current motor in my car for $2500. Its still running strong after a year of abuse. Sounds pretty good too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3uYEVnVf-E

Its funny I wouldnt complain if I got hosed by somone as I know used motor is a huge risk, but I refuse to sell my used motors and I just give them away. To me its not worth dealing with greif of potential buyer who takes a chance on used motor and expects more.

[Brian Porsche Tech]

After reading this entire story across both threads on my day off, I feel obligated to point out several things that don't add up.

As others have said, buying any used engine is a complete crap shoot, and the only way I would ever buy a used engine is if I were planning to rebuild it. I'd say BUYER BEWARE in full caps! 95% of the people who will sell you a used engine will not give you a warranty, and if you get screwed, well you got screwed and have zero recourse. The only way you'd have any recourse is if the engine was stolen. Remember, factory Porsche motors come with a 2 year unlimited mileage warranty!

To whoever suggested that anyone wanting to verify the history of a used engine lookup the VIN #, that's excellent advice, but remember that carfax will only tell you so much. Also, you won't be able to get the VIN from the engine case #. If you are buying a used engine from the guy who took it out of his car, you can certainly talk to him and ask him to contact Porsche to release service records for the car. However, there is no way that you will be able to lookup the history unless you are the legal owner of the car. You can't just call PCNA or any Porsche dealer and say "hey, I'm looking at buying engine case number bla di bla, can you tell me the service history?" as Porsche and their dealers have a strict policy of only releasing information to the legal owner of the car. More than likely you'll never be able to get this info, and if you get a buddy to break the rules at a dealer, he risks being fired for doing that for you, so I wouldn't even think to ask that kind of favor.

Now, with respect to this story, there are several things that don't add up. First, it doesn't matter if the engine has 20k or 60k, if you got less than 3% leakdown, especially cold, you've got an excellent engine. These engines don't wear out their bearings, and if you're replacing the IMS bearing, which is the one big weak leak, anyway it's really a moot point.

It's not surprising at all that the cam timing was off. I made the same goof myself at work years ago when we replaced a head on one of these, as the service manual leaves out a critical step when setting the timing. Was rather frustrating to have to go re-do all that work! All the techs that I know have added notes to the service manuals for things like this now.

Now, the claim that the head bolts were torqued to 10 lbs, this is practically impossible. First, you're not supposed to use a torque wrench backwards! Even if you did, backout torque is not indicative of anything when referencing tightening torque. If whatever "idiot" that built this motor got as far as getting the case halves and bearing carrier, and reciprocating assembly back together I'd say he's no idiot. If he torqued the head bolts to 10 lbs, what do you think he did with the rod bolts and bearing carrier bolts? I'd say anyone who got this far is at least reasonably mechanically inclined and would understand the importance of following recommended torque spec during assembly.

Second, if the head bolts really were torqued to 10 lbs, that engine would have had a leaking head gasket within the first 10 seconds after initial fire up, with all of the usual symptoms of exhaust gas in the coolant and oil/ coolant intermix. There is absolutely no way that that engine would last multiple hours over several days on an engine dyno, and then during street driving, only to leak when first on the track.

Likewise, if the engine had a cracked head, you'd also have oil/coolant intermix immediately after startup on the dyno, and certainly during street driving. If the engine was torn down with a cracked head, then it happened on the track, not before. Let's get our stories straight here folks, and not throw blame on someone where it's not deserved.

By the way, to whatever shop claims to have an engine dyno for M96 engines, what setup are you running, and how are you able to accommodate the various 2.5, 2.7, 3.2, 3.4, 3.6, 3.8 engines with variocam and variocam plus, across 5.2, 7.2 7.8 and 7.8X DMEs and their associated maps? How have you gotten all these DMEs to function without their matching immobilizers? I don't know how you'd get data anyway, since the PST2 or PIWIS (if you have either) will not work without the CAN bus present.

[Jake Raby]

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.

[pcs5978]

One thing the guys that run this Forum have pointed out to me is this. The most they can do to any one person posting under a given name, is to ban them from the site. But that person can simply log in again under another name and there's nothing they can do about it. What I can tell you is that the fellow I bought the motor from - the motor that's inspired all this nonsense, has posted on this Forum using different names. So, when someone suddenly shows up on this thread, or any other thread on the Forum, with all sorts of new things to say, just keep that fact in mind. Especially when things "don't add up".

[Jake Raby]

Originally Posted by pcs5978

One thing the guys that run this Forum have pointed out to me is this. The most they can do to any one person posting under a given name, is to ban them from the site. But that person can simply log in again under another name and there's nothing they can do about it. What I can tell you is that the fellow I bought the motor from - the motor that's inspired all this nonsense, has posted on this Forum using different names. So, when someone suddenly shows up on this thread, or any other thread on the Forum, with all sorts of new things to say, just keep that fact in mind. Especially when things "don't add up".

Phil and I think a lot alike.. Thats exactly what I was thinking when I saw the low post count and lots of trends that are familiar..

When someone comes in to a conversation and automatically starts substantiating who they are and what they've done for the last 30 years I start to "add things up"..

The Phantom had posted in the other thread on this topic several times, in fact those posts are how Phil and i started to piece the whole thing together. Thanks Phantom, you may be plenty of things but smart isn't one of them!

welcome to the board, brian. Sounds like Jake needs to offer a "tech training" course so other porsche technicians can be well educated on the m96.

Originally Posted by Brian Porsche Tech

By the way, to whatever shop claims to have an engine dyno for M96 engines, what setup are you running, and how are you able to accommodate the various 2.5, 2.7, 3.2, 3.4, 3.6, 3.8 engines with variocam and variocam plus, across 5.2, 7.2 7.8 and 7.8X DMEs and their associated maps? How have you gotten all these DMEs to function without their matching immobilizers? I don't know how you'd get data anyway, since the PST2 or PIWIS (if you have either) will not work without the CAN bus present.