So heres the story... I have a 08 GSR as my daily driver. I bought it June 09 and it had 2k miles from being the test driven vehicle. Last Christmas i installed hks ssq bov and aem intake. The summer after that i was getting prepared for college in reno (live in vegas) so i took it to mitsu to have them make sure everything was good before i drove 400-500 miles. they checked it out and said everything was fine. I start driving to reno and loud clicking noises are comming from the engine. Long story short, mitsu said that my block is cracked and because of my "abusive driving/aftermarket parts and failure to maintain the vehicle"they revoked my warranty. So now im having another mechanic check it out and if i do need a new block which should i get? Im looking to spend less than 5k (hopefully) and i dont want to have to deal with the same problems. So what company should i go with, or should i buy a stock short block?

- car has 23k miles
- had it for just over a year

I know taking it to the dealer after being modded isnt gonna help much, but i figured if those parts werent the cause of the malfunction then it should still be covered... but i know that any mod voids the warranty

 

I think what you want to do depends on what you want to do with this car. If you are going to mod it lightly you may want to just get a stock short block. If you planned to upgrade turbos or run e85 or meth you may want to take this opportunity to get a block with upgraded internals.

If it were me, and i was planning on modding my car past basic bolt-ons, I would probably get the Buschur 2.0 built block. I think the price is in the $4400 neighborhood and does not require a good core for that price. That would probably be able to handle pretty much anything you could throw at it.

 

If you are including labor in the $5k figure then you can't afford anything other than a new, stock short-block. I agree with the Buschur block idea but it'll put you over budget.

 

I would buy a short block if your on a budget. The stock block is pretty stout, it's interesting that you have a cracked block. Who did the tune on it?

 

where's the crack??

 

New block is $1850ish or so bare. You'll want to change out pistons and rods if you're doing all that work.

 

Yeah im kinda just thinking i might take off my mods after this is all said and done sadly... I currently have a stock tune and mitsu was the one who originally looked at it and pretty much just assumed the block was cracked, im having another mechanic look at it and let me know what i need to replace. I think that modding this car might be a little to expensive for a college student lol.

 

HAHA, when I was in college I paid $1k for my car total......you guys are really spoiled these days. Hopefully it is not as serious as it sounds though, 5k is a tough hit on anyone.

 

True, but i guess it depends what he needs done...it is cheaper overall to get one with the crank in it and swap out pistons/rods/rod bearings and leave the crank in there.

This saves a ton on machining costs which is what I did for build...it all depends on what he wants to do with the car.

 

Thanks for all the responses everyone, i ended up swaping the old block a new stock one, all in all its gonna cost me about 6k to fix everything...yikes

 

So you got 2 mods on it, and they say that kills the warranty? or am I missing something here? If those are the only 2 mods you have then legally they are allowed per the manual! The manual says anything that does not increase boost, or any exhaust part. So I would put in a complaint because if they dont want to cover warranty then they need to get bent over by corp!

 

Id guess your not getting the whole story from this guy. The car was probably stocked out some to be taken to the dealer but in its 23 miles had some adventures.

 

i would say those two parts qualify as factors if his block was indeed cracked. not that i back and its harsh warranty treatment, but they are valid excuses, especially with his stock tune.

 

Well if he was tuned even for just those parts they'd still see it had a tune if they looked and even further revoke the warranty. If you really want to fight it you can look up the magsson-moss (sp?) warranty act and its supposed to protect you against dealerships doing this crap. Basically since you modded the BOV the only thing they can legally remove the warranty on is the BOV. If you have an exhaust they obviously won't warranty the exhaust, etc.

Also welcome to Reno. We've got a rather large Evo community here. I had an AS VIII until my buddy wrecked it in April and am currently driving a WRX until I get out of basic training/A school around April of next year. Just curious is yours a Rotor glow orange, white, or blue. Those are the only X's I see around campus.

 

Another thing, just a possibility, realize that he bought the test driven car that had 2000 miles on it off the lot. That car was probably beaten to near death during those 2,000 miles by random people wanting to drive the car at WOT. Always avoid buying the guinea pig test cars as you have no idea how it was treated before it came to you. Chances are, there was a small problem that the car had before from the first 2,000, he put his two mods on and then didn't tune it (really didn't need one for just a BOV and intake) and BOOM. The dealer just doesn't want to eat the 6k in costs, because chances are his mods didn't have much of a role in this failure, they are just using them as a scape goat.

Good luck with the build.