Turbojamie

Agree! But there is only one way to do it in his eyes and nothing else is as good as his way. There is no changing that period.

Coopduc

Like most things in life, there is more than one way to skin this cat. That is the reality.

AnthonyGS

I can understand the pride he has in the quality of work and R&D he has done. Yet as an auto guy, I do hope sleeving does become a practical method to make reliable m96 repairs. It's a new application for an old tech. I know I have a ton to learn when it comes to the details of flat 6 engines, but I do have a lot of auto experience. I grew up in the business and spent a stint in it myself. I like what I do now a lot and it lets me afford toys.

I'd love to have a high winding / powerful 3.6 or 3.8 in my 996, but right now that looks about double the cost of making my LT5 a 500 hp monster sadly. The LT5 cost include R&R labor too, M96 build is me doing that work and still double the cost.... if this technology can be employed to drive down costs and be reliable, it's a win-win for everyone. There will still be a market for more exotic builds too.

jaetee

That's my take as well.

Nickies might be the A++ option, but you pay extra for those two plusses... and based on the lack of contrary opinions expressed there's apparently no reason to think that using cast iron sleeves would not result in at least close to the same level of rebuild success when installed using Rokket's described process.

5CHN3LL

Jake takes a lot of pride in producing what he believes to be some of the best work out there. I appreciate that and understand the amount of ego you have to be willing to put your name to any product.

It's a little arrogant to assume that nobody will ever do anything as well as I do, or that doing anything in any way that is not my way is inherently stupid.

Yahoo was worth $128 billion in 2000; the annual costs of inflexibility and repeatedly misreading the market, it turns out, can run upwards of 7.235bn...

Charles Navarro

Having multiple choices are great however, but that means you have more chances of getting it wrong. I've fixed plenty of blocks that had steel sleeves and also had to throw away many that failed after multiple heat cycles when the crappy parent metal fails from the interference fit of the cast iron/ductile/steel sleeve. There is a reason we don't use an interference fit with Nickies on the M96.

AWDGuy

BuT. ..but...some guy you can't afford and has never seen the inside of a flat 6 says differently.

Charles Navarro

Thank you, I needed that. Made me laugh.

george_west

How can you not be for more economical solution? I thought I remember several occasions where you mention the cost of your rebuild unfavorably?

It has nothing to do with "can't afford". Who wants to spend 15-20K on an engine for a car that is likely worth the same?

Chris(MA)

This is one of the biggest problems with these thin pressed in sleeves IMO, the cylinders in these motors crack and D-chunk by themselves with AL on AL 'sleeving', putting a thin steel jacket that is tightly pressfit on the inside of AL with different expansion coefficient seems rather risky.

The full replacement wet liners would appear to be a much better solution, at least it is one metal type alone and the walls can be made adequately thick to deal with the cylinder pressures and thrust loads.


EDIT:

Looks like this guy is buying up a monster turbo motor using Darton sleeves, be very interested to see how it holds up to the crazy HP figures he's aiming for:

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-turb...ine-build.html

Charles Navarro

A sampling of one guy doesn't make it bulletproof. I know who Darton is and yes, they are well known for what they do, but this isn't a Honda. Jack of all = master of none. No one has the experience I have with the M96 engine and has tried as many crazy things as Jake and I have done.

I've re-done wet sleeved and dry sleeved M96 blocks. The wet sleeved ar the ones that we have had to pitch when the blocks fail at the bottom of the water jacket.

The dry sleeved blocks typical die from scoring, but haven't been a problem to re-do with the Nickies process because they haven't compromised the block in the process of sleeving it, like when they wet sleeve them.

Charles Navarro

Fast, Good, or Cheap. Pick two.

Or the Porsche tax.

Lastly, do it once and do it right.

Pick whichever works for you. All are applicable here.

AWDGuy

I was talking about our friend Anthony and his comments to jake that he couldn't afford his services.

This was around (steel sleeves) when I was shopping for my rebuild. After talking with various people, I decided to go with nickies rather than have my local shop out in steel liners.

I wanted something proven.

TonyTwoBags

The value of the car is completely unrelated to the availability and cost of rebuild options. Nobody owes m96 owners a cheap rebuild option that's proven to be reliable. It may be something people want, but if the technology isn't there, it's simply a reality that must be accepted.

It's nice of Charles to share some details on why variant options from the Nickies approach can be problematic, and fundamentally I think they charge a very reasonable fee for the services offered. $4-5k for a properly re-sleeved block is understandable.

One of the main problems with the m96 is that rebuilding requires new c-rods due to inferior OEM part quality. Same goes for the timing chains. When you break down the costs involved in a $20k rebuild, I see an expensive solution to a range of problems with the OEM design. If the c-rods were good to reuse and/or the timing chains didn't have issues with reliability & stretching, the rebuild costs could be materially lower. The high cost seems a direct result of Porsche's decision making & not that of independent builders. We should be thankful 996s depreciated to the level they're at & that high-quality rebuilds can be done a la carte based on the owner's preference.

george_west

Charles, what is the "NSC Recond." option on your website? I don't remember that being there before.

https://lnengineering.com/products/w...-included.html