So the bad news is I brought my car to 3Zero3 Motorsports to get the old engine checked out. After using a borescope to check the engine internals, the diagnosis looks pretty bad so far. My spark plugs with only a few thousand miles are covered in oil. The tops of the pistons are completely covered in carbon build up. There is some minor scoring on all cylinder walls. Head gaskets and valve cover gaskets need to be replaced. And we’re pretty positive there is a broken chain guide.
So the good news is I have a warranty on the car and this will be covered. At this point I don’t know how much they are going to cover.
The great news is I talked to JHM and they have built short blocks with their new pistons and rods for sale. Perfect timing for me. I will be ordering one shortly as soon as we get everything cleared up with the warranty company and start the tear down procedure.
Keep us up to date! Someone in Hawaii just went through something similar with a timing component failure, so rather than buy another motor and pay the near $15,000 his dealer wanted for that, or pay nearly that for a used motor and install (he won’t DIY) he chose to buy a built motor from JHM instead. Pretty cool.
The problem with all these buyers of the built blocks is that JHM will always sell it to a customer rather than keeping one for themselves for their shop car. Hard to keep a big chunk of cash just sitting there for fun.
I say this because I really want to see them move the stage 2 and beyond supercharger program forwrd.
Okay so this story has taken a few unexpected turns. After the warranty company told 3Zero3 to go ahead with the engine tear down, they then preceded to completely deny the claim without even sending out an adjuster. Needless to say I’m a little upset, however, I’m getting the $5k I spent on the warranty back. Now that my engine is in pieces, there’s really no turning back so I guess this one is coming out of my pocket. Moving forward, my car will no longer have any warranty so I want to make sure this engine is bulletproof. Now my question is, should I throw down for the JHM built heads too? The other option would be to throw down on the headers so the engine can breathe. What’s everybody’s opinion and suggestions?
wow that warranty company needs a fucking huge piece of negative karma bad luck
as for your options, how is your guy going to rebuild the motor? What was wrong with it?
There was a guy in Hawaii who had a motor failure, and was looking at $15,000 for his dealer to source a long block, installed so he instead chose to just get a built motor from JHM with updated everything. Similar money less the installation.
I would personally do the updated heads since the motor is out and in pieces. Headers are awesome and really change the car, but installation isn’t too terrible of a job if you have a cherry picker, some time and another car to drive, so if itt would strain the budget I’d say hold off.
I actually don’t know what the main contributing factor to the oil consumption is. I do know that all of the gaskets and seals need to be replaced because they are leaking. All of the cylinders are scored. The majority of the plastic chain guides are broken into pieces. Plus there seems to be some serious leakage through the valve guides/stems… I can’t really remember after spending hours and hours on the phone going toe to toe with the warranty company.
My plan is to buy the built motor from JHM with the built heads as well. I don’t know everything that is included with the short block besides the block, pistons, and rods but I’m assuming the timing gear is all new and shiny as well. So I will have 3Zero3 assemble the engine with the carryover parts and avoid all the hassle of buying a used engine or fixing this one. $15,000 sounds about right, although I think I’m going to go a little past that by including the built heads. At this point already I think the bill is around $3200 and that was just to remove and tear down the engine. It seems like there’s going to need be a decent amount of labor spent assembling the engine before it goes back in.
That was basically what I was thinking too, I just wasn’t sure if the JHM heads were worth the $3500. Plus, seeing those bullshit Audi OEM “Headers” in person almost made me puke, so I really want to get those out of there, especially on a brand new engine. I guess I’ll just have to wait to do the headers with the supercharger around Christmas time.
I didn’t want to say it on Audizine but $30K is what Dru told me it would cost to get a built engine with the stage two supercharger kit.
Built lower end is $9K
Heads are $3.5K
Stage 1 SC Kit is $8.5K
Full plus updated OEM timing stuff is $4.5K
So that is $25.5K before the upgrades of the stage two SC and any other odds and ends that I am leaving out. Sad to say but the jump to a RS4 is not looking all that bad right now. Too bad I am already in too deep at the moment.
hold on… i’ve been lirking around quitely waiting for numbers to drop… $30k is just retarded… might as well move on to RS4 or built b5 s4 motor swap or leave the platform in general…
i completely agree you gotta pay to play… i hope i don’t come off as complaining either, just trying to justify the cost even though its not official.
My thoughts on this whole thing is some bought the car new some bought used, im on my second used paid mid 20’s for them and very intersted in getting the build done… dumping another $30k in would put some or most over 50k…
right now its a used car market for 50 to 70k you can get some pretty mean cars for that kind of money, you know what i mean…
all im saying is that news like this puts me at a stand still… keep modding or move to another platform…
either way im looking forward to seeing what the end result of our platform will be…
I go back and forth with an RS4 purchase constantly. I bought my car a while back with 28k miles for around $30k. It’s been paid off for a few years, so if I sold it and bought an RS4 with low miles I’d probably end up spending $20-25K, then a JHM supercharger on that $8k. But then I think about just making this my baby and dumping the $25k into it and making it insane.
You’ll never get any money back from the S4…period.
An RS4 will hold a lot of it’s value and with a supercharger it maybe worth even more to the right enthusiast…
decisions decisions, if we don’t hear anything soon about the motor program or stg2 it may be time to throw in the towel.
Maybe, although I really wouldn’t count on a supercharged RS4 to be worth more than an equivalent stock well-cared for one, per usual.
RS4 is certainly an attractive option, but keep in mind everything is more expensive than the S4 and out of warranty could be a very expensive situation. Used RS4 motors sell for $12,500 from what I’ve seen, and that’s if you can find one. I’m considering waiting a year or two for the right RS4, but just getting into a B6 S4 might happen in the interim since they’re pretty cheap now and many of my mods will swap directly over.
