How would you describe your engine if you were to sell it?
This topic has come up in one of the classified sections, where an engine is being described as one builders engine, but it has been "freshened" by someone else. I wanted to start this thread to see if we can have a (civilized) discussion as to how one should describe their engine if they were to sell it.
As I pointed out in the above mention post, many, many engines become akin to "Washington's Axe" whereas everything has been changed so often, is it really still his ax?
To start off, I will provide my view. This is by no means gospel, rather a jumping off point to get the ball rolling. It is also not intended to become the mandatory way of selling an engine. Rather it will help new to the sport and veterans alike have a baseline for understanding an engine's lineage.
So here goes...
Engine One: This engines a purebred, having never been worked on, repaired, or rebuilt by anyone other than the original builder.
Engine Two: This engine has a traceable lineage and started out being built by XXX but the new owner uses YYY and has them go through it "top to bottom" changing items to their specific build standards. This could be recontouring the heads, using a different cam, or crank, reworking the carburetor, etc...By the end of this process, the new owner has a brand new YYY engine.
Engine Three: This is the preverbal "Mutt" Who know who's head it has, or who did the intake. It could have ZZZ head(s) re-done, by who knows how many different builders with XXX's bottomed and YYY's intake/carburetor....you get the point, it is a good donor motor to start your build by, your engine builder. This can never be a Purebred, but if gone through from "top to bottom" by your build and he performs all of his "tricks" it can become Engine Two.
So there's the start... Discuss, compare and contrast. Keep it civil and remember this is not a discussion on the merits of one builder over another, rather how you would classify an engine if you were to sell one.
Cheers,
Chris
Are you going down the wrong path here??
An engine deal isn't really any different than selling/buying a racecar long distance. I've done both, numerous times, very successfully. If you can't do a visual inspection, then ask for references (no, I'm not kidding). Can the seller provide the contact info for the machine shop that has been freshening the engine? Or to who may have owed the engine before him? Does the seller have any legitimate folks in the sport that you can contact that will vouch for him? Where does he race? Is there someone in his racing community that would surely know him/his equipment/reputation that you could independently reach out to? Even if a seller is prepared to lie to you, it doesn't mean that the above-mentioned folks will do the same (in fact, it probably means that they won't!).
I bought my RF 90 from a seller well known on this site but not known to me. Did I ask around a little bit about him? Sure, and he got great reviews. And I couldn't be any happier with the transaction, and he's turned out to MORE than honour his end of the deal because he felt it was the right thing to do.
I sold my March 78B on Apex to a UK buyer. It took months, but it sold on a handful of pictures + my provision of a few racing team proprietor references that have known me for years. Eventually, when time came to transact, the buyer wired me the funds before he left the UK! When he got here, he stepped into the race car trailer, walked around the car once w/o stopping and said "Yep, good to go. Lots of safety wire. Heard your cars were always well-prepped". He also bought my 68 MGB sight unseen in the same transaction.
Interestingly, despite very low time on the FT200, the car spit out the R&P about 3 races into his ownership. He didn't whinge about it - **** happens, and as a previous poster has said, a brand new engine can fail on its first outing.
This stuff isn't that hard. These are not unmitigable risks. BUT, as Mr. Rice has suggested, you take on all that risk when you don't do any homework.
cheers,
BT