Engine Drivetrain 1st Gen Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: Mynes tuned....is yours? Mine's broke!

You should take a course in reading, it is fun and productive.

Just one example of RMW being brought up would be in a quick read through of Jason's own explanation amongst others....

 

......

 

Alex,

Lets say we for a little bit we forget the first tune debacle. I have a few questions about the second motor, a.k.a. the "built" motor.

It appears from your 1st post said "built" motor was a collaborative effort between Mike Wong and Jayson Bowman of Mynes Tuning and Hubie Fuh of ABF Performance, ABF Motoring, MEGAmini USA. Is this correct?

Did you ever get anything in writting about what was going to be done in your "rebuild"?
(You should have)
Who was "building" the motor?
Who was "tuning" the motor?

Did you ever get a dyno tune sheet showing what your numbers were post rebuild?
(I know they can generate these for other products they sell)

Did you ever get a final detailed Bill with a brake-down of what was done to your supposedly newly build motor? [Parts, fluids, specs, anything]
(You should have received something for $ 14 K)

Was any warranty implied, included, or was it a clearly stateted this was a non-warranty motor rebuild?
(You should received some type of information either way)

 

I can't see much more "good" coming from the perpetuation of this thread. Just my 2 cents though.

 

Karl, the head has been sold just FYI, so it may be hard to get those pictures.
I was there the day it was tuned and Hubie and Jason were both in the car. but Jason would do a pull. pull the ecu out and take it away into the back room to play with. so for all we know he may have been tuning the car with a small crowd of church nuns in the back?
Alice, I dont see how any bad can come from it. why not talk about an experience with a vendor. I know i would want to be warned before dropping this type of coin and getting this service.

 

Alex did you check to see if all the rings were installed right side up?

 

CarlB my apologies for reducing the font size of your first line. Neutrality may have a bigger impact here?

What determines the difference between an engine re built with upgraded parts and a "built: engine? Its like you calling it a motor (electrical) and not an engine (internal combustion) semantics. It is a common occurrence from some of the MINI vendors not to supply detail invoicing of parts. A well know Performance Engine builder ENDYN has recently finished a couple of MINI "built" engines and they do not give the information you are expecting Chili-PA? ENDYN gives a parts descriptive invoice and the labor breakdown of work but not detailed information invoice as you personally are expecting. And especially not any kind power output guarantee. However ENDYN backs all their work and will explain or document a copy for you any machine assembled detailed information of an engine if you specifically request it. Also NO ONE anywhere to date (at least forum posted) has a truly "blueprinted" engine. This is not normally done on a mildly upgraded prepared engine as the one Alex received and is an additional cost and procedure. If one was to get this with their "built" (?) engine you would receive with most engine machine shops on delivery (from most all Performance Engine Machine shops) a detailed parts and measurement list. And in some cases a pre-run engine analysis from an Engine Dyno or a simple dry cyd. psi. chart.

The emphasis on 14k paid is what value if he only paid a dollar? The retail invoice paid by a customer is their choice. They knew in the beginning and the end of a transaction what the amount was agreed to. Posting it as if it like it has merit here is useless? I see it like buying a car and learning later that the exact car you purchased was more/less then what you paid? In others words it really has nothing to do with anything.lol

:lol: It may have already been established that Alex (Camaro)does not know to much about engines (no insult to you Alex) and you ask an advanced question like this directed at him?

:crazy: :lol:

^^^^

 

This is hard since so many are quick to point fingers and place blame with out truly being neutral and looking at all the information here with out some bias. The fact that much of the information being looked at is based off of an incorrect diagnosis is a good indicator that the truth will not be found easily. In reality too much has already taken place to really figure out what went wrong any way and at this point the closest any one can expect is going to be all assumption.

Not to be a jerk, but Alex is really not the person to be giving out build specs as he is not an engine builder and does not have the tools/ knowledge to carry out such an analysis. This goes for most throwing around their opinions here as pretty much no one in this thread actively builds these engines let alone ones meant to support turbo and 400+ HP. Many things have been over looked do to this fact.

All the information people have on the condition of this engine is based on the inexperienced person who did the tear down and a few pics. This coupled with incorrect measurements, readings from a possibly faulty compression tester and no leak down test, what can actually be said about the true condition of this engine. Nothing since there is no actual usable data to support an engine failure.

With the available info from the pistons alone the tune and the build don't seem to be off. I agree the power output was low at the time it was delivered, but I didn't see any one take into consideration it was just built or that it was tuned on that crap low reading dyno at Dynamic. Generally speaking from what I know about Mynes is they are very skeptical about tunes on fresh engines and shy from pushing them until the engine is fully broken in. Remember there is a big difference between dyno break in and actual break in. A few passes on the dyno just gets the engine tight enough to do some base lines and initial tuning. The rings still take some mileage to fully seat and seal. A fresh engine almost never puts out the power it would with a 1000+ miles on it. From what I know there was no dyno test after it left and the only proof of it's power is Alex bragging on line that it beat out cars that dynoed higher. Sounds more like it ran better then worse at that point at least.

For an engine meant to see the power goals Alex was after, there will be some draw backs and compromises. One of which is oil consumption. Stock MINI's on their own will burn some oil. Any race engine, and this was built like one, will eat more oil do to the necessary increase in ring gaps and bore clearances. We are talking going from the standard 13/14 gaps on stock rings to something like 17/19 on the new rings. The bore clearance too must be slightly enlarged as the forged aluminum used for the pistons expand greater then that of stock.

From his various responses, it seem evident Alex didn't ask a whole lot of technical questions and kinda just let Mynes / Hubie do their thing. This isn't necessarily bad, but it opens the door to some surprises that may not have been expected. In retrospect some more info could have been provided by the tuners/ builder, but it does not mean the work it self was faulty. Certainly it did not warrant the emotionally driven and hasty post that the work was bad and that all should stay away.

Blame for this really would fall on both sides. Follow up and support could have been better, but as the owner it's Alex's responsibility to maintain and take care of the car. Shops can't be expected to hold some ones hand all the time. Instead of driving it for 10k, going to the dragon, racing ect. he should have sent the engine back or at least parked it until the situation was corrected.

Despite the way it was diagnosed, from what I have read and heard Hubie was/is willing to do a rebuild or send parts to Alex. I'm not sure how much more he is expecting if this is not good enough, but for what ever reason he declined the offer. At that point it's really some other shops issue.

 

It most certainly does have bearing on this thread. He has more experience with engines and tuning than most everyone else here.

 

The use of ENDYN in my response posting was to be able to establish re-searchable facts I presented with my statement from a source that is recognized in the Performance Engine machine Shop community, MINI community and has an excellent and flawless record of machine work performed.
Maybe I should have used VALLEY ENGINE ?

There are a few points I was making with that response..

It is NOT common for engine builders to invoice everything they machine.
It is NOT common to invoice final output of an engine
There is a description variance with customers on what constitutes a Performance engine build.
The total paid invoice was agreed upon and paid. That finalized transaction paid would have nothing to do with facts of a engine demise. We have not really seen the detailed invoice parts break down that I am aware?


VERY OLD FACT:
Chili-PA and others,
I am not and have not been in the retail vendor, business, chargeable mechanic service, and have sold nothing but privately owned parts for a few years now. If you know otherwise please let me know so I can collect some money owed. It really gets old from a few like yourself and some forums that continues insinuating and posting I am. Now you have it posted by me for all to see. When and if that ever changes MA will be the first to know.
Designing, engineering parts, modifying existing parts by way of improvement does not constitutes a business.
As I have said the best phrase is "Believe nothing you are told and half what you see"!
Research your idea's and facts presented.


This threads topic incident (imo)will NEVER see the walls of a limited jurisdiction civil case in California. It lacks so much that anyone pursuing it would waste the California Courts Time and the Plaintiffs money.
And I doubt the trouble will be taken for a small claims hearing either? The parties are to far apart for any mutual satisfied court jurisdiction.
Posting 3rd hand information like an ominous threat the way I see it is not utilizing the internet to learn how the judicial system works in California.

 

This entire saga reads to me as a former trusted fanboy of the tuners & builders being taken advantage of until he finally wised up (admittedly, only after being taken for a lot of $). The OP clearly should have better prepared & presented his evidence, but that certainly doesn't automatically disprove his assertions either. The attempts by apparent proxies for the offending parties to discredit & obfuscate the OP & his evidence is shameless to say the least.

I'd suggest that anybody reading this should see it for what it is...a cautionary tale to not let blind allegiance keep you from doing your due diligence before spending large sums of money with any vendor/business. Check them out, get a description of the EXACT work to be performed in clearly worded writing & immediately follow up on any problems. Document, document, document.

I for one won't be spending my own money or advising anybody else to spend theirs, with those that the OP did business with in this incidence. They appear to me to be nothing less than scam artists.

 

So it appears anything goes in this thread so...........this statement is total BS! If the mods are going to allow statements like this then????? Mynes and ABF have been doing business for years now and one thread pops up and now they are "scam artist's". This is nothing more than a witch hunt.

 

Why bother?

 

Jiminni, didn't you say back on page 5 that you wish the OP well, and that you were "out". If you and Lynn would quit posting about this the others wouldn't have to keep coming back at ya'll... The OP had a problem. He is telling everyone about it. People started asking him questions to help him figure it out as to who, or what was at fault.. Now you and Lynn keep posting stuff that doesn't really pertain to the OP thread but as you know people will and are coming back at ya'll... You and Lynn should take a couple of days off of this thread and just see where it goes.. It might just end until the OP has more info to share..

 

It's not all that surprising to me. I think that the problem in most of these "he said/he said" complaint type of threads is that many people are afraid to make the admission that they may have made a poor choice & "wasted" a bunch of their hard-earned money (the embarrassment factor). The other issue is the difficulty in proving what had taken place and accurately affixing the blame (as clearly demonstrated here).

Not to get too far off track, but I know that my similar personal experience is jumping in on the M62 kit as an early adopter. I experienced similar, but thankfully not as catastrophic results (mostly due to tremendous help by Waylen of WayMotorWorks - mentioned to give credit where it is due).

As I mentioned in the earlier post, this thread to me is a cautionary tale & nothing more. The rest, according to the OP's posts, will be resolved (or not) outside of this forum in the real world. Others experience with the builder & tuner may be different than the OP's. That is to be expected. Now the readers of this thread can consider themselves forewarned.

 

Umm 3rd party information? You may want to read back a few pages. You will see JASON posted a reply.

 

It really answers no questions as to what was the demise of the engine. It is subjunctive to say the least. Curious how other forums will respond to less interested members if you catch my meaning :wink:

 

Why not just be blunt and open. it works better.