Due to my lack of a daily driver I had to buy a new dd. I picked up this 2000 SE a couple days ago. 160k, CEL for cat, ripped up driver seat. But solidly drives and is so far making a nice daily ( all two days that I've driven it lol).

As far as the engine goes. They're trying to ghost me, but I'm fucking sick of getting screwed so I'm calling them every day, I've sent a couple emails and I'm sending them a more official email on the weekend if they ghost me today and I'll try to do a chargeback next week if they ignore that. I doubt it will work but it's worth a shot. I'd really just like to return the engine and get my money back. I'm going to eat the shipping cost and all the time either way, but at least it'd be something.

I think I'll be rebuilding the bp4w with maybe a rods only build if I can. We'll see. Whether or not I get any money back on the engine, I'm gonna take a little break. I need to save some money after this summer and I'd like to get a little more settled into the new house.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e0c61ed570.jpg

don't waste your time. chargeback now.

I was able to get through to them today. I ended up talking to the assistant who was the one who helped me grab the engine and was very nice. Sent him the videos that I posted here and they offered to give me $800 back and I could keep the engine. So as long as I actually get the money, I'm happy with that result. That's also all written down, which I'm happy about versus over the phone. Also means I get to keep the 6 speed which I had really wanted to keep since it shifted really smoothly. I also get to keep the bp5a ecu, the header, and other stuff I can sell. So as long as I get that money back, I'll be satisfied

well that went better than expected :)

Yeah, for sure. I'm glad I was able to get through to them without having to go through the credit card company. Now I'll just be patiently watching my credit card for a $800 drop haha

That's a surprising outcome! Not having to figure out how to send the engine back is huge. I'm enjoying your story.

Dang . Free square top!

Glad you were able to get that resolved. Hope they come through soon.

Unfortunately, only the vvt engines came with a squaretop, so no free squaretop here. :cry:

And agreed Nigel, not having to send the engine back is awesome. I would have had to pull it tonight/tomorrow since I had to help my dad dig a trench this weekend. A lot of stress off my back because of that thankfully.

I've seen squaretops on ebay for 250 or so and I just bought one from the classifieds here for 275, so not too bad for one these days!

I actually got one from a guy for 190 shipped a while back off ebay, throttle body cable area was a little smooshed though. They've definitely come down since the junk2 came out which is really nice. Maybe one of these days I'll actually get to see how it is on an engine haha

And yeah, 100% stoked that the price came down since the skunk2 IM came out.

I thought the ST was a bitch to install though. I had everything bolted up and the top half didn't want to even go on.... I had to fight with the bloody thing for an hour to get it mounted before I could bolt it up.

Well the shop ended up coming through! I got an $800 check in the mail last tuesday and it cleared. So, that went better than expected.

I'm currently trying to recover from this summer's expenses and organizing the shop. The shop is kinda a weird setup because it used to be a grow op so there's still a leftover room. I was considering knocking it down but I decided I'm going to make it a clean room for welding/painting/engine work. Once the shop is better set up for everything I'll probably start looking at pulling brad back in and tearing the engine(s) down. I'd like to have the car back up and running in a few months.

Serious lack of pictures in this thread.

Just for you boo.

Pictures of the shop as it currently sits, don't judge too hard. There's a lot of progress to be made and there's actually been a lot of progress made already believe it or not. In front of the large door is the remains of 3 1.6s. I spent a bit of yesterday tearing down all of my dead engines to salvage cranks, rods, and pistons for art shit and the rest for scrap. I also disassembled two front and rear subframes to pull all the control arms and uprights off for spares and to consolidate extra parts. Apologies for the shitty lighting in there. Up until today I could only find the switch for the one light on the back wall. Today I found a switch to turn on 3 other lights, woooo lol. High on my list is lighting in the shop.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f44626af4d.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...abfdf40b4c.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...300ce44f26.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e8146c19e0.jpg




Actually now is a good time for the rest of the history of Brad. I bought the car with an engine with a blown head gasket. The PO looked like this guy:https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20131009145229

Anyway, besides the point. PO told me the engine had a blown headgasket and had been driving it from maple valley to Everett daily with it blown. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Seattle area, that a long fucking drive in a lot of traffic every day. So I never inspected the engine at all because I knew it was fucked, I just swapped it. Well, I was able to confirm that the headgasket was indeed leaking yesterday when I went to drain the oil. I was going to try to upload the videos of it draining that were pretty funny, but apparently, IB broke that with their new stupid formatting too :facepalm:

Chocolate milkshake anyone??
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9d448b4790.jpg


I also pulled apart the engine I killed at the track. All the rod bearing had some nice heat spots on them but it looks like #3 was the noisy one. So now we're up to date on all the engine the car has had. This will be number five once the car is running again. Which is a bit ridiculous for what was supposed to be a shitty daily at first, but it is what it is I suppose.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cda3ac266b.jpg

After a short hiatus from working on Brad I decided to dig back in this weekend. Yesterday I pulled the bp4w that I had originally put in. To be perfectly honest, I found a halfway loose bolt on the timing belt pulley when I pulled it and was transferring the timing belt/waterpump to the bp5a I had started to wonder if I had misdiagnosed the rod knock. But pulling it apart, my diagnosis was unfortunately correct. #4 bearing was totally fucked and scored the crank as well. All the mains except one were scored too. So that crank is toast.

First bearing I pulled and then #4:
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0c6c21e1e5.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6e198e8bee.jpg

Today I figured it was time to pull the current engine out. I decided to drop the subframe cause I find it easier to work on stuff like that. Also I'm thinking about giving the engine bay a nice clean since I'm not in as much of a rush like I was this summer.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cc71257811.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...de4be35c43.jpg


I had planned on doing a rods only build but I'm kinda considering buying one of yossi's engines right now. I'd really like to get Brad back on the road again and make it to some track days in both cars again this year. If I do, I kinda want to see a running video, so I'd probably have to wait until he got a new car in. Not that I don't trust him, but at this point, I'm really tired of pulling engines.

Stick it back in and run it then? Sounds good!

Be sure to mix up the locations too so they all wear evenly. Its all described in the book how to destroy a motor 101

Welllll, I was really hoping for better results on the bp5a, but instead, I got worse ones. Number 3 welded itself together. I didn't even pop the mains, I decided to call it a night since it was getting kinda late anyway. This thread is kinda full of fail and not much else so far lol.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1b0dce86da.jpg