Engine rebuild - rod bolt failure
01-11-2019, 02:28 AM
#32
Advanced
Thread Starter
Someone asked for a photo so I thought I'd post this before really signing off. I didn't take any pics of the motor because it looks largely the same. The only visual cues are the deep sump oil and that it looks new. Vision had the exterior, interior and engine bay detailed. Talk about service. It'll be hard to keep it this clean but oh well. I'm gonna drive the hell out of this thing.
01-11-2019, 03:23 AM
#33
Rennlist Member
no need to justify vision and dwain. His shop and contribution to the Porsche community are well known on the west coast. Good guy, great driver and driver coach, willing to help anyone out at track days and club races, customer or not. I have several friends with his engines and they’ve all been happy with them.
01-11-2019, 10:51 AM
#34
Former Vendor
To the OP... l am glad that you got the car back on the track quickly, and as you expected. At the end of the day, thats all that matters.
That said, some things were conveyed in one of your recent posts that simply are not factual.I don’t want to hi- jack your thread for what may seem like an advertisement, but at the same time l can’t let misinformation be stated without being corrected.
I will state that l have no problem with Dwain. He has remained respectful, and l enjoyed having him in my M96 class a few years ago, where l got to meet him for the first time. My rule for the last 27 years has been to never care what the other guy is doing. I only worry about what l am doing, and spend 100% of my focus making my way, the best it can possibly be. The focus needs to be on the physics related to whipping the engine into submission, and making it do what l want it to do... Not on trying to sell something, or trying to compete with someone. If the focus is where it belongs, the interest, sales, and money will come. As Dr. Porsche said “If you do what you believe is right, rather than what is expected, there will be people who appreciate what you create, and want to share it with you”. Enough people want to “share” what we do with us, that we have maintained a 10-13 month backlog for more than a decade, so l’d agree with the statement.
So... What concerns me here, is you have made a statement based on assumption, and this simply is untrue.
First off, no product for these engines is more “proven” than Nickies. No one else was perfecting these engines as early.
Secondly, the Nickies that we use here at Flat 6 Innovations are done to my specifications, having developed Nickies with LN starting in 1999. That said, no matter the engine displacement, we have our own clearances, pistons, and ring packs that **I** specify. It doesn’t end there, these changes require a different roughness average for the cylinder finish, and our blocks aren’t plated in the same bath as the regular blocks are. Our blocks are’t even honed by the same machinist, or the same hone as the “off the shelf Nickies”. This is done for two reasons, as the “off the shelf” cylinders need to be forgiving for the assembler, and for break in, should someone botch something. With the things l specify we have created through evotion, and assembly procedures, engine oil, and enrichment all are more difficult with our arrangement. Since we collect the vehicles from all over the planet and install the engines here, we have full control of the process, and can create a different engine with our care, and control working through these more difficult things to assemble.
Nothing here is “off the shelf”. Nothing here is “slapped together”. If it were, we would not have a backlog, and we’d be part of the same rat race as everyone else, trying to sell something quick, and cheap. Here, when l select a builder for an customer’s engine that builder will have a minimum of 12 years of direct experience with the M9X platform. Different builders here have different areas of specialty, be it a race engine, street engine, or a mixed use DE, street engine, or even my “stocker” engine. That one person’s hands will extract the engine from the car, disassemble it, perform the machine work (except Nickies, and the cylinder heads) and reassemble the engine. He will also re- install the engine back into the car, and fire it up for the first time. No one else will touch the engine, or the car until my part begins, which is a 120 mile break- in test drive, and dyno session, followed by a 27 point inspection before the car heads home. This same person will even photo document all processes, and normally 180+ photos are collected during the various stages. This is full accountability, and responsibility, and this is what separates what we do from everything else in the industry. The last time l dared to check how much time this took was in 2009, and it was over 100 hours of effort for the entire process. Does that sound “slapped together” to you now? l didn’t think so. No one else does it this way, because hey may have learned disciplines on the race track, but my discipline came from aircraft with rotor blades, where my buddies lives were on the line. Put simply, l treat cars like they have wings, rather than wheels.
Also, a 4.0L engine requires the same mods to the rest of the engine to co- efficiently perform, as a 4.3, or even my 4.4. Life doesn’t start beyond 4.0, the changes must be applied as soon as displacement increases from stock. If not, a misconfigured engine is created, which really isn’t good at doing anything. Yeah, it’ll run ok, but it’ll have a bushel of underlying gripes that take away from it. At the end of the day, no single thing makes power, and reiability/ longevity. The engine is an equation, and the sum depends on how that equation is configured. This is why bigger is seldom better, but t takes development to prove that to yourself. It takes swapping the heads, and cams, intake and etc from one size engine to another, and testing them in the lab, and in the car to see the differences. The “bigger is better crowd is always easiest to beat”. Why? Because they beat themselves.
We’ve had to cast our own complete intake maniolds (not a plenum!) and runners to feed these big engines, since we ran out of “air” with the Stage 3 engines long ago. You can make an engine as big as you want, but it will only make as much power as the intake and exhaust systems will allow. A big engine without enough airflow will just have a stumped powerband.
Again, my intent is not to hijack and “poo poo” on your thread, but more to set the record straight considering what we do here, and how it is done. Our program isn’t for everyone, and even if we built engines for 1% of these cars that were produced, we’d never keep up.
That said, some things were conveyed in one of your recent posts that simply are not factual.I don’t want to hi- jack your thread for what may seem like an advertisement, but at the same time l can’t let misinformation be stated without being corrected.
I will state that l have no problem with Dwain. He has remained respectful, and l enjoyed having him in my M96 class a few years ago, where l got to meet him for the first time. My rule for the last 27 years has been to never care what the other guy is doing. I only worry about what l am doing, and spend 100% of my focus making my way, the best it can possibly be. The focus needs to be on the physics related to whipping the engine into submission, and making it do what l want it to do... Not on trying to sell something, or trying to compete with someone. If the focus is where it belongs, the interest, sales, and money will come. As Dr. Porsche said “If you do what you believe is right, rather than what is expected, there will be people who appreciate what you create, and want to share it with you”. Enough people want to “share” what we do with us, that we have maintained a 10-13 month backlog for more than a decade, so l’d agree with the statement.
has 6-12 month wait. Vision uses chromoly, is 10 minutes from my house and is at the track basically every weekend where their cars/motors are pushed to the limit.
I certainly was not going to send my car to a shop that buys 4.0L Nickies off the shelf and just slaps it all together. I wanted a developed and proven product. I am sure the reason why only Jake gets the 4.3L liners is because they aren’t plug-and-play like the 4.0L liners. That is, you can’t just install 4.3L liners without modifying other aspects of the motorFlat6 uses Nickies and has 6-12 month wait. Vision uses chromoly, is 10 minutes from my house and is at the track basically every weekend where their cars/motors are pushed to the limit. My choice was pretty clear.
I certainly was not going to send my car to a shop that buys 4.0L Nickies off the shelf and just slaps it all together. I wanted a developed and proven product. I am sure the reason why only Jake gets the 4.3L liners is because they aren’t plug-and-play like the 4.0L liners. That is, you can’t just install 4.3L liners without modifying other aspects of the motorFlat6 uses Nickies and has 6-12 month wait. Vision uses chromoly, is 10 minutes from my house and is at the track basically every weekend where their cars/motors are pushed to the limit. My choice was pretty clear.
First off, no product for these engines is more “proven” than Nickies. No one else was perfecting these engines as early.
Secondly, the Nickies that we use here at Flat 6 Innovations are done to my specifications, having developed Nickies with LN starting in 1999. That said, no matter the engine displacement, we have our own clearances, pistons, and ring packs that **I** specify. It doesn’t end there, these changes require a different roughness average for the cylinder finish, and our blocks aren’t plated in the same bath as the regular blocks are. Our blocks are’t even honed by the same machinist, or the same hone as the “off the shelf Nickies”. This is done for two reasons, as the “off the shelf” cylinders need to be forgiving for the assembler, and for break in, should someone botch something. With the things l specify we have created through evotion, and assembly procedures, engine oil, and enrichment all are more difficult with our arrangement. Since we collect the vehicles from all over the planet and install the engines here, we have full control of the process, and can create a different engine with our care, and control working through these more difficult things to assemble.
Nothing here is “off the shelf”. Nothing here is “slapped together”. If it were, we would not have a backlog, and we’d be part of the same rat race as everyone else, trying to sell something quick, and cheap. Here, when l select a builder for an customer’s engine that builder will have a minimum of 12 years of direct experience with the M9X platform. Different builders here have different areas of specialty, be it a race engine, street engine, or a mixed use DE, street engine, or even my “stocker” engine. That one person’s hands will extract the engine from the car, disassemble it, perform the machine work (except Nickies, and the cylinder heads) and reassemble the engine. He will also re- install the engine back into the car, and fire it up for the first time. No one else will touch the engine, or the car until my part begins, which is a 120 mile break- in test drive, and dyno session, followed by a 27 point inspection before the car heads home. This same person will even photo document all processes, and normally 180+ photos are collected during the various stages. This is full accountability, and responsibility, and this is what separates what we do from everything else in the industry. The last time l dared to check how much time this took was in 2009, and it was over 100 hours of effort for the entire process. Does that sound “slapped together” to you now? l didn’t think so. No one else does it this way, because hey may have learned disciplines on the race track, but my discipline came from aircraft with rotor blades, where my buddies lives were on the line. Put simply, l treat cars like they have wings, rather than wheels.
Also, a 4.0L engine requires the same mods to the rest of the engine to co- efficiently perform, as a 4.3, or even my 4.4. Life doesn’t start beyond 4.0, the changes must be applied as soon as displacement increases from stock. If not, a misconfigured engine is created, which really isn’t good at doing anything. Yeah, it’ll run ok, but it’ll have a bushel of underlying gripes that take away from it. At the end of the day, no single thing makes power, and reiability/ longevity. The engine is an equation, and the sum depends on how that equation is configured. This is why bigger is seldom better, but t takes development to prove that to yourself. It takes swapping the heads, and cams, intake and etc from one size engine to another, and testing them in the lab, and in the car to see the differences. The “bigger is better crowd is always easiest to beat”. Why? Because they beat themselves.
We’ve had to cast our own complete intake maniolds (not a plenum!) and runners to feed these big engines, since we ran out of “air” with the Stage 3 engines long ago. You can make an engine as big as you want, but it will only make as much power as the intake and exhaust systems will allow. A big engine without enough airflow will just have a stumped powerband.
Again, my intent is not to hijack and “poo poo” on your thread, but more to set the record straight considering what we do here, and how it is done. Our program isn’t for everyone, and even if we built engines for 1% of these cars that were produced, we’d never keep up.
01-11-2019, 10:13 PM
#35
Advanced
Thread Starter
I think there was a misunderstanding. Let me be clear. In no way were my comments intended to be critical of you, Flat6 or Nickies.
From the outset, I was only defending my decision to have Vision rebuild my motor after Charles was openly critical of chromoly sleeves and other aspects of my build. However, in criticizing my decision, Charles was effectively criticizing Vision. Therefore, defending my decision involved defending Vision’s choice of chromoly and their reputation. If my singing of their praises seemed like an advertisement, so be it. I am not affiliated with Vision and am just a paying customer like everyone else.
With regard to Nickies, all I said was that I was comfortable with my decision to use chromoly. Nikasil coatings have been used for 50+ years and its benefits are common knowledge. There is no debate about its benefits. I just chose a different option for my build given my circumstances and Charles wanted the world to know what he thought of my decision so I defended myself. That’s it.
With regard to Flat6, all I said was that there is a long queue in order to have one of your motors, which is a product of your success and of which you are entirely deserving. Again, there is no debate about this. In defending my decision to use chromoly, all I meant to say was that time was a factor in making my decision. As I said, I would have happily gone with 4.3L Nickies if it were a viable option.
With regard to “slapping motors together”, if you read that comment again you will realize that I was not referring to Flat6. All I meant to say was that I would not send my car to a shop that doesn’t have extensive experience building, developing and testing larger displacement motors like Flat6 and Vision. And to be fair, there are many very capable Porsche shops here in Socal (and elsewhere) so there are really more than just two options. But to my point, I would not have my motor built by a shop with limited experience but who sells a 4.0L motor simply by buying 4.0L Nickies (and accommodating hardware) from LN and putting it all back together. I learned in my karting days that a motor is far more than a sum of its parts and how it’s built is also important. In any case, again, my comment was not directed towards you or Flat6 in any way but if you were offended, I apologize if my comment was not crystal clear.
Similarly, with regard to the definition of the word “proven”, again, I was not referring to Flat6 or Nickies. I was just stating the obvious that a motor from Flat6 or Vision is more “proven” (due to all the development you described) than a shop that slaps it all together, as defined above.
I hope this sets the record straight and takes care of all the hurt feelings. Perhaps, it’s best to just let this thread disappear into the ether.
From the outset, I was only defending my decision to have Vision rebuild my motor after Charles was openly critical of chromoly sleeves and other aspects of my build. However, in criticizing my decision, Charles was effectively criticizing Vision. Therefore, defending my decision involved defending Vision’s choice of chromoly and their reputation. If my singing of their praises seemed like an advertisement, so be it. I am not affiliated with Vision and am just a paying customer like everyone else.
With regard to Nickies, all I said was that I was comfortable with my decision to use chromoly. Nikasil coatings have been used for 50+ years and its benefits are common knowledge. There is no debate about its benefits. I just chose a different option for my build given my circumstances and Charles wanted the world to know what he thought of my decision so I defended myself. That’s it.
With regard to Flat6, all I said was that there is a long queue in order to have one of your motors, which is a product of your success and of which you are entirely deserving. Again, there is no debate about this. In defending my decision to use chromoly, all I meant to say was that time was a factor in making my decision. As I said, I would have happily gone with 4.3L Nickies if it were a viable option.
With regard to “slapping motors together”, if you read that comment again you will realize that I was not referring to Flat6. All I meant to say was that I would not send my car to a shop that doesn’t have extensive experience building, developing and testing larger displacement motors like Flat6 and Vision. And to be fair, there are many very capable Porsche shops here in Socal (and elsewhere) so there are really more than just two options. But to my point, I would not have my motor built by a shop with limited experience but who sells a 4.0L motor simply by buying 4.0L Nickies (and accommodating hardware) from LN and putting it all back together. I learned in my karting days that a motor is far more than a sum of its parts and how it’s built is also important. In any case, again, my comment was not directed towards you or Flat6 in any way but if you were offended, I apologize if my comment was not crystal clear.
Similarly, with regard to the definition of the word “proven”, again, I was not referring to Flat6 or Nickies. I was just stating the obvious that a motor from Flat6 or Vision is more “proven” (due to all the development you described) than a shop that slaps it all together, as defined above.
I hope this sets the record straight and takes care of all the hurt feelings. Perhaps, it’s best to just let this thread disappear into the ether.