Can You Trust An Auction Cayman With A Turbo Kit?
Auction cars are scary to begin with, but how about a Cayman with an aftermarket turbocharger kit?
Auction cars are a form of Russian Roulette. Sometimes you get to see these cars ahead of time, other times, you get to see them from the warm glow of your computer screen. Most of the time, you’re buying a lot of unknowns. Those unknowns can be both good, and bad as we see from Samcrac’s latest Cayman purchase.
Auction photos allowed Samcrac to see that this Cayman had a bit of a surprise. While he couldn’t see the whole kit, intercooler piping was visible allowing him to know this car had something unique in the engine bay. He notes, “I did a quick google search for turbo kits, and found one exactly like it that sells for $12,000!” That’s followed up with even more good news, saying, “I paid just $10,900 for this car, and it fired right up when unloading from the transporter.” So he has an entire car for the price of a turbo kit. But it’s not all good news.
There’s some heavy smoke in the exhaust. This could be as easy as a few seals, or as bad as cylinder scoring. So, with some investigation, smoke occurred only after getting into boost. That’s good news, because if the smoke occurred during normal running conditions, it would indicate a much bigger issue. As it sits, time for a turbo re-build.
Surprisingly, for a $12,000 turbo kit, the turbo itself is a no-name unit. But rebuild kits are available. Next step is to replace the seals and the hardware. Total cost? Under $30 dollars. Considering all it took was a little bit of labor to remove the turbo, and clean things up, that’s not a bad deal at all.
After everything is put back together, it was time for Samcrac to romp on it and see if they could get the smoke to come back. The smoke didn’t, but a check engine light did. As most things go, one fixed problem leads to another. Thankfully, the car should be able to report the problem via OBD diagnosis. This time, a misfire on one of the cylinders. Stuck injector? Bad coil? Could be anything with an aftermarket turbo kit, especially if it hasn’t been tuned. Funny what you can uncover from making an engine run correctly.
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