Sijo

Does anyone have any experience with RND Engines?

Petza914

No risk here - RND is affiliated with Jake Raby of Flat Six Innovations and Charles Navarro of LN Engineering which is where the company name comes from - Raby Navarro Development. They offer replacement motors with the Nickies, IMS bearing and other goodies these guys developed if you're looking for a stock displacement replacement motor and is the best bet for a quicker turnaround on a new motor. Different division of the RND Europarts company that has great prices on Porsche parts.

motopix

The downside to RND is the huge core charge and having no idea how much of that you'll get back until they evaluate your old engine.

Ben Z

I've got one, put about 7000 miles on it now. At the time, they didn't happen to have a direct replacement for mine finished on the shelf for a quick swap. The downside was the wait, but the upside was they got my old engine to evaluate so I didn't have to put money upfront for the core charge (as it turned out, there was no core charge as my engine had only suffered bore scoring). Another upside was, since the new engine hadn't been built yet, SSF agreed to upgrade it with the IMS Solution (I paid the difference).

I had a little issue with it, they got Jake involved to diagnose and sort it. It was a great experience and they stood behind their product admirably.

Be advised that you will need to shift your thinking a bit on the subject of oil consumption. They designed their remanufacture protocols with the goal of maximizing durability within the constraints of the existing Porsche design. Consumption in the 800-1000mi per quart range is a trade-off toward achieving that goal. That is in fact commonplace in many late-model cars, but many of us with 997s were used to 3000 miles on a quart (as most engines did in the past). Personally I'm fine with a little more consumption. Oil is relatively cheap, engine repairs are not

If you do go with an RND, I advise being very picky about who you get to install it. RND engines come with a thick booklet with very precise, explicit instructions as to what peripheral parts need to be cleaned or replaced, and how the engine is to be started and run-in, and for the type of oil and scheduled changes during break-in. It is critical the shop follows those instructions to the letter.

Flat6 Innovations

This is slightly correct. LN Engineering and I developed this program for RND Engines, specifically for SSF Auto Parts. RND builds these engines, and neither Flat 6 or LN is a part of this process. LN provides cylinder services for the RND program, and thats about all. RND Euro Parts is no longer around, that portion of RND was dissolved earlier in 2016 so the company could focus on adding more engines to their offerings, like 9A1, Cayenne, and Panamera, etc.

I am a paid technical consultant for RND, if someone has a question, I am typically circled into that in some way, albeit indirectly.

Also, the best way to purchase one of these engines is by sending your core engine in FIRST for evaluation. This avoids hidden costs, and does not associate a core charge into the equation. This way the core engine is torn down up front, and the issues are documented, and the entire cost of the process is known up front. RND has to protect themselves against less than honest shops, and buyers by collecting a full core charge if the process is done in the conventional manner, via core deposit. Porsche does the same thing, but they do not give the option of an up- front disassembly first, like RND does.

As part of my technical consultant role I often evaluate tear down components, and I can say that this process is done fairly with only the wear items charged that are required for the build process. Any item thats worn, or not serviceable is photo documented, and shared with the owner.

This is avoided completely with the process I mentioned above.