I leave severing harnesses to one FWP!, he's quite adept at it
I pulled the audio/nav/hvac/seat/srs stuff out of the harnesses very, very carefully. Lots of joint grounds so I made very sure I didn't kill anything that another component relied upon. We'll see how I did once I have some sort of powertrain in the car.
On that note, here's the deal with MMR (minus whale air it out and get opinions).
30 sec review: I blew up my ford motor at a road course in vegas (thanks BBR, much timing, such boom, wow). I reached out to Ford Racing and MMR for rebuild options. Ford Racing's phone stooge left me with more questions than answers, so I went MMR. Built a 11.5:1 "Boss" motor (manley pistons and manley H beams instead of their mahle counterparts). Boss heads, cams, etc. (see invoice below, can see why the money was attractive). However, during install/breakin, it spun #5 rod bearing and roasted the rod, also scored cams due to loss of oil pressure from the rod bearing. They took it back, fixed it (install new crank, new rod bearing, new rod, I have to assume they balanced nothing or did any additional work outside the bare minimum to make it run). I get it back, get 8 sessions on two road course dates and 25k-ish street miles and it just consumes oil, makes piss poor oil pressure at idle when hot, etc. I want to refresh it, so I get in touch with them about the issues. I don't necessarily expect them to warranty a motor two years later (really 3 since the first build), but after sending my motor and calling for weeks to be told too busy to get my call or missed promises to get a return call I get this:
Hey Chris, as you suspected and mentioned the cam journals are worn and would account for some oil pressure loss. In regards to the engine a freshen up should be all that is required, the engine cleaned up just fine the last time at .010 over so we do not expect any issues there that a simple light hone and re-ring will not take care of. In regards to the new heads, we are happy to install them but we provide no warranty at all on them, as we discussed they are ford rejects that we also had the opportunity to purchase, the majority had defects in the castings such as porous deck surfaces etc. We can install them but again we cannot provide any warranty for them.
As a courtesy we will do the teardown for no charge, the following will be the cost to rebuild /freshen it up:
Hone cylinders $250
Replace all bearings $300
Replace Rings $289
Boss head gaskets $139
Assemble customer heads using supplied plug and dowel kit and other supplied parts $375
Valve job/face old valves to new heads $350
Assemble complete shortblock and longblock $1200
For a total of $2903
If we find anything else that concerns us we will let you know. Let me know if we can proceed when you have a moment.
Modular Mustang Racing
It was followed up almost immediately by another email asking me for permission to proceed, and I just left it there. I've spoken to another person there who told me the motor is still assembled and hasn't been torn down for inspection, so I know they haven't yet seen the scoring in 6,7,8 (Which I think the original 0.01 overbore and hone didn't fully clean or occured during its use with the aforementioned low operating oil pressure over a couple of years). I was so put off by the quick response, I know I can be a bit needy about information and getting answers before spending cash, but for me this is a matter of trusting a build that's so far let me down twice, to the tune of $8,500+ and I guess I'm supposed to believe another $2,903 is going to make it all right (while assuming that has no balancing work, no serious measurement of the block bores, no indepth cleanup or measurements, and certainly no spin or breakaway tests).
So I'm considering the following:
1) $#*& it all. Get my gear back, and sell all of it to the community at fair rates to recoup as much cash as I can, go buy a ford shortblock or longblock or crate.
2) $#*& it all. Get my gear back, and sell all of it to the community at fair rates to recoup as much cash as I can, go buy AZBoss's shortblock and have a local reputable builder finish it (needs a sleeve + standard freshen)
3) Get my gear back, and have a local reputable builder finish it (needs the quoted above + standard freshen, possibly further overbore/new pistons FML)
4) Proceed as advised by MMR. Continue rolling dice (which seem oddly weighted).
Thoughts?
I'm not bashing them (at least trying not to put too much a spin); from their side this is a motor they sold in 2012. It broke once, and they've already paid out once in a warranty (and I think their perception even today is that I ran it low on oil, which I did not), and here I am again 2.5 years later, 1.5 years outside offered warranty period, thus there's going to be costs.
Original Motor build below:
For $7256 before all the extra costs/parts/shipping.