I got the motor pulled by a racecar tech at the shop I work at, who used to have a built Evo, and took the short block to a local machine shop. I was referred to the machine shop by a friend and they had good reviews so I trusted them (my bad.) They told me it would be about $1,000 for repairs and about 3 weeks repair time, this was before they tore it apart and reviewed the damage.

The motor took a beating, no one can quite tell me exactly what happened but it needed rebuilt. The machine shop didn't even tear the motor apart for 3 weeks and then quoted me $1400 to repair and another couple weeks to do the work. Okay, cool, I understand things change once you get in there, although I was slightly annoyed it took them so long to even look at it, so I missed the first event I had scheduled for the car based on their initial quoted time. No biggie.

Fast forward five months, the motor is finally done. I go to pick it up after bugging the shop about getting it done after so long and now the total is $2400. I asked for a discount due to the extended time and higher total (which I hardly ever do so I did so awkwardly lol) and was a little insulted when he said he could maybe give me $50 off because we can't all be rich like me. I continued to tell him how I waited over a year to repair the motor because of how rich I wasn't and took him up on his $50 off. I left with the motor.

Fast forward another month as my tech is now finding the time in between race season to get my motor reinstalled in the Evo. It's reinstalled, I put some break in miles on it, about 430miles and take it to the only reputable local Evo tuner in SLC. Not to get tuned, but they like to do a health check on the motor before scheduling a tune. Cool, saves their ***, I completely understand that.

They had less than fun news for me. Their findings:

"Our findings deem this engine not tunable due to un even compression and excessive cylinder leak down.
Compression: (Cyl 1: 115psi) (Cyl 2: 120psi) (Cyl 3: 88psi) (Cyl 4: 125psi)
Cylinder leakage: (Cyl 1: 5%) (Cyl 2: 0%) (Cyl 3: 35%) (Cyl 4: 0%)"


Cool. There is thousands of dollars down the drain for one cylinder to be fixed, and to now have to do it all over again.


I contacted a friend back on the east coast I trust to do the build this time and having my tech pull it back out, again in between race season so it is taking a while (but saving money, so no complaints), and I get to spend the exact same amount as the first time.


Moral of the story, do your research.


P.S. the bumper is off because during the first go around I decided to treat myself and buy a front lip. I had my painter repaint the front bumper and color match the front lip to it. That was in process at the time I took these.

 

Were those pistons/bearings out of the old motor? You should probably go back to that builder and get some of your money back. I assume its rings not sealing but is that where the leakdown showed it was losing pressure?

The near zero leakdown on 12 and 4 would seem to indicate they might have stroker pistons in there or something. I know its not broken in, but that should be a good 25-35psi higher still.

 

Yes, those were out of the old motor. I am currently in a dispute for the labor done on the motor because the machine shop would not work with me on it. I believe so, the leak down led us to believe the issue was the block and not the head. To my knowledge, they weren't stroker pistons, but that's just what I was told. The specifics weren't documented, unfortunately.

Coming from the East coast where I had multiple reputable shops to chose from and could trust to out here where not many specialize in this car and 1 maybe 2 places you can trust is taking some getting used to.

 

Update: I found a used motor locally that I will be having put in so the car will be going back to stock (internally) for now. I'll still keep my old head which has GSC S2 cams and full valvetrain to throw in at a later date and may try to sell the old block? Not sure how salvageable it is with one of the cylinders being sleeved, but I'll see if someone local wants it cheap.

I got the Evo9 turbo I have rebuilt at FP, just got it sent back, and am having a couple of parts cleaned out that will be swapped to the new used motor since there was a lot of debris that went through the motor. As soon as I have those parts back I can have my mechanic put him back together! Unfortunately, race season has begun again so he has little time and it will still probably be a while.

 

Update: Motor went in months later and fired up about 2 weeks ago. It had the worst noise that sounded like valves but was definitely coming from the lower end towards the timing side. My mechanic took the pan off, no shavings and everything looked fine. Not sure what to do next I found a local shop that was recommended to me that I am very pleasantly surprised with. They seem to be true enthusiasts with your cars care in mind and aren't just trying to make a buck. We thought it was the lifters starting to lose pressure, we replaced them but the noise persisted. After a more careful evalution it turns out the plate behind the crank sensor was slightly bent just enough to be hitting the sensor and causing the awful noise.

I picked up the car and it felt amazing on the short drive home. I took it to work the next day to get my replacement AEM wideband in, my original connector burnt into the gauge. It's running super lean, in the 17s, so i wont be driving it again until my turner has some time. I just need to have the A/C filled and then it is ready for him. I decided to go with my tuner from back East as I haven't had or heard any good of the tuners out here unfortunately.

Next steps:
-Fill A/C
-I want to try on a friends Turbosmart BOV, not a fan of my Tial at ALL.
-TUNE
-Temporarily install cat
-Emissions & Registration
-Remove cat

Smol items to work on:
-Repair drivers seat
-Repair drivers door panel
-Remove dents - hood, roof, trunk
-Condition seats
-Decon & detail
-Two-Step
-Repaint & install front bumper
-PPF front bumper
-Remove skirt LUXE decals
-Find out how to remove carbon wing piece to have smol spot clear failing refinished
-Have my paint guy 'refit' rear bumper
-Rear bumper 'seam' repainted
-Clean smudge off valve cover
-Install hood vent

 

Update: Unfortunately, I couldn't get much communication with my tuner from back east, hopefully that means they're busy during these hard times. I decided to go with a guy I had met at the Buschur Shootout a couple years back and have followed for a while, Dr_Boost A/c is refilled, and we are in process of the tune with going back and forth. It has been such a learning process for me as I have never datalogged before and no one I know has either, although it's also very neat being kind of involved in the process.

Next steps:
-Fill A/C
-I want to try on a friends Turbosmart BOV, not a fan of my Tial at ALL. - No longer happening as i've maxed out on funds.
-TUNE - working on
-Registration

Smol items to work on:
-Repair drivers seat
-Repair drivers door panel
-Remove dents - hood, roof, trunk
-Condition seats
-Decon & detail
-Two-Step
-Repaint & install front bumper
-PPF front bumper
-Remove skirt LUXE decals
-Find out how to remove carbon wing piece to have smol spot clear failing refinished
-Have my paint guy 'refit' rear bumper
-Rear bumper 'seam' repainted
-Clean smudge off valve cover
-Install hood vent

Not on my list but @genevo9 on IG had a pair of Evo7 tails for cheap and I couldn't resist. I have wanted a set for a while now, especially since my spray painted ones are looking pretty dull and faded.

 

Yes remote tuning is a key thing to learn and will be a skill you can teach others. Tuners can spend more time tuning and troubleshooting while remote tuning your Evo since they are not constrained by renting Dyno time. Also the datalogs you collect can be reviewed and shared.

 

Update: I am HORRIBLE at updating this but really want to keep it going. Pretty much my only big update from my last post is that the tuner I was trying to use in California ended up not working out very well and I went back to my original guy in PA and was able to get the car set up correctly. Since then, not too much has changed, I got the front bumper repainted, front lip installed, front bumper protected with paint protection film, and we corrected the whole car.

Smol items to work on:
-Repair driver seat tear
-Repair driver door panel scratches
-Remove dents - hood, roof, trunk
-Condition seats
-Find out how to remove carbon wing piece to have smol spot clear failing refinished
-Rear bumper 'seam' repainted

 

Love the 17's. I run those as well!