gazo56

Roger,
I will send you the pump to evaluate. I have a Laso as well and is no way as rough as the Hamburg Technic. My info was from a supplier who dropped the Hamburg Tecknic due to quality issues and complaints. There is a lot of info on the Bmw lists.

ROG100

gazo56,
Great info and exactly what I was looking for.
I have some of there pumps here in my office so no need to send it though the offer was very kind.
Which BMW lists please so I can check it out.

The pumps I have here are excellent visually and have a pressure casting finish just like Porsche and nothing like the rough sand casting from Laso.
Thanks for the info.
Roger

JPTL

I bought my rebuilt unit from 928 Specialists. There was a bit of a delay in getting it, since it's my understanding that 928SP were sourcing their rebuilds from one vendor who had a good track record, and they could only rebuild as good cores came in. I had no problem with the wait as I trust Dave & Jeannie as they stand behind their products.
As I was waiting for mine, I saw John V's failure, then a few threads started popping up discussing Lasos vs. Porsche castings, new vs. rebuilt, etc. It got me nervous.
I got lucky with my unit (IMO), since it was a Porsche casting, however after seeing John V's failure at the track, I started to wonder about tolerance standards re: pressed in/pressed on reused components, and quality control. How would one know that their rebuilt unit hadn't seen 300k+ hard miles on the reused components, Porsche casting or not? I've always wondered how heat extremes treat cast parts as well as shafts, etc. Who's to say that there aren't some cores out there from engines that suffered from major engine overheating or garage fires?
This would have been my preference:
The fact that my core was an original with only 42k on it, I would have preferred to keep that unit and have it rebuilt at a very particular shop with high quality standards, so long as it passed the core test. The idea of me eliminating the possibility of getting a heavily used casting & shaft by getting back my casting would give me peace of mind. I know that many of us have long since lost our original cores, but having the option of a good rebuilder like Paul and Martin describe would have been my choice, had I known of it.
I'd also gladly spend $100 more on a pump with a 0% failure rate (probably doesn't exist), but given the consequences of failure w/an interference engine plus the labor of replacement w/any engine, it's a small price to pay.

oups59

Roger, put me on the list

heinrich

Roger AGREED!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for trying to fix this most troubling ailment of the 928 for us.

RyanPerrella

Actually i like this idea the most.

Try and upgrade the original part. This information above, while i cant say for certain if its true or not, sound like the root source of the problem. UNDERSIZED PARTS. I would love the idea of having the pump rebuilt with a 50% larger or 30% larger or whatever it may be sized bearing and seal. That is the part that fails. I think the talk of castings is a little weird, i dont think the casting is under much stress at all so talk of mileage on aluminum castings i dont follow. I do get that if a lasco pump is sand cast, i would never want that on my car. But an OE porsche casting is an oe porsche casting, i dont think it really would ever wear out? But i do care about bigger bearings and seals.

I would investigate this idea honestly. You could then sell a product, Like the PorKensioner, that is better than original, and a product that is innovative and will in theory completely eliminate the problem. Your selling the part that Ken developed that should in theory (these have only been around a year or so now) eliminate timing belt tension issues. Now you can further improve reliability by oversizing the pump so that it too would be a problem and concern that would now be completely eliminated.

I would love to find someone that can do this as i would prefer to have an overbuilt waterpump.

As for new vs rebuilt for $30? Well, i have to say when i bought my last WP from 928 INTL, the biggest reason for this is their reliability rate. That sold it for me. It really would come down to this new manufacturer and wether or not it actually was a good quality part and actually worked. I would hate to see you buy god knows how many waterpumps Roger. I love that you do this but i just worry that it could be 20 years before you sell that inventory. I do like the idea that the pin is included and the bracket, thats kinda cool though.

UKKid35

One thing that confuses me: why should the finish of the non-machined surfaces of the casting be indicative of the quality of the waterpump?

Roger - good luck with your venture, but with such small margins and the potential for a big downside, I don't see why you'd want to add this product line...

worf928

Given the recent apparent decline in the quality of the rebuilds, I too am very interested in a reliable water pump.

I have one of the new lasso pumps. I'm going to put it in something (one of my 928s) and see how it works. Do the new Lasso pumps really suck? Or not? There seem to be conflicting reports? My only current issue with the Lasso unit is that it has a metal impeller.

I don't have any problem with paying $250 - $300 for a new pump with a plastic impeller with an expected lifetime of 6y/60k miles (more-or-less what the factory-installed pumps were). I don't have a problem paying materially more than $120 for a rebuild with beefier parts.

I think I've put in 6 to 8 pumps in the last year. I'd expect about the same next year. So, Roger, with a bit of a track record for a reliable pump, you could count me in for 4 to 6 per year most likely.

I have to say though, that I'm raising an eyebrow at the posters that are only willing to pay a teeny bit more for a better pump. I can only assume that they haven't had to remove two bad rebuilds in the last year and had to fix a block eaten up by metal-impeller. Either that or they consider their own labor to be worth about $5 hour?

UKKid35

Is that more or less damage than that caused by an engine that's overheated because of a failed plastic impeller?

heinrich

I will pay $500 for a pump that will be GUARANTEED to last 100,000 miles.

worf928

Less obviously. However, I do want the option of having a reliable plastic impeller pump. My decision criteria for choosing a metal or plastic pump is: if the owner religiously watches his temp gauge and will stop driving the car if the operating temperatures start increasing then I recommend a plastic pump. On the other hand if the owner is less observant and needs a leaking pump as evidence of a problem then then I recommend a metal pump.

However, metal pumps can eat the block and not leak. Metal pumps can not leak and reduce a valve train to scrap metal as easily as a plastic impeller that under-rotates.

I'm willing to forgo a plastic impeller on a new unit. But, for a rebuild I'd prefer plastic.

JPTL

I was thinking along the same lines of "how much would I pay for a pump that's guaranteed for.....", but I've never seen a part guarantee that would cover cost of resulting engine damage and cost of labor involved for replacement - just replacement of the guaranteed part. Heinrich, you mean guaranteed not to fail & damage the engine resulting in significant labor cost, right?
Now a comprehensive insurance policy included with a pump that covers the above would be interesting. Even if it's $x for x years or x miles - whichever come first; and can be renewed, like many service contracts.

worf928

The reality - our reality - is that there are too few 928s and therefore not enough market to do the engineering necessary to be able to produce a pump that can be objectively shown to have super-high reliability. You have to either expend a lot of computer cycles on design or run a lot of stress tests to get to 3- or 6-sigma reliability against whatever metric you target.

In the end, if we want better pumps, we're going to have to be satisfied mostly with non-objective criteria such as our level of trust in the expertise of the folks producing the pump and our trust in the expertise of those that monitor the producers. (I write "mostly" because there are certain things than can be objective such as a better cartridge etc.)

JPTL

Dave, agreed 100%.

Joe '87 S4

How much is a new pump from Porsche?