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The following is a blatant vendor
rant….feel free to stop reading now if you’d like. I’ve been completely quiet about this for the last two years as
my conversion was being redone, however, I do feel Vanagon owners should
avail themselves of customer opinions when dealing with vendors. 1. Buyer Beware! The motor was purchased in
October of 2002 from www.fastforward.ca
. It was purchased from a listing at gerry.vanagon.com as a “perfectly good” engine, “rings replaced” (as
reported by the seller over the phone) for $4500 CAN (shipping included). Having read some of the seller's posts
on the listserve, I figured he knew what he was talking about. I was assured that everything was done,
and the engine ready to drop in … sounds great right? The original post is here. If you check www.fastforward.ca,
you’ll find
that a good (not worn out) used motor, and conversion kit is about
$3000. The engine arrived at a
mechanic friends garage, Donerite
Imports, on a crate and precipitated a call from the
owner. I got the, “you better
come and look at this" call. The engine
looked like it had been used off-road in muddy conditions. Looking at the exhaust
and intake, my concerns mounted.
Later, after reading this http://www.members.shaw.ca/bilbo/survey.html
(check the last entry), some of this started to make sense. 2. Deal with known reputable dealers (with references): The boys at the shop pulled the
cylinder head and confirmed my fears.
The engine was very, very tired.
In fact the cylinder wear (pics) was twice
the permissible limit just below the wear ridges. On several other VW blocks I’ve rebuilt (150 000 to 200 000km)
there wasn’t even an obvious wear ridge.
Previous to the purchase, I was assured over the phone that new piston rings
had been installed which later became…a “wrecker in
Vancouver had replaced the piston rings”. In any case,
there was no evidence that anyone had
ever touched the rings in the engine. Of course for $4500 we should all be able
to buy a rebuildable core right? 3. Take it like a man (“person” to be politically correct): After speaking with Dustan at RPI in Vancouver, who is a reputable
VW wrecker/tuner, and then Darrel at www.techtonicstuning.com, it was
evident I was going to need to bore the block oversize and replace the
pistons. Try finding 83.5mm pistons
for an audi 3A block. The only place
I could find such things was at Techtonics for just under $1000CAN. So after bearings, gaskets, pistons and
machining costs, I was out another $2000 dollars or so. The
vendor offered to
return the $4500 dollars provided I reassemble and ship the motor back.
I was looking at another $1000 shipping an engine back and then buying another
from a vendor I was more comfortable with. Subsequent
conversations resulted in an agreement to refund half the cost
of new pistons…$500, not great, but I could live with it. By December, no
$500 dollars...and I gave up trying. Small Claims
court is not out of the question but a pain when dealing with out of province
transactions. My lawyer established
that I had a good case, but that taking the case forward in an out of
province small claims forum was not worth the expense. With some reluctance, I decided to drop
it. 4. More problems: The
vendor incorrectly stated that my AC
and Power steering would “bolt up” with the replacement main pulley that
was sent. (He did correctly provide the bracket part numbers)
In fact I ended up
purchasing the entire pulley and bracket set from a 16V Scirocco to
eventually resolve the accessories issue.
If you buy an engine for
conversion, buy it complete. The vendor had mounted the ECU in the engine
bay (top right), bolted to a bracket holding the coil and spark “controller”. The stock location for the ECU is under
the rear seat to protect it from engine bay heat. So you
guessed it, I took the harness apart and re-configure it to properly
mount the ECU. I didn’t get
the Digifant air box which he had bungeed into place in his setup. I was told my new AFM would bolt to my
old air box and I could then bungee it in place. The intake extension provided
made out of 2 inch ABS plumbing pipe was another area of concern. Internal restrictions on this pipe bring
it down to 1.75 inches at points which is clearly too small. The smallest opening in the stock intake
is 2.5 inches. The exhaust provided
was in my opinion, not good. Check the exhaust section. 5. Folks I can recommend dealing with on a conversion project. www.Techtonicstuning.com (Darryl
is very knowledgeable on VWs, and patient) http://www.marcor-genie.com
(universal stainless mufflers) www.rpiequipped.com (I've bought
several good used motors from these folks)
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