Flat6 Innovations

Lon's situation was interesting..

The LWFW with no ability to dampen harmonics cannot be beneficial to longevity, especially on the track as the harmonics have virtually no where to go.

We are seeing cracked cranks in 50K mile engines that have only seen street time with cracked crankshafts that are found during our magnaflux process.

The component that we are working hardest to develop at the present is the crankshaft and main/rod bearings that will support under and oversizes for rebuild.

ivangene

so - sorry OP, we are way off topic

but can a "cracked" crank be repaired IF the bearings to support it are available?

Flat6 Innovations

A cracked crank is a good boat anchor and thats about it.. No repair would be effective.

ivangene

that's what I figured....

so the bearrings you are developing are for re-grinds? due to spun bearings or wear... if one is cracked it must be replaced and I assume the "new one" will not need any "special bearings"

Phi1720

The big boy pants wouldn't be to pony up the engine cost, but rather showing said bill to my wife.

I suppose it would be time to drive a cheap 1st gen miata til I finish paying the car off and then call Jake about upgrades.

Flat6 Innovations

The bearings are a necessity for rebuilds where the crankshaft is deemed re-usable. At the present time if a crankshaft requires machining because of surface finish or bearing failure the crank is junk, even if it is not cracked.. Because there are no bearings to support it's reuse in over/ under sizes.

The same goes for the crank carrier, as an example when Lon's crank broke it took out his carrier as well and I had one hell of a time finding one to replace it with. If our oversize OD bearings would have been available I could have align honed Lon's carrier and reused it.

The replacement crank we are making comes with it's own rods and rod journals as well as main bearings so none of those parts will have to be purchased from Porsche. The rod bearings are Clevite units that we have used to produce over 600HP from other horizontally opposed engines in the past. This will be the best way all around because a crank, rod and full bearing set will be better and cheaper than just an OEM replacement crankshaft.

It takes a while to do, we probably won't have prototypes for another 5 months and then test work begins that will take over a year. I am most concerned with our engine program and having the upper hand so I don't know how long it'll take to find its way to the retail market.. First it has to work.

dennis hiip

I've had my 2003 for a month, I initially had enough funds to do the IMS, but I foolishly forgot about the sales tax. The sales tax used the money I had set aside for the IMS. I've been telling myself the IMS won't go if it hasn't gone yet at 77K. Because I'm a worrywart, I'm going to figure out how to do the IMS soon. These engines are just too pricey. Seems like cheap insurance on an expensive engine. Also, helps with resale. I just took the car on a 800 mile trip and I thought about engine failure quite often while going down the road.

soverystout

Did you make the upgrade using his busted crank motor or did the crank cause alot more damage making the block unusable?

Flat6 Innovations

Dennis, I just saved an engine two weeks ago that had lost an IMS at 122K miles.. It was apart, but still intact and no collateral damage.
Here is what I found after I forced the carrier halves apart using techniques developed by cavemen.


Here is the full story about Lon's two piece crankshaft from my site
http://www.flat6innovations.com/broken-crank

soverystout,
I used Lon's complete engine. When the crank snapped the carrier retained the carnage well and he shut the engine down quick. There were no other issues with his core engine, so we put it through all of it's other paces and updated it fully. if we reused many more OEM parts in a reconstruction process the collateral damage to pistons, rods and etc would have been more of a big deal. As it is I don't care if those are blown up, because we never reuse them.



Here are a couple of pics of what replaced those parts for Lon's engine..

Pac996

Nice pictures of the ponies being put in the stable.

Just wondering if you have or plan to get one of the crank balancers that spins the crank with pistons flinging for a more accurate balance?

You play the matched sets of exact weight pistons rods and rings together right?

Any plans for crate motors or do you already sell them?

Flat6 Innovations

Actually we don't feel that is more accurate than the digital balancer that we currently use. These feelings are shared with many of my peers in the Performance Racing Industry as many have changed back to a unit like my Multi-Bal 3000 after having the "new and improved" arrangement. My balancer is incredibly accurate, it was just updated to the latest technology last week and is fully computer monitored. The method that we use now is great for horizontally opposed and inline engines where the engines are inherently balanced, the newer arrangements are more beneficial to "V" type engines that require bobweights to be calculated and balanced.
We do all our machine work in house to include dynamic balancing.

Thats more like a V engine..

Yep, already sell them, BUT we can't get ahead enough to ever 'stock" them.. We have maintained a 6 month to over a one year backlog for our engines at times. Right now we are at 8 months and getting busier everyday it seems.. Nothing is quick about reinventing the wheel.

ivangene

As always Jake

mrpinto

I'm in the same spot. Recently bought a 2003 C4 with 74K miles. Clutch and IMS bearing are both original. The clutch is still good, was going to wait until that went then do everything at once. The PPI noted that the RMS was "bone-dry." Figured if the IMS was going to go, it would've gone by now...

But every time I hear a story like this I start to think maybe I should just pony up and get it done now so that I don't have to worry.

The lack of solid numbers here makes it a hard decision. Am I betting that I won't get hit by a 1/10 problem? A 1/100 problem? Hard to know for sure.

dennis hiip

yes, if this was a $5k-7k engine replacement cost, I might gamble, but $13-$15K would be a real bummer and a real hardship. Also, it will not be recouped at resale. A total loss unless I just kept the car indefinitely

Flat6 Innovations

Its mechanical. There are no absolute figures except the fact that all engines will fail in some way, at some point. There are no percentages available because no one knows exactly how many engines were built, how many failed and how many are still alive.

The data to support percentage calculation thats accurate simply does not exist.