Why are the costs in the US so much more? At current rates, £2800 for tyres? Medium hankooks in the UK used for the challenge series are £1600 last time i checked. Radical quoted me £6.6k (incl. VAT) for a rebuild including upgrading the bearing - excluding any random additional problems they could find. Call it £7.5k ~ $9k
The costs are equivalent. We use two sets of Hankook tires during a race event. The UK refresh may be a less expensive option, but I think that when shipping is considered it works out about the same as a US certified RPE rebuild.
Great posts. Thanks.
An update to this story and my belief on 1500 RPE engine refresh schedule ...
I took the car to the track today to let a few friends drive it. They did well, but on the third 30 minute track session an engine oil pressure trip shut down the car. The driver tried to restart, but received the same trip warning, so he waited for a tow into our garage. Once there, I also started the car and it idled well for about 2 seconds, then the EOP trip warning was displayed and the engine shut down. So I checked the level of the oil next, and the entire sump reservoir was dry. There was no smoke during the sessions leading up to this, and zero oil leaks, so I have to assume for now that the oil pump failed and that some how there is about six liters of oil hiding in that engine. I started the day at 31.3 hours of on-load time and I think 60 hours of run time. We put about 80 additional minutes on on-load time before the engine failed at 32.6 hours.
I believe that I proved myself wrong about the refresh schedule being 40 hours on-load instead of 40 hours total run time, and therefor Jonathan, Charley, Dan, Rich, and Radical UK (sorry if I forgot others) are all correct that the refresh schedule is 40 hours of run time.
Hopefully not too much damage but it will be interesting when I pull the drain plug to see what and how much oil comes out of it. I am quite baffled that so much oil can hide in that engine, but there does not appear to be any other explanation.
@davidf so sorry to hear of your misfortune :-(.
It sounds like the primary oil pump blade has possibly broken off the shaft that drives the scavenge pump. In my experience this could be from debris fouling the scavenge pump.
Hopefully you don't require too much more than a standard rebuild! Also, thank you for sharing this experience that will no doubt save many readers grief and money 🙂
@davidf, Sorry to hear about this, but on the bright side, thank you for pushing the limit to find where it is. Hopefully many people will benefit from your experiment. And hopefully it just ends up being a standard overhaul. It will defiantly be interesting to see where all of the oil is.
I drained the oil today and I will begin to remove the engine and GDU. The oil plug magnet had several metal bits on it, and a couple 3mm x 5mm pieces of flat metal were found in the drained oil. Almost no oil was in the sump reservoir, but a lot came out of the drain plug.
Shame to hear of your problems David but as Charley mentioned it is a learning experience and information for everyone.
Hopefully the refresh is near enough a standard one.
As Rich said it will be the drive for the scavenge pump that has broken, the oil pressure pump has a tang that drives the oil scavenge pump. For some reason (maybe debris in the scavenge pump or it wearing) it has loaded up the drive causing it to break. You can confirm this by removing the scavenge pump and taking a look in there with a torch.
When the scavenge pump stops turning no oil is sent back to the oil tank so the engine will run until the tank is empty where it then looses an oil feed. As the scavenge pump is not turning the oil just stays in the engine.
Always recommend a refresh for hours but depending on your appetite for risk you could look to remove the scavenge pump and see how that checks out, then replace the oil pressure pump. Depending on the findings and reason for the drive to break you could find that your engine continues to run fine!
Yesterday I was planning to send my broken engine to Spring Mountain, so I called them to check their schedule, lead time, and to get a rough estimate after explaining the condition and circumstances. They were surprised that my engine made it 62 hours of run time, again confirming my misunderstanding. They look at time on the engine and circumstances to determine lifing of many internals, which in other words means that the more time since the last refresh, the more parts + work they perform, which determines total cost. In my case, they said that the refresh would typically start at $15,000 and go up from there depending on what additional damage they discover during tear-down. It reinforces what Jonathan described earlier in this thread ... that there is no cost benefit to stretch the refresh interval.
I decided to repurchase an engine that I once owned which has zero hours since being refreshed by Spring Mountain instead of refreshing the broken engine. After shipping, the broken engine may be near the cost of new to refresh.
DavidF, what parts do you purchase to rebuild the GDU yourself? I'm confident I can do that myself.
My engine is going out to Spring Mountain soon as I pull it. I have 60 run/30 on-load hours. I was going to push it further until I read this thread!
Most often it is a forward gear only, and sometimes a forward gear with crown gear. If bearings are worn, then those should be replaced and seals as needed but I have not yet seen sloppy worn out bearings. I have had to change the pump once. The GDU service guide lists the common replacement parts but I would disassemble and replace only the parts that are worn.
