Well, I'm sure Vishnu could do this...but for a car only in it's 3rd year of release in the states, don't you think it's a little early for this?

 

No, I don't think that it is early at all. Each new interation of BMW's has a Dinan package offered almost immediately with a warranty offer. The total package costs more than the competition, but the warranty adds to the resale value of the car.

 

Meiser should take his car to the UK, and get the kind of service he demands. Not a fan of Shiv but have to say in this case how is it his fault? Am betting that he didn't choose all of the parts that are on that car either. And have to agree that if the car had 100% Vishnu parts on it, and they installed and tuned them. He would have a different take on it all.
Thats the problem today, people want 100% money back or warranty coverage on everything. They want to assume no risk for their own decisions.
Had this car blown a head gasket or burned a plug off, it would be a whole different story.
People want to play the game and not pay for it.
A consumer should consider his own responsibility with smog laws and pollution levels. You can't hold a tuner or parts producing company to state exactly how clean or dirty a combination or single part is. Its virtually impossible. No two cars are exactly the same.
Bottom line. People buy these cars, which aren't that cheap but still a bargain in terms of performance. Want to increase power and performance, but yet maintain stock smog levels, and reliability. And many spend piles of cash on the car and don't get the results they want. There are many lessons here.

 

The bottom line is that it really boils down to up-front-cost vs. coverage. Sure a vendor such as Vishnu could sell packages with warranties - but warranties are basically like insurance ... if you have a small market that's high risk, then the cost of coverage will be accordingly expensive. IMO the tuning/modding market just does not have the necessary economies of scale to qualify for affordable warranties. For the ppl that are so worried about your modded car, I'd suggest looking up an insurance company that covers aftermarket parts, race use, etc... just don't complain about the price of admission.

As the saying goes: "Ye pays yer money and takes yer chances!"

l8r)

 

Last time Shiv was in Dallas tuning, he tuned my car. It had a freshly built engine with 732 miles on it when it hit the dyno, posted 352hp/323tq on the stock turbo with a 10.5 which I thought was pretty good. Two days later after the engine developed a severe knock, I pulled the head to find a wrist pin lock has come loose and the pin backed out gouging a canyon in the #1 cylinder wall. I also found three burnt pistons, the #4 had started to transfer metal. To be honest, I was pissed with Shiv at first thinking that a tuning mistake had been made to result in the burnt pistons, along with a build mistake when the wrist pin came out. But after talking to Shiv about it at length, what came first, the pin or the burnt pistons? I decided that when you begin down the slippery path of hard core modifications then yous' takes your chances. Yea, I was pretty mad to begin with as I had paid a good engine builder to assemble the bottom end, and I paid a person, who I still consider to be one of the best Evo tuners in the country, to tune the car and I still ended up with a jacked up engine that needed two holes sleeved and new pistons. Of course I took this bad omen as a sign from God that I needed to stroke it while I was in there, but that is another story. In the end, the only person to blame is myself for modifying what would be a perfectly dependable car if I had left it as it rolled off of the assembly line. I have chosen to roll the dice in persuit of more performance, and when I hit snake eyes, well it was my choice to roll so I might as well deal with the consequences.....

I have never posted a word about any of this as I do not want to stir up a bunch of controversy, and I still do not. What is done is done, water under the bridge. But I think that he is dealing with this in the proper way, he had the turbo kit installed, pushed the engine past what it was designed to handle, and now he is dealing with it. Good man, he rolled too and lost, but he is handeling it well.

 

Joey,
I knew about your problems and I always was waiting for some Vishnu bashing to come from you over it. But it never came. You are a class act and I have a lot of respect for you. When I blew my motor, I never questioned that it was anyone's fault but my own. In my case, there wasn't even a connection to Shiv, as I took over the tuning myself with an MBC and started testing the limits of the stock turbo.

The difference between men and boys are the price of their toys....

 

Good Post, Thats the whole problem, Shiv could offer turnkeys and maybe even warranty like Dinan, Lingenfelter, et. al, But that would be reflected in the costs. I love the EVO but rest assured the market segment is different than the people who plop down 15K-100K for madifications to their M3, Viper, Z06, 911. Also those cars are rarely the primary car for them. BTW have you seen how many tens of thousands a 911 or viper motor is? I doubt people will pay an extra 500-750 for insurance on their $1500 stage 1 especially when literally 1 in 1000+ chance of something going wrong.

In regards to that FQ400 that is touted so highly by some, it comes with your warranty for 80K USD. It has the emmissions results because it was sold as an oem (sold is a misnomer they couldnt sell but half for MSRP). Vishnu has done emmissions research and stage 1s pass in CA, stage 1+ can pass if the car is properly maintained also. Shiv choses not to make claims about emmissions because it is highly dependant on the user of the car and how it is maintained.

 

Joey definetely IS a class act.

 

This will be my last post for a week or so. I'm flying down to Oakland tomorrow morning. I'll drop by a few minutes to take a look at the car and then plan on picking up the car on Monday.

I spoke with Jerry at Full Function, the repair shop, a few minutes ago. All the parts are either in or will be picked up tomorrow morning. They expect to have the car completed and broken-in by late Monday.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all will go according to plan.

Thanks again to Shiv and all at Vishnu for their help. Special thanks to Jerry and all at Full Function for the super efforts.

I'll do a final post when I return to let you know how things turned out. Until then, It's been a good thread and I thank all the contributors.

Eric

 

I picked up my car on Monday of last week from Full Function in Union City.

They did a great job of getting it all put together. They put in a new factory short-block and had the head reworked.

The block had a hole on each side of the block next to the number 3 rod. Both holes were at least 3" in diameter. The rod had broken right in the middle of the beam. It had a bend right where it broke but you couldn't tell if the bend ocurred before or after the failure.

I was lucky that the head was in good shape. It was sent out to a machine shop for valves in one cylinder. The combustion chamber only had a couple nicks which were polished out.

The installation took quite awhile since a lot of cleaning was required to remove oil from throughout the engine bay. We put in a new oil cooler and oil pump to ensure that no particles remained in the oil system. The turbo was cleaned as well many other parts.

The shop did a break-in on the engine and changed engine oil 3 times throughout the break-in process.

When Shiv tuned the car, he left the boost fairly low in consideration of the new engine. The pump gas map was at 21 lbs and the race gas map was at 23 lbs. Shiv suggested that I wait a 1000 miles or so before raising boost to 23 and 26 lbs.

After the dyno tune, the car was checked for boost and fluid leaks. Everything looked good so I left at about 10:00 pm to drive about 2 hours north of the bay area. During the drive, I was careful to vary load and rpm during the drive. Everything seemed fine and the car was running strong.

The next morning, I left for a drive north on Hwy 1 with a couple other cars. I drove for about 1 1/2 hours when I heard a mild pop and saw coolant blow from under the hood onto the windshield. I immediately turned off the key and coasted to the side of the road. I couldn't believe it - am I unlucky or what?

I first checked the coolant hoses - all were fine. Then I found that a freeze plug had blown out on the front of the block right under the turbo. My buddies drove to town and bought some expansion plugs and antifreeze.

While they were gone, I check for oil and coolant for cross contamination. Everything was clean. I then pulled the plugs. Number 1-3 loosened with about 2 lbs of torque. They were in perfect condition though. Number 4 was really loose - about 1/2 turn out from contacting the compression washer. That plug was pure white.

I ran the plugs back in. All of them compressed their washers for the first time. When my friends came back, I put in the expansion plug and started filling the radiator.

Coolant started pouring out of the back of the block! I reached behind and found that at least 2 more freeze plugs had blown out. It was time for a tow truck.

After finding so many freeze plugs blown, I thought about how that could possibly happen. The only reason that I could think of was that cylinder 4 ran hot from the loose plug and had blown the head gasket. A little gap into the coolant chamber would instantly raise pressure to the point of blowing multiple freeze plugs. It happened so fast that my coolant overflow tank hadn't even overfilled.

I had the car towed to a gas station near Hwy 101 and then call the shop. They made arrangement to have the car towed the next morning to their shop.

They have since pulled the head and found that the #4 cyl had indeed blown the head gasket. Nothing else was damaged. They are fixing everything for free and paid for the tow.

I'm hoping to go down next week to pick up the car again. This is getting a little old - along with expensive. Even though they are fixing it for free, I still had to pay for a $300 tow to the freeway and now another airfare to go pick it up. I'm really hoping that this is the end of this adventure.

I'll let you know what happens the next time.

 

Wow Eric, I'm sorry you're having all these problems. I really hope it gets straightened out this time and everything works out well for you. Keep us updated!

- Steve

 

Man, I hate to hear this. I hope it gets rectified soon. You have had some crappy luck with this car.

 

Man, that sucks. When i read "i woke up the next morning" i knew there was a problem.

Best of luck, to be honest, i had no idea a loose spark plug would cause that much pressure.

I would think the engine builders should pay for more. They should take care of you.

 

Blown head gaskets cause blown freeze plugs?

 

The cylinder pressure blows directly into the coolant passages. This causes the cooling system pressure to skyrocket, and blows out the plugs. Those plugs did exactly what they're supposed to do.

Funny thing is, on a 91-95 legend, this is a common problem. The #6 cylinder will develop a small leak and cause the cooling system to pressurize very slowly, so slowly in fact that the coolant is slowly replaced by air and the coolant is pumped out of the reservoir. Eventually the water pump is encompased by air, the car overheats, and no one knows why. It happens so slowly that it's very hard to diagnose.

In your case the leak was probably so severe and the cylinder pressures are so high in a turbocharged motor that the coolant system pressurized so fast that the freeze plugs blow before the coolant has a chance to run out the reservoir.

As bad as it sounds, this is actually a good thing. If it happened more slowly the car could have overheated much more and more severe damage would have been done.

Just trying to find some good in a bad situation.

- Steve